Chapter 187 Supermarket space to the rescue

Chapter 187: Chapter 187 Supermarket space to the rescue

Mr. Davis raised one pale hand and snapped his fingers.

The sound was soft, almost so gentle like. But the response was immediate.

Something moved in the shadows at the far end of the chamber. Then more movement occurred.

Luna’s blood ran cold as figures began to emerge from the darkness. They shuffled forward with an unsteady, dragging gait, their movements wrong in ways that made her stomach turn.

They had been human once. Maybe or not she can’t tell.

But whatever Mr. Davis had done to them had twisted them into something else entirely.

Their skin had taken on a sickly grey-green tint, slick and shiny like the belly of a dead fish. Scales patches dotted their arms and necks, catching the dim light with an oily sheen. Their faces were the worst—half-human features stretched and distorted, mouths too wide, eyes too large and bulging, gill-like slits cut into their cheeks that fluttered open and closed as they breathed.

Some of them still wore clothes. Torn shirts. Ripped pants. Remnants of the people they used to be.

Others wore nothing at all, their bodies covered in thick, ropey scars that crisscrossed their flesh like a remnant of their suffering.

Linda scribbled in her notepad, her voice bright with excitement.

"Subject response time is improving, Mr. Davis! Only three seconds this time!"

"Wonderful," Mr. Davis said, clasping his hands together. "Aren’t they beautiful? My little pets. It took me ages to get the formula right."

One of the creatures lurched closer, and Luna saw its hands. The fingers had fused together, the skin between them stretched into webbed form. Claws curved from the tips, thick and yellowed and sharp.

"Kill the woman," Mr. Davis said casually, as though he were ordering lunch. "Keep the men alive. I still need them."

The creatures moved.

They didn’t run. All refused to charge, it simply... surged forward, their bodies flowing over each other like a wave of rotting flesh and snapping teeth.

Luna didn’t have time to scream.

The first one reached Kai before anyone could react. It swiped at him with those clawed hands, and even though Kai tried to dodge, the beam holding him in place made it impossible. The claws caught his shoulder, tearing through fabric and skin like soft candy.

Kai grunted, blood spraying from the wound.

"Get away from him!" Rowan roared, throwing himself forward despite the pain. He managed half a step before the beam flared brighter, and he collapsed with a cry, clutching his head.

Adrian was struggling too, his face twisted with agony as he tried to reach the creatures attacking his friend.

But the light held them all captive.

All except Luna.

Something was happening to her.

The pain was still there—God, it was still there, pounding against the inside of her skull like a fist trying to break through bone. But underneath that pain, something else stirred.

Her spatial space.

It flickered in the back of her mind like a candle struggling to stay lit in a storm. She could feel it there, waiting, but it was distant and weak, as though a thick wall had been placed between her and her own power.

No!!

She couldn’t accept that.

She had built that space from nothing. She had watched it grow from a few pitiful shelves to an entire supermarket stocked with everything she needed to survive. She had spent months developing it, nurturing it, treating it like a living thing.

And now some pale-faced bastard with a weird lamp thought he could cut her off from it?

Like hell.

Luna closed her eyes.

The screams of her companions echoed around her. The wet sounds of claws tearing flesh. The excited chatter of Linda taking notes. Mr. Davis’s soft, pleased laughter.

She blocked it all out.

Deep inside her, she reached for that connection. The thread that tied her to her space. It was thin now—so thin she could barely feel it—but it was still there.

Still part of her.

"I said," she whispered through gritted teeth, "don’t touch what’s mine."

The connection pulsed.

Then it blazed.

Luna’s eyes snapped open, and her spatial space exploded outward.

A ripple tore through the air around her like a shockwave. The beam beneath her feet flickered, destabilized, and then shattered into a thousand fragments of light that scattered across the floor.

The pressure vanished.

Luna stumbled forward, gasping as the sudden release sent her nearly to her knees. But she caught herself, forcing her legs to hold, forcing herself to stay upright.

The creatures paused, their bulging eyes swiveling toward her in confusion.

Mr. Davis’s smile faltered.

"What—"

"Kai!" Luna shouted, and her space responded.

A shelf materialized in front of the creature attacking Kai—a full shelf, six feet wide and stocked with heavy canned goods. It slammed into the monster with enough force to send it flying backward, its body crashing into two others behind it.

Kai collapsed against a nearby table, clutching his bleeding shoulder, his eyes wide with shock.

"Get behind me!" Luna commanded.

Rowan and Adrian scrambled toward her, their legs shaky from the effects of the beam but still moving. Ethan tried to follow, but he was the furthest away, and the creatures were already regrouping.

Luna reached out with her power and pulled.

Another shelf appeared, then another. She went through her stock, pulling out whatever she could find—boxes of food, crates of water, even the metal shelving units themselves. They shot through the air like missiles, crashing into the creatures and driving them back.

But there were too many.

For every one she hit, three more seemed to appear from the shadows.

And they were fast.

One of them lunged at her from the side, its mouth opening wide to reveal rows of jagged, needle-like teeth. Luna barely managed to throw up a barrier—a solid wall of canned soup—before it reached her. The creature slammed into the wall and fell back, screeching in frustration.

Another came from above.

Luna didn’t see it until it was almost on top of her. It dropped from the ceiling, its webbed hands reaching for her throat.

Rowan intercepted it.

He caught the creature mid-air, his arms wrapping around its slimy body as he drove it into the ground. The thing thrashed and clawed at him, tearing deep gouges into his arms, but Rowan held on, his face twisted with rage and pain.

"I’ve got this one!" he yelled. "Go get Ethan!"

Luna didn’t need to be told twice.

She sprinted across the chamber, her bare feet slapping against the cold metal floor. A creature tried to block her path, but she summoned a shopping cart—a whole damn shopping cart—and sent it crashing into the monster’s knees.

The thing howled and collapsed, and Luna leaped over it.

Ethan was still trapped.

The beam beneath his feet was flickering now, weakened by whatever Luna had done, but it hadn’t broken completely. He was on his knees, his face pale, his hands pressed against the floor as though he could push the light away through sheer willpower.

"Luna," he breathed when he saw her. "You shouldn’t have—"

"Shut up," she said.

She reached him and grabbed his arm, trying to pull him free. The beam resisted, sending a jolt of pain through her fingers, but she didn’t let go.

"Hold on to me," she ordered.

Ethan grabbed her arm, and Luna reached deep inside herself.

Her spatial space responded, its doors flying open. She could feel everything inside—every item she had collected, every supply she had hoarded, every piece of her that she had poured into that place.

She didn’t need a specific item this time.

She needed all of it.

The connection between her space and the real world widened, becoming a floodgate. And through that gate, she pushed out a wave of pure spatial energy.

It wasn’t an object. It wasn’t something you could see or touch.

It was simply... displacement.

The beam beneath Ethan’s feet shattered, not into fragments this time, but into nothing. The light simply ceased to exist, its energy scattered into the air like smoke.

Ethan pitched forward, and Luna caught him before he hit the floor.

"Got you," she gasped.

"Got you too baby," he murmured back, his arms wrapping around her making Luna smile.

Around them, the chamber had descended into chaos.

Mr. Davis was no longer smiling. His pale face had gone even paler, and he was staring at Luna with something that looked almost like shock.

"That’s impossible," he said. "That device took me years to perfect! There’s no way you could just—"

"Maybe you’re not as smart as you think you are," Luna shot back.

She stood, pulling Ethan up with her. Her body ached, and her head was still pounding, but she refused to show weakness. Not now. Not in front of this monster.

Mr. Davis’s expression twisted.

"You think you’ve won?" he hissed. "You think breaking one little beam changes anything? I have an army! I have technology you can’t even imagine! I have—"

Linda touched his arm.

"Mr. Davis," she said quietly. "The readings. Look at the readings."

She held up her notepad, and Mr. Davis glanced at it.

His eyes widened.

"What... what is that?"

Luna didn’t know what they were seeing. She didn’t care.

She turned to her companions. Kai was still bleeding, but he was on his feet. Rowan had finished off the creature he’d been fighting and was helping Adrian up. They were all together, all alive.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Been better," Kai grunted, clutching his wounded shoulder. "But I’ll live."

"Good."

Luna faced Mr. Davis again.

"Here’s what’s going to happen," she said. "You’re going to let us go. You’re going to stop chasing us. And you’re going to forget we ever existed."

Mr. Davis laughed. It was a brittle sound, nothing like the confident amusement from before.

"And if I don’t?"

Luna smiled.

It was not a nice smile.

"Then I’ll show you what else my ’impossible’ power can do."

For a long moment, they stared at each other.

The creatures had stopped their attack, confused by the loss of their master’s command. Linda had stopped writing, her pen frozen in her hand. Even the air seemed to hold its breath.

Then Mr. Davis stepped back.

"Fine," he said, his voice tight. "Fine. Go."

Luna didn’t wait for him to change his mind.

She grabbed Ethan’s hand and pulled him toward the others.

"Move!" she ordered. "Now!"

They ran.

Behind them, Mr. Davis watched them go, his pale face unreadable. When they were almost out of sight, he spoke again.

"I’ll find you," he called after them. "You know that, right? I always find what I want. And what I want... is him."

The doors slammed shut behind them, cutting off his voice.

But his words echoed in Luna’s mind long after they had escaped.

******

They didn’t stop running until they were back at their ruined aircraft, gasping for breath and shaking from exhaustion that married their bones.

Kai collapsed against the hull, his shoulder still bleeding. Adrian immediately set to work treating the wound, his hands steady despite the fear still lingering in his eyes.

Rowan stood guard, his body tense, waiting for an attack that didn’t come.

Ethan sat on the ground, his back against the aircraft, his eyes closed.

Luna sat beside him.

For a long time, neither of them spoke.

"Thank you," Ethan finally said.

Luna snorted.

"Don’t thank me yet. We’re not out of this mess."