cHApTEr 10. finAl lAp (3 of 3)

What. Have. You. Done.

It felt like no other words existed. Terry repeated them over and over like a broken record. Terry, who always knew how to brighten your day. Terry, who had mutated into something no longer human.

Was this what was destined to happen to all of them? Were they all doomed to lose their minds in the end and become abominations? Like Erinel had said, their existence violated the laws of nature. But Mioray hadn’t expected it to turn this bad. The world of the living wasn’t ready for them. Souls lingering too long here turned into the Soul Collective. The undead... turned into this.

Still clinging to memories of his human origins, Terry attempted to move on his bone-muscle wheels. The muscular tissue was lean, and after all the fat had secreted and spread across the road, the tissue had dried, hardening into a rubber-like consistency. The reddish-brown tires, stripped of any covering skin, could probably gain traction by gripping the pavement. They pulsated as if alive, or perhaps they were just vibrating from the erratic malfunctions of Terry’s engine ability. Either way, the effect was grotesque and menacing.

What were they supposed to do now? Natalie lowered her trembling arms as fear, disgust, and dread played across her face. She had taken it far worse than Mioray. Her fiancé – the very man she had buried once – had turned into a monster. Terry’s metamorphosis was far creepier than Impact Corpse’s transformation. The madman had just grown bigger, but Terry’s entire body had been reconstructed. His form was now an amalgamation of flesh and bone, with four wheels replacing his arms and legs. Standing in a horizontal position, he could barely hold his head upright. Red irises, etched on black sclera, spun wildly in their sockets. Occasionally, his bone wheels spun too, but without coordination, mismatched and erratic. Still, Terry seemed to be adapting, learning how to command his new form despite his broken mind.

“If we don’t do something, he’s going to escape!” Mioray snapped, turning to Natalie. She remained rooted in place, petrified.

“What. The. Hell. What the hell?” she mumbled in disbelief. Even Impact Corpse’s rampage hadn’t shaken her this much. For a human to witness such grotesque absurdity, it was too much to process. Her reaction wasn’t her fault. In fact, it was strange that Mioray wasn’t as shaken as she was. Perhaps his mind was too preoccupied, scrambling to figure out how to reverse Terry’s transformation, if reversal was even possible.

But whatever ideas Mioray was desperately trying to formulate, they weren’t coming fast enough.

Terry roared, and all four of his wheels began spinning wildly. He surged forward like a rocket, his mutated muscles seamlessly adapting to the road. Terry tore away towards the shopping center, picking up incredible speed. With an ear-splitting screech as the outer layer of his muscle tires burned – only to regenerate instantly – Terry performed a sharp U-turn. His black eyes locked ahead as his regenerating wheels spun violently, and he accelerated again, this time heading straight for the parking lot exit.

The acrid stench of burnt flesh filled the air. Mioray watched in horror as Terry closed the distance. He knew, without a shred of doubt, what was happening inside Terry’s fractured mind. Terry intended to restart the race. He was going to break his record. It didn’t matter how he did it, whether in a car or by being one himself. The idea had consumed him. Nothing else existed.

There was only a brief window of opportunity to stop him before he escaped. As Terry sped past them, Mioray surged into action. He shot his arm out towards Terry and wrapped black threads around Terry’s bare torso. The threads stretched, but instead of anchoring Terry in place, Mioray was yanked off his feet and dragged along the road. The grinding pavement tore through patches of his clothing and flayed strips of skin beneath.

If only I had my second arm! Mioray thought desperately. His eyes darted around, searching for something – anything – to anchor himself. The darkness obscured his vision, save for the dull glow of illuminated concrete beneath the intermittent streetlamps.

Streetlamps.

The idea struck him at once. Mioray shot his leg out towards the nearest streetlamp, the black threads expanding and wrapping around the pole like a rope. His shoe acted as a makeshift grappling hook. As his arm and leg tensed under tremendous strain, the streetlamp groaned and tilted ominously under the pressure. But it worked. The momentum had stopped.

Terry’s wheels screeched as they spun in place, the friction shredding his muscle tires. Fibers tore apart but immediately regrew and fused back together, creating an unending loop of destruction and regeneration. Smoke and the smell of seared flesh were now thick in the air.

Terry snarled as he twisted violently from side to side, trying to break free. The erratic jerks caused Mioray to jolt painfully, his body pulled taut between his black threads. He dangled precariously, suspended in the air by his arm and leg. It wouldn’t last much longer. The strain was too much for the threads, and they began snapping one by one, their sound like guitar strings breaking under tension.

“Natalie, I need your help!” Mioray shouted, desperation raw in his voice. He didn’t dare retract his threads now. it would just worsen the pull.

“What do you expect me to do?!” Natalie had snapped out of her stunned state but still trembled with disbelief.

“I don’t know! Just do something! Shoot him in the head!”

Mioray’s suggestion was met with wide-eyed incredulity.

Right.

Natalie was still clinging to common sense. But there was nothing common about this.

“He’s not going to die!” Mioray yelled again, teeth clenched as his limbs were nearly torn apart. “He’ll get knocked out, but he’ll recover! Just trust me!”

The remaining threads of his extended arm continued to snap, leaving him hanging only by a couple of threads left. His voice cracked with desperation.

“Just do it!”

Cursing – Mioray had never heard so many profanities in such a short span – Natalie raised her gun and fired at Terry. Even in a panicked state, her aim was flawless. The bullet struck Terry at the back of his head, bursting out from his forehead. His head hung limply, and the wheels stuttered to a halt. Mioray felt the tension in the threads begin to ease. Just in time, as only a single black thread remained connecting his arm.

And then it broke.

​​Terry’s body roared back to life, the wheels gripping the ground with renewed vigor. The bullet wound closed within seconds; injuries meant nothing to him anymore. Like Impact Corpse, Terry’s regeneration was too rapid.

Torn free from Terry, Mioray collapsed onto the ground, his severed arm still tangled somewhere in Terry’s monstrous form. The undead racer pulled ahead, the distance between them growing in seconds. Soon, he’d be out of sight, escaping just like Impact Corpse had.

But Terry didn’t make it to the parking lot exit. A white hover car appeared from nowhere, careening forward at full throttle. It slammed into Terry with the force of a meteor, sending him flying like a ragdoll. He spun through the air before crashing onto the ground, body tumbling and rolling as blood streaked the road.

The hover car skidded to a stop, its hood crumpled and smeared with blood. Smoke rose lightly from its engine. The doors slid open. Farah, Erinel, and Matt climbed out.

“Is my phone alright?” Farah asked bluntly as they rushed to Mioray.

“Nice to see you too,” Mioray grumbled as he reeled his leg back, supported by a few black threads. His mind briefly wandered, how exactly did regeneration work with these threads? But he quickly shifted focus back to the more pressing matter. He was armless now. Does that mean my body is balanced now, he thought with grim irony.

“Is that... Terry?” Erinel asked, staring at the racer. Despite being hit by a car at full speed, he was already recovering. Broken bones, destroyed organs – it didn’t matter. His body repaired itself as if the damage was nothing.

“It’s him,” Mioray replied, rising to his feet with help from Matt. Without missing a beat, he glanced back at Natalie. She stood off to the side, watching them cautiously. No, she still wasn’t aware of Erinel’s existence. “Terry’s gone mad. We tried talking to him, but he wouldn’t listen. I don’t know what we can do to help him. If we knock him down, he just regenerates as if nothing happened, just like Impact Corpse.”

“Don’t worry. You did well just keeping him occupied long enough for us to get here in time,” Erinel said. She sprinted toward Terry without hesitation. “Farah, come with me.”

“What are you planning to do?” Mioray called after her, but he received no answer.

Meanwhile, Terry was regaining his footing. His wheels twisted violently, rotating at grotesque angles as if they were arms and legs. At first, he leaned on a front wheel, then both, steadily climbing to all fours. Despite his warped posture, it was clear – he was preparing to bolt again.

Erinel reached him just in time, blocking his path.

“I will beat this race!” Terry roared as he surged toward her. Yet Erinel didn’t flinch, standing resolute as his monstrous form barreled her way.

“Farah! Now!” she shouted, her voice firm and commanding.

Mioray’s head whipped toward Farah, his mind racing in disbelief. What could Farah possibly do here? Terry would collide with her at full force and obliterate her until she resurrected days later. What would that achieve?

Farah stepped forward, hastily shrugging off her black puffer coat and throwing it to the ground. Beneath it, she wore a simple black cropped top and jeans. She leapt directly between Terry and Erinel.

It made zero sense. Mioray’s chest tightened. What was she doing?

As he bolted toward them, well aware he wouldn’t make it in time, something strange happened. A sudden chill swept through the air. At first, Mioray assumed it was from the stress coursing through his body, but then he noticed something unnatural. The pavement around Farah was frosting over. Her breath turned to steam. Even from a distance, he could see his own and Erinel's misted breath as though the depths of winter had descended in mere moments.

Terry was still charging toward Farah, but inexplicably, he began slowing. His monstrous wheels ground to a halt just centimeters from her. Ice crept over Terry's body, enveloping him entirely. The air grew dense as freezing humidity transformed into crystalline snowflakes drifting lazily around them.

Mioray stopped in his tracks, transfixed. Beside him, Natalie approached cautiously, her jaw slack with astonishment. For once, Mioray found himself equally stunned. He’d accepted he was dead, that others had been resurrected like him. He had no issue with souls or greanrips existing, or with the idea of gaining powers based on how one died. But he’d never truly grasped how vast and wildly varied those powers could be.

Farah controlled the ice.

It was straight out of a surreal fantasy where magic was real. Mioray didn’t believe in magic, but here he was, watching the road freeze solid at the touch of her power. The air shimmered in the glow of the street lamps, sparkling like frost caught in light.

It was only October. Sure, the weather was doing that slow autumn shift toward colder days, but this level of freezing? This sudden frost? This wasn’t natural, not by a long shot. Everything near Farah was dead frozen. Even Terry’s engine, despite whatever heat it generated, couldn’t repel her sheer cold. Within seconds, Terry had turned into a grotesque ice sculpture.

Or so Mioray thought.

The ice encasing Terry began to crack and melt. Droplets formed and fell to the ground, freezing the moment they touched the pavement. His engine rumbled defiantly, battling against Farah’s onslaught of cold. And Farah was losing. She dropped to her knees, trembling violently. Her teeth chattered as she hugged herself, her arms clutching her shoulders as though trying to slow an intense chill consuming her from the inside out.

“Matt!” she called out, her voice faint and quivering. "Glue him down before he melts the ice!"

Terry roared as the ice around his head shattered. Matt didn’t hesitate. He darted around to Terry’s back and threw his hands forward. Sticky orange slime poured from his hands, swiftly smothering Terry's icy form. The low temperature caused Matt's resin to crystallize almost instantly, making it harder and more durable. Terry flailed mightily, his engines roaring, but the crystallized resin was unyielding. For all his effort, he couldn’t break free.

“This is completely ridiculous,” Natalie muttered with a faint laugh of disbelief, shaking her head. She still clutched her gun, though she hadn’t raised it again. “Am I seriously supposed to just accept all of this?”

Mioray had no answers for her. The absurdity was overwhelming, and yet it was their reality. He glanced down at his arms or, rather, the lack thereof. The torn sleeves of his shirt flapped uselessly at his sides. The black threads had already retracted back into his body. Same with the ones extending from his arm that was wrapped around Terry. With nothing holding it, Mioray’s severed and frozen arm now lay on the pavement beneath Terry.

The racer struggled, trying to break the orange resin, but it held firm. Meanwhile, Matt hurried to fetch Farah’s discarded coat and return it to her side. He draped it over her shoulders and then quickly leapt back before the frost surrounding her could reach him.

Surprisingly, Farah muttered a quiet, “Thank you,” as she clutched her coat tighter. Mioray blinked. She was…grateful? For once? He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard that word from her.

“Can we do something about Terry?” Natalie asked, her voice hesitant as her gaze darted between her fiancé and the others.

Farah’s freezing aura began to melt away after she reclaimed her coat. The frost receded, streetlamps reflecting off the water now pooling on the asphalt. The once-snowy air turned humid, light droplets falling on the ground. Only the crystallized remnants of Matt’s orange slime clung to Terry, keeping him pinned in place.

It was safe to approach Farah now, and Erinel was the first to step up. She didn’t speak, instead studying Terry with a hardened, stoic gaze. Matt, the boldest among them, cautiously approached the raging racer. Their eyes – Terry’s unhinged and blazing black voids and Matt’s determined but nervous – locked at the same level.

“Hey, Terry,” Matt spoke softly, voice unsure yet earnest.

Terry snarled and thrashed against the resin, blood rushing beneath his skin as madness overtook him.

“Please, calm down,” Matt pleaded. "This isn’t you. You’re the guy who always has something funny to say, who calls me ‘little guy.’"

“The race! The race! I must finish the race!” Terry roared, spitting in Matt’s face.

Matt flinched but held his ground.

“Remember when we went kart racing?” Matt continued. He reached toward Terry’s face but stopped, afraid to touch him. “I beat you that day. I know you let me win on purpose, but still, I was so proud I managed to outrun the great Terry Strands!”

He paused, his voice quieter now. “Your past mistakes don’t matter to me. I met you after your death, and I can tell you’re an amazing friend.”

The bone axles of Terry’s wheels screeched, and the racer let out a feral growl, the fire in his void-black eyes blazing as if to burn the world itself. Mioray clenched his teeth. Matt didn’t deserve this. But no one stepped in to pull him away.What if he could reach Terry? What if, for the briefest of moments, reason broke through the flames in Terry’s black eyes?

Was it so much to ask for?

“He always liked kids,” Natalie said quietly, her voice heavy with sorrow. Mioray could hear the agony behind her words. She wanted Terry back more than anyone. She had already lost him once, and now she was forced to witness the grotesque shell of what he had become. Why did she have to endure this? Up until today, Terry had been a joy to be around, always uplifting, always full of life. And now, when she finally found the chance to reunite with him…she couldn’t.

“And they adored him too,” Natalie continued wistfully. "He kept that bit of childhood within him. Always dreaming, always fearless, always so sure of himself. He believed the world could bend to his will…"

Then do it again! Mioray silently pleaded. There has to be a way! There has to be a way for Terry to swim to the surface, pull himself free from this ocean of madness!

Somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed.

Reality was catching up with them. The real world, the one outside the chaos, was finally intruding on their nightmare. Likely, the people who had fled earlier when the gunshots rang out had called the police. Their response time wasn’t quick, but considering today’s horrors, it wasn’t surprising.

“Terry,” Matt said softly, still trying to reason with him. "You promised you’d take me for a ride in your car after you finished fixing it.” His voice cracked, but he pressed on. “I can see your car now. It’s...it’s amazing! The tires are flat on one side, and it’s missing windows, and it’s way too busted up…but you can fix it, Terry! I believe in you. This time, I’ll even help you!”

Erinel stepped forward with uncanny grace, calm and silent as a summer night lit by stars. Her hazel eyes seemed to glow, reflecting a golden sheen like the full moon would. There was something otherworldly about her in that moment, her hair fluttering faintly as though carried by a breeze no one else could feel.

She looked like an angel. An angel of death, in her black dress. In her hand, she carried a twisting snake with silver scales. Of course, it wasn’t a real snake. It was the handle of the Cursed Blade of Avalon, the one they stole at the charity event. The black blade, ominous and sharp, absorbed the glow of the streetlamps as if it were drinking the light itself.

Why did Erinel bring the Cursed Blade here? What was she planning to do? She held it with her bare hands. She’d done so before, yet this time, the sight unnerved Mioray more than ever. Was she possessed by the blade? Could it be controlling her? He studied Erinel’s expression and the way she carried herself. No, there was nothing different about her. If anything, she looked more serene than she'd ever been. In fact, it was Terry who seemed possessed.

Mioray gritted his teeth, trying to push the thought from his mind. Maybe he was distracting himself, avoiding the dread he felt crawling up his spine. Perhaps these frantic, racing thoughts were his way of coping with the inevitability of what was about to happen.

Because the moment he saw the blade in Erinel’s hands, he already knew.

Matt’s voice, trembling with desperation, carried faintly through the parking lot as the boy tried to reach Terry. "Don’t you remember? You wiped my tears when I thought I couldn’t handle my death. You told me it was okay, Terry."

But Terry’s mangled, monstrous form didn’t respond. He twitched violently, struggling harder against the orange crystals binding him, his blank eyes swimming with madness.

Erinel didn’t stop.

She moved forward with unnerving calm, a calm sharper than the blade in her hand. She was silent, focused. There wasn’t a shred of hesitation.

She plunged the Cursed Blade into Terry’s body.

The blade slid in like it had been waiting for this moment all along, cutting through Terry without resistance. The weapon seemed almost hungry, as if it drank deeply of his blood and savored every drop.

Terry roared. It wasn't a human sound. It was raw, unbridled agony mixed with the last shreds of his sanity. His body convulsed violently, straining against the crystals that pinned him.

“What are you doing?!” Farah screamed in disbelief.

“What’s happening?” Natalie demanded, her voice trembling. “Is...is he fighting? Is he coming back to his senses?”

Mioray didn’t answer, his throat tightening as if he’d swallowed his tongue. Words were meaningless now. Natalie, unaware of Erinel’s presence and the Cursed Blade buried in Terry’s chest, didn't understand what was happening. She didn’t see the truth. Her emotions overwhelmed her, driving her to mistake Terry’s sudden, agonized thrashing for progress, for hope – perhaps the result of Matt’s desperate efforts finally reaching him.

But she was wrong.

Terry stopped moving.

The blazing fire in his furious black eyes flickered out, leaving behind nothing but a hollow void. His mutated body slumped. The orange crystals encasing him shattered into jagged shards, scattering across the pavement. But it didn’t matter anymore. Terry didn’t surge forward this time. He didn’t buckle his body to restart the race. All that movement, all that frantic energy – it was gone.

His skin began to turn blue.

The sound of distant sirens grew louder now, closing in with each second. Nearby, Matt broke down sobbing, his cries raw and unrestrained, like the mourning of a child who'd lost the last shreds of innocence. Farah crawled toward him and wrapped him in her arms. She pressed his face into her chest, shielding him from the sight of Terry’s lifeless form sprawled in shattered resin. Her head lifted just briefly, and when her eyes locked on Erinel, there was nothing but icy contempt.

“What have you done?”

“I did what I had to do,” Erinel said, her voice carrying a quiet, eerie finality. “He was too far gone. I couldn’t allow the natural order to continue being violated like this.”

Was Erinel in pain? She should have been. Earlier in the day, she’d seemed so warm, so lovely. So full of naive charm as she watched the movie and believed it was all real… This calm cruelty didn’t fit her at all. She should feel remorse for what she’d done. Even if she believed it was the right thing to do. Doing the right thing often came with pain. It should hurt. The moral weight of it should press down on her.

“Mioray, why did Terry stop moving?” Natalie’s footsteps faltered before she knelt beside Terry’s dead body. Gently, she reached out, her hands brushing against his cold skin. "Terry? Can you hear me? Terry, wake up!"

“Natalie,” Mioray stepped closer to her. “Don’t. It’s...over.”

She turned to him.

“What do you mean ‘it’s over’?”

“He’s dead. For real now.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Natalie said, shaking her head. “You told me you can’t die.”

“I thought so. But it seems there is a way to kill an undead.”

“I don’t understand!” Natalie raised her voice, clutching Terry’s lifeless body. “Is this some sort of joke? Are you telling me he was alive while I thought he was dead, and now, when I’ve found him, he’s gone for good?!”

“I don’t know what to say...” Mioray lowered his head.

“Say something to make it make sense!” Natalie snapped, angry tears rolling down her cheeks.

But there was nothing he could say.

Erinel calmly slid the cursed blade back into the folds of her dress, its black surface gleaming one last time before it disappeared. She turned away. Farah held onto Matt, whispering soft, soothing words. The boy was inconsolable.

It was over. Terry’s body remained still, its grotesque mutations unhealed. The stab wound was sharp and visible, but no blood leaked from it. His corpse was silent, unmoving. A police car pulled into the far end of the parking lot, its flashing red and blue lights dancing across the asphalt.

“Take him,” Natalie said, her voice trembling as she fought to regain her composure. But somehow, she did it. “Take him and get out of here. Terry Strands is already dead to the world. I don’t want that to change. I don’t want anyone to know he turned into a monster. I don’t want him to be tied to today’s disaster and deaths.”

“Let’s do as this woman says,” Erinel agreed. Her voice was flat, devoid of argument. “It won’t do any good if you all get caught here.”

Farah looked as though she wanted to scream at her, but she hesitated. Her anger, her rage would have to wait. Escaping unnoticed was more important now. Together with Natalie, they quickly lifted Terry’s lifeless body and placed it into the trunk of the white car. Matt, his face red and swollen from crying, clutched onto Mioray’s severed arm like a lifeline. The group got into the car, all except Natalie.

“I’m sorry,” Mioray said to her before they took off. The white car hovered with a heavy hum, but it still worked.

Natalie stayed silent as they left. Whatever thoughts she had stayed locked tightly within her. Standing alone in the parking lot, illuminated by the cold glow of the street lamps, she waited for the police to arrive. Behind her, the flashing lights of the approaching police car twinkled red and blue. It looked almost like the Winterlight Festival.

But the night felt nothing like a celebration.