There was solid rock in front of them. Everywhere they looked, nothing but rock walls. The entrance to the grotto had closed up, turning it into a claustrophobe’s nightmare.
“N-no, no, no,” Amanda stammered out, incredulous, touching the damp granite in front of her. “No freaking way. Oh my God.”
James grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her close to him. “Stay with me,” he said, his breathing strained, struggling to keep calm. “We’ll figure this out.”
There was a wall in front of them where an opening had been before. A wall. How could this be possible? She calmed herself enough to rationalize that they must have been transported somewhere, somehow. Except that it appeared to be the same grotto. They hadn’t moved; they’d just been sealed in.
Suddenly James cried out in pain and let go of her shoulders. She spun around to find him bent over, wincing. She also found that the grinning shadow had moved closer to them, and that its attack had become more intense. Amanda had registered the increase, but it hadn’t mattered, as her own powers automatically readjusted their defense. But it made a big difference for a Sentinel 9. James stumbled forward, holding his stomach before throwing up. He lowered himself onto his knees, and Amanda watched as he emptied his stomach contents onto the ground.
“Get away from us! You piece of crap,” she screamed at the figure, launching her most powerful pulse at it. It flickered more significantly this time, and a hissing sound lingered in the air around them. The figure backed away to the opposite wall but stayed well within view, still wearing its sinister grin.
James continued to heave. Amanda bent over to touch his shoulder, about to ask him how he was holding up, but what she saw on the ground stopped her in her tracks. Staring in disbelief, she saw that the vomit wasn’t really there. It appeared as if through a veil, as if resting under the surface of a pool.
“Hold on, James!” she called out to him, her mind racing. “I have an idea. I think I know what’s going on.”
Well, she didn’t exactly know, not for certain. But she had been a Sentinel for over a year now, so she had learned a thing or two on the job.
She had two working theories. One, they were now in a different dimension. In that case, the malevolent being would be looking in on them as one would look through thick glass at an aquarium. Or two, the creature had put them inside a time capsule and transported them into a time when the grotto had been sealed off. This theory would explain why they couldn’t really reach it with their initial energy pulses. It had projected itself into their time, so only a part of the creature was in the present, vulnerable. If it had transported them closer to its own time frame, to prevent their escape, it had presumably also made itself more vulnerable, as a tradeoff.
“Hit that wall, baby, and get out,” James whispered, breaking her concentration. “It’s focused on me for now, but it’s going to get you, too.”
“Shush! Don’t distract me, please. I have to focus.” The more she thought about it, the more her second idea made sense. Not only had the grinning man transported them in time, he was holding them in a cocoon—a bubble of sorts, that was regressing back through time, bringing them closer to Shadow Man, thus intensifying their exposure to the poisonous psychic influence of his magic. The cocoon included some parts of the grotto, such as the entrance.
She straightened her shoulders and waved her hands impatiently, shaking out pure energy, like a bodybuilder preparing to lift a massive weight. “I know what to do.”
A cocoon. She’d rip it to pieces. Whatever this thing was—magical, demonic, psychic, interdimensional, or even physical—she’d break it. She’d rip it wide open with her bare hands, because nothing is a match for a Sentinel 10. She was the thing that the things that went bump in the night were powerless against.
“James,” she called out. “I have an idea!”
In pain, James leaned against the wall in an effort to get closer to her.
“No, get away from the walls. I know you’re hurting, but don’t touch the walls. I’m gonna try something.”
James stood up straight, pale and shaking with the effort. “Hurry up, baby.”
She spread out her arms and spun around slowly, feeling the air. There was definitely something there, permeating the space all around them. Maybe it wasn’t exactly like a cocoon, but more like a net. Like strings of laser lights crisscrossing through space, all around them, trapping them in time. Feeling it with her psychic abilities gave her this mental image, this intuitive explanation, but it was still difficult to comprehend. It was so unlike anything she’d ever experienced. But then again, she didn’t need to fully understand it. She just needed to rip it to shreds.
She slapped at the air with her arm, while psychic energy surged out of her palm in an arc. “Yes!” she cried out, feeling the net give a little. She looked to James. “Come on and help me. It’s like a capsule, a cocoon, it’s all around us. Strike at it, as much as you can.”
“Surges or pulses?” asked James. Shivering and weak, he raised his arm.
Ferociously focused, she lowered her voice. “Everything you’ve got.”
Amanda locked her eyes on a point on the wall and went to her personal space, inside her soul. She was a waterfall. A cosmic waterfall, flowing in space, falling from the stars. She was unstoppable, a force of nature so powerful that time itself would bend to her will.
The psychic current vibrated within her arms, bubbling up inside her until it overflowed and shot out her fingers. Other Sentinels needed training; she just needed to believe in herself. The grinning Shadow Man and his puny time cocoon were nothing to the powers of a Sentinel 10.
Her energy erupted into the grotto like a volcano, sizzling in blue sparkles, as she put forth her hands, her palms joined at the wrists and opened like a flower. The air vibrated with a ferocious hiss, something between a slowly rising roar and a celestial storm. Amanda kept pushing out a steady, devastating flow of energy, attacking the enclosure, breaking it apart. She imagined breaking the bonds between subatomic particles, ripping into the nuclei of this unknown matter. Was it dark matter, perhaps? Regardless, their efforts were working. She could feel James’s energy flowing next to hers, like a cascading river merging into a raging ocean.
She didn’t need to turn back to look at the wall that used to be the entrance. She could see it, behind her, without looking. This was a first, even for her. The wall was withering away in flickers of light. She could actually see it with her eyes, not just with her mind. At this moment, all her fear was gone: she was winning!
They were winning.
She felt bad about discounting James’s effort, but maybe his help wasn’t even required. In a moment of danger, her powers were growing. She now felt certain that she was five times more powerful than James. At least that. She darted a glance toward him. He looked more comfortable now, no longer suffering the effects of the evil creature’s magic.
“Do you see that? The wall is gone,” she cried. “We’re almost done!”
“Yep.” He glanced back at her, the corners of his lips slightly turned up. Reassured, she turned back toward her focal point, catching a glimpse of a dark shadow to her left as she did so. It looked like Shadow Man had decided to move closer and say hello! She faced him without hesitation.
It was like looking into a black mass of pure evil, so close by her side. This thing had no features aside from the toothy grin. The teeth looked quite real; white and long, more wolf-like than human.
“Oh there you are!” she said, sporting a wide grin of her own. “Come to Mama, you evil shit.”
In one swift movement, her hand was around the creature’s throat. She wished she could look it in the eyes, but there were none. As she squeezed, it hissed. Amanda had once listened to the sounds of the Northern Lights on YouTube, and the eerie sounds coming from Shadow Man were something like that.
“Huh? Speak up, I can’t hear you!” she taunted. “You evil thing.”
This grinning creature had hurt James. It had wanted to suck them dry, leaving them dead and forgotten. But it would not succeed. Instead she would rip it apart, piece by piece. She shot out her other arm and plunged her fingers into the gaping darkness. No fear, no hesitation.
As she tore a hole down his torso, the grin remained, a seemingly permanent fixture, as the sounds he emitted grew more tortured. They were now approaching a screech, she noted with triumphant glee. His image oscillated severely. A chill went up Amanda’s fingers to her knuckles, but otherwise, she had no ill effects from digging in.
With one last hissing oscillation, Shadow Man evaporated in a flicker of light. Amanda rubbed the chill out of her her hands before reaching for James and giving his hand a squeeze. “Thank God that’s over. I panicked there, for a moment.”
James looked behind them, where the entrance had reappeared in the wall, then drew her into his arms. “I was worried, too,” he admitted. “I felt useless, like I couldn’t help you.”
“You weren’t useless,” she tried to reassure him. “I needed your help; we did it together.”
He pulled her closer, pressing his face to the side of her head. “No, you didn’t need me. But that’s okay. I know you’re stronger. It just bothers me that I can’t protect you. I’m not used to that, you know?”
Amanda lifted her chin, about to tell him more lies she was hoping would be of comfort to his ego, but she was quickly interrupted by the sound of a giggle.
When the turned to the source, she saw Lydia standing at the entrance, hand on her hip. “So, you two had to get a room, huh?” She didn’t look worried; it was as if they had been gone for only a minute. She winked at Amanda. “Are you done now? Can we go swimming already?”
