"They're coming!" her voice billowed on the wind, a warning that sent Eirlyn scrambling into a panicked readiness. She squeezed her sword, knuckles white as paper, and rushed to hug the hill's side, fighting not to be blown away. The winds tore overhead, ripping blades of grass down into the skies below. "Get ready!"
Eirlyn gaped into the dirt, hairs on end, body frozen. Something primal pleaded her to run, but something even more primal was purring beyond the hill. Like a slender hand dipping into a river, splitting it into melodic streams that washed between its fingers, she could almost feel—but truly only hear—the rocks crumbling into dust against the creature's dangling claws.
The sound came first—a low, rattling hum that vibrated through Eirlyn's bones. It was neither rhythmic enough to be its breath nor assertive enough to be a growl. Rather it felt like an old but inevitable train engine rasping closer and closer. Then came the darkness. Its jagged shadow crawled across Eirlyn's pale skin like maggots on a corpse before sweeping over toward the other two members of the cohort.
They were huddled together, heads darting from the hand signs they weaved to communicate up to the monster whose web they'd been caught in.
Nods passed swiftly, shoulder tense beneath their hazmachy gear. The closest one paused and turned to Eirlyn, tracing the looming shadow and pointed at herself, chopped the air, mimed running up the hill, and gripped her sword. Tucked behind her, the second one nodded buzzingly, his affirming thumbs-up hanging in the air.
Eirlyn's confused face only slipped through her goggles. Her brows furrowed in and out of understanding until the idea knit together, her back straightening in realization. Hesitantly reciprocating the nod, then the thumbs up, she joined the rest in following the travelling shadow by gaze.
It was huge, stretching across the hill and onto the next, and seemed to crawl deceptively slow only to bare down on the two the next moment.
The three readied themselves. Then, the darkness swallowed the duo, and everyone exploded up the hill.
Eirlyn's shoes battered holes into the dirt, mana-enhanced body skimming the ground into the howling winds. The whisking image of untamed grass blurred into a warm and endless morning expanse.
The hill was cleared, and Eirlyn's momentum shot her into the air, a dozen seconds separating her from a rocky cliff.
The monstrosity's lethargic focus had already rested on the two by the time Eirlyn caught up. Its eight legs twitched as if ready to move, if they could even be called that. They were the grotesque image of human spines jutting out from its body in long chains. Sharp joints twisted and clattered into ended claws that scraped against the rocks like steel grinding on steel. They carved into the cliffside with every step.
Its body was a sphere—too round, too alien—like a moon looming just above the ground. A single hole marred its textured, boney surface, and within it glimmered an unblinking, surreal blue eye with eerie apathy to its surroundings.
That gaze snapped toward Eirlyn, its entire head swiveling to assess her before she could process it.
And then everything shattered into motion.
Eirlyn's arms spun, and she barely hit the ground before she was racing. Her body twisted into a frantic slide back down the hill.
Loose dirt and sharp grass seared her forearm. Skin shredded in streaks. Muscle tensed in stifled growls. But she couldn't stop. Not with the serrated legs crashing into the earth like descending pillars.
Dust erupted into the air and the ground roared, flipping her into a falling stumble before rolling back into another desperate slide as she hastily avoided being crushed.
She slammed into the rocks, boots skidding over loose gravel as her speed hurled her forward. Trying to pivot mid-stumble, she clawed at the ground with one hand and grabbed the hilt of her sword with the other, forcing her weight to the side. Mana struck her legs into overdrive, allowing the flash of her blade to cut through the chaos. It sliced past the cliff's edge as she shot off parallel to it. Not a breath later, the rocks where she'd been exploded, fragments spiraling into the mist below, and a reverberating rumble raced after her.
The wind came alive, jerking every which way. The ground quaked beneath her, the mayhem daring her to stumble. Colors and shapes smeared into fleeting blurs, and Eirlyn's gaze darted upward. The monster's dark, shifting silhouette loomed high, eclipsing the sun like an omen of divine punishment. Then the blackness surged, blotting out the dawn's first light. Another leg was hurdling toward her.
A sharp cry wrenched from her as she threw herself forward, knees buckling beneath the weight of her panic.
She slammed into the dirt, sweeping through a flurry of erupting dust. The flesh of her hand had long been tattered raw, blood rupturing down her fingers and into the terrain. Gritting her teeth, Eirlyn thrust herself back up, a slender frame quickly piercing the dust cloud like an arrow. Clarity returned, and a whipping leg was upon her.
Fear crawled up her throat. Instinct took over. She instantly threw herself back down, shoulder slamming into the ground. Even as she fell, her terrified gaze remained locked upward — watching, frozen as if trapped in the inevitability of the moment. Like Icarus soaring too close to the sun, she watched helplessly as her own undoing unraveled.
Her hair, now freed from the shredded remains of her hood, whipped into the air. A contoured, unrelenting spine raked to the space she'd just occupied, and before that could process, pain exploded at her scalp. Something yanked, violent and tearing.
Then she was flying. Weightless. Wrenched from the ground so fast the world turned to liquid.
She skid across the ground, each bounce licking away her flesh. But she didn't even notice as her own riving screams drowned out the very pain that caused them. Inborn panic squirmed her body like a fish out of water as she rolled, kicking the dirt and pressing at her scalp. Loose hair and thick blood baptized her hands; an entire trail of it fell away in splotches as she came to a stop.
She thrashed at the air, the burning, awful pain resurfacing. Somewhere in her tumble she must've bit off part of her tongue because she could feel a spongy chunk swishing through the blood in her mouth. She turned over and vomited it up along with the food she'd eaten earlier that morning. Finally, she could breathe. Heaves and growls fought to drag air into her system and keep her awake. But the battle against her panic and fear and pain was a losing one. In the disorientation, she'd lost contact over her mana too.
She pounded at the dirt, rolling back over and spiraling back into uncontrolled kicks. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to move. Even as she lost command of her body, she clenched at her consciousness, knowing that if she let it go she'd fall to her death. The world thundered around her as she silently warred to keep her life, cries muffled and veins popping.
Damnit! What's even the point of this? She asked, not sure if she'd thought it or said it or felt it.
Some part of her just wanted to die, but another one spazzed to live. That seemed to be the dichotomy of her entire life. She scourged her forehead into the gravel, breaking skin.
She'd hoped to fight the pain with more pain, but everything only got worse. Her movements crawled to a slow, half out of dying fatigue and half from her snarling to drown the panic in her own blood. But no matter how much she fought the pain, her panic always pushed her down into hyperventilating uselessness.
Eirlyn's mind wound back time, memories blossoming as her senses wilted. That time her dad had taught her to bake bread and she'd stuck her hand in the fire. That time she'd worked so hard to finally afford her first necklace. That time she'd failed an exam and had to face the disappointment of her parents. Disappointment was always the worst kind of pain. Far worse than this.
Inexplicably, her nostalgia spun into something more reckless. She ground her teeth, and her voice once again tore from her throat. But this time, it wasn't just out of agony. It wasn't just fear. It was bitter frustration.
Anger.
She couldn't die now. She refused to! She'd rather burn in hell with that beast later than go to Nirvana right now.
That snarl must've wrestled back a fragment of clarity because she felt her mana sense flicker.
Not daring to waste the opportunity, she thought on her feet and instantly activated her mana glands. Sending mana down her channels, she hijacked a part of her autonomic system. Her smooth muscles squeezed her blood vessels shut, stopping herself from bleeding out just enough to minimize the damage tissues would receive from oxygen deprivation. To stop herself from dying of fatigue, she also switched her primary metabolic fuel source from oxygen to mana.
Without the need for aerobic respiration on top of her already clearing consciousness, her hyperventilating began to cease and carbon dioxide began entering her system.
A bloodied smile quivered up her face as she slowly regained control over her body. She wanted to laugh, but so did she want to cry and cough. She didn't have the energy to do either. Or maybe she was still paralyzed by fear.
Shifting her hazy vision to her surroundings, she watched the battle unfurl. The cohort drifted across the hill. The woman's weapon flashed in zig zags, rocks exploding into the air at every corner, and the guy danced through the gaps of the very same attacks Eirlyn had been caught in. She bit at her tongue again, daring to cleave another piece off in shame and frustration. They were intentionally drawing in its attacks to give her time to recover. She had to act quick.
Digging into the ground with trembling fingers and screams, she shakily rose, determination and grit bearing against the chains that had kept her down. They snapped, and she wobbled to her knees, and then feet. Her black hair, now stripped to craggy lengths, lashed in the chaos. Fists clenched and cries bit down, she silently let the blood gush down her face as she stared upward. Pain erupted across her body, but her flinty emerald eyes only bore into the beast with despairing anger.
The dead had arisen. It was the living's turn to feel the dirt.
Eirlyn was already moving when the endorphins kicked in, adrenaline quelling her pain. It was only a limp, but she was leaning into a run, fully aware such was the catalyst to her death. Her chest throbbed — probably a lung punctured by shattered ribs. Her throat ached dryly too. But despite her cardio, her breath remained calm and steady, if shallow.
'I… should've stayed… in the lab.' Her thoughts dragged in and out of consciousness. She'd been coerced into ambivalence, regretting apprenticing for combat without actually regretting it. Maybe she was just too pissed to care. What a stupid, irrational choice she'd made. Then again, what ever made sense? Not this… beast. Not MSD. Not even the king.
'Wait… MSD.' The thought sparked like flint in the fog of her mind, her hand groping at her damp belt until she latched onto a cold handle. Pressing down and then yanking up, the taunting gleam of a sleek revolver ascended into vision. She'd lost her blade, so the gun should've brought relief, yet the face reflecting off its metallic sheen was one warped into devastation.
The first reason was because she'd lost her flare gun.
Without it, requesting reinforcements would be practically impossible. Maybe the other two still had theirs, but they were too busy slipping through the monster's relentless offense. Even as the creature's towering legs crashed down, the duo moved as if they shared a single mind. Every step one took, the other mirrored or countered, their survival hinging on each other's presence.
The guy spun across the ground, his feet barely touching the earth as he drifted into the most dangerous spot. Four monstrous legs swung at him with eerie precision, but he glided across the grass and pivoted sharply at the last second. The impact landed in his shadow, and then even that was gone, replaced by the woman as she rammed into the legs he'd left tangled together. The monster stumbled, its limbs scraping the earth with a screech, but it did not fall.
Eirlyn would've critiqued how they didn't capitalize on its imbalance, but she figured they were playing a game she didn't understand the rules to. Because Instead of swiveling back into the fight, the guy slipped to her side.
Before she could react, she felt a tug on her wrist, and suddenly she was moving.
It was forceful, but there was a strange grace to it, as if her stumbling had been stripped away. His knees nudged against hers, his hand pressing lightly at her shoulder, guiding her through the chaos. She wasn't being dragged so much as steered, her body flowing into motion like a puppet in a sweaty, blood-slick dance, always a hair's breadth from the reaper's scythe, but never touching.
He wasn't controlling every move, just enough to let her pained reactions ripple back into his hands, turning panic into precision. Then, without warning, he gripped her arm and hurled her over his back. But somehow, it was her feet that landed first, sliding into the churned dirt just as a violent gust whooshed over her head — where but a moment ago, her skull might've been.
There was a tearing and a squelch behind her — flesh, bone, mud, something unnatural — but the world slowed down for another reason. The dance had ended and the rhythm was gone, leaving her arm reaching out in front of her, a revolver caught in her hands, its barrel meeting the monster's hazy yet sharp gaze.
Except… it wasn't staring at her gun. It was staring at her. No, through her. As if it knew what was about to happen. As if it didn't care.
And it was in that moment, peering into it's abyssal eyes, that Eirlyn realized the second reason for her dread. Because just as it seemed to see something in her, she alone saw something inexplicably horrifying in it.
Years of research and scientific intuition bubbled up, the strange apathy that had characterized the monster finally making sense. It's hazy eyes, it's algorithmic attitude, they were all symptoms. Symptoms of MSD. The same MSD that was currently ravaging the empire. The incurable, highly contagious disease that brutally stripped its victims of their health, self awareness, and identity, turning them into calculating husks who couldn't even cry at their agonizing death. All it took was the slightest of contact — even proximity would do — and someone was doomed.
A common understanding tied their gazes together. Then a boom rocked the sky, and it's blue iris popped red as it began writhing.
Her breath hitched, forced to a stop by the recoil.
"Damnit!" She turned around, voice tearing from her throat, raspy and ghastly. "It has MSD! Get away from that thing!"
But they didn't listen. The woman had other plans, and against all odds, seemed to have things under control. Seizing the moment, her odachi cut through the air and splintered into the monster's legs right in the place where she'd rammed into them earlier. The joints crumbled under their own weight, and before Eirlyn knew it, a limp spine crashed to the ground. The creature wobbled, losing balance amidst its suffering, and slipped off the cliff. Just like that, everything was silent.
Eirlyn stared at the empty scene, unable to articulate her thoughts.
'Huh?'
No. No. After everything, it was gone… just like that? It couldn't be.
And yet… it was. What?
Then, as if her pain had washed numb beneath the flow of adrenaline and only now resurfaced, the agonizing burning across her body intensified. Another snarl broke from her throat as she plummeted to one knee. It sapped the strength from her muscles and the sturdiness from her bones. But knowing she couldn't rest now, she fought back to her feet, head tilted upward, neck trembling from exhaustion.
And then she saw it. A streak of green billowed across the sky, bright and unwavering amidst the fading orange morning. It rose into the sky like a reaching star, hope igniting upward for all to see. It was the flare gun. It was the call for backup. The flashing colors floated across the sky, unwavering and promising protection. A laugh bubbled up from Eirlyn. He- he must've triggered it at the same time she'd shot the monster.
Relief flickered at the edges of her consciousness. The medics would be here soo. The wardens too. She was safe.
Eirlyn looked back down to thank him, the words already forming on her lips. But her smile died before it could escape. Instead of meeting his gaze, she stood over him, or rather what was left of him. He lay bloody, broken, and unconscious on the ground, his body battered at death's doorstep. A jagged, gushing canal carved down his back, the monster's leg having ripped from his right shoulder to his hip.
Her breath caught.
"No, no. No!" The word spilled out, foreign and ragged, as she dropped to her knees. Her hands trembled violently as she ripped the fabric off her own back, pressing it hard into his. How could this happen? He seemed so in control!
"Hey, can you hear me? Stay with me!" Even she wasn't sure who she was talking to, but the words wouldn't stop. "The medics— they- they'll be here soon!"
It was at times like this that she despised magic. For all its wonders, for all its powers, it couldn't truly heal. It could hurt, but it couldn't save.
Her hands pushed harder into the wound, feeling the warmth, but not necessarily the blood, seep between her fingers. "Damnit where are th—" but she didn't finish.
The wind choked to a halt. A subtle, scratching sound crawled up the cliff side, slithering into her ears like a ghost telling her she was next. Eirlyn's heart stopped. Her jaw clenched tight, and a sorrowful, dread-filled expression crossed her face as understanding took her mind hostage. Slowly, she turned to look at the crag.
A vertebral leg, squirming yet deliberate, latched onto the ground with a rhythmic rattle. It pulled, hoisting its decrepit body upward. For the third time that morning, a single hazy blue eye met hers. But this time, the whites of its eye were tattered red, streaked with blood.
"Run!" The woman's hoarse voice cracked, forcing itself above the mayhem. "He already has MSD! Leave him! Run!"
But Eirlyn didn't listen. Her body moved on its own, squirming to yank his wrist just as he'd done for her. It was an idiotic choice, she knew that. And still, she dragged him up the hill. The jumbled seconds ticked by, each slower than the last as something became clear: she wasn't like him. She wasn't elegant, wasn't agile, and wasn't strong enough to save him.
They moved at but a snail's pace, Eirlyn's breath slicing into panicked hiccups. Behind them, the monster scraped forward, its spindly gait unnervingly fast.
Then he woke up. Slow and agonizing, his first reaction was a drained cough, then came the grunts — the screams — but they were trapped behind his mask begging to escape.
"Leave, Eirlyn! Now!" The woman's voice rang out again, closer this time, desperate. But for the second time, Eirlyn ignored her.
Her haggard body tugged him through the grass, each pull a battle against gravity. Her vision blurred as she searched the sky, hoping for hope, for the glaring smoke, the igniting star that promised her protection. But it was gone. Dispersed by the breeze like it had never been there in the first place. All she saw was a spherical silhouette, rising once more to eclipse the dawn's first light.
Then, she was thrown to the side, but not by a bony leg. The woman had shoved her. Eirlyn hit the ground stunned, her superior looking over her. They looked resigned, face twisting into a calm growl.
"Go," she commanded Eirlyn, voice low, guttural. "Or I'll kill you myself."
Eirlyn froze and looked at her. There was something frighteningly sincere in the woman's stance — something final — that forced her legs to move. Without thinking any further, she ran.
Only stubborn will carried her ahead. She tripped, and groveled, and sprinted up the hill, reaching its peak for the last time. Unable to help herself, she took one last glance over her shoulder before descending once more. The guy who'd saved her was staring back. His face was hidden behind his opaque goggles and mask, but she could feel his gaze locked on hers — silent, still. Body limp, his obscured expression took on a life of its own, burning the distance between them. Then a heavy shoe stomped down on his skull, caving it in with an unforgettable squish, and the hilltop rose to cut everything from view.