Lilith's body plummeted through the pale blue sky like a fallen angel cast over the towering walls of the silver city. Her wings flopped out of control as an angry saltwater grave rushed up to meet her. Convulsing hands pawed at empty, oozing sockets. In an instant, she found herself a helpless passenger locked away in a nightmarish world of blinding pain and terror. In all her long millennia, she had never suffered such a serious injury before.
The host had seized control of Lilith's central nervous system, forcing her mind deep into a hazy, subconscious prison. Fearing for their own safety, each cell in Lilith's body raced to the forefront, taking control of both mind and body. Her flailing body punched through the gentle waves, sending up an enormous geyser of seawater. A twisted, broken bag of limbs struck the bottom.
The once slender, beautiful woman sank into the coarse layer of sand, salt water replacing the air in her lungs as her remaining sense of awareness ebbed away.
"Was that one of those things?" a large Necromonger in half missing and tattered armor yelled over the din of the relentless surf. A massive wave struck him from behind, flipping him upside down and dragging him further out to sea. It was as if the water surrounding the island did not want them to reach dry land.
Lilith's impact doused Krone's comrades in a deluge of briny water. They rolled beneath the waves, coming up coughing and sputtering. The exhausted soldiers spewed profanities at a world that cared little for their existence or survival.
A massive geyser shot up in the air beneath the area where the creature struck the water. The rag-tag group of sun-beached sailors reeled in shock, pointing their dripping weapons into the choppy, churned up surf as wind blew the stinging spray in their cracked and peeling faces. The dull blue light overhead did little to illuminate anything hidden beneath the choppy surface. They bobbed in the shallows, afraid to turn their backs on the unknown threat just a few yards away. Each of them waited for some unseen devil to rise from the depths like a giant Leviathan, ready to drag them to their doom. Foaming bubbles broke the roiling surf. But each knew whatever had crashed down lurked beneath the waves.
For a week, the small group had paddled through the endless waves on massive chunks of floating driftwood. Whole dead trees uprooted in massive storms centuries ago. They fastened them together using rifle straps and scraps of torn clothing. A hasty makeshift flotilla, pushed along by the steady winds and unseen currents. Each took turns paddling and kicking against the relentless current. All the while, the eerie jagged island on the horizon never seemed to get closer. It was as if the sea around the rocky shores kept would-be visitors at bay. The weary men slept when overcome with exhaustion, ate little, drank less, and huddled together in the safety of ancient twists of branches, hiding from the winged creatures gliding on the warm thermals overhead. Some were the size of small single-engine planes.
Early in the journey, small tormentors dropped from the sky, pecking with sharp beaks and slashing with razor-sharp claws. Later on, the torments grew. The weary sailors hid in the branches. When those attacks failed to yield results, large groups of flying raptors rocketed in at blinding speeds, pummeling both man and wood like kamikaze pilots. Most of the attackers had perished, but the constant onslaught and weariness had demoralized Krone and his men. Their malfunctioning gravity rifles struggled to keep the savage creatures at safe distances.
Two days prior to beaching their makeshift craft, a giant winged bomber cut one of Krone's men in half and reduced the flotilla to a connected pile of shattered logs. As the corpses of both man and beast drifted away on the currents, a massive cyclone churned out over the horizon. Drawing nearer, as a winged storm of ten thousand raptors churned the sky black in a wailing maelstrom. The screaming creatures descended on the remains, lifting the chunks high into the air and tearing them to shreds. When the feast ended, the eyes in the sky turned to the flotilla. They fired into the fray, sending up clouds of sticky blue blood, kicking off a bloodthirsty feeding frenzy. The ravenous creatures tore at one another until blue blood and macerated flesh rained from the sky. After an hour of frenzied firing, the living storm abated, leaving the battered sailors floating in a gelatinous cesspool of pungent guts and coagulating bluish blood. Days later, the carnage clinging to their failing raft sank beneath the waves, leaving behind the rancid stench and oily feel of death that smeared their skin. The weary men paddled on. One man sobbed.
"Get out of the water!" Krone screamed, dragging one of his stumbling men through the surf behind him as a giant black fin rose above the surface. Krone had helped no one after becoming a Necromonger just off shore.
A massive shark, larger than an orca, larger than a megalodon, prowled the churning shoreline. The tip of its dorsal fin bobbed in the waves.
Krone tripped over a bobbing chunk of driftwood and fell face first onto the pure white beach as his men leapt over him, running for the safety of dry sand. Each turned to see a jet black shark with sunken, hollow eye sockets rise and launch itself open mouthed onto a sopping figure still caught in the surf. It dragged the man down in a pool of swirling blood. The ebony beast popped above the swirling surface, massive teeth lined, mouth gaping wide as its sightless socket drew them in a deadly stare.
"No," Krone said, rolling over on his backside and scrambling backwards away from an incoming wave as if it were acid. "That's not one of those things. Whatever that is, it's something else."
The shark slammed its massive tail against an incoming wave, sending up a giant shower high in the air. Panting intruders turned away, throwing up their arms to shield their faces as the salty water crashed down on them. The water knocked two men down and the receding flow pulled others towards the waterline. Those left standing leapt and lunged at their faltering comrades, hauling them back onto the dry beach before the shark attacked again.
The creature spun around, facing them like an alpha predator regarding its just out of reach prey. Its unmistakable sense of longing sent a shiver up their spines. It sank beneath the surface, flicking its muscular tail one last time before giving a final indignant slap of its tail. Water hit their faces like salty expletives spat in loathing and the creature disappeared into deeper water.
"Great," Hodge said, coming over to stand beside Krone. "Another thing down here that wants us dead." He kicked a chunk of driftwood into the surf. "And I just lost my rifle." He held up the torn carry strap from his gravity rifle for Krone to inspect.
"Leave it." Krone said, squinting into the sky as Hodge gave him a look that asked if he should go retrieve it from the shallow water. He gestured for him to hold fast. "Between the things in the sky and the thing in the water, I doubt you'd find it before something had you for lunch." He turned to Hodge with a conciliatory expression and held his weapon out buttstock first. "Here. Take mine. You can watch my back with it."
Hodge stood there, mouth gaped open, staring at the rifle being presented to him by the most selfish man he had ever met. He thought it must be a trick. When Krone didn't pull it back, he asked, "Who are you?" The old Krone would have never considered someone else's safety over his own.
"Don't look at me like that," Krone snapped with a chapped lips frown. He knew his men hated him. And he knew they had the right to. He was a dick. But that was the old Krone. The selfish, self-centered Krone. He wasn't sure which Krone he was anymore. He remembered the father. The husband. A high school science teacher. The pathetic loser who failed to save his world from a Necromonger invasion. But that was then. Or was it? Had they returned to the future before this transformation, he would still be a tyrant. But here in the timeline, his family was still alive, and he was himself again. But they were far from M6-117, and he found himself trapped down here in a world of monsters with no way to reach them. And even if he could, there was already a version of him there. And that Krone was innocent. He had made no mistakes, committed no atrocities.
Krone stared through Hodge at the life he had lost long ago and felt an overwhelming surge of emptiness and guilt. No going home; no going back; no do overs for the damned. "You know, I've concluded that all this time travel shit sucks."
"Agreed," Hodge said.
"It doesn't make the slightest difference if anyone knows what's coming, if no one can change the things that lead us here."
"The only way to do that is Kill the Lord Marshal." Hodge asked, looking concerned.
Krone let out a mirthless laugh and said, "Billings was wrong. The only way forward is to go back and end the Necros before they begin." He jammed the buttstock into Hodge's abdomen and said, "Here. Just take the damn thing. I can't stand holding it anymore."
Hodge took it. "Our families don't even know we're gone, do they?"
Krone shook his head, but he never met his eyes.
"As far as they know. We're there. Even if we make it out. We're fucked. What could we say to them? We survived because we left them to die." He turned to his comrades. "I'm never going home. They don't want us there. At least, not this version of us. And that's on us, not them. So, I'm going to stay here and finish whatever this is and pray that I can mend what's left of my shredded soul. If such a thing is even possible."
They all stood in silence, gawking at their own feet, fighting off the sting of guilt. When it passed, Krone said, "We need to find a dry clearing where we can field strip and clean our weapons." He removed the combat knife from a sheath on his side and held it out. "And anyone without a rifle should fashion a spear. If there is anything out there. Our best chances of survival will be to keep it as far from us as possible. Those with rifles, shadow those without. Two-man teams."
"Sir. Yes, sir." his men sounded off.
"I warned you, did I not?" Carolyn's grandfather said in a hushed but haute told-you-so tone. None of the men on the other-side of the bushes heard him. But the snarling man standing beside him, fisting balling in abject rage, did. "I told you I would show you something so horrifying you'd want to kill yourself." He chuckled as they stood there hidden behind a dense layer of vegetation. Krone stared at himself hacking his way through the jungle undergrowth.
"Don't play with me, Purifier." Krone said, wiping dirt off his pristine ceremonial armor. The brute squad with him wore the battle damaged blood red armor of the Lord Marshal's royal guard. They were lethal monsters, unstoppable in battle. "Disgusting," Krone seethed, holding up his combat knife with a shaking, white-knuckled fist. It was the same knife his doppelgänger held. "I'm going to drive this blade into his traitorous heart."
"Not yet," the purifier replied, gesturing him away from the clearing before the men in the near distance overheard or spotted them. "I suggest we let our onetime brethren clear the way for us." Krone turned to him with a pallid expression of delight and nodded he agreed.
"It is the Necromonger way." Krone said as the shadow of a cold, humorless smile crossed his face. "Let the cannon fodder lead the way."
"No matter what they say about you, commander. I have always liked you."
Krone's left eyebrow twitched. He turned to the six armored foot soldiers crouching in the bushes behind him. Some of whom were staring at themselves in wide-eyed astonishment. He glared at them, gesturing for them to fall back. Some hesitated, others did not. Krone didn't notice either way. He was busy staring at his alter ego standing in the middle of the clearing, helping one of his men fashion a spear out of a combat knife and a tree limb. What a loser, he thought, moving off to join the others.
"What now?" Krone asked, stalking over to the purifier.
"We wait for him to arrive."
"And what of the obelisk?"
"Let them think we want it. It was nothing more than a convenient distraction and a way to get him here."
"And what if he makes us wait?" Krone said, scowling in the clearing's direction. "I don't relish the idea of becoming..." He gestured towards his doppelgänger and said, "Him."
"Soon," the Purifier replied, turning towards the clearing. "He'll be here soon enough. Then the true battle begins. Until that happens, I'm sure you can find something else to occupy your time."