F-Rank Mimic Chest: My SSS Mimic Skill Lets Me Become Anything

Brant’s shield stopped ringing and began to scream.

The bent rim dragged that sound through the stone, into the responsive coffer, and along the two short rails Dane still held against its latch. His peeled base took every shiver. Above Brant, bone runners failed one tooth at a time.

”Six breaths,” Vera said. ”The whole stack is on his left side.”

Brant’s right arm stayed bound to his chest. He drove his left shoulder harder under the shield and lost another inch.

”Use the six,” he said. ”I don’t get seven.”

Holt went to the wrapped worker on his forearms. He put his ear near the linen, then touched two fingers to the throat.

”Breath first. Vera, open the cloth at the nose and mouth. Nothing lower.”

”Tell me when.”

Her ordinary shears worried through waxed stitches while the worker’s next breath scratched behind them. Holt felt the throat again.

”Now. They’re warm. Pulse is there, but it misses.”

Ada brought rod one’s low light near the worker’s face. ”Pupils answer. Still out. If the breath changes, every cold piece comes off. Same if they wake.”

Another runner split overhead.

Tess looked toward the right-hand debris. ”The right rut—”

She stopped herself.

Buk struck Pell’s meal tab once against his litter frame. ”What did Tess see?”

”Two straight runners under the broken drawer,” she said. ”Right side. Long enough for the body.”

Holt gave her a sharp nod. ”Bring them. Leave the linen around the spine.”

Tess crawled on her good ankle. Vera cut the throat and ankle claim stitches only. Between them, they slid the runners beneath the wrapped adult without rolling the body farther than Holt’s hands allowed.

The coffer lowered on six legs. Buk asked its quick awake rhythm whether it would take the front straps. One knock answered. He repeated the question for the slower worker. A second knock came back, nearly lost beneath four old shift-beats hammering at the wrong time.

Buk waited until those four passed. ”Two said yes. Lift on their step.”

Vera moved Pell’s old litter straps from the coffer rings to the runner ends. Holt took the rear loops across his forearms. Tess fastened Buk’s litter behind the coffer and returned to the rear line.

Brant’s shield folded another finger-width.

”Now,” he said.

Six legs rose. Holt lifted. Vera took the right runner with a rope loop around her shoulder, keeping both burned hands out of the knot. The stretcher settled across the intact crossbar of Dane’s cradle.

Dane pulled his brace away from the coffer and brought the same two rails up beside the runners while the thin panel pressed beneath their wood. With his lid and mouth below the crossbar, air moved over the worker’s face, chest, and feet.

Ada touched the open side with rod one. ”Eighteen breaths. Holt, count from their breathing. If you lose them, tell me that instead of inventing a number.”

Dane knocked once.

”One,” Holt said.

The coffer entered the iron throat.

Brant tore his shield free and threw himself after it. The first drawer stack struck behind him. Its collapse swallowed Holt’s next numbers and sealed the wrapping alcove with Pell’s dead bell on the far side.

For three breaths Dane heard only breaking runners, six feet on rutted stone, and the adult’s shallow rasp above his crossbar.

”Five,” Holt said when he found the rhythm again.

Cold gathered along the two rails. Inside Dane, Vera’s chalk-threaded fringe heated at the cracked root. Toma’s glove and scarf softened. Nate’s return charm tugged toward his intake. Even Saint Rust’s vessel gained the heavy, edible promise of something his body could make disappear.

The worker’s weight gave hunger a simpler answer than any keepsake.

Close.

Dane drove both rails outward.

The ruts split around a drawer column buried upright through the road. Fine grit pattered against Buk’s litter.

”Left is shedding dust,” he said. ”Tess. Where does right finish?”

”Broken filing chain hangs across it after two body lengths. Coffer might pass. Litter won’t.”

”Left, before more falls.”

The coffer leaned into the chosen rut. Its front straps pulled the stretcher sideways while Holt and Vera fought the rear back to center.

”Ten,” Holt said.

The worker’s next breath caught halfway.

Ada put rod one beneath the open edge, close enough for Dane to feel the tap through the panel. ”Cold is climbing under the ribs. Shoulders and legs only. Give the lungs room.”

He bowed the panel away from the chest. Support weakened at once. One runner thumped against the crossbar, and Vera’s shoulder rope went taut enough to creak.

The worker dragged in another breath.

Holt’s fourteen came out ragged. Dane’s mouth seam had opened beneath the crossbar. His wounded tongue strained toward warmth it could neither see nor reach.

He shoved the rails wider. Preservation thinned; the worker slid half a thumb-width toward Vera’s side.

”Sixteen.”

The old abrasion under Dane’s tongue burned wet. His lid lifted against the fixed crossbar and stopped there.

”Seventeen.”

”Off,” Ada said.

Dane killed the panel and both rails. Full weight dropped into straps, runner wood, Holt’s forearms, and Vera’s shoulder. Holt made a sound through his teeth but kept the rear end clear of Dane’s peeled base.

”Still breathing,” he said. ”Move.”

The service throat descended into a road made from collapsed body drawers. Dane received it through wheels of pressure: a lid booming open beneath the left rut, grit under his cradle, rod one tapping hollow wood before each step, and drawer towers shifting their weight whenever the coffer passed.

Fresh dust blew across Buk’s face.

”Center groove carried wagons,” he said. ”Left is moving now. Center.”

Tess drew breath as if to answer, then put both hands back on Buk’s rear line.

The coffer straddled the grooves. Brant crawled ahead and wedged his shield before its front-right foot. Ada tested the next drawer lid with rod one.

A tower came down across the center.

The first impact tipped the stretcher toward Dane’s wounded base. The coffer planted two legs on each side of a rising lid; its rear pair clawed for stone. Holt took the runner’s weight until blood soaked through the wraps at his palms.

He said nothing.

Vera felt the rear loop lengthen. ”Holt, your side is dropping.”

”My hands are wet. I still have the forearms.”

”Then give me the loop before the forearms go too.”

He let her take it. Vera locked the rope across both wrapped forearms and her shoulder while Holt stayed close enough to feel the worker’s throat.

”Pulse skipped twice,” he said. ”Breath is thinning.”

”Eleven breaths,” Ada said. ”We leave sooner if they cough, wake, flush, or lose that breath.”

Dane knocked once and brought back the two rails and one panel.

This time the cold arrived with a shape his body already understood: one adult weight, one open space, one hinge waiting to close. Dane held the rails apart until the crossbar dug into his original lid.

Ada worked rod one beneath the rising drawer lid. Brant set his shield beside it and pushed from his left hip. The coffer’s front legs climbed while Vera and Holt kept the stretcher level between them.

The count had barely settled into Holt’s breathing when something with a keyhole mouth punched up beneath the left runner.

”Drawer tongue,” Vera said. ”It has the panel bowed toward the linen.”

Dane forced the thin surface flat. The strike came through his grain like a tooth driven toward living heat. It missed skin and hit runner wood again.

Before Holt reached nine, Dane’s old mouth-floor abrasion began to seep. Hunger tasted his own blood, rejected the amount, and pushed harder against the crossbar.

The worker coughed on ten.

Dane erased every cold piece.

Holt rolled the head to the open side while Vera held the runners steady. Wet fluid struck stone.

”Black preservation fluid,” Vera said. ”Mouth is clear now. Eyes still shut.”

Holt listened. ”Air is moving.”

Ada’s rod touched the stretcher, never the worker. ”That window is done. Six breaths at most if the road makes us ask again.”

They cleared the tower without cold support. Behind them, its drawers collapsed into the rut and shut the way back. Ahead, dry air touched Dane’s split hinge before Vera named the rise.

”Road lip in front,” she said. ”One last pinch. Two drawer walls leaning together. Their handles are locked over us.”

The gap narrowed with every impact behind them.

Buk listened to all six coffer feet find stone. ”Coffer folds first. Its legs fit low. Dane takes center before the handles meet. Buk’s litter last, because Tess can pull the rear after Vera leaves it. Nobody stops under the lock.”

Two awake knocks answered separately from inside the coffer. Four work-beats followed, still trying to finish an absent shift.

The coffer folded until its body nearly scraped both ruts and moved under the handles. Brant crawled ahead on shield and left knee. Ada followed with rod one. Holt and Vera held the stretcher between them. Tess kept Buk’s rear line wrapped twice around her wrist.

Dane returned the rails beside the runners and the panel beneath them.

”Six breaths,” Holt said. ”Five is our last useful one.”

Each shallow breath above the crossbar pulled Dane’s hinge upward. He pressed his lid down against the cradle stop and kept the wounded tongue below the crooked tooth.

”Two.”

The coffer cleared.

”Three.”

Dane’s cradle entered the pinch. A handle ripped linen above his right rail.

”Cloth only,” Vera said. ”Metal is clear of the body. Skin is still covered.”

Holt’s knees struck stone as he said four. Vera took the whole rear loop across her forearms and shoulder. Brant caught the cradle’s front brace with his shield rim and hauled from outside the handles.

Open road reached Dane’s front edge.

”Five,” Holt said from the ground.

”Release.”

Dane withdrew both rails and the panel. Hunger surged into the empty geometry and met the crossbar, torn linen, and his own blood.

The coffer pulled. Vera staggered under the rear loop. Brant dragged the cradle with the shield while Holt shoved from both forearms. Wood grated over the road lip with nothing cold beneath it.

The worker crossed first on the external runners. Dane’s cradle followed. Buk’s litter struck the lip, hung there, then came free when Tess threw her weight backward on the line and the coffer took another step.

Tess crossed last.

Drawer handles slammed together behind her and buried the maze.

For one breath, the road held.

The adult rasped air through an open mouth. Six coffer feet stood on rut stone. Buk’s litter rested clear of the locked handles.

Jointed armor clicked twenty paces ahead.

A staff hook scraped across one rut, then the other. The sound pulled at Dane’s old ownership scar. Something in the intact linen around the worker answered with a dry wax crackle.

”Orth retrieval specialist,” Vera said. ”Gray apron over jointed armor. Hooked staff. Glass ampoule on the end—black wax, blue-green cistern mineral, and a slate splinter turning inside.”

Ada lowered rod one toward the road without crossing the hook. ”Skarn’s slate. Broken. It can recognize old filing; it cannot make his seal whole.”

The specialist set the hook across both wagon ruts.

”Skarn lost the seal,” they said. ”Orth kept the stain. It remembers a container and one breathing piece of recoverable inventory.”