The air was thick with the scent of rotting meat and rusted iron. The crimson mist slithered through their ranks like a living thing, curling around their bodies, filling their lungs. It burned. It hurt.
Rael's vision flickered with static as his HUD struggled to process the environment. Readings were corrupted. The life signs of his squad pulsed in and out, as if the very air was erasing them.
Then, the first one appeared.
A Union soldier. Or what was a Union soldier.
The tatters of a Union uniform clung to a body that was wrong. Its flesh rippled like something was crawling beneath it. Its fingers had fused into jagged, blood-soaked blades. Its jaw hung loose, unhinged, its teeth lengthened into shards of broken bone.
It should not have been alive.
It should not have been moving.
But it was.
Then, the mist shivered.
And they emerged.
One. Five. Dozens.
