On the Third Day, Boulder (barrier)
VI.iii.
…
— Three. Milo’s body suffered another round of albeit weaker seizures. The technician pushed her monitor aside, and wanted to say to the others that they should get a doctor, or maybe, are these spasms something to worry about, do they happen often with anesthesia, or maybe for the kid himself, does this happen a lot? She said something about that, but what was it. Milo’s mother wanted to answer that this does happen with various frequency, mainly under stress, but under sedation, no, he’s been twice before, but he was tired and almost asleep when they were administered. She looked to the anesthetician for answers, but Annie’s attention was unbroken on the boy. Annie pushed her sleeves up over her biceps while she kept vigil over Milo’s countenance. He should be fully under by now, and he certainly shouldn’t be shaking, she contemplated with her hand nearing the second tier of the cart, hoping she hadn’t forgotten to restock the anti-convulsants.
Milo tucked in on himself and bowled his body through the fireball explosion casting off infernal fumes from molten steel beams, Annie’s spectral embrace the only thing shielding him against certain doom.
“So long as you are inside of me, I can protect you, my child.”
Milo’s form, cast in a vaporous hue of faint blue shimmering with violet glitter, ricochets against hunks of airplane slag before decelerating to stop in a smoldering ditch.
— Mama?
He rose to all fours, shaking his head to listen about with the desire to express hear his mother’s voice, but only hisses of steam from smelting metals and rotary grating of propellers grinding against cement are peppered about the soundscape.
Milo found himself at the near edge of a vast carriage lot funneling to the Industrial Age gold-gilded gateway serving as entrance to the main factory and rail platform, both long-lain dormant.
— Mama?
“No,” bats leonine lashes, dusting angels into his ear, “this is someone who loves you.”
He wobbled unsteady on his feet as if in diapers and calls out to the tangled messiness of the carnage, — Nina?
A grimy and rusted sheet metal sign that had swung a warning against unauthorized visitors on Fission City premises snapped from its last wire loop and clanged angrily to the pavement.
“You insect!” The magical aura about him intentionally dissipated gradually in disgust, “Do not walk to me before you can crawl, pig!”
As her spectral essence deserted his legs, they both self-ignite instantly, reduced to cinders before his torso even hit the ground. But he swiftly grabbed hold of her mist with his open palms and dragged her brutally into tangibility, tieing her tight about his chest and abdomen until she fit securely and comfortably like a rucksack on his back.
— You viperous kin, you have infected my consciousness and decrypted my code. So be it. However, before you scamper off to the other side of sunlight with my soul, pray I have earned enough currency of interest to afford me pose one final riddle?
“I sense a sickness slier than snakes, chaotic even out of my control. And I must say my curiosity is intrigued…” Medusa tentacles of shadowy mist stroke his cheeks and chest hair gently trying to pry at his grip on the straps of her twining thighs. Milo rolled his torso onto his back by shifting his weight to see the imagination of the rolling red clouds above him, while pinning her to the asphalt.
— Stay with me here, on my back, and help me protect my plans. When we get to the Nexus, I will tell you the riddle, and you’ll be free to go.
“Pah! Please. I could just dip in through your encryption and get the riddle.” She began wrapping up into his underarm to tickle him mercilessly.
— Maybe you coul…AH! Stop! …but… I can’t move, stop it! …but you couldn’t get the answer. Jesus. It’s not there. The answer isn’t there.
“Poppycock! Tell me the riddle, I bet I could guess it anyway.”
They both settled down, a little aroused, a little weary, a bit frightened.
— You’ll never figure it out. But fine. He drew tense breath.
— What is simultaneously whispered by both the devil in the right ear and the angel in the left?