Evan was at the door when we got back.

  His face was pale. His hands were shaking.

  "It's still there," he said. "Didn't move. Didn't leave. Just... standing."

  I pushed past him into the main room. Maya followed. Michael and Sarah were at the far wall, silent, watching the monitor.

  The elephant was still there.

  Not at the edge. Closer now. Its massive grey body filled half the screen. Its scythe-tusks scraped the air in slow, patient arcs. Its black pit-eyes stared directly at the camera.

  It knew.

  I didn't think. I didn't plan. My voice came out flat, calm.

  "Evan. Weapon room. Now."

  He ran.

  I opened the wall panel. Inside: a console, dusty, wired directly to the reinforced storage unit at the back of the base. I flipped three switches. A red light blinked once, twice, then stayed solid.

  Evan's voice crackled through the walkie-talkie on my belt.

  "I'm in. Which ones?"

  "The big ones."

  Silence.

  "...Harshal. Those are tank guns."

  "I know what they are. Fire both."

  Another silence. Then:

  "Both barrels. Center mass. Got it."

  BOOM. BOOM.

  The sound was not a gunshot. It was a thunderclap trapped inside concrete. The floor vibrated. Dust fell from the ceiling. Sarah screamed.

  The elephant staggered.

  Two rounds. Tank rounds. Eighty millimeters of depleted uranium and screaming kinetic force.

  It staggered. Shook its massive head. Blinked its black pit-eyes.

  And took a step forward.

  No blood. No wound. Just two dark smudges on its grey hide, already fading.

  The barrier flickered.

  Evan's voice, breathless: "Nothing. It did nothing. Harshal, what do we—"

  "Frequency guns. Now."

  "Numbing. Full spectrum. Yeah. On it."

  The elephant raised its front foot.

  It brought it down.

  CRACK.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  The barrier fracture was visible this time. A thin white line spreading from the impact point, branching like lightning in reverse. The room dimmed. The hum of the generator pitched higher, strained.

  It would not hold.

  I grabbed the chain.

  Fifteen feet. Salvaged steel, rusted in places but solid. Attached to it: a blade. Not a sword. Not a knife. A spike. Narrow, surgical, designed to penetrate and anchor in anything soft enough to accept it.

  I held the spike in one hand. The chain coiled in the other.

  Evan's voice: "Frequency set. Numbing. Full spectrum. Ready when you are."

  I clicked off the radio.

  Maya turned from the view slit. Her eyes met mine.

  "You're not going out there."

  I didn't answer.

  "Harshal. You're not going out there. "

  I walked past her. Out the door. Toward the shimmering, cracking barrier.

  The numbness hit me before I reached the elephant.

  It started in my teeth. A deep, vibrating cold that spread down my spine, into my chest, my fingers, my legs. My heartbeat slowed. My grip weakened. Each step was wading through water that kept turning to stone.

  The elephant felt it too.

  Its head lowered. Its black pit-eyes lost focus. The massive foot on the barrier hesitated, pressed less urgently.

  Twenty feet.

  I raised the spike. The chain uncoiled behind me.

  Fifteen feet.

  The elephant's trunk twitched. The tip curled toward me.

  Ten feet.

  I threw.

  The spike spun once, twice, three times. A dark blur against the red sky.

  It sank into the trunk.

  Not deep. Just below the tip. Just enough to hold.

  I grabbed the chain. Planted my feet. Pulled.

  The elephant's head turned. Its eye found me.

  And the frequency changed.

  Not numbness.

  BREAK.

  The shift was instant. Sharp. Hungry.

  My blood went cold.

  Evan.

  BONE RESONANCE.

  TARGET: ELEPHANT.

  FREQUENCY: FRACTURE.

  The elephant screamed.

  Not a trumpet. A scream. The sound of a mountain being split open from the inside.

  The trunk bone—the spike's anchor point—cracked.

  I didn't let go. I pulled harder. The chain went taut.

  "EVAN! SHUT IT OFF!"

  Silence on the radio.

  "EVAN!"

  His voice came through. Quiet. Steady.

  "No."

  The chain snapped.

  Fifteen feet of salvaged steel broke in the middle. The sudden release sent me flying backward. The world spun. Grey sky, red sky, dead ground, elephant—

  I hit the ground hard. My ribs screamed. My vision blurred.

  The broken chain lay beside me. The spike was still in the elephant's trunk. Cracked bone visible through torn flesh. A piece of the trunk bone—sharp, jagged, broken—hung loose.

  I grabbed it.

  Pulled it free. Felt the warmth of living blood on my fingers.

  The elephant's head turned. Its eye found me.

  I threw the bone.

  Not at its face. Not at its head.

  Into its eye.

  The jagged end sank into the black wetness. The elephant BLINDED.

  Its scream was not sound. It was a physical force. The air itself seemed to fracture. My ears filled with blood.

  But it was still standing. Still alive. Still hungry.

  I had nothing.

  Then I looked at my belt.

  The knife. The chain I had forged last winter, link by link, in the basement of an abandoned factory. Stronger than the salvaged steel. Lighter. Mine.

  I pulled it off my belt. Fifteen feet of dark, tight links. At the end: a blade I had hammered myself, heated and folded and quenched in stolen oil.

  I bit down on the handle.

  Iron and old sweat on my tongue.

  My right hand found the broken end of the salvaged chain. Still attached to the spike. Still embedded in the trunk.

  I pulled myself up.

  The elephant shook its head. Its remaining eye searched blindly. Its trunk swung wild, spraying blood.

  I climbed.

  Hand over hand. Feet against wrinkled grey hide. Pulling myself toward the trunk.

  Five feet.

  The elephant raised its tusk. Tried to scrape me off.

  Three feet.

  The frequency was still on BREAK. The elephant's scream was constant now, a low, vibrating agony.

  One foot.

  I reached the trunk. Grabbed the embedded spike with my left hand. Braced my feet against the bleeding wound.

  The elephant's remaining eye was three feet away. Blind, searching, vulnerable.

  I pulled the forged chain off my belt.

  The knife fell from my mouth. I caught it in mid-air.

  And I threw it.

  The blade spun once, twice, three times.

  A dark blur against the red sky.

  Into the socket.

  The knife sank to the hilt.

  The elephant's scream became something else. Something quieter. Something broken.

  Its legs buckled.

  It was falling.

  And so was I.