The large skitterer reared up, mandibles wide and dripping.
Philippa lunged forward, knife raised. She sacrificed the warmth of her favorite childhood memory — the one where her mother had actually smiled at her. The loss hit like a dull blade dragged across her chest, leaving an empty chill behind. In exchange, a surge of raw speed flooded her limbs.
She slipped inside the creature's reach and drove the serrated blade upward into the soft underside of its head. The knife punched through chitin with a wet, grinding crunch, tearing through muscle and scraping against hard inner plates. Thick, dark ichor sprayed in a hot arc, splattering across her face, neck, and chest. The foul, rotting stench mixed with the coppery taste of blood made her eyes water, but she kept pushing, twisting the blade deeper until something vital gave way with a sickening pop.
The skitterer convulsed violently. One of its barbed limbs slashed across her already injured shoulder, reopening the wound. Fresh blood gushed out in a warm rush, soaking her torn shirt and running down her arm in thick rivulets. The pain was sharp and bright, but the speed from her sacrifice kept her moving.
She yanked the knife free with a grotesque sucking sound, dark fluid pouring from the wound in rhythmic pulses. The creature staggered, legs scrabbling uselessly against the blood-slick pavement, its opened head leaking pale pus and ichor in a spreading pool.
Sylcath was right beside her now. His crimson energy flared. He targeted the dying skitterer, fingers splaying. The creature's body jerked violently as invisible force tore into the fresh wound. There was a wet, tearing rip — like meat being pulled from bone — as another glowing chunk of essence was violently extracted through the gaping hole in its head. Strands of tissue and dark blood trailed after it. The skitterer collapsed in a twitching heap, its carapace split wide open, insides spilling onto the ground with a heavy, wet slap.
Sylcath absorbed the essence with a slow exhale. The Echo Ripple from Philippa's latest sacrifice hit him harder this time — the hollow chill of lost warmth. He pressed a hand to his own chest for a split second, jaw tightening, before dropping it with a low scoff.
"Trading happy memories now?" he muttered, voice edged with something that wasn't quite mockery anymore. "You're going to run out of things worth keeping at this rate."
Philippa wiped blood and ichor from her eyes, the motion leaving another dark smear across her cheek. She almost laughed bitterly at how pathetic it sounded. "Better than having nothing left because you stole it all from someone else," she replied, breathing hard. Her voice came out rougher than she intended. "At least I choose what I lose."
More rifts were cracking open further down the street. The glassy, wrong sound echoed again, followed by the wet scrabbling of fresh horrors emerging. The heavy stench of blood and opened bodies hung thick in the air, drawing them like sharks.
Philippa's leg, ribs, shoulder, and forearm all burned with every movement. Blood continued to flow freely from multiple wounds, warm and sticky against her skin. She could feel the Echo Ripples spreading wider now — a nearby survivor stumbled as a ghost of her shoulder pain hit him, nearly dropping his weapon.
Sylcath stayed close, no longer hanging back. He dispatched another skitterer with casual brutality — crimson light flaring, body convulsing, essence ripped free through its back with another wet tearing sound. He absorbed it smoothly, but Philippa noticed the way his eyes flicked to her bleeding wounds more often, the irritation in his expression mixed with something sharper.
"You're a walking liability," he said, stepping over a twitching corpse. "All this leaking pain and emptiness… it's attracting everything within blocks. If you keep sacrificing like this, you won't have anything left to protect."
Philippa didn't answer immediately. She could feel the next sacrifice hovering at the edge of her mind — heavier, more dangerous. The thought of losing even more of herself made the hollow ache in her chest deepen, but hesitation would get her killed.
A fresh cluster of skitterers broke from the new wave, their jointed legs clicking rapidly against the concrete. The largest one in the group — heavily armored with longer, dripping barbs — charged straight at her injured leg, mandibles clicking open wide.
Philippa raised her bloody knife, muscles screaming, blood still pouring down her arm and leg in warm streams. She prepared her next sacrifice as the creature closed the distance fast, spiked limbs tearing up the ground. Sylcath moved parallel to her, crimson energy gathering brighter in his palm, his gaze locked on the approaching threat — and on her — with an intensity that felt increasingly complicated, the air between them charged with unspoken tension as the large skitterer reared up to strike and Philippa lunged forward to meet it, heart pounding, fresh blood spraying from her wounds