Saracen Syrah/Memory Books

Overview ⬩ Gallery ⬩ Relationships ⬩ Synopsis

## **Volume 17 - *Stolen from Markos' Office*.**

The room was empty. And clean. Too clean. There was no furniture, no books, no dust, no Orrery. He hadn’t been gone that long, he couldn’t have. He had been back in Fracture for less than a week, that would have been not even one month for this world. They had timed it. Twenty four hours in Fracture was roughly one-hundred and sixty hours here.

Wild-shaping swiftly, he became a dog, scenting the air to determine the different chemicals that had been used. The disgusting burning smell of bleach, but under that, metal and flesh. Burnt and necrotic flesh.

*‘No! No no no no!’*

Had something gone wrong? They hadn’t attempted to go through a glitch they had made for themselves had they? They had all promised that only he would be the test subject for crossing. What had happened? He panicked and ran from the room as a dog, trying to follow the newest scent of any of his friends. In a rush he tried to focus. But there was nothing. They were gone- but then-

*Milly*?

He recognised the scent of her makeup. Of sweet frankincense and powder. Close to the office of the Psychology professor. A growl escaped him as changing back he slammed his fist against the door and kept on slamming until it opened.

Professor Markos Zhaida stared at him, angry then relaxing to be politely charming, lines creasing around his blue eyes as he smiled.

“Ah, Mr Syrah. Please come into my office.”

A sudden twist of anxiety and stress sent a prickle of sharp little spikes across his back. It itched but he ignored it to step into the psychology professor’s office.

“Where are they?” He didn’t wait for the professor to go through his regular script of ‘sit down and tell me what’s wrong’.

“Whom?”

“Everyone. My study group.”

“They are no longer part of this school.”

“Why?”

“They were involved in highly illegal practices. Since then they have been expelled.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me. Where are they?”

Markos blinked, stunned that a mere teenager would speak back to him with such contempt in his voice.

“Like I said, they are gone.”

“*Bullshit*. You’ve been sniffing around since day one of me getting here. And don’t give me the fucking ‘you are a confused young man’ speech again. I want to know where my friends are!”

“I was only doing what was best for them.” Markos tried to look sorrowful, but his nose scrunched up with a little smirk. “Children should not be utilising summoning rituals or creating weapons that could be so dangerous that it tears reality apart. Their toys had to be taken away from them.”

“Toys?”

Rage. White hot and eternal. Teeth bared he snarled, and let the fury overwhelm him. For a moment the room went dark, and Markos gasped, then all around Saracen as his form distorted, tiny stars appeared. Raising his clawed hand, Saracen struck at the air. The room twisted and blurred before them, separating the room off from the rest of the world for a moment. The ghosts of everyone who had appeared before and set foot in that room, a hazy mess of physical memories. Markos watched, frozen in shock as the conversations he had previously had with the students played out. Asking them to talk, getting them to sit down and explain, all the while as at his desk, with one hand he wrote, extracting the memories and thoughts that plagued them.

“You took their memories?” Saracen’s voice pitched up in disgust. “You took their memories?”

“No, no, it-”

“Do you know how important it was for them to make sure they remembered every important detail?” Of course he knew now, he had taken the information from them. Without the memory of discussing stabilising forces, of energy needed, direction, or even what the effects were without it all…

Markos gagged as Saracen tore into the air again, ripping Markos’ own memory from him. He had watched. He had watched the entire thing as Joel, Cassia, Milly, Etienne, and Anja set up the orrery as they had done so many times before. They were planning to see if the markers they had been using in the various worlds could be lined up correctly so that it was easier for people to go back and forth in larger numbers. But they didn’t remember the details of what they needed to do to protect themselves and Saracen watched through tears as the entire structure twisted in on itself as the glitch drew power from the amber at the centre, using Etienne and Anja as the batteries, causing them to dissolve right before his eyes. Joel and Cassia ran backwards for the door, Milly ran forwards into the glitch to stop it to try and deactivate the orrery as the room distorted- as time distorted- then with a loud crack, Milly vanished and the room became a vacuous space. A black hole of nothingness and yet everything all at once with the bodies of Joel and Cassia floating lifelessly amongst broken shards of metal and amber.

Shaking, he let go of the memory. Markos clutched at his head with an anguished and rageful howl, dropping the polite calm tone for a vicious and spiteful snarl.

“They shouldn’t have been toying with such powerful forces! Children should know better-”

“They were trying to help! They were trying to help me and I was trying to make sure they stayed safe as they did so!”

The stars grew larger into a hundred tiny tears in the air. Markos looked panicked as their light began to illuminate him and the room and Saracen’s form flickered between a myriad of creatures, so fast that his shape blurred into the form of a twisting endless serpent. Shadows danced across the wall behind Markos, distorting his shape into a gigantic and hideous spider.

Taking a deep breath.

“You need to go back to where you came from. Leave this place. This world isn’t yours.” He could have laughed as Markos was trying to banish him, but he was far too furious for that. If Markos wanted him to go back to wherever demons came from, he would have to go first.

In a swift flick of his clawed hands he ripped open the air behind Markos. The sudden burst of light from behind of a nightmarish purple firey world.

“Saracen! Saracen, I know you’re angry, but don’t do anything foolish now!” He raised his hands up to cast a counter-spell, but Saracen had already wild-shaped. As a raptor, Saracen lept at him feet first, driving the wickedly sharp talon into his flesh and slamming Markos back against the glitch. The effect was immediate. The professors face contorted and a silent scream escaped him as his head and upper body went through into the other world. Saracen held him in place, preventing him from being all the way in this world and the other. He knew that he should have had a stabiliser, a piece of amber and something organic to prevent corruption, but he was raging.

He wanted Markos to suffer.

Revelling in the distortion and corruption of the effect the glitch had upon him, Saracen used all of his strength to keep Markos still. Markos’ head snapped back with a gurgle, head splitting into two as a pair of large spider-like fangs forced its way out of his jaw, eyes opening up across his head until he had nine of them. He hoped the effect would be permanent on him, that he would remain as this nightmarish spider creature and that he would be hunted by all. As Saracen pinned him, in his anger he lost control of the shape he had, becoming a small microraptor, and Markos overbalanced into the glitch.

As they tumbled through, hitting the cracked black rocks on the other side, he leapt off, unable to control himself as he twisted and grew large.

He glowered down at Markos with a hundred glowing yellow eyes, a cobra’s hood projecting from his neck and spine into a fanned pair of wings that held the stars within them, his tail stretching endlessly on forever. *Ouroboros*.

Seeing this, Markos turned heel and ran, racing towards the glitch to escape.

He leapt through and as Saracen struck forward -open mouthed to tear him to shreds- Markos turned and began to close the glitch. Panic cancelled out the rage, his form shrunk as he dove through the closing glitch just in time.

Head striking the floor hard, he rolled dazed against the desk on the other side of the room, aching all over and trembling. The glitches he had created closed, the room becoming light once more, and as he dizzily looked up at Markos to attack again, he had no strength left and wasn’t fast enough to stop his boot from striking him in the head.