Chapter 44 The Golden Curse
The green acid sizzled as it hit the floor of the giant stomach. It didn't smell like chemicals; it smelled like greed. I looked down at my feet, and my heart stopped. My leather boots were gone. In their place were two heavy, shiny feet made of solid gold. I couldn't feel my toes. I couldn't even wiggle them.
"Xavier! The boys!" I screamed, reaching out.
Xavier was already fighting. He had pulled Leo and Elias onto a floating piece of bone that looked like a giant rib. The green liquid was rising fast, splashing against the edges of our small island.
"Don't let it touch you!" Xavier yelled. His own hands were turning yellow at the fingertips. He was losing his strength as the gold crept up his arms. "Elara, we’re being turned into currency! We aren't people to them anymore. We’re just points in a game!"
I looked up at the giant eye in the ceiling. It blinked, and I saw a reflection in its pupil. I didn't see a monster. I saw a teenager sitting on a couch, holding a phone. He was smiling. He wasn't mean; he was just bored. To him, our screams were just sound effects.
"You want your money?" I roared at the eye. "Is that all we are to you?"
The voice of the Reader boomed through the ribs. "I paid for the 'Ultimate Ending' pack. The description said the heroes turn into a mountain of gold for the next king to find. This is what I bought!"
"We aren't a pack of items!" I felt the cold, hard gold spreading up my legs. It reached my knees. I tried to move, but I was becoming a statue. I was heavy. I was stuck.
Internal monologue burned in my brain. After everything, the labs, the fire, the memory wipes, this was the end? To be melted down into coins for a bored kid? No. If I were going to be gold, I would be the sharpest gold he ever touched.
"Xavier, give me the boys!" I said.
"Elara, what are you doing?" Xavier’s eyes were wide with fear. The gold was at his elbows now.
"The acid only turns us into gold because we are 'assets' in the story," I said. My voice was getting stiff as my jaw started to harden. "But a virus doesn't have a price. I’m going to overload the system. I’m going to make our value so high that the bank breaks!"
I grabbed the silver locket that was still hanging around my neck. It was the only thing the acid hadn't touched. I closed my eyes and poured every memory of my pain into it. I thought of the hunger. I thought of the cold needles. I thought of the way Xavier looked at me the first time he called me his Queen.
I pushed all that love and rage into the locket until it began to vibrate.
"Leo, Elias, hold onto your father!" I commanded.
I threw the locket into the rising green acid.
"REFUND!" I screamed at the giant eye.
The acid didn't just splash. It turned into a pillar of white light. The locket exploded with the force of a thousand suns. The energy hit the stomach walls, and the giant ribs began to crack. The gold on my legs started to melt back into skin. I felt the blood rushing back into my toes. It hurt, like a thousand bees stinging me at once, but it was life.
The world above us let out a scream of pure digital pain. The giant eye shattered like a broken TV screen.
"Transaction failed!" a robotic voice yelled. "Error 404! Story bank empty!"
The floor beneath us opened up, and we weren't sliding down a tube anymore. We were falling through the air.
We hit something hard and flat. I groaned, shaking my head. My vision was blurry. I looked around and saw we were in a huge, dark warehouse. There were rows and rows of glass jars taller than houses. Inside each jar was a different world. I saw a jar with a tiny castle. I saw a jar with a burning city.
And right in front of us was a jar labeled The Silver Line – Completed.
"We're out of the jar," Elias whispered. He was shaking, clutching his brother’s hand.
Xavier stood up, pulling me to my feet. He looked at his hands. They were normal again. But he wasn't looking at the jars. He was looking at the end of the warehouse.
A man was standing there. He was wearing a crown made of broken glass and a cape made of money. He held a staff that looked like a giant fountain pen.
"You broke my favorite toy," the man said. His voice was cold and sharp. "Do you have any idea how much that Reader paid for your souls?"
"I don't care," I said. I stepped forward, my claws sliding out. They weren't black or silver. They were glowing with the white light of the virus. "Who are you?"
"I am the publisher," the man said. "And since you destroyed your world, you have to pay for it. I have plenty of other stories that need a villain. How would you like to be a monster in a world of knights? Or a ghost in a haunted house?"
"We aren't going into another jar," Xavier growled. He shifted, his golden fur returning, but this time it was mixed with the white light of my virus.
"Oh, you don't have a choice," the publisher said. He raised his pen-staff. "Unless you can defeat the person I just hired to replace you."
A door opened behind him.
A woman walked out. She looked exactly like me. But she was wearing a crown of fire, and her eyes were empty, black holes. She wasn't a clone. She wasn't a draft.
"Meet Elara 2.0," the publisher smiled. "She has all your memories, but none of your mercy."
The other Elara didn't speak. She just raised her hand, and a wall of black fire hit the floor between us.
"Mommy?" Leo whispered, looking at the woman who looked just like me. "Why does she have my name tattooed on her arm?"
I looked at the woman’s arm. It didn't say Leo. It said, "Property Of The Publisher."
Then, the woman did something I didn't expect. She turned her head and snapped the publisher's neck in one quick motion.
The Publisher fell to the floor, dead.
The woman looked at me, her black eyes leaking ink. "He’s gone," she whispered. "But the warehouse is on a timer. In sixty seconds, every jar in this place explodes. And if we stay here, we all die together."
Suddenly, the floor began to hum. A red light started flashing on every jar in the room.
"There is only one exit," the woman said, pointing to a small mirror on the wall. "But it only lets one Elara through. You have to kill me, or I have to kill you. Choose now."