Three Musketeers

“We can’t stay here! They’ll find us!”
It was true. For four days the group had been running from the forces of the Red. It seemed a bit pointless to stop running now. Dmitri had found a decent-sized cave, and Chloe and Bryan suggested they make camp here for a little while.
“We can leave in about two days,” said Dmitri, always the logical one.
“Haven’t you heard the news??? The Undying-One and his forces have invaded the Forests!!! They’ve killed at least 2 million people so far!!! And it won’t be long before the Bloodborn sniff us out. We need to leave, Dmitri.”
Dmitri always admired Bryan’s stoic don’t-take-no-for-an-answer attitude. Not today.
“D’you really want to have an argument so early in the morning???”
“We need to leave!!!!!”
“We’re staying, Bryan.”
“No!!!”
“Yes!!!”
“No!!!”
“Yes!!!”
“Can you two please shut it???” The screaming had woken Chloe, who rolled off her dry and tattered mattress and brushed a few strands of her red hair from her eyes.
“The Bloodborn have already started genocide on the Tree-Folk. Soon they’ll be going for the Ghosties, which include us. Besides, it won’t be long before the infection starts taking most of our memories.”
“Don’t have such a negative attitude. I know plenty of Ghosties who’ve retained most of their memories. One guy, Sandy, has been infected for 20 years and he still remembers how to build shelters and speak eight languages.”
“Well, how ‘bout we compromise???” Chloe tied her red hair in a braid and slipped on her glasses.
“We’ll take everything we need and leave in one day. And we’ll just come back if we need to.”
The two looked at each other for a bit, then nodded. Chloe was always the one to settle their disputes. And ever since they were infected with Red-Eye, they had been having many.
The group packed up enough food for two days, four gallons of water and two Remington-66 pistols forged by Arthur Yidam, a famous Gunsmith. Then they left the next day as the sun was cresting the hill.
They were following a path set by Dmitri, who explained that a colony of Ghosties, led by Sandy, would be willing to take them in. They had to move quickly, as the Red-Eye was already starting to cause changes in their bodies. Bryan and Dmitri had already started to develop pustules all over their bodies, whilst Chloe (having been infected 3 days after them) was only now starting to suffer symptoms. Their eyes had started to yellow, and very soon the rest of the symptoms would follow. They had to get to the colony soon.
It was night by the time they left the Heimish-Forests, they were approaching Thetmis and Disra.
“Get your weapons ready. Don’t speak unless spoken to, and try not to look like you have Red-Eye.”
Bryan and Dmitri loaded their Remingtons and Chloe slung her small silver knife. They approached the cities.
From where they were right now in Thetmis, they could hear the steady drumming of Patrick-the-Engine in his little space in Disra. Made by the Folk in 800,000 DE, a few thousand years after the Folk slaughtered millions of Yea'haa'weh after a war for the land, these massive hulks of granite and marble were essentially the most important cities in all of Heimland. Although mostly inhabited by the common people, it was once full of Folk and their various machines. Mechs would walk the streets; the machines were as common as the Folk themselves and the two cities were generally described as "full of love and light". But now, like most of the settlements in Heimland, the two cities had lost their glory days and were now just artifacts of a much more beautiful time. Now they were exclusively trade-cities.
The moon was up and glaring its ugly fangs. And by now the two men could feel the next stage of the sickness starting.
“Keep walking,” Chloe whispered under her breath.
A few people, mostly commoners and machines , wandered the streets. The group made sure to avoid eye-contact, as their red irises would give them away.
They reached a nearby market-stall, where they stopped to rest for the night. Nobody would care about a group of commoners sleeping in rolled-up mattresses on the street. Only the Peacekeepers maintained the standards passed onto them by the Folk. The group slept.
When they woke up, the sun was rising above the skyscrapers of Disra. Judging from its position, they had been asleep for 36 hours. And since there were only 90 hours in a day (45 of daylight and 45 of night) they had roughly 54 hours to make it to Sienna before sundown. They had to move fast. Although the hours were longer, they moved quicker.
People were now starting to wake up. A few shopkeepers were hanging signs advertising drugs like Panadole or KG, a popular hallucinogenic.
The group purchased three pairs of sunshades to conceal their eyes. They also traded a few of their items (wristwatches and such) for food. They were ready to leave.
Patrick-the-Engine was still humming, although now the humming sounded deeper and slower each time the group took a step closer to Disra, which was built within Thetmis.
By the time they reached the bridge that connected Disra to Thetmis, the humming had turned into a deep monotone droning. As they were about to cross the bridge, they heard a loud booming voice:
STEP NO FURTHER. INFECTED ARE PROHIBITED. PLEASE TURN AROUND IMMEDIATELY.
They realized the voice had been spoken directly inside their heads.
“I’ve heard of these before. They call them “tellypathic messages” or something like that. Voices projected into a person’s head.” They stepped onto the old bridge, which was 50 metres in length and width and was suspended over a massive moat. The water in this moat was acid, and would burn a person to a crisp instantly. Ignoring the warning, the group continued to walk across the bridge. By now the voice had spoken to them a second time.
PLEASE TURN AROUND AND GO BACK TO THETMIS. APPROACH ANOTHER 100 METERS AND I WILL HAVE TO STOP YOU.
“Who are you anyway???”
The voice was silent for a bit.
MY NAME IS B'PHVETHRIC. THEY CALL ME PATRICK.
The group stopped walking. The obvious shock of this revelation had stopped them in their tracks. Of course there had been legends, but no one had actually heard the Engine speak since millions of years ago.
“You can talk???”
MOST CERTAINLY. I HAVE REMAINED SILENT BECAUSE I WAS SLEEPING. MY RADARS DETECTED A GROUP OF INFECTED IN THE AREA, AND WOKE ME UP.
“So....we’re not allowed in Disra.”
YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO EVEN TOUCH THE TIP OF DISRA’S CORNERSTONES!!!
“But we just need to go through Disra to reach Sienna!!!” cried Chloe.
FIND ANOTHER PATH.
“But the closest path is 20 miles away!!!” cried Bryan.
THAT IS NOT MY PROBLEM. MY ONLY PROBLEM RIGHT NOW IS YOU FOLK. IF YOU DO NOT KINDLY TURN AROUND, I WILL HAVE TO REMOVE YOU BY FORCE.
Dmitri was silent up to this point. He stroked his stubble silently. Finally he spoke:
“I’d like to see you try.”
Without warning he sprinted across the bridge, heading for the massive gates. A series of alarms went off.
YOU HAVE LEFT ME NO CHOICE.
From the nearby turrets, a group of machines with rifles opened fire at Dmitri, who dodged them stealthily despite his infection. Chloe and Bryan, seeing no other option, sprinted behind him.
Bullets hit the stone surface of the bridge, bouncing off and burning thumb-sized holes in the ground. By now Dmitri was 20 meters away from the gates, and Chloe and Bryan right behind him.
Thankfully, no bullets hit them.
They made it to the gates, massive metal structures made of antimony, cerium, dysprosium, erbium, europium, gadolinium, gallium, germanium, holmium, indium, lanthanum, lutetium, neodymium, niobium, praseodymium, samarium, tantalum, terbium, thulium, ytterbium and tungsten. The gates were constructed with a pattern of spikes running from top to bottom in four rows of twenty-five each. Each spike was two feet long, built to be gripped, and could support a weight of 200 pounds. These heavy gates could only be penetrated by climbing over. And that’s exactly what Dmitri did.
Gripping a nearby spike on one of the heavy 50-meter-tall gates, Dmitri hoisted himself up. He started to climb, spike by spike. Each rust-covered spike was separated by a distance of two feet, making the climbing easier. By now the shooting had stopped and a series of small jet-black security-drones with miniature firing-turrets had been deployed to “diffuse” the situation. The drones fired small pellets of what looked like compressed fire at Dmitri, who had (for reasons only known to the gods) not been hit yet. Chloe and Bryan were also starting to climb, spike by spike.
A drone managed to hit Chloe in the leg, causing her jeans to catch on fire. She quickly patted the flames down with a gloved hand and proceeded to climb faster, her pale blistered skin thankfully untouched by the flames.
They reached 20 meters, Dmitri found a hole in the gates and saw that it was big enough to fit a commoner. He squeezed himself inside, and then started to climb down the gate on the other side. Chloe and Bryan followed.
They squeezed through the hole and were now climbing down the gates when a group of Asimovs opened fire at them. And it was at this moment the next few symptoms of the Red-Eye sickness started to take effect.
Dmitri felt his nostrils and ears trickling blood, internal-bleeding as a result of the eroding of the vessel-walls of the circulatory-system. He knew if he didn’t stop exerting himself, he would lose consciousness. So he climbed slowly until he was about 10 meters off the ground, then he jumped.
Thankfully he landed on a nearby drone, which had been hovering near the bottom of the gate in anticipation of its intruders. The drone attempted to steady itself, but Dmitri’s additional weight caused the machine to flip over and plummet to the sandy ground, taking him with it. The drone and Dmitri crash-landed in the pale bone-white sand, on the side of Disra.
In a few minutes, Chloe and Bryan were on either side of him.
“Dmitri!!! Wake up!!!!”
By now Dmitri’s excessive bleeding had stopped, and his nose and ears had been bandaged by Chloe. He slowly opened his eyelids, and coughed. His lungs were being affected by the internal-bleeding. He needed some relief, it hurt so bad. And Chloe, always a healer, gave it to him. With a Duramax pill she had purchased in the black-market of Dirt, Dmitri’s discomfort gradually faded away to dreams, mad dreams:
In his dream, Dmitri was standing in the middle of what looked like a battlefield. It could be observed that Yea’haa’weh and commoner soldiers had been fighting here, evidenced by the wooden and metal armor found scattered all over the greying soil. In the sky he could see strange objects that looked like metal birds, dropping what appeared to be bombs onto some nearby land. The metal birds had strange cross-like symbols painted on their sides, and the sight of them frightened Dmitri. But not as much as what lay ahead.
From where Dmitri was standing, he could see something in the distance. A massive black tower reaching up into the sky, so tall it went past the clouds. This dark tower was the last thing he saw before he woke up 72 hours later.
He was lying on some makeshift sled that Bryan had made with a few branches tied together with mule-cord. Chloe was pushing the back of this stretcher, whilst Bryan studied the movement of the sun and was leading the group. They appeared to be in some desert area.
With some effort Dmitri spoke up:
“Where.....are we???”
“This, my friend, is Disra.”
“Why.....so much.....sand???”
“It appears a sandstorm hit this area about two weeks ago.”
“And.....the Engine....”
“Don’t worry. Good ol’ Patrick decided to let us enter his city after seeing your crazy stunt with the security-drone. He said he had never seen anything so ridiculously suicidal, and I guess you won a bit of his respect. If machines have a thing called “respect.” But, either way, Patrick gave us one day to enter and leave Disra. And that’s what we’re doing.”
“And.....the sled???”
“We purchased some big oak-branches from a Vedda. Money is not our top priority right now.”
“I....can....walk.”
“No you can’t. You broke your leg in the fall. Chloe gave you a Duramax to make the pain fade. Don’t move your left leg, it’s seen better days.”
Bryan was right. Dmitri’s left leg was bandaged with some old cloth, soaked with blood. He appeared to have shattered his kneecap, and maybe his ankle-bone. There were no other serious fractures.
“So....where’re you taking us right now???” It was Chloe’s turn to ask a few questions.
“Well.....wherever the sun takes us. All the roads have been covered. We’ll need to wait for three days until the machines can send bots to clean the roads. We’re on our own, right now. No compass, only the sun.” So they followed the sun.
For a few more hours the sun was their only guiding compass. They had to stop and set up camp when it vanished and was replaced with the sneering face of the moon. Chloe found a few old pieces of jerky in her bag, and cooked the boys some rough and gritty “burgers” with some slices of stale bread. Of course the bread tasted like old sponges, and the meat was as chewy as a leather saddle, but it was food. Food was good.
Dmitri had tried to stand up on one leg, but finally had to settle for a crutch Bryan had made from a few branches from a nearby dead tree. At least with the crutch he could move around, although he would be much slower. Chloe gave him a Panadole and the remaining pain slowly faded away. They were running out of medicine and bandages, and already the next phase of Red-Eye was starting: dementia. So far, Dmitri had forgotten to polish his Remington, Bryan had forgotten to stay up and keep watch of the camp, but Chloe was still only just beginning to suffer the effects. This sickness was starting to take over, slowly and painfully.
The next day Bryan opened the conversation with a simple suggestion:
“Listen. We need to do something to not keep forgetting.”
“I know!!! We can do what Norman Reeds did!!!”
Both men started in confusion at Chloe.
“Don’t you guys know Norman Reeds??? He’s been a Ghostie for nearly 50 years!!! And yet he has retained all of his memories through one simple method; numbers.”
This earned more confused stares from Dmitri and Bryan.
“Why are men so slow??? The guy uses numbers to remember things!!! If he has ten apples, he simply writes the words “10-A” on his palm, and he can simply be reminded of it when he looks at his hand!!! He’s been using this method for his whole time of infection, and thanks to this he can still remember how to assemble and use a gun, how to skin and hunt animals, how to craft bows and arrows and how to make remedies from plants. So, if its works for him it works for us. Agreed???”
Both men nodded.
“So....we need to start writing things on our hands. Count all your belongings and other things that need counting, write the numbers and corresponding letters on your hands.”
“Well, this is all rather fine, but where do we find ink???”
“We can use my homemade ink!!!”
Dmitri and Bryan groaned. Chloe’s “homemade ink” was a concoction made from a mixture of crushed eggshells, red sand, mud, soot, horse-dung, bird-poo, starch, graphite, bean-oil, lard, egg-whites and saliva mixed into a bluish-grey substance that Dmitri could only describe as rotten vomit. She kept a pot of this ghastly substance in her right jean-pocket. Well, it was better than nothing.
Using some twigs as pencils, they marked their hands with the foul-smelling substance. Dmitri made a list of his weapons, food-items and clothes. Bryan made a list of the things they would need for the rest of the trip, and the direction they would be moving in. Chloe simply marked the names of her friends, as some things are a bit more important to remember than a few moldy apples. The group slept, and woke up nice and early for the next section of the trip.
Facing Sienna, they moved in a straight line, guided by Bryan’s hand-compass and the movement of the sun. For a few hours they would walk, then stop and take a few sips of water before moving again. Repeating this pattern over and over again, they finally made it to a road not covered by sand. It seemed the sandstorm had gradually faded along the path, swept away by the unnaturally strong winds that had just started to pick up.

The group could now see a land in the distance, a land unlike any other. A massive expanse of land, full of grass and greenery. Tall lunging skyscrapers, still in mint condition, reached for the skies. Massive drones, each one about as big as a Stormbeast, flew above the city. The group knew that this was the land of machines. The machines could help them, as they had no fear of infection. Sometimes a person must envy a machine, to not need food or water or love.
The group continued walking, leaving the city of Disra behind them for good.
They finally reached the strip of land that connected with the main road. Continuing in a straight line, they encountered a small Beagle-77, whose job was to look after the sick and injured. The small machine thankfully managed to bandage and sanitize Dmitri’s wounded leg with a small medical-kit in its collar, which it could deploy to treat injuries ranging from burns and bullet-wounds to amputations. Following the little robot, they entered the city.
Sienna, better known as the “Land-of-Machines”, was a self-sustaining city of peace. Similar to what Thetmis and Disra were like in their glory days, Sienna had a crime-rate of zero, and the concept of crime itself was nonexistent. There was no need for weaponry, or defenses. This was a place of peace. And it was full of robots.
From Kinnara-360s to U472-BMTs, this place was a metropolis of machines. The only “fleshy” folk over here were the commoners, and they were a minority. It was more common to find a robot playing a pan-flute in a back-alleyway than to find a commoner strolling down the streets.
Awed by this beautiful place, the group took a moment to stand still and admire the sights. The skyscrapers appeared to be made from the same stuff the gates at Disra were made of, but they were more maintained and were not rusting. The roads were clean and paved, barely a speck of dust on the concrete and tar. The grass surrounding this city, which stretched for nearly 2 miles, was cut and trimmed to perfection. Not one single blade of grass was longer than the other. It was perfect, maybe a bit too perfect.
After finishing their sight-seeing, Bryan decided to ask for some directions. Stopping a Kawai-69 in the road, he politely asked her in B33P3R how to find the road that led to Raginwald.
“U n33d 2 g0 2 th3 F4ct0ry n34r th4t t4ll bu1ld1ng 0v3r th3r3.” The machine pointed to a bluish-grey skyscraper about 50 yards away. “Thank you.”
The machine wandered off; off to do something only other machines would understand.
The group walked up to the skyscraper, avoiding a few Kinnara-360s cleaning the roads, and stood looking for the Factory. And then they saw it.
The Factory was a massive building composed of entirely biological material and was believed to have once been a living organism. Samples taken from the Factory's walls revealed trace particles of bone, keratin and muscle within the metal structure. This suggests that the substances used to make the Factory may have been living in origin, possibly bonded into non-living metal through tech of the Old Folk. From where the group was standing, they could hear the steady pulse of the Heart, the “mother” machine that made all other machines.
The group could spot two Samura-22s coming out of the Factory’s doors, heading for the mines at Raginwald. The group followed them.
After about six miles, the Samura-22s went off in the east direction and the group in the west. They would be reaching Raginwald any time soon.
Stopping to rest again near a grove of trees, the group settled down and set up camp. They checked their arms to see if their markings were still there, and they were. Making sure they didn’t forget anything, they went to sleep. And the night was peaceful. Dmitri woke up to the sound of some weird clicking noise. Opening one eyelid, he taught he saw something moving around a few yards away from him. He guessed it was a coyote and went back to sleep.
The second time he heard the clicking, he sat up. Very slowly he grabbed a nearby stick, sharp enough to use as a weapon. The clicking was coming about 3 yards away, near Chloe. And then he saw it.
A tall shadowy figure, about 2 meters tall, was hovering over Chloe. From where he was sitting, Dmitri knew what this thing was. An Other. One of the Shadow-Folk.
The Other was getting closer and closer to Chloe. Suddenly Chloe bolted right up, eyes wide and a look of horror on her face. Dmitri knew what this was, he had read about it before. When a person is near an Other, he or she will feel severe feelings of terror or dread and will have trouble sleeping. If an Other appears near then when they are fast asleep, they will immediately bolt upright with their eyes wide open and a look of fear and panic on their faces, similar to what Chloe was doing right now. They will often scream, as Chloe was doing right now.
Chloe started making elaborate movements, thrashing her limbs around and punching the air. Dmitri had read about this as well. In some cases, individuals are likely to have elaborate movement, such as a thrashing of limbs, punching, swinging or fleeing motions. This is because the individuals are trying to protect themselves and/or escape from a possible threat of bodily injury. Furthermore, they will usually sweat, exhibit rapid breathing and have a rapid heart rate, which can lead to heart-attacks or even seizures. Dmitri felt an urge to wake Chloe up, but he knew what would happen if he did. Although people may seem to be awake during this time of contact with an Other, they will appear confused, be inconsolable and unresponsive to attempts to communicate with them, and may not recognize people familiar to them upon waking up. Occasionally, when a person suffering from the effects of an Other is awakened, they will lash out at the one awakening them, which can be dangerous to that individual. Most people who experience this do not remember the incident the next day. Sleepwalking is also a common side-effect.
As much as he hated to see her so full of fear and pain, Dmitri knew that waking her up would only end badly for the both of them. Bryan was awake now too. He grabbed his Remington, but Dmitri stopped him.
“Bryan....we can’t wake her up. Or kill that thing.”
“What??? Why???” he whispered.
“I’ve read about this. The Shadow-Folk can’t be killed or hurt. They are generally harmless, unless you stare into their eyes for too long. Staring at an Other for more than a few seconds causes it to fly into a mad rage.”
“So???”
“ During this rage the Other will knock the person to the ground and proceed to choke them whist screaming. Their screams are like warbled radio-signals, horrible ear-piercing static.”
“The victim will die.”
“Worse. When they kill a person, that person is retroactively erased from existence, and history is rewritten as though they were never born. In other words, Chloe will seize to exist if this thing kills her. Which is why we must do nothing, just wait for it to leave.”
“How are you sure the thing will leave???” by now Chloe’s screaming had gotten louder, closer in resemblance to a dying animal than a person.
“I’ve heard somewhere that the Others aren’t really good or bad. They’re just....curious.”
“So, you’re saying we should wait until it gets bored of “playing” with Chloe???” The thought of letting their friend suffer made both feel uncomfortable. But they knew it was their only option.
And as the screams got more and more hoarse and painful, Dmitri shut his eyes and wished he could die. This would all sort itself in the morning. Chloe would survive; although whether she would ever forgive them would be another story.

The next morning, the men woke up to see Chloe sitting near a small stream, washing her face. From her puffed-up eyes they could tell she had been crying for the whole night. Dmitri stood up to go to her, but found that his movements were now extra-slow today. He knew that this was. The next stage of the infection: fatally degenerative cognitive-ability as a result of encephalopathic tumors. In other words, the parts of his brain that controlled his movements were slowing down. And, if he wasn’t careful, they may one day not function at all.

Chloe turned around to face the two, and the look on her face was obvious. Betrayal, anger, hurt.

The damage was done. Nobody spoke on that sad and gloomy day.

The set off for Raginwald, following a path pointed out by Bryan. Nobody was speaking for the whole journey. Sometimes they would stop and drink water or have a snack, but Chloe barely ate. She even slapped an apple from Dmitri’s hand when he offered it to her. You could say this silent treatment was childish, but then you had to consider the reasons for the silence. Chloe had been put through something worse than death, and to her it was a betrayal that Dmitri and Bryan had not tried to help her. Of course she knew the consequences of them helping, but it would have been nice if they had at least tried to help her. Maybe staying up with her throughout the night instead of sleeping whilst she was being tortured would’ve been a step in the right direction.
But there was no point in crying over spilt milk. So they continued their journey, and the silence continued.
They had by now reached a narrow road that stretched all the way from Thetmis to Indagar Indagar. They were now on the path to Raginwald.
By now the next stage of the Red-Eye sickness had begun; purple blemishes that bled on contact. Already Bryan and Dmitri were covered in these soft tender bruises, whilst Chloe was still in the cognitive-degeneration stage. Each time a purple bruise was even slightly touched, a trickle of darkening blood escaped from it. The back of Dmitri’s shirt and jeans was now stained with droplets of blood. Surprisingly, the purple blemishes caused no pain when burst.
For a few more hours they followed the road, before camping once again. As it was getting dark, they settled down and made camp. The hours passed, and Bryan (reminded of his duties by the writing on his hands) stayed up to stand guard. The moon crested the hills. The minutes felt like days. Bryan was determined to stay awake, in case anything came near. And then he heard the humming. A deep, soft humming; very similar to a Yea’haa’weh drumming on a small cow-skin bongo. Gradually the soft hum turned into a gentle buzzing noise, then a soft whisper.
“Go to sleep, child.”
The voice wasn’t in his head, but he could hear it behind his back. Before he could turn around, he collapsed. Asleep.
Dmitri, unable to sleep due to his blemishes, sat up when he heard the sound of something heavy being dragged. Rubbing his eyes, he saw a sight that terrified him.

Bryan was being dragged by something. Something big. Dmitri fished out an old flashlight he had found along the way and turned it on. He flashed it at the creature, and screamed.
It was some sort of giant insect-creature. Three sets of large olive-green cat-eyes covered its conical head. It had a round, smooth, tan-colored body, four long rear-legs, two long clawed arms on the front and two thick, stubby arms in the back. The stubby arms had sharp pincers. Four fangs could be spotted on the front of the creature’s face that fit inside a lipless rubbery mouth with a sharp beak, almost like a hawk or falcon. It had insect-like mandibles on either side of its curved beak, with long sharp dagger-like fangs on them. It had segments of jet-black armor on its head and body, like a scorpion. It had a pair of long scythe-like claw-legs by its head, as well as two smaller pairs of claw-legs under its head. Its head had segments of armor plating with a pattern on each one around its head, possibly some kind of natural “helmet”. There were about 20 plates, and each one appeared to about 6 inches thick. It appeared to some sort of pointy knob or horn on top of its head, similar to a stinger. There were tusk-like projections on the sides of its head, each tusk about a foot long. It also appeared to have a shell of rough armor plating on its back like a tortoise as well as armor-plating on its arms. It was about the size of a small dog, yet the way it was dragging Bryan with little effort showed it was much stronger than what could be anticipated.
The ugly thing saw Dmitri, and hissed like a snake. With its twelve beetle-like legs, it launched itself at him, hissing and biting. Dmitri had no time to react. He covered his head with his arms and waited for it to hit. But it didn’t.
There was a loud thumping noise, like a piece of meat being beaten by a hammer. Then there was a loud smashing noise, like thousands of eggs being crushed and squashed. When Dmitri opened his eyes, he saw Chloe looking at him.
It appeared that Dmitri’s screams had woken Chloe, who then proceeded to knock the creature out of the air and bash the hell out of it with the hilt of her crossbow. The thing now lay a few feet away from him, its shell crushed and acidic yellow sludge oozing out of it. Chloe had saved him.
“What the hell, Dmitri!!!”
“What’d I do!!!?”
“You nearly died!!!” And with that, she hugged him. It seemed that now they were both even, as they had both had their fair share of near-death experiences.
“I’m so thankful you’re talking to me.”
“There’s hardly time for talking now. We have to see if Bryan’s alright.”
They checked Bryan, who appeared to have been stabbed in the back of the neck with a sharp object. Thankfully, he was still breathing and they managed to wake him up with a few splashes of water.
“Wh...what....happened???”
“You fell asleep. Or, more accurately, that thing over there made you fall asleep.”
She pointed at the dead thing, and Bryan screamed like a little girl when he saw it. He moved away from it, a look of pure horror and disgust on his face.
“Do you remember anything before you fell asleep???”
“I....I can’t remem....wait!!! I remember!!! There was a humming!!! Then a buzzing!!! Then a voice!!!”
“What did this voice tell you to do???”
“It just told me to go to sleep.”
“I knew it.”
“What d’you mean???” asked Dmitri.
Chloe sat down on the ground, crossed her legs and explained to them both.
“They call these things “Dreamweavers”. They live near the colder areas, including Raginwald. They’re essentially parasites; they assimilate other living organic creatures in order to survive, absorbing them for food like sponges. They are about as intelligent as normal dogs, but are much more dangerous. They hunt their prey in five steps: first they make a soft humming noise with their legs; this is to make the person curious and pay more attention. Then they make a slightly louder buzzing noise; this is to slowly put their victim’s brain in a state of lethargy. Then, using their powers of speech, they place an instruction in the person’s mind. Then they inject a drug-like substance into the person with the help of their head-horns, which are similar in function to hypodermic-needles. After the person has heard their “voice” and is injected, they will unknowingly obey all commands given by the Dreamweaver. It seems that this one wanted you to “fall asleep”, probably so it could drag you back to its den.”
“Well...why didn’t it just eat me here???”
“I think I can guess. Dreamweavers are very hostile creatures and will attack anyone in order to add them to their bodies. They’re very impatient and will eat any living thing if given the chance. But it this one was dragging you away, it must have been taking you back to its den to feed some of its own kind.”
“You mean....”
“There could be more of them nearby, young larvae. And although the babies would be about the size of kittens, they are just as aggressive and hungry as the adults. And, if they figure out their mother is dead, they’ll be even more so.”
“We better leave before Miss Dreamweaver’s children come out to play.”
So they packed up their things and left, but not before Chloe harvested a few pieces of sharp head-armor from the Dreamweaver’s body with the help of her hunting-knife and scooped up some Dreamweaver-blood that could be used to cure snake-bites. The armor might be useful later. Examining it now, Dmitri could actually see that the Dreamweaver was more similar to a large cockroach or centipede than any scorpion. And he didn’t want to know what the babies looked like.
They set off to Raginwald, and that’s where the next stage of the Red-Eye sickness took action; severe coughing fits. Dmitri and Bryan could barely stand up, as the sheer effort of their coughing was rocking them to their knees. Dmitri was coughing so aggressively he imagined his lungs ripping like tissue-paper from the force. When one of them coughed, chunky wads of salty snot would escape their mouths and noses and land in random places. One time, Chloe was unlucky enough to be hit on the shoulder by one of Bryan’s snot-pellets.
“Oi!!!!”
The two men laughed, causing more violent coughing and spluttering.
After a few more hours, they reached the road that lead to the mountains. They followed it on a steady path, not stopping. They did, however, stop to stare at what lay before them.
From the distance, they could spot a tower. And not just any tower. Dmitri recognized it as the one from his dream when he was on Duramax. And what a sight it was.

This tower rose high above the clouds, and seemed to be made of black seamless darkness. They could hardly see it, as something was obscuring its image, as if trying to conceal the tower.

“I’ve heard of this thing. They call it “Mörktornet” in the old legends. I thought it was just a myth. I’ve never been on this side of Heimland.”
“Have any people ever entered it???”
“No. It’s in some place called “Taprobane”. A holy-ground, protected by some form of ancient power. Whatever still exists in that tower, it doesn’t want to be visited.”
“Well, we better get going.”

Chloe was of course trying to sound stoic, but you could hear the fear in her voice.
“Let’s go around it. I don’t want to through another Dreamweaver-Situation.”
Bryan now used the term “Dreamweaver-Situation” when he was referring to an event that was either challenging, odd or frightening. “Let’s go through the Lake Skorros.”
“Agreed.”

Lake Skorros was a freshwater lagoon situated a few miles away from Lake Kernach in the Heimish-Forests. Both lakes were considered sacred, although nobody worshipped them.

So the group turned course and proceeded in the direction of Skorros. They continued walking until they found a small footpath leading up to the lagoon. They followed it, and after a few minutes stood facing Lake Skorros.
The lake was not that big, maybe about 2 miles in diameter. But any healthy person could swim that distance. But none of the group was healthy.
“We can hopefully swim across this. I’ll go first; you two follow close behind me. Agreed???”
Chloe and Bryan nodded.
Dmitri folded his shirt and tucked it into his backpack, which had by now started to develop a few holes in it. He slung his backpack in front of him, using it as a life-jacket, and dived into the water. The water was cold, but thankfully fresh. Some of Dmitri’s blemishes burst on contacting the water, but thankfully there were no big predators to be tempted by the blood in the water. Dmitri swam in a pattern his uncle had taught him as a child; right-arm, left-arm, right-leg, left-leg, right-arm, left-arm, right-leg, left-leg.
Dmitri kept swimming, seeing Chloe and Bryan now starting to follow behind him. He maintained the pattern, slow but steady. Right-arm, left-arm, right-leg, left-leg. He was careful not to exert himself too much, that would be disastrous. Right-arm, left-arm, right-leg, left-leg. He stopped for a bit, floated around, and then started again. Right-arm, left-arm, right-leg, left-leg. He stopped again, waited for his heart to slow down, and then started again. Right-arm, left-arm, right-leg, left-leg. Dmitri had by now swum one mile, one more to go. Right-arm, left-arm, right-leg, left-leg. He could see the land coming closer. Right-arm, left-arm, right-leg, left-leg. He was close, just a bit more. Right-arm, left-arm, right-leg, left-leg. He was almost there, so close now. Right-arm, left-arm, right-leg, left-leg. And then disaster struck.
Dmitri was about 10 meters away from the land, when the next stage if the Red-Eye virus kicked in; choking due to the congealing of mucus in the lungs and nasal-passage.
Dmitri felt like a pair of iron hands had gripped his throat and nostrils and was squeezing the life out of him. He struggled to breath, letting in water. He was panicking now. He thrashed his arms about, but he still couldn’t breathe. He could feel his heart quickening so a pace so fast he thought a herd of Stormbeasts were in his chest. His eyes were going foggy; he could barely see anything in front of his face anymore. He could feel his joints starting to tighten as if filled with cement, and felt like he would be sinking anytime soon. He could feel snot coming from his ear-holes, and his head was like a melon about to burst like a water-balloon. He tried to grab onto his backpack, but it escaped his grasp. He had nothing to keep him afloat. He tried to scream, but only a small croak escaped his mouth. Chloe and Bryan could see something was wrong, and perhaps it would be affecting them in a little while.
Dmitri tried one last time to take in air, and then fainted.
When he woke up, he was near a campfire. Chloe was near him, cooking something in a small brass pot. Bryan was nearby, plucking some odd brown fruits from some nearby trees.
“Dmitri!!! Thank goodness you’re awake!!!”
“What….?”
“You fell unconscious in the water. Me and Bryan dragged you onto the land. We started panicking, but then Bryan spotted some fruits that, according to him, are so acidic that they clear the nasal-passages if their juice is poured down someone’s nostrils. We squeezed a bit of juice from the fruits, which by the way taste like old socks, and poured some of this sour juice, which by the way smells like urine, down your nose, and your nasal-passages cleared up. This is only a short-time success, though, so Bryan is plucking more of these disgusting fruits for the rest of the trip. We’ll need them soon.
“You…saved me???”
“Of course!!! What’d you think we’d do??? Let you drown and save ourselves???”
Dmitri had little words to say. These two people risked their own lives to save him. But they didn’t need to. They didn’t owe him anything, they weren’t even a part of his family. Or maybe they were now.
Dmitri slowly stood up, walked over to Bryan, and gave him a big bear-hug. Then he walked over to Chloe, leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek.
“What was that for???”
“For the things I can’t express with words.” There were some tears in his eyes.

The next day they set off again for Raginwald, now so close. Bryan still led the way, using the map in his mind’s eye. They followed the road, and could see the mountains from where they stood.
Towering structures of black, jagged rock. These mountains stretched to the sky in a painful, torturing fashion. It seemed that each mountain had been beaten and stabbed uncountable times, for there were massive craters pocketing on each. In total there was a strip of 250 mountains. And each mountain was covered in ice.
The mountain range was once a dry and sandy landmass inhabited by large monitor-lizards known as "Ēlainōgoanna". After the atomic-bomb known as "Big-Bahama" was dropped onto the Raginwald by the Old Folk in an effort to annihilate the invading Surakh, the Drekkin were created. The nuclear bomb also irradiated most of the Raginwald, messed with the weather enough that it made the Raginwald a lush, more habitable place than ever before. This also explains why some places in the Raginwald are sandy desert, others are thick rain-forests and salty mangroves and others are frozen tundra. It would take the a few days to travel across the Raginwald.
Suddenly the skies above them turned grey. It was going to rain.
Some people in Heimland assumed it was the three deities Megalaatha, Vijjulaatha and Maranaatha that caused the rainy weather, but most simply assumed that the galloping Stormbeasts did the trick. The Stormbeasts hailed from the East, in the Tagaloa. It is said that the herds over there were so plentiful that the islands always received a bounty of fish.
Either way, the group decided to set up camp. None of them could risk going out in the rain, especially when their sickness was worsening. So, near the base of the mountains, they settled down and slept. But not for long.
Dmitri heard a noise, although he knew it wasn’t a predator. He recognized that mechanical shuffling noise; a Peacekeeper. He could hear two of them, talking among themselves in weird robotic accents. Dmitri couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he knew what would happen if they found them: they would assume that they were bandits and “pacify” them. Dmitri didn’t want to die, sickness or not.
He slowly nudged Chloe awake, and then Bryan. It was night-time now.
“Dmitri??? What the…..”
“Hush. We have to leave immediately. It’s the Coppers.”
“Oh no…….God-Police???”
Dmitri nodded.
Bryan slowly stood up, and started packing his things. What he didn’t realize was that he’d forgotten his Remington, which he would regret later.
The group gathered all they could, Dmitri loaded his gun and Chloe loaded her crossbow. They left their mattresses behind, too much weight to carry. Then they left.
They could hear the Peacekeepers chattering in their nonsensical language:

“Hast du von dem seltsamen kampf gehourt, der ikn Dirt stattgefunden hatt???”
“Ichk habbe gehourt, ez warr ein junge unt eine catze!!!”
“Si, bello!”

The group had hidden behind a large clump of bushes big enough to conceal two horses. The two Peacekeepers passed them, unaware that a group of infected was watching them. It seemed that these Peacekeepers had been damaged slightly, as their sensors (especially the ones near the head) seemed to have been broken in a conflict. But it was not the Peacekeepers the group was watching now.
From over the borders of Raginwald, they could see something approaching. Something very big; concealed in the shadows cast by the tall mountains and jagged cliffs, it was moving quickly. Stealthily. And its targets seemed to be the two Peacekeepers. The group watched in silent anticipation, and then in horror as the shape launched itself off the nearest cliff, aiming for the Peacekeeper on the left.
In slammed onto the Peacekeeper, crushing it from the impact of its weight. The second Peacekeeper recoiled in shock, and raised its heavy baton to deal a blow to the attacker. However, the massive thing swiped at the machine and knocked it to the nearest tree, smashing a massive hole in the undergrowth. The Peacekeeper, trapped under the fallen trunk of the tree, attempted to push the object off its chest. But a quick and speedy swipe from the attacking thing crushed the machine’s metal skull like a can of soda. And in the moonlight, the group could get a good look at this beast from where they were crouching.
It was a large, dark greenish-brown reptilian beast that was about seven or eight feet long from snout to tail. It was a squat, short creature and moved with its body close to the ground. Its back was lined with ridges and it had a flat head with a collection of small, pink, fleshy barbed tendrils surrounding the nostrils of the beast’s snout. The beast’s mouth was lined with sharp bear-like teeth and its tail had a small fin at the end. It exhibited facial features that were predominantly feline, with cat-like ears and whiskers. The rest of the creature’s body resembled a seal, with flippers, a sleek body, and stocky and muscular front-legs with slender hind-legs. It was covered in a thick white fur coat, which must have helped it survive the harsh conditions of Raginwald. The beast had a long tail and an elongated pig-like snout with a black nose. Its face was framed by two floppy ears and six black wolf-like eyes. The beast’s front paws looked strong enough to rip through solid metal like paper. It was covered in chocolate-brown fur, quadrupedal and possesses a set of webbed wings that looked too small to fly with, but were perhaps used to glide across short distances like a flaying-squirrel. The best was massive, about the size of an ox.
This strange beast sniffed the air, as if detecting the presence of other organisms in the area.
Dmitri could feel himself sweating a mixture of sweat and cooled blood.
“Chloe…what is that thing???” he asked in the softest whisper he could muster.
“They call them Jabahabuca. The “Forest-Beasts”. And don’t worry. They’re deaf. You can speak as loud as you want.”
Dmitri exhaled in relief.
“So, how do they see???”
“Jabahabuca, despite having eyes, are also blind. The “eyes” are in fact olfactory-organs, similar to nostrils covered with a membrane of flesh. Therefore, they rely on their highly specialized sense of smell instead. Those pink tendrils around the snout are used to detect scents in the environment, and effectively allow the Jabahabuca to "see" its surroundings. Jabahabuca can smell a particular scent over hundreds of miles away, making it an ideal tracker. In addition to its strong smelling abilities, the Jabahabuca’s saliva contains paralyzing agents. Along with its large, sharp set of teeth, the Jabahabuca has a whip-like tongue, tipped with large triangular spikes, which the Jabahabuca uses to disable its prey if it tries to escape. Depending on the target's size and how hard it is hit, the Jabahabuca will either try to sneak up on the prey and kill it swiftly or use its tongue to either stun or paralyze the prey for a period of time, ranging from a few minutes up to several hours depending on the amount of saliva injected into the creature’s bloodstream.”
“In other words, we just have to not be hit by its tongue to avoid it. But…can it smell us???”
“I don’t think Jabahabuca can smell infected people. Sometimes, when put under extreme trauma and stress, the blood-vessels of the skin of the infected will burst and excrete small concentrations of neurotoxins, hepatotoxins, cytotoxins and endotoxins into the air. In other words, we’re poisonous to eat when we’re really really scared. So, either way, the Jabahabuca won’t eat us if it notices us.”
“That’s good.”
“Except…..our natural toxicity will most likely cause it to fly into a mad rage and kill us. Jabahabuca are immune to all types of poisons and toxins, but the scent of them makes them revert to a feral and uncontrollable manic rage in which their only primary objective will be to destroy the object or creature producing the toxin.”
“So…it will fly into a rage and kill us if it gets a whiff of our scent???” Chloe nodded.
“Well…..this night just got a whole lot better.”
The group agreed to wait till the beast had passed round them, then they would make a mad dash for the mountains. If it succeeded, they could outrun the creature and make it to a better place to hide. If not, their intestines would be scooped up from the ground by a group of cleaning-bots the next day.
The Jabahabuca now seemed to be digging a small pit, and throwing the remains of the Peacekeepers into the hole. It was hiding their bodies.
“Why is it doing that???”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think…it was sent by someone???”
“To do what???”
“To kill those two Peacekeepers.”
“But for what reason?”
“I can think of many. But I can’t really think of who would be able to control a beast like this.”
Suddenly their memories seemed to freshen and the name of one particular individual came to mind. The group shivered, but not from the cold.

The beast had finished burying the bodies, and was now seemed to be heading for a nearby stream for a drink of water. It lapped some water like a dog, and then hissed like a snake. It seemed it could smell something it didn’t like.
Dmitri was sweating like a waterfall, and now he was bleeding as well. He assumed the creature could sense it.
He immediately removed his shirt, soaked up the blood running from his nostrils and pustules, and threw it at the beast. It landed a few feet away from the creature’s left rear-leg. The beast turned around with a howl and attacked the shirt brutally, ripping into it and shredding it with its massive claws.
This gave the group enough time to run. Picking up their belongings, they made a mad dash for the Raginwald. The sun was almost rising up now, peeping over the jagged cliffs of the black mountains. There was a small footpath near the base of the mountains that led all the way to the top. The group ran along it, with the Jabahabuca suddenly retreating for the nearby woodlands as the sun started to shed its light on the ground. It seemed Jabahabuca were afraid of sunlight.
Dmitri was bleeding through his skin, his sweat drying and forming a salty powder on the back of his neck and shoulders. Chloe was not struggling as much as Bryan, who was bleeding like a hemorrhage. Dmitri could smell something akin to yeast or moldy cheese, and guessed it was their toxins being excreted into the air.
There were nearly three-hundred mountains in the Raginwald, and it was on the shortest one (known as the “Little Spike”) that the group was climbing. Within about 30 minutes they had climbed to the tip of the little mountain. And what a sight it was. A series of black mountains, some of them cresting the clouds, stretched out in a straight line, acting as a wall between their side and the side known as the “Badlands” on the other side. They would be careful to avoid the Badlands. But it was the mountain at the center that really got their attention.
The tallest of the mountains, this giant alp (known as the “Victory Pillar”) stood surrounded by all of the smaller mountains. It was majestic, and was covered in a milky curtain of mist. The Victory Pillar was the home of the Drekkin, their ancestral-grounds where they lived for most of their lives.
Scoping the magnificent view, Dmitri could see the tall buildings of the Harbor in the distance. They were so close, yet so far. “Where to next???”
“We’ll have to take a route across the Little Needle, Granite Spire, Rocky Icicle and the three smaller mountains, the Three Sisters, right after it. Crossing those three, we’ll have to pass over the bridge that stretches from the Victory Pillar and make our way through the rest of the rage to the road that leads to the Harbor.”
“Well, let’s be off then.”
First they set up camp, ate quickly and then packed their belongings. Bryan re-drew the markings on his hands, and they were ready to go.
They set off, following the new rising sun. Minutes turned to hours, and the group tried to pass off the time by singing the old soldier’s song “Inconvenience”.
Bryan began:
“Goes with their gut, never favors appearance. Who has time for vanity with opponents to extinguish? And don’t you think that silver hairline is distinguished! In women? All these qualities, they make you a genius. But if you’re a soldier, you’re an inconvenience.”
Chloe joined in:
“So he storms through the halls and he tracks down his boss, Two years in this war he’s battled across. A media major, he’s craving the glory, Bursts into a meeting, demands better stories. The General is delighted, you know. "That’s how you do it! Show me some gusto!" And four feet away, in cast-iron heels, Is his colleague, a soldier. He fights back his tears. Cause he chased him down every day in winter. Three years in this war, plus two as an intern. And when he requested some tasks with more substance, He glanced at his phone and responded, disgusted, "Please lower your voice, and how dare you approach me! Really, your tact could afford you some coaching, You’re acting so crazy!" His tone was defeating. "And have some respect, I’ll be late for my meeting. Soldier.....you’re being…inconvenient." Finally Dmitri joined in as they sang the final few lines: “It’s late in the night and the General’s arriving, He fires the stove and just stares, though he’s trying. It’s been a few days and he's slept on the couch, Depression has stolen the smile from his mouth. He walks in, he’s angry, he asks about dinner. "But can’t you just be patient?" he considers. He stares with a vacant and displeased expression, "So why do we pay for these therapy sessions? If you can’t be decent and take a damn shower. You won’t ever serve me, you’re crying for hours. When I first met you, I loved your composure. You stayed up all night and you fought like a soldier. You ran like a rabbit, you loved it back then, But now you’re this lump of a mess in my den.” He storms out the room, and he irons his tie. He first bought it for him when his father had died. He slept in for days and he missed weeks of work, So he took up some supplement shifts as a nurse. He never complained, though, he made it a promise. He liked his manic self, too, to be honest. Why can’t he just man up and work with a knife? He vowed to the army, a soldier for life. He's a depressed ex-soldier who’s lived out a miracle. Made it through life being less than agreeable. He’s trying to fight, but he's battling himself. So to fix it, he gorges on drugs on the shelf. But he will keep fighting, no option to stop. He'll bite and he'll scratch till he reaches the top. Fighting addictions and demons of mind, Conquering, battling whatever he finds. Fighting till he reaches the top of the Tower, And the clock of death strikes his final hour!!!”

They passed the Dragon’s Tooth, Green Claw, Small Fang, Razor Tail, Demon Tusk, Yellow Speckle, Sharp Edge and Rocky Bloom mountains that were a part of the Raginwald.

They sang another old song, “I Am Weary”, written by one of the Old Folk a few years before their disappearance:
“With blackest moss the flower-pots Were thickly crusted, one and all: The rusted nails fell from the knots That held the pear to the gable-wall. The broken sheds looked sad and strange: Uplifted was the clinking latch; Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely molted grange. She only said, "My life is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am weary, weary; I would that I was dead!" Her tears fell with the dews at even; Her tears fell ere the dews were dried; She could not look on the sweet heaven, Either at morn or eventide. About a stone-cast from the wall A sluice with blackened waters slept, And over it many, round and small, The clustered marsh-mosses crept. The sparrow's chirrup on the roof, The slow clock ticking, and the sound Which to the wooing wind aloof The poplar made, did all confound Her sense; But most she loathed the hour When the thick-molted sunbeam lay Athwart the chambers, and the day Was sloping toward his western bower. Then, said she, "I am very dreary, He will not come," she said; She wept, "I am weary, weary, O God, that I was dead!”

After some time, they settled down and prepared camp. They slept soundly, despite their constant bleeding and sweating. They had had to leave their mattresses behind, too much weight to carry. Sleeping on the cold hard ground of the Raginwald was not as hard as one would assume, as the gentle breeze that arrived at night provided a peaceful and tranquil atmosphere that not even the howling of big predators could disrupt.

And then it all changed.

Dmitri felt his legs being restrained by something. At first he thought it was an animal, but then he realized that it was rope. Thick, strong rope that smelled of urine and salt. Then he felt his arms being slowly lifted, then tied up with cords. Before he could resist, he felt something plunge into his neck. Then it all went black.

He woke up tied to a long pole that stretched to the roof of a strange building. The walls and floor were wood, with cold wind from outside seeping in through the floorboards. Blinking slowly, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness in the room. Finally he could make out two shapes in the room with him: Bryan ad Chloe. Bryan was asleep, but Chloe was wide awake and trying to bit through a cloth that had been used to gag her.

“Hmmm…Miri!!!Miri!!! Ee….av…oo…et….ou….ov….ere!!!”

She could barely speak, but Dmitri understood what she was saying. They had to get out of here, now. Something bad was going to happen.

But before Chloe could say anymore, the door to this room burst open. Two shadows stepped in. From their size, Dmitri could tell that one was a Yea’haa’weh male and one was a machine, an Asimov to be exact.
The two men stepped close to Dmitri, ignoring Chloe’s angry groaning. One bent down to look at him, it was the Yea’haa’weh. From where Dmitri was crouching, he could see this Yea’haa’weh was wearing a Cooledge-23 revolver on his belt. But weren’t guns considered to be taboo items in Yea’haa’weh culture??? Unless…this man was an outcast, a bandit. They had been kidnapped by bandits.
The tall one, the machine, spoke softly in Ch’r’kee:
“Do you know why you’re here???”
Dmitri, understanding Ch’r’kee, shook his head.
“You’re about to be sold on the local black-market.”
“What???” It was Chloe, who had by now gnawed through her gag.
“One Ghostie slave is incredibly valuable, almost 300,000 Stones. That’s much more than a normal Mute, who is worth about 1000.” Mutes were people that had been sterilized via chemicals and had their tongues, noses, ears and lips removed before being sold into slavery. Mutes had no freedom, and served their masters like dogs. Dmitri was thankful that he was not going to be Muted, since that would “reduce the value of the product”. One healthy non-Muted Ghostie was valuable enough.
“Ghosties are in high demand as slaves, due to the fact that they are about as smart as dogs once the virus gets a full grip on them. When fully infected their brains are like soft cheese, malleable and easy to manipulate. Three Ghosties will fetch us a wagon-full of money. With that amount of cash, half of our gang can retire and live the rest of our lives as barons!!!”
“You can’t do this!!! The Peacekeepers....”
“Do you really think the God-Police care about a few infected Ghosties???”
“I swear....as soon as I break out of this....I’m biting your metallic tongue right off.”
The machine laughed, a deep monotone robotic laugh.
“Give them twenty doses of KG mixed with one dose of Duramax. That will silence them for a bit.”
Before Dmitri could react, a nearby bandit (a commoner male) jammed a syringe full of some amber-yellow fluid into his neck. Then all went black.


Dmitri woke up, shrouded in black. He opened one eye, then the other with some effort. He appeared to be at the end of a massive hallway. The height of this room, including the height of the doorways, seemed to shift, expanding and contracting at a slow rate like a pulsing organ. There was a singular red door at the end, the only source of light in this dark hallway. Dmitri stood up, careful not to fall down in the shifting room, and slowly began his journey toward this red door. He moved carefully, placing his arm on one of the walls for balance and stopping to sit down and rest when he felt tired. Along this hallway were strange pictures of discernible humanoid bodies half submerged in a thick black material, their heads and necks were not visible. The floor of this hallway was covered with some form of carpet. It didn’t take Dmitri long to realize the carpet was made of people’s hair.

Dmitri made it to the door, he pushed it and felt it give away. He entered.
He was standing in some strange landscape. The ground was dry and orange, full of sand and cold as ice. Tall white buildings surrounded him, each one as big as a skyscraper in Disra. The sky was a pale red, similar to a dark shade of pink. The sun was a massive white ball of flame that was slowly simmering like a pot of boiling water, causing the light around Dmitri to flicker like malfunctioning light-bulbs. There were no clouds, although a thick dense fog was covering this city. And in the sky were thousands of large spheres, each sphere appearing to be about 5 meters in diameter. These spheres were floating around without direction like bubbles, dropping strange black boxes onto the ground. And from these black boxes emerged what Dmitri could only describe as “Crazies”.
Tall, nude humanoids with dark skin laced in a thick coat of some strange viscous substance similar to brown putty covered in repugnant masses of sores. They possessed a large number of eyes and mouths around their bodies. Their left arms were noticeably warped; each creature had a deformed left arm. They were nightmares made flesh. Their faces were completely cracked and torn, deep with ridges of dried blood. Their noses and upper lips were no longer visible, baring the teeth within. Black snaking tendrils similar to hair or fur sprouted out of the deep fault lines in their flesh in isolated, errant fashion. Most bizarre of the mutations, though, was their scalps; where once a human head of hair was, there now sprouted porous and putrid fungal spores, large pulsing masses of decaying flesh holding the moldy brains within. Their legs were bent and twisted in odd places, as if broken and snapped repeatedly. Ink-black smoke plumed out of their ear-holes and nostrils, and filled the air with a rotten taste that Dmitri could only describe as decayed fish or a corpse left to rot in a puddle of blood. The smell was ghastly, and made Dmitri feel a little faint.
These “Crazies” were wandering around aimlessly, occasionally stopping to stroke their head. It seemed that all of these Crazies were approaching a tall structure in the distance, orienting themselves towards the specific structure like water gushing down a narrow stream. Dmitri ran towards the structure.
All the Crazies were gathered around a black humanoid statue with no facial features. It was completely smooth and its position was facing skyward with the arms stretched out. This strange faceless statue seemed to be the only other structure in this place. The Crazies were looking at the structure with a mix of awe and fear on their deformed faces.
“Wil je de godin aanbidden???” said a husky voice, like an animal trying to speak.
Dmitri realised one of the Crazies had spoken, and was speaking to him.
“Wil je de godin aanbidden???” it asked again.
Dmitri couldn’t fully understand the creature’s language, although he could identify the words “godin”, which meant “goddess” and “aanbidden” which meant “worship.”
“Wil je de godin aanbidden???”
It seemed this creature wanted Dmitri to worship the faceless statue, who must have been some form of deity for these creatures.
“Wil je de godin aanbidden???”
It was another Crazy, who appeared to be a bit taller than the other one.
“Wil je de godin aanbidden???”
It was yet another Crazy. More and more of them were turning to Dmitri and asking the same question in an almost robotic pattern.
“Wil je de godin aanbidden???Wil je de godin aanbidden???Wil je de godin aanbidden???”
By this time Dmitri could see the creatures were getting agitated, angry. He had to do something, or he could sense something very bad would happen.
“Wil je de godin aanbidden???Wil je de godin aanbidden???Wil je de godin aanbidden???Wil je de godin aanbidden! Wil je de godin aanbidden!!!WIL JE DE GODIN AANBIDDEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
At this point the creatures were no longer speaking, but were screaming as if they were standing on molten lava. One of the Crazies lashed out at Dmitri with its deformed left hand, and then the others joined in.
Each one struck out at Dmitri with its left hand, which Dmitri could now see concealed a hidden blade about a foot long that appeared to be made of bone. Dmitri did his best to avoid the attacks, but the arm-blades that contacted him ripped through his skin, causing trickles of blood to color the orange sand red.
The Crazies were now becoming more aggressive. They had swarmed around Dmitri, hitting him relentlessly with their blades and asking him the same monotone question.
“WIL JE DE GODIN AANBIDDEN!!!!!!!!!!!!! WIL JE DE GODIN AANBIDDEN!!!!!!!!!!!!! WIL JE DE GODIN AANBIDDEN!!!!!!!!!!!!! WIL JE DE GODIN AANBIDDEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
The attack seemed to never end. By this time Dmitri knew it was no point to run away, there were too many of them. So he crouched down and covered his head, praying for the assault to be over. And it was.
Suddenly the Crazies stopped hitting him. They all stood facing the east direction, where some large objects could be seen approaching. The looks on their faces said it all; they were scared. More than that they were terrified.
“Torpedojager!!!Entluika!!!”
The Crazies were panicking. Some ran to the nearest white buildings or floating spheres, trying to hide. Some ran towards the statue and kneeled towards it, praying and begging it in their strange language. He knew what the word “Entluika” meant, he had heard it many times in his life: it meant machine. Dmitri also knew what the word “Torpedojager” meant, it meant “Machine”. More accurately, it meant “Destroyer”.
“We moeten onmiddellijk naar veiliger terrein gaan!!!Ons kan nie hier bly nie!!! Hulle kom!!!” it seemed some of the Crazies were trying to direct the others to safety, like penguins trying to guide their children away from danger. The effort was almost useless, as it seemed that most of the Crazies were too afraid to do anything. Some were standing still from fear, others were rolling on the ground in a wild panic and some were just curled up on the ground, crying like newborn babies.
“Bly stil en niemand word seergemaak nie!!! Blijf stil en niemand raakt gewond!!!” some were yelling. It seemed that whatever was approaching, it was enough to scare the sanity out of these creatures.
Dmitri could see them now. Large machines, similar to the aircrafts back at Disra. Except these ones were jet-black, and had multiple propellers to help them fly. There were about 200 of them. They made a strange buzzing noise, which seemed to stir the Crazies into another panic. And then Dmitri saw why the Crazies feared these machines so much.
A nearby aircraft glided to where a Crazy was trying to hide inside a white building. But of course these buildings had no doors or windows, so the Crazy was crying and pounding its arms on the walls in vain, not realizing that the nearby machine was fast approaching. And it was too late for it to run. A beam of bright blue light exited from the aircraft’s underside. This beam struck the Crazy, rendering him unconscious. It then proceeded to lift the Crazy into the air. Dmitri had heard of technology like this. The Old Folk had called them “tractor beams”.
The tractor-beam pulled the Crazy near the aircraft, before dropping it onto a nearby floating sphere. The Crazy landed on the sphere’s smooth white surface, and was sucked into it. To be more accurate, it was absorbed into the sphere. This absorption of one Crazy seemed to affect all the others, who in unison proceeded to scream in pain as if their limbs were being dismembered and dissected.
This process of beaming Crazies into nearby floating spheres continued for a few more minutes, until finally there was only one Crazy left. He was the one that had tried to direct the others to safety, the only “logical” one. The machines finally caught him and disposed of him into a sphere.
Then, with all the Crazies caught, the floating spheres entered into the flying aircrafts, one by one. After all the spheres had entered their respective aircrafts, with about 500,000 spheres in each aircraft, a loud booming voice which seemed to radiate from the sky spoke out loud:

“EXPERIMENT NUMBER 124,999,476,000 COMPLETE. SUBJECTS WILL BE RELEASED AGAIN FOR STUDY IN APPROXIMATELY 2 MONTHS, 21 DAYS, 10 HOURS, 54 MINUTES AND 21 SECONDS. COURTESY OF LUCIAN INDUSTRIES.”

The voice stopped speaking, and the aircrafts spun around and proceeded to return to where they came from, with another “experiment” successfully conducted. Dmitri didn’t fully understand what was happening here, but he could get a basic idea. The Crazies were outcasts, mutants. They were treated like hamsters, experimented on by some higher race or entity. The experiments had been going on for a very long time. Dmitri had calculated, from what the voice had said, that at least five or six experiments were conducted in one year, ad these experiments had probably been going on for millions of years. Dmitri couldn’t accept the idea of being experimented on over and over without end, now he knew why the Crazies were as crazy as they were. And, whoever or whatever this “Lucian Industries” was, it sounded like trouble. Dmitri had to leave this place, right now. He was lucky that the aircrafts hadn’t spotted him, or he would’ve ended up like the Crazies as well.

He looked around, but all he could see was the vast deserts and the white buildings. Losing hope, he turned to the statue of the faceless goddess. He approached it, slowly.
It was about 200 meters tall and twenty meters in diameter, made from seamless black stone that felt lukewarm to the touch. The statue was obviously in the shape of a woman, a goddess. Perhaps this statue was what the Crazies had worshipped a long time ago, before the experiments began. Dmitri observed the statue, but could find no other discernible features. And then he checked the rear.

Behind the statue, built into it, was a door. A very large silver one, made from some alien metal. The door was about Dmitri’s height, and twice his width. Dmitri could see a curved handle built into the door. He grabbed it, but not before reading the words carved onto the surface: “As above, so below. Do not let your feelings show. You are entering the Inferno.” Dmitri pushed the door open gently and went in.


The last thing Bryan remembered was some sharp object being jammed into his neck. And then he woke up.
He was in a house. And not just any house. It was the house of his childhood. His home.
He knew the familiar wooden floor that smelled of burnt cinnamon. He knew the paintings on the walls that depicted epic battles all across Heimland. He knew the old leather settee his grandfather had made with his own hands from the skinned hide of a dead Stormbeast. He could even recognize the piece of paper hung and framed above the settee that was written in Mazhkazor:
“Some footnotes, from Wayland Dunphee;
Stormbeasts are an ancient and mystical force of nature, said to be born from dying stars. There are multiple stages to birth a Stormbeast: it all starts with the gravitational collapse of a giant molecular cloud [Typical giant molecular clouds are roughly 100 star-years (9.5×1014 km) across and contain up to 6,000,000 solar masses (1.2×1037 kg)] As the cloud collapses, the giant molecular cloud breaks into smaller and smaller pieces. In each of these fragments, the collapsing gas releases gravitational potential energy as heat. As its temperature and pressure increase, a fragment condenses into a rotating sphere of superhot gas known as a protostar. A protostar continues to grow by accretion of gas and dust from the molecular cloud, becoming a pre-main-sequence star as it reaches its final mass. Protostars with masses less than roughly 0.08 Mie (1.6×1029 kilograms) never reach temperatures high enough for nuclear fusion of Haidrogen-molecules to begin. These are known as “brown-dwarfs”. These are stars massive enough to fuse through deuterium-burning at some point in their lives. Both types, deuterium-burning and not, shine dimly and die away slowly, cooling gradually over hundreds of millions of years. For a more-massive protostar, the star thus evolves rapidly to a stable state, beginning the main-sequence phase of its evolution. A mid-sized yellow-dwarf star, like our Sun, will remain on the main sequence for about 10 billion years. The Sun of Heimland is thought to be in the middle of its main sequence lifespan. By this time mature stars are produced. These mature stars develop into massive stars, and they into “red-giants” over time. After a process of millions of years, the said red-giants will cool down and develop into “Super-Novas”, shattered remnants of stars which exploded. These “Super-Novas” develop into “Nebyulas”. After some time, the Nebyulas develop into one of three possible Remnants: white-dwarfs (very hot when first formed, more than 100,000 at the surface and even hotter in its interior. It is so hot that a lot of its energy is lost for the first 10 million years of its existence, but will have lost most of its energy after a billion years), neutron-stars (extremely small, on the order of radius 10 km, no bigger than the size of a large city, and are phenomenally dense) and the dreaded black-voids (massive holes in the cosmos that absorb anything within range, including light and Moona).
Once the star reaches one of the three Remnants, a condensation of Moona mixed with Nuclear-Nebular-Plasmid-Energy (N.N.P.E.) will cause a Stormbeast to be born from one of them. Since there are three types of Remnants, there are three types of Stormbeasts. There is the normal brown Stormbeast (the most common, born from neutron-stars), the white “Nova” Stormbeasts (Stormbeasts with pure white fur, as soft and white as snow. They are born from white-dwarfs, and are the smallest and gentlest of the species) and the horrific “Starkiller” Stormbeasts (these are the “bad” Stormbeasts. Recognized from their sleek black fur, these beasts only seek to consume and destroy. They don’t give, only take).
In appearance Stormbeasts have five conical horns sprouting from their thick skulls, flat paddle-shaped tails, large brown eyes the same color as burnt rowan-wood, shaggy thick fur and six legs with three toes on each foot. As they are primarily herbivores, they have flat teeth shaped like blocks of wood, which are spread out on the roof and bottom of the mouth in groups of ten. Hailing from the land of East in the Tagaloa, these beasts are the island's secret to bountiful fish.
Stormbeasts create thunder and lightning as they gallop across the skies. This in turn produces rain. Thus, Stormbeasts were once worshiped as the gods of rain and fertility. Stormbeasts assist in agriculture when alive, and also assist us in death.
Although it is a horrible sin as a Kristyan to kill one of these beasts, harvesting from their dead bodies is considered legal. When a Stormbeast dies (after exactly 13.8 billion years), it crashes onto the nearest planet in the form of a crystallized comet, a shooting-star. From the remains of a Stormbeast one can extract:
2.5 liters of Stormbeast blood (appears as a cold blue fluid that solidifies if exposed to sunlight and glows in the dark. Extremely flammable).
6 pounds of Stormbeast fur (lukewarm to the touch, softer than silk. Nice and warm, makes wonderful clothing). 5 Stormbeast horns (each horn is about 9 inches in length. As thick as a gourd, these horns can be turned into powder to cure any sickness).
18 Stormbeast toes (small and spindly, can be used to craft metal easily. Can also slice through any man-made substance). 1 milligram of solidified Moona (appears in dust-form, but can be refined and turned into pure Moona-energy). And so, with this information in hand, take care to look up at the skies at night. Because, you never know, one of these majestic beasts may be nearby.”

Bryan’s grandfather had always been an adventurer. Every night he would pack up his gear and go to the nearby hills in search of fallen Stormbeasts. Sometimes he would fail, but most times he surprised them all by bringing home a burlap sack bulging with the collected corporeal remains of a Stormbeast with a proud smile on his face. He stored bottles of Stormbeast blood in glass jars in the basement, and kept the Stormbeast fur and toes in a little shed outside the house. The Moona he collected was packed into bottles and sold to the nearby factories, or to those who needed Moona to power their houses. What a shame he had to die so soon, crushed by a falling Stormbeast one tragic night so long ago.

Bryan knew he was back in his old house, not just from his grandfather’s cherished foot-notes, but from the smell of fried bacon and other tasty morsels coming from the kitchen. Familiar cooking. Without thinking, he went towards it. He could see a small petite figure wearing an apron an overalls, her hair braided and woven with flowers. Small white flowers that smelled like lavender, her name: Lavender Dunphee, Bryan’s mother.

She turned and looked at her son, smiling. Bryan, forgetting that this was all a dream, smiled back.

“How was work, creampuff???”

She hadn’t called him “creampuff” since he was ten years old, but it didn’t matter right now. She was still alive, and that was all that mattered.

“Work was fine, ma.”

He pulled himself a chair at the family’s dinner-table. His mom placed a ceramic plate in front of him, then filled it up with two slices of toast, six homemade sausages (made from pork meat, fat, suet, bread, oatmeal, pearl barley, black pepper, cumin, basil and garlic), two potato cakes (made with mashed potatoes mixed with flour, butter, baked beans, scrambled eggs, garlic butter and tomato ketchup), a thick slice of Gurty (a traditional pudding made from boiled pigs’ offal including lungs and spleen, minced with the scallops from the fat and with cheese-grits, boiled in liquor, seasoned, packed into large casings, tied and boiled), six bacon rashers, three pork sausages, four fried and scrambled eggs, three white-doggies (pancakes made with suet, fat, oatmeal, breadcrumbs, pork and pork liver), four black-sausages (treats made from pig’s blood, pork fat, beef suet, cereal, oatmeal , corn and barley), two oatcakes, a spoonful of fried mushrooms, four slices of soda-bread and a bowl of oatmeal-porridge. She then served him a glass of orange-juice mixed with curdled milk. A traditional commoner breakfast in Thetmis, which was a bit richer than most cities of Heimland. Bryan sat down and dug into his food. It had never tasted this good before.

After a few minutes, he had wiped his plate clean and sat down with a full stomach and a satisfied grin on his face.

“That was delicious, ma.”

Suddenly the illusion vanished.

Bryan’s mother vanished, her silhouette being replaced by the image of a horned demon, covered in eyes and mouths. In horror Bryan stood up and ran, where he was encountered by his father, Hugo Dunphee.

“Why d’you look so scared, son???” He grinned, revealing that his mouth was full of fangs instead of teeth.

Bryan screamed in horror and ran, trying to create distance between the monsters wearing his parents’ skin.
The two imposters lunged at Bryan, snarling like rabid dogs. Bryan grabbed his grandfather’s old walking-stick near the fireplace and lashed out at the monsters, knocking the one that looked like his father to the ground. This one ripped its disguise off, revealing a grotesque blobby mass of rubbery red flesh underneath.
The blobby mass and the horned demon suddenly merged together, mixing into a much larger and more appalling creature.

It was a towering abomination, standing at least twice the height of Bryan, and seemed to be comprised of the mutilated remains of various people, mostly faces, and each face was wearing a different twisted expression, with the central one face looking forward and sporting a wide, maniacal grin. Its body was almost tree-like, with a large top half connected to its pelvis via a large spine, with a thick muscular tail like a crocodile, and resembled a grotesque mix between an octopus and a vaguely humanoid jelly-fish, its pale and cold skin drawing similarities to that of a lamprey. The beast’s right arm was equipped with a horrific blade made of shattered bones. The beast was covered in a myriad of eyes, pulsing and vibrating like a beating heart. Its eyes were auburn-brown and as big as grapefruits. Its thousands of mouths were lipless suckers, filled with thousands of tiny needle-like teeth. Multiple limbs and tentacles projected from the beast’s body. The beast's main head was equally deformed, bearing an uncanny resemblance to that of Bryan’s parents. Its lashing tongues whipped across the room like fat snakes, trying to latch onto their target and drag him to his doom. Bryan hit one of the beast’s whipping tongues, causing it to tear off and spew a thick yellow sludge all over him. The sludge smelled like sulfur and brimstone, and scalded through his clothes. The slime burnt his skin, causing large red blisters to form all over his body. These blisters expanded and burst, showering him with large white maggots, each one as big as a ripe banana. These massive maggots crawled all over him, trying to dig back into his skin and drink his blood till he was drier than a wasteland.

Bryan screamed yet again, this time his screaming being slightly muffled by the congealing snot in his lungs and nasal-passages. He was choking again. A maggot entered his mouth, squirming around and biting his tongue with its tiny teeth. Bryan screamed and vomited, and it seemed his vomiting also cleared the snot from his breathing-passages. Taking in a deep breath, he stood up and ran for the basement-door.
He pushed open the door, hearing the pulsing and screaming beast following him behind.

Bryan tumbled down the dark stairs, the beast in hot pursuit. Bryan could observe that its massive appendages were very strong, allowing it to anchor itself to walls and ceilings with ease. He could also observe that this beast had the ability to turn itself completely invisible, merging with the dark shadows and proving to be an even harder creature to spot. The only thing that allowed Bryan to spot the beast was the fact that the creature constantly excreted a murky fibrous red liquid from its mouths and orifices; this liquid glowed a pale lime-yellow in the dark and smelled of rotten eggs. It was presumably some form of saliva as it didn’t seem to possess any harmful qualities.

The beast lunged at Bryan, nearly catching him. Thankfully, Bryan got his hands on a rusty crowbar and beat at the creature till it backed away into the darkness, leaving behind a trail of its slimy red saliva. Bryan rushed at the creature, swinging his crowbar like a madman. He managed to hit the thing in one of its many faces, which caused it to growl in pain and climb onto the ceiling. Bryan, his eyes adjusting to the dark, found an old Remington mounted on the nearby wall and pulled it down, firing at the beast as it aimed for another attack. This caused the thing to fall down to the ground, where it was positioning itself like a hissing rattlesnake, ready to attack once again.
Bryan threw the Remington away and found an even older battling-gun left over from the time of the Old Folk near the set of gardening-tools his mother had kept for harvest-days. Loading it, he blasted the creature into oblivion, scattering blood and chunks of flesh all over the walls. However, the beast reassembled itself piece by piece in a matter of seconds.
Bryan realized that fighting the thing was no longer a valid option. He had to run. Bryan looked around; he saw an old oak door, a familiar red one; he instantly recognized it. It was the same room his grandfather had been buried in after his body was found. With the horrific beast right behind him, Bryan lunged for the door.


The last thing Chloe remembered was the needle being stuck in her neck. She had tried to resist it, but it was too late. She woke up in some strange hallway. The floors were covered in a thick red velvet carpet. The walls were colourful, but strange and alien. Grotesque and disturbing pictures hung on the walls, depicting animals and people she hoped she would never have to see in real life.
The hallway seemed to bend and warp like a tunnel of flesh. Chloe stood up, feeling nausea starting to creep in. But she walked, slowly and steadily.
She made it down the strange hallway. She was facing a black door with only one word carved on its wooden surface: MADNESS. Chloe pushed the door open and went in.
She was facing a dark and humid place, separated by a river of foul-smelling water. The section of land at the other end of the river could only be reached through a system of small stone steps built across the river. Chloe knew what she had to do. Placing one foot carefully on the nearest step, she proceeded to hop on each stone, one by one. Finally she made it to the end, although her left shoe fell off and was swallowed by the water. Seeing no point in keeping the other, she removed it and tossed it into the river.
She continued walking through this new section of land, finally reaching another black door with another word carved on it: YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED HOME, DEAR.

Pushing the door open, she was met with an unusual sight.
This room was brightly lit with orange light; the floors were a smooth mink carpet. There was a dressing-table with a mirror hung on one side, and a picture of a large woman holding a sword on the other side. The walls were painted in soft shades of blue, magenta, red, pink, yellow and white. She recognized this place. But the thing that really made her realize where she was now was the small statuette at the end of the hallway. Perched on a small wooden table was a stone statue of a devil. She approached the stone statue, and tenderly stroked its small horned head.
When she was a little girl, the devil had a more symbolic meaning to her. In her family’s pagan culture, the “devil” was actually a symbol of childlike joy, chaos, freedom, mischief, laughter, free-will, excitement and pure fun. It was never associated with evil, although the Kristyans begged to differ.
This particular devil-statue was a gift from her father on her tenth birthday. She had named the statue “Deovel” and had kept it in her bedroom, since it helped her sleep. Sometimes, when she was scared of the “monsters under the bed”, she would look at the little devil perched near her bedside and take comfort in the fact that Deovel was always there to protect her: her devilish guardian-angel. Chloe picked up Deovel in one hand, and tucked him into her left pocket. He was only three inches in height, and fit easily in her palm. Chloe walked down these familiar hallways, taking in the sights. Yes, she remembered the familiar wallpaper and the golden-framed mirrors. She remembered the soft mink carpet and the smooth mahogany furniture. She remembered running through these hallways with a wooden sword in one hand at the age of five, fighting “dragons” and “beasts” in her imaginary worlds. This was her home. Her childhood home, before it was destroyed.
Chloe saw a familiar red door at the end of the hallway. She approached it, gently pushing it open. She went in.
The scene was so familiar. A massive dining-hall, covered with lemon-yellow wallpaper. The wallpaper had the symbols of inverted triangles and circles, the symbols of pagans. There were crystal chandeliers hanging above the room, making the sunlight dance with many colors through their prisms. The windows were three meters tall, allowing showers of sunlight and a view of the beautiful countryside to seep in. The floor was covered with thick coconut-fur carpeting. And at the very center, a massive dining-table. About 20 feet in length and five feet in width, this massive table was built from ironwood imported directly from the Heimish Forests, crafted by hand, preserved with resin and scented with spices to give it an exotic aroma that sometimes overpowered the smell of the delicious food.
And seated around this oval table were her family members.
At one end she could see her aunt Janet, at another end were her uncles Ricky and Solomon (Ricky had died from a snake-bite years ago, and Solomon followed behind him by dying from sorrow). She could see her cousins Matilda, Oswald, Frankfurt, Jimothy, Samuel, Jonno, Sigmund, Wayland and Hugh. She could see her stepbrother Jimendra, eating with her stepsister Margaret. She could see her stepfather, his big red beard wobbling as he laughed at one of Camryn’s jokes. And at the very end of the table, her long mane of red hair flowing like a blood-river down to her ankles, was her mother Rowena; the matriarch of the O'Shaughnessyconachta family.
The O'Shaughnessyconachta family had once been the richest clan in all of Heimland, almost akin to the kings and queens of the old days. But now they were all gone, and Clarisse O'Shaughnessyconachta had since changed her name to “Chloe Dalcassian”, in honor of the Dalcassian-Stone, the symbol of her family’s house.
Tilly, Chloe’s maid when she was alive, gestured for her to sit down.
“The family has been waiting for you, Mistress.”
Chloe sat down, shocked to see her dead family once again living.
Rowena stood up.
“My dear Clarisse, I have been waiting for such a long time. Come and give your mother a kiss!”
She held out her arms, her white robes spreading like the wings of a thousand doves. This particular silk robe had been fitted with 74 white diamonds on each “feather”, with each diamond being exactly 621.35 grams in weight and over 310,675 feathers covering the entire robe. Chloe remembered it all exactly. It was the robe her mother had been wearing on the last day of her life.
Chloe was about to stand up and go to her mother, but a strange gut-instinct told her to stay sitting. Chloe realized that this was her survival-instinct telling her to beware. But beware what???
“I can’t fully walk, mother. I sprained by ankle whilst running here.”
For a brief second her mother’s smile faltered. But then it resumed again even brighter.
“Very well, then. Tilly, fetch my daughter some ice for her sprain. And tell Bertie to cook us a fabulous feast!!!”
Tilly left the room, filling Chloe with a sudden sense of despair. But why was she sad??? Did her subconscious know something she did not???
In a few minutes everyone at the table was talking again. Joking, laughing. It was all very familiar. And it felt too perfect, staged. For some strange reason it all felt…wrong.
And then Chloe realized why.
Her uncle Edward never sat with her other aunt Constance, the two hated each other!!! And how was Geoffrey telling a joke to Matilda??? He was born taciturn, unable to talk!!! All of this suddenly felt a bit off to Chloe. Something was very wrong.
The butlers, all of them suited peasants, brought massive silver dishes covered with large lids. They placed the plates at the table, and lifted the lids.
Hot, steaming stew with beef gravy and vegetables, fried slabs of mutton and pork, rich slices of venison, strings of plump sausages, large roasted turkeys cooked in spices and much more. At the sight of the food, Chloe’s mouth began to water.
“Everybody tuck in!!!”
The family proceeded to eat. But Chloe didn’t touch her food yet. Something still felt very weird about all of this. She felt like something was wrong, too wrong for comprehension. And then she realized something. This food in front of her was what she wanted to see, not what she was actually seeing.
And then the illusion disappeared.
Gone were the mouth-watering pieces of meat. Instead the dishes were filled with fingers, hands, bones and pieces of other commoners. The “gravy” was blood, congealed from old age. The succulent pieces of meat were arms and legs, ripped off children and the elderly. These were the body-parts of people. Villagers.
Chloe gasped, which caused her family to stop eating.
“What’s wrong, dear???”
“It’s…..”
She was about to answer, but a voice in her head told her not to.
“I just……it’s nothing. I suppose I had a daydream.”
But she knew she hadn’t. Her family went back to feasting on the remains of other people, sucking the flesh off the bone and drinking the blood clean. The sight sickened her.
And then it got worse.
“Why aren’t you eating, dear???”
It was her aunt Constance.
“I……don’t feel so good.”
“Try a piece of this lobster, it’s fantastic!” said her uncle Edward, trying to offer her a child’s finger covered in blood.
“I…really don’t want any. I’m stuffed.”
“Come on dear, try a little!!! It’s delicious!” said her mother as she ripped out a massive chunk of flesh from an amputated arm, the blood streaming down her face.
And then it got worse.
As the feast progressed, more and more members of her family were trying to offer her food. Pieces of ears, fingers, arms, legs, noses. She refused each time. But she could observe that her mother was not too happy with her reluctance to taste the “succulent pieces of meat”.
“Dear, the food is getting cold. Try some!”
“No thank you, mother.”
“Try some!!!”
“No thank you….”
“TRY SOME!!!”
It was no longer the voice of her mother, but something else entirely.

“I said I don’t want any food.”
At this remark the entire family stopped eating and stared at her, a look of undisguised anger on their faces.
“IF YOU WILL NOT EAT WITH ME, YOU ARE NO LONGER WELCOME AT THE TABLE.”
The voice was thick and guttural, alien and sadistic. It sounded like cold daggers of ice being driven into a person’s skin, or scorching flames searing a piece of meat till it were burnt black.
Chloe was feeling nervous; she had already started to sweat a little, even though the room was as cool as a polar ice-cap. Chloe bit her lip, and then gathered all the courage she could muster and spoke out:
“I said I am not eating, and you can’t make me leave the table.”
It turns out, they could.
“FINE.”
Suddenly the shape of her mother, and the shapes of her family, disappeared.
The “people” sitting at the table now were large, obese creatures with short, rotund bodies, possessed of off-white sloughing skin and sags of repulsive, filthy fat. Despite their tattered formal attire, they did not at all appear human, as their facial expressions were horrifically misshapen and disfigured. Their lips were thick and rubbery, at least two feet in width. Their eyes were massive, at least as big as bowling-balls. Their nostrils were like those of pigs, streaming snot and what appeared to be a thick black bile over their clothes. These creatures had no arms or legs, instead having stubby tentacle appendages that appeared to be vestigial. The creatures at the table stared at Chloe with a look of one felling on their deformed faces: hunger. But it was the creature that had taken the form of her mother that looked the most frightening; the crystal-blue eyes were now large red orbs as big as ripe watermelons, the white skin was now dull and yellow like old cloth soaked in rancid urine, the red hair was now replaced with fleshy ribbons of bloody tendrils, each tendril tipped with a small rubbery spike that glowed in the sunlight like a diamond.
The creature that had looked like her mother now turned to face the monstrous congregation.
“MY CHILDREN, LET US EAT.”
And with that, chaos ensued.
The fat creatures reached across the table, but not at their food. They lunged at each other.
“Oh dear…they will eat each other…..” thought Chloe in her subconscious. But that was far from what was happening now. The creature that had once been Edward grabbed the creature that had once been Constance, the creatures that had once been her cousins latched onto two more creatures at the end of the table. Each creature, with about fifty in total, grabbed onto another creature. And then the merging happened.
The creatures ripped off their clothes, revealing pulsing nude bodies underneath. These bodies seemed to melt like hot glue, fusing with each other into one mass of flesh. And the result was horrifying.
What stood before Chloe was a creature made from many creatures, an amalgam. This beast was a tall pillar of flesh, about 200 feet in height and as wide as the table. A massive and grotesque mishmash of multiple bodies, some disfigured and some intact, some of which seemed to still be vaguely conscious about their current state as they pulsed around like organs in a giant stomach. The giant thing was composed of the arms, legs, heads and body-parts of the creatures at the table. It wobbled around like a jelly made of flesh, then transformed into its final stage.
The amalgam sprouted six massive legs, each leg tipped with a long silver blade. The amalgam’s head was that of the creature that had appeared as Chloe’s mother. Blood seeped out of the creature’s many orifices and mouths which covered its entire body. The amalgam was completely covered in fatty, bulbous flesh, with pus-like excretions oozing from open sores. The thing lacked eyes, and its top mouth was covered by its upper hands growing out of its shoulders.
The amalgam loomed over the dining table for a few seconds, and then let out a blood-curdling scream. The massive beast rolled across the table, trying to grab at Chloe with its many limbs. Chloe screamed and leapt from the table, just the beast slammed onto the ground. Pus and blood oozed from the creature as it turned around to face Chloe, and licked its lips with hunger. Chloe ran, the thing following her.
As she left the room and shut the door behind her she could see the outside had now changed. It was now the scenery of her family’s barn, with the floor covered with hay and the wooden walls covered with damp.
She saw Tilly, walking up to her.
“Tilly!!!!! Run!!!!!!!”
But it was too late. The amalgam crashed through the walls, rolling over Tilly and crushing her with its cancerous weight. There was a sickening “krick” sound as her neck snapped, and then the beast absorbed her into its body.
Chloe ran left, the thing rolling behind her. She left the barn, now facing the countryside. She ran down the green hills, the thing rolling down the hill right behind her. The blob swiped one of its blades at her, nearly knocking it down. Chloe could see the village. She ran towards it, the amalgam in hot pursuit.
She finally reached the village, and was not surprised to find it completely abandoned. Of course it was. The villagers were now in the stomach of the amalgam, killed and mercilessly butchered long ago.
Chloe had to find a weapon, somewhere. She ran for the nearest shed, and locked herself in. Inside se found a rusty flamethrower that must have been used in the time of the Folk. She picked it up, filled it with some gasoline she poured from an old jerry-can in the corner, and then made her way out.
She scouted the area, trying to spot the beast. And then it appeared, right above her.
It seemed the thing was good at climbing, as it now loomed over her on top of the rooftops. The thing seemed to howl with glee as it had surprised her, and then it detached itself from the roofs and launched itself at her.
Chloe flicked the flamethrower’s switch and unleashed it upon the beast.
The flames caught the amalgam by surprise, which proceeded to scream in a mix of various voices as the flames licked its body and burnt its skin. There was a smell of frying bacon in the air. Then a metallic smell as its blood and pus started to boil.
The amalgam retreated, as Chloe unleashed a barrage of flames at the monster. Round after round she fired, searing the thing almost to a crisp. And then she ran out of fuel. The flamethrower stopped firing, and Chloe dropped it and ran.
The amalgam had been burnt bad, but not enough to impede it. It still moved as swift as ever, hopping from one roof to another with a sickening thud. Then it rolled onto the ground and launched itself at Chloe with its monstrous limbs.
Chloe ran into a nearby house just as the beast rolled right past her, missing her by one foot.
This house, thankfully, had a Hemphill rifle hanging just above the fireplace. Chloe picked it up, thankful it was loaded, and she set out to fight the beast once again.
The thing was waiting for her, hiding in a street-corner. It squeezed itself out of its hiding-spot, and launched itself at her again. Chloe fired again, hitting it in one of its dead eyes. The ting howled and rolled back, as Chloe fired again and again. She hit limb, it burst off. She hit a head, it blew off. She fired again, reloading as she did.On closer inspection it was revealed that the amalgam was well-muscled with red skin, long claws and horns, red eyes, sharp fangs and two tentacles sprouting from its back which were presumably incomplete wings. Chloe hit one of its vestigial wings, and the creature screamed again with its many mouths.
The amalgam swiped at her with one of its massive arms, knocking her to the ground. It attempted to stab her with its blades, but Chloe nimbly dodged. Chloe grabbed a nearby rock and chucked it at the creature, hitting it in one of its eyes and causing it to stumble slightly. This gave her time to stand up and run for the nearest building.
Running into it and shutting the door behind her she found an ivory heirloom-sword hanging on a hook nearby. She picked it up. She also spotted a few grenades in a box near the kitchen sink. She took those too. Each grenade was as big as a pomegranate, and weighed nearly 2 ounces each. Finding a backpack, she fit the grenades into it and tied the sword to her belt via a piece of rope she found in one of the cupboards. She could hear the amalgam outside, creeping slowly like a slug as to not alert its prey. Chloe’s strategy was simple; hit and run away, hit and run away. Keep repeating until the beast is defeated.
Chloe exited the house, seeing the amalgam in the distance. It appeared to be “tasting” the air in search of its prey, its mouths acting as nostrils to sniff out Chloe.
Chloe walked slowly until she was about six yards away from the amalgam. Then she unsheathed her sword and lunged at the beast, yelling a war-chant.
She struck the creature, and then sank her sword into its lower region. A river of pus and fatty blood seeped out, as well as a chunky black fluid similar to bile or vomit. And then large black beetles the size of turtles burst out of the wound, scurrying around and nearly attacking Chloe with their massive claws. Chloe screamed and fell back, hurling a grenade at the amalgam. It exploded, causing the top half of the creature to spew bloody chunks all over the ground. The beast howled, stabbing at Chloe with its blades and trying to pin her to the ground.
Chloe swiped with the heirloom-sword, chopping off an incoming blade. The beast howled once more, and then excreted more giant beetles. The beetles tried to tackle Chloe to the ground, but she killed them with a few swipes of the sword and sent white frothy chunks scattering across the ground.
The amalgam squirted puddles of yellow goo onto the ground, and from these puddles rose horrible inhuman creatures with mouths full of razor-sharp fangs, black soulless eyes and wormy skin.
The inhuman monster-men attacked Chloe, swiping at her with blades crafted from bones. Chloe slashed one of them to the ground, his body crumbling into dust. She attacked another, ending his life the same way. Finally she took out the last two, turning them to dust as well.
The amalgam launched a spray of green acidic water at Chloe. Chloe dodged, and the spot where the water landed turned into a boiling toxic geyser.
Chloe chucked another grenade at the beast, then another. She continued the assault until she finally managed to blow off half of the creature’s body. But that didn’t stop it from attacking her ceaselessly with giant beetles, monster-men and toxic sprays of water. Finally it seemed to give up, and resorted to attacking her with its thousands of slithering tentacles and thrashing limbs. Chloe turned and ran, ran for the nearest building she could find.
Finally she saw it. And old temple once used by the pagan villagers. She rushed for it, the beast in hot pursuit. She reached the old limestone building, and went in.
And she was greeted with her old home once again.
The same hallways, same pictures: and at the very end of the hallway, a singular black door. The ceilings and walls started to vibrate as the amalgam came near and nearer. Chloe knew what she had to do. She ran.
The amalgam crashed through the walls, rolling behind her like a massive marble made of flesh. The beast groaned and howled, its body squeezing through the tight hallways and leaving trails of bloody fluid on the walls and paintings. Chloe felt like her legs were filled with cement. She was so tired by this point, she was thinking of stopping. But she couldn’t stop. It was too close. And besides, she had been running for a long time now. She had been running ever since the Undying-One killed her family.
So as she ran, the beast right behind her, she lunged for the ominous black door.


A vast white landscape, about 99-100 meters in length and width; a perfect square-shape, with rounded edges. The only sound to be heard is footsteps and throbbing heartbeats. There is hardly any air, and yet plenty of it. It is like being submerged thousands of leagues deep underwater, yet without the element of drowning. It is a sort of room, with the only visible things existing in this dimensional plane being three ominous doors; one silver, the color of stormy skies and powdered steel. One red, the crimson color of fresh blood. And one black, the deceased color of endless night. Each door is exactly 33.3 meters away from each other, facing the center of this room. And at the center is a vast void of emptiness.
The first to enter the room was Dmitri, who closed the ominous silver door behind him. Dmitri was incredibly confused. Was this a dream? Had he ever had such vivid dreams before, such detailed nightmares? Even when he was addicted to Duramax many years ago, he couldn’t remember a case where his hallucinations got so....physical. Dmitri walked, and found that the “floor” was made of some white substance, some semi-solid liquid that felt like walking on custard or jelly. It was wobbly, slippery and dense. And Dmitri could see his reflection in the liquid floor, bruised and bleeding from his encounter with the Crazies, who he had now decided to re-name as the “Disciples” of the land he had decided to name as “The Sadist’s Playground”.
A few minutes later, Bryan entered through his own door, the red one, with a look of pure terror in his dinner-plate eyes. Bryan shut his door and pushed against it, trying to stop something from coming inside. Bryan saw Dmitri, and his eyes widened even more.
“Dmitri??? Is that you??? Is this real??? Or is this a dream???” His voice echoed across the strange landscape.
“I don’t know!!! Are you real???”
"Are you real?????????? What are you din in my dream?????"
“How are you here in mine????”
“I don’t know!!!!”
“Is this a dream or something else???”
“I don’t know!!!! But you have to help me!!!! There’s a monster chasing me!!!! A big ugly beast!!! It’s trying to break down this door!!!”
Dmitri ran over to where Bryan was, causing the floor to ripple slightly. He pushed against the door alongside Bryan, keeping it shut and whatever was coming outside. The thing thrashed against the door, but the combined effort of both prevented it from breaking through. That was until Chloe came.
Bursting through the black door, a look of panic and fatigue on her face. This quickly changed to shock as she saw her two friends in the same room with her.
“What are you guys doing in my dream???”
But they had no time to answer, as something burst through the black door, smashing into the room like a wrecking-ball. As soon as it burst through, the walls and door repaired themselves as if nothing had happened.
The amalgam stretched itself to the length of the room like a rubber-band, attempting to crush its prey with its expanding weight. And then something burst through.
The door Dmitri and Bryan had been holding now flew open, letting the monstrous beast in. The beast scanned the room for its prey, instead seeing this massive ball of flesh attempting to absorb it. The beast hissed and slashed at the amalgam with its claws, and pounding it with its deformed fists. The amalgam responded by releasing a swarm of giant beetles to attack it. The beast crushed each beetle with ease, and then slashed at the amalgam once more. The amalgam excreted puddles of yellow goo, from which monster-men arose and attempted to slice at the beast. The group of monster men, about four, managed to slice off an arm before they were killed swiftly by the beast, which proceeded to attack its foe again. The amalgam spewed acidic water at the beast, hitting it and burning half of its skin off. The beast howled in pain, and stabbed into the amalgam’s flesh in retaliation. It then clawed its way on top of the amalgam, trying to reach its primary head where its brain, if it had one, most likely was harbored.
The beast ripped at the amalgam, which responded by pathetically slapping the beast with its thousands of limbs. The amalgam ripped at the beast once more, finally tearing into its blubbery flesh and digging into it like a mole.
The amalgam writhed in pain, finally wobbling around so much it fell into the empty void at the center of the room. And thus the beast and amalgam were sucked into the void, never to be seen again.

Dmitri, Bryan and Chloe stared at the event in shock, and then turned to face each other once again.
Chloe ran towards the guys, hugging them so tight Dmitri felt his stomach being poked with the ivory sword she wore on her belt. She was crying, warm wet tears rolling down their shoulders. When she was done with what Bryan liked to call her “expressive lamentation”, she stood facing the two with a look of bewilderment on her bespectacled face.
“If this is a dream, it’s a really good one. Although I don’t remember Dmitri being all cut up and Bryan looking like he just saw a Shadow-Folk in the daylight.”
“We’re as real as you are.”
“Well, this is weird.”
They couldn’t agree more.
“So...how did we get here?”
“Can’t remember. Last thing I remember was something sharp being jabbed into my neck.”
“Same here.”
“Maybe it was something in a needle. A drug.”
“Probably,” said Dmitri and Bryan in unison.
Suddenly the center of the room, the empty void where the amalgam and beast had fallen into, let out a brilliant blue light. These lights flashed repeatedly like a thousand miniature suns shining in harmony. Then it let out a mechanical buzzing sound.
“I think it’s some sort of machine!!!!” yelled Chloe over the loud noise.
“Why’s it activating now???”
“Maybe it just needed some physical fuel!!!!!”
She seemed to be correct. Perhaps the machine was this strange dimensional room, and the void was its engine. And since it had received some fuel from the amalgam and beast, it was now running again.
The void suddenly burst out a pillar of bright light, so bright the group had to shield their eyes to prevent burning. The pillar of light transformed into some form of large circular shape, and then dimmed slightly.
Standing before them, right at the center of the room, was a massive mirror.
It stood about 50 feet in, which didn’t seemed like much as the room itself seemed to have no roof and instead kept growing and growing in height for eternity. The mirror had a thick golden frame that seemed to be made from alien metal, and was almost as wide as the room itself.
Suddenly the mirror expanded in size till it was 10,582 square kilometers (4,086 square miles) in length and 3,656 meters (11,995 ft) in height. Dmitri could tell these exact measurements, as they were written on the mirror itself: “PROPERTY OF LUCIAN INDUSTRIES. LENGTH 10,582 [4,086] SKi/SM & HEIGHT 3,656 [11,995] M/Ft. PRODUCT: SALARDEUYUNI-MIRROR, MODEL-223242324.”
“I’ve never heard of a “Salardeuyuni-Mirror” before, but I’ve heard of Lucian Industries. Whoever or whatever they are, they’re big trouble. I’ve seen some messed up things they’ve done. I don’t think we should go anywhere near that mirror.”
“We should leave through one of the doors.”
But the three ominous doors had vanished, leaving them with only the massive central mirror for company. “Well, I guess we better check the mirror out.”
Holding the sword in front of her, Chloe led the two towards the mirror.

The mirror seemed to ripple in anticipation as they approached, sensing their presence like a living creature. Pulsing like a massive organ, like a massive beating heart. The mirror seemed to be calling out, almost like Patrick the Engine and his telepathic messages. Chloe touched the mirror’s surface lightly with her sword, and watched in awe as the tip of the ivory blade sank into the glass like water. It was a portal of some sort. The mirror quivered like an anxious ocean, making a sound like crystals being shaken in a metal tin.
“Well....should we enter???”
“I don’t know. Something could be in there.”
“Come on, you two! Where’s your sense of adventure!!! We’ve survived some pretty messed up things, I’m sure we could handle whatever came at us in there.”
And with that, she walked right in, her sword still pointing erect.
Dmitri looked at Bryan, who simply shrugged and walked right in, his fists raised in anticipation of an attack. Finally Dmitri, feeling alone and nervous out in this open room, followed them.
They had entered some large dark cavern, and they were floating. Floating in some heavy substance that couldn’t have been air, as it was thicker than water. But it couldn’t have been water either, as the three of them were breathing it in like oxygen. A series of images flashed before their eyes. Then a large screen, about 150 feet in length and 50 in width, appeared in front of them, materializing from the darkness.
“GREETINGS” read the screen.
“THIS IS AN AUTOMATED-UNIVERSAL-RECOLLECTION-AND-REMEMBRANCE-OPERATIONS-SOFTWARE, BETTER KNOWN AS AN A.U.R.A.R.O.S.”
Of course Dmitri didn’t understand half of the words said to him, but he got the basic gist of it; it was am machine that specialized in memories.
“THIS A.U.R.A.R.O.S SPECIALIZES IN THE RETRIEVAL AND SALVAGING OF LOST OR SUPPRESSED MEMORIES, BRINING SUCH MEMORIES BACK FROM THE DEPTHS OF A PERSON’S SUBCONSCIOUS MIND.”
“So....this is a machine that digs up past experiences? Feelings, memories?” Chloe, despite being slightly more educated than the other two, had never heard or even imagined such technology.
“SHOULD THE USER WISH TO CONTINUE, THE A.U.R.A.R.O.S WILL PROCEED TO EXTRACT ANY BURIED OR FORGOTTEN MEMORIES, BRINGING THEM BACK INTO FORM IN THE CONSCIOUS MIND. THIS PROCESS CANNOT BE REVERSED, AND EFFECTS ARE PERMANENT. TO GIVE CONSENT, PLEASE SAY ‘YES’, TO DECLINE PLEASE SAY ‘NO’.”
The three, seeing nothing else they could really do, decided to agree to the terms and conditions displayed by the machine. They said yes.
“EXCELLENT. EXTRACTION WILL BEGIN SHORTLY.”
They waited. Then finally the machine spoke up again:
“THROUGH THE EXTRACTION, PROFOUND MESSAGES THAT SEEM TO COME FROM THE CENTER OF YOUR SOUL WILL MAGICALLY STREAM INTO YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS TODAY. THESE MENTAL MISSIVES MAY SHOW UP IN YOUR DREAMS, ON A RANDOM TIME IN THE DAY, OR EVEN IN THE LYRICS OF AN UNFAMILIAR SONG. HOW INCOMING MESSAGES SEIZE YOU DOESN’T MATTER HALF AS MUCH AS THEIR MEANINGS. AT FIRST, YOU MAY FEEL AS IF YOU’RE CHANNELING AN ALIEN LANGUAGE OR SLEEPWALKING IN ANOTHER DIMENSION. BE CALM AND REMAIN OPEN TO THE ENCHANTMENT OF SYNCHRONICITY. AND BE READY. EXTRACTION HAS BEGUN.”
They waited for a few minutes. And then they were propelled into the screen.
They were tumbling, being tossed like twigs in a tornado. A constant sound of static buzzing could be heard as they plummeted towards a big swirling vortex of colors and flashing lights. And then they fell right in.
They landed in a cornfield. Dmitri stood up with some effort, and saw he was surrounded by blue skies and the familiar sounds of hoodoo-birds. Dmitri checked to see if any bones had been broken from the fall. Surprisingly, none had been. Chloe and Bryan looked around, and a look of shock came to Chloe as she realized her sword was missing.
But it was the place they were in that shocked Dmitri. The familiar ground, the familiar skies. They were near Chloe’s home. In fact, Dmitri was sure he could spot Chloe’s home a few miles away, peeking over the distant hills. But that was not the only thing he could spot.
Approaching from over the hills, numbering in the thousands, were commoners. Villagers. They were swarming in crowds, trying to escape from something that was approaching from behind. Dmitri saw a pillar of smoke rise up from behind the hills and knew there was a fire. And in the skies above the stream of smoke, he could see strange jet-black military-drones like the ones he had seen in dreams when he was under the effects of Duramax. And then he suddenly realised something. Chloe had told them about this exact scene before. The drones, the fire. It had all happened. Exactly 4 years ago. This was an old memory; Chloe’s old memory.
“I have been trying to forget this for a long time. I think Duramax helped with most of it, but sometimes in my dreams I can still see...them.”
Chloe had told the two about this event years ago, before she had tried to forget it. The machines in the east had decided to rebel against the commoners of the south, instigating a brutal genocide with help from someone they had referred to as the “Undying One”, whose name would be recognized only a few years later. It had first started with the machines announcing that the “Undying One” was “fast approaching” and that “He would be here soon”. Of course these rantings were simply dismissed as fictions and fantasies of malfunctioning robots. But then it got strange very quickly. The machines started producing large quantities of OC, a type of deterrent made with water and pepper with a small amount of alcohol for evaporation purposes. It was a natural disincentive and a good way of deterring people without long-term harm. Large canisters of OC were deployed on nearby villages with the help of large drones, causing the said inhabitants to leave their homes in frustration. But then more violent methods were used. The machines started to mix large quantities of ethanol, chlorobenzalmalononitrile, dibenzoxazepine, phenacyl chloride, methylbenzyl bromide, bromoacetone, sulfinylpropane, triethylaluminium, pine resin, naphtha, quicklime, calcium phosphide, sulfur and niter to produce a chemical-weapon known as “Thalássion”, or “Chemical-T”. Large quantities of this substance were used on settlements; the substance was flammable and destroyed nearby villages within minutes. Chemical-T was also deployed on small communities of commoners near the fisheries, causing a series of catastrophic events that concluded with the massacre of thousands of innocent commoners in a period of two months. This slaughtering of innocents affected the rich and wealthy as well, including the O'Shaughnessyconachta family who were all killed except for one surviving member, who was Chloe.

“It was so horrible. I can remember them screaming. We were eating, laughing. We were happy. But....all it took was six canisters. Six silver canisters sent in through the window. I remember it all. They smashed the windows with bricks, and then threw the canisters in. The canisters exploded on impact. The room was filled with a thick gas, a silver cloud. Then....they lit it. A single matchstick. As soon as it hit the cloud, it ignited. Fire, fire everywhere: fire on the floor, walls, ceiling. My uncle, Edward, was the first one to go. The flames consumed him before he had time to scream. Then it was Constance, then Tilly, then my cousins, all at the same time since they were closer to each other, then finally my mother. The flames caught her robe. She screamed. The flames burnt her robe so much....she had been wearing the feathered robe on that day. A beautiful one. The feathers were diamonds. And on that day, when her wings caught on fire, she burnt like a phoenix. It was beautiful .But so horrible. She died screaming. But......if only she had known how beautiful she was on that day. Like a phoenix.”
Dmitri was not surprised to see a few tears rolling down her face. Of course it had not been bearable. A person will always feel guilty when they are the only ones to survive a tragedy. Bryan had kept telling her she was lucky the cloud hadn’t touched her, but of course Chloe didn’t listen. The military called it “survivor’s guilt” or “melancholia”, Dmitri just liked to call it “aching”. But Chloe’s Duramax pills, a bottle of which she had stolen a few years earlier, had helped her bury this memory down. Erased it through drug-induced dreams of unicorns and fairies: Until now.
“You know what happened had nothing to do with you, Chlo. It was him. The Undying-One. He’s responsible.”
“The.....the first two years were horrible. Overeating. Booze, meat, drugs. Every meal, every day. I hated everything around me but food and drugs. With the little money I had I hoarded drugs and food, and then I started stealing when I ran out of money. I couldn’t be happier than when I was gorging out, when I was losing myself with Duramax and KG and any other drug I could get my hands on. I became addicted to the way it satisfied me, but didn’t satisfy my hunger or pain. At one point it was terrifying because I realized I was more afraid of not getting enough food and drugs than I was of anything else. I had forgotten to grieve, forgotten to mourn for my dead family. But I won’t forget now. No amount of drugs can make me forget this anymore.”
Dmitri knew it had been hell for Chloe. When he had first found her, she was a street-urchin making her living by fighting in small “arenas”, pits filled with mud where two “contestants” were forced to fight to the death. The rewards ranged from money to food. Chloe fought for the food. And the drugs. She had been their best fighter; they had called her the “Red Wolf”, due to her red mane of hair. Of course she didn’t like the name much, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was the food, and the drugs. Sometimes Dmitri wondered what would have eventually happened to her if he hadn’t stepped in and shown her a different way to live. “Sometimes...I still wonder. Why didn’t the cloud touch me??? Why didn’t I burn as well???”
Bryan had an answer for that.
“It was Termagaunte. He protected you because he was saving you for a higher purpose.”
The fact that Chloe was a pagan never bothered Bryan, who was a religious Kristyan.

“I don’t think it was about your god. Perhaps it was just luck. Or a curse.”
Dmitri patted her on the shoulder. Growing up as an atheist, he had never fully understood why people relied on religion when problems came their way.
“Well, this is it. I don’t think you can make this memory fade away again. It will be stuck with you permanently. Can you live with it?” Chloe looked at him for a moment, uncertainty in her eyes. Finally she nodded.
And then the scene changed.
There was a mechanical buzz, a brief flashing of lights, and the group found themselves standing in a flat space of land covered in smooth jade-green grass. The skies above them this time were grey and cloudy. A storm was coming.
The group could see a collection of people sitting on chairs, wearing black. They were wearing traditional bereavement-clothes, to display grief over the loss of a loved one. It was Bryan who now stood staring in shock at the scene below.
Sitting among the small crowd of people, wearing his own little black clothes, was Bryan. Except this Bryan looked much smaller, his face with less wrinkles and his eyes still young and youthful. This was a young version of Bryan, before he was hardened by the world.
The young Bryan was crying freely, as were a few more people by his side. Each person was sitting on a small black wicker chair facing a flat square of earth, flattened for funerary purposes. Standing on the flat ground was a man with long white robes and a small round skull-cap on his balding head. The man wore a pair of spectacles, and was holding a book in his hand. Dmitri recognized the book as a religious text the Kristyans called the “Bibbile”. This man was an Og, a Kristyan priest.
The man raised his hands and the murmurings of the crowd vanished. Silence followed.
“Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior. By the grace of Termagaunte we are gathered here today to mourn the passing of a beloved friend, a husband and father and neighbor to all of us here.”
He stopped speaking and waited a bit for the rain to start falling. Then he continued.
“Let us say the Prayer-of-Passing in honor of Wayland Dunphee.”
The congregation stood up and proceeded to chant an old rhapsody familiar to Bryan:
“To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks; A various language; for his gayer hours. She has a voice of gladness, and a smile. And eloquence of beauty, and she glides into his darker musings, with a mild and healing sympathy, that steals away. Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts of the last bitter hour come like blight. Over thy spirit, and sad images, of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, and breathless darkness, and the narrow house. Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart; Go forth, under the open sky, and list To Nature’s teachings, while from all around Earth and her waters, and the depths of air Comes a still voice. Yet a few days, and thee, the all-beholding sun, shall see no more. In his entire course; nor yet in the cold ground, Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim. Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, And, lost each human trace, surrendering up thy individual being, shall thou go to mix for ever with the elements. To be a brother to the insensible rock; And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold. Yet not to thy eternal resting-place shall thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish couch more magnificent. Thou shall lie down with patriarchs of the infant world, with kings, the powerful of the earth, the wise, and the good. Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, all in one mighty sepulcher. The hills, rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, the vales stretching in pensive quietness between; the venerable woods, rivers that move in majesty, and the complaining brooks that make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Old Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste, Are but the solemn decorations all of the great tomb of man. The golden suns, the planets, all the infinite host of heaven, are shining on the sad abodes of death. Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread the globe are but a handful to the tribes that slumber in its bosom. Take the wings of morning, pierce the barren wilderness, or lose thyself in the continuous woods where rolls the rivers, and hears no sound, save his own lashings, yet the dead are there: And millions in those solitudes, since first the flight of years began, have laid them down in their last sleep; the dead reign there alone. So shall thou rest, and what if thou withdraw in silence from the living, and no friend take note of thy departure? All that breathe will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh when thou art gone, the solemn brood of care plod on, and each one as before will chase his favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave their mirth and their employments, and shall come and make their bed with thee. As the long train of ages glide away, the sons of men, the youth in life’s green spring, and he who goes in the full strength of years, matron and maid, the speechless babe, and the gray-headed man shall one by one be gathered to thy side by those, who in their turn shall follow them. So live, that when thy summons comes to join the innumerable caravan, which moves to that mysterious realm, where each shall take his chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. So hear these words, you mortal men, and never be enslaved again. Amen.”
The congregation sat down, and a moment of silence was held for the departed.
“I would now like to call upon young Bryan Theodore Dunphee to share some words of his grandfather.”
Young Bryan stood up, walked up to the little patch of earth, and took out a small piece of folded paper from his pocket. He began to read:
“My granddad was really important to me. He gave me the motivation to move on when life was difficult. He showed me how to not be afraid of the dark, he taught me how to paint and hunt. He gave me my first gun. He....”
At this point Bryan stopped speaking. A few tears rolled down his face, and he wiped them away quickly. He put the paper back in his pocket.
“Everybody has their Kristyan soldier. Grandpa was mine.”
He went to sit down. A big man, Dmitri guessed Bryan’s father, patted the boy on the shoulder. His eyes were full of tears too. “Let us sing the Song-of-Victory in honor of a good man and a true Kristyan soldier.”
The congregation stood up and proceeded to sing:
“If you think you are beaten, you are; if you think you dare not, you don't. If you'd like to win, but you think you can't, it is almost a bet; you won't. If you think you'll lose, you've lost; for out in this world we find Success begins with a fellow's will it’s all in the state of mind. If you think you're outclassed, you are; you’ve got to think high to rise. You've got to be sure of yourself before you can ever win the prize. Life's battles do not always go to the stronger or faster man; but sooner or later the man who wins is the one who thinks he can.”
The Og then beckoned for a coffin to be brought. Generally a person was sent away on a river, but the coffin-burial was a bit more popular among Kristyans. This coffin was made of oak, about 7 feet in length, and was carried by six pallbearers. A wreath of roses and poppy-flowers had been placed on the coffin, symbolizing a life lost too soon.
The coffin was taken to the flat square of land, where the people were now standing. It was lowered into a rectangular chunk of land that had been cut to form a hole. It was dropped into the hole via ropes. Each person standing around the hole threw a fistful of sand into the grave whilst saying a prayer. Finally it was Bryan’s turn. Standing over the hole, he muttered something under his breath and dropped a blue ribbon inside.
“The blue ribbon had been given to me by Grandpa before his death. It symbolized the ocean, as well as the color of mercy and also what it meant to be a true Kristyan. It was, to me, his best gift.”
Dmitri touched Bryan on the shoulder, and then dropped his hand. It was useless trying to comfort Bryan. He had been through this before; it was simply the reminiscing that was difficult.
“He was killed by a falling Stormbeast about 8 years ago. He never saw it coming. Apparently the fog was so thick that night that he couldn’t spot the falling creature through his telescope. They found his body about three days later, charred and burnt. They took whatever pieces they could salvage and stitched it together, making a form of patchwork effigy. That coffin that you just saw now did not contain his remains; it was an empty coffin that had been filled with his hunting-rifle, his blade and his hat. A few pictures and personal belongings had also been placed in there too. He was actually buried in a small room in the basement. They covered his pieces with sand, and then barred the door shut so no one would ever disturb his grave. That door remained shut for 2 more years, until the Undying One came and my house was burnt down.”
Bryan wasn’t crying, he couldn’t. Sometimes some things were so painful that the body couldn’t even express the pain physically. Some called it apathy or droopiness; others called it “Anhedonia”, which meant “I feel nothing”.
“Do I have any regrets about it? Things I should have said but didn’t? Choices I should have made? Things I could have told my grandfather before he died? I don’t know. And I don’t think I’ll ever know.”
Dmitri heard his voice crack a little. He patted Bryan on the shoulder.
“’This, too, shall pass.’ That was what he always said to me. I guess I’d forgotten that. I guess I forgot a lot of things, or maybe suppressed them. Erased them. Memories, things he said. I tried to cover the grief by running away, seeking meaning in other places. I ran away from my home, my family. People who cared about me, loved me so much that my disappearance killed them. I can’t even remember what I wrote on the letter, something like “don’t worry about me” or “I’ll be fine”. Something like that. My father died of a heart-attack two weeks later. My mother followed, she put a bullet in her head. In the end, one death killed so many. I sometimes wonder if this was my entire fault, if Termagaunte had chosen me specifically to live a life of pain and misery to be an example to others. Maybe. But I just have to remember: this, too, shall pass.”
And suddenly the scene changed. The group was swept away with the winds, like drops of seawater lost in a massive raging stream. Dmitri felt the wind in his hair as he was flung forwards towards a gaping void that had just appeared in front of him. Chloe tried to scream, but couldn’t gather enough air in her lungs to even make a whimper. Bryan folded his arms around his head, trying to shield himself from whatever would be coming now.
The three were sucked into the portal.
They landed in a dark room, musty and full of dust. Chloe had her arms wrapped around her knees and was curled up in a foetal-position, praying silently to the White-Moose (an old pagan god, pursuing its own business, indifferent to mortal affairs) and the Giant-Steer (a new pagan god who makes the earth tremble, raging at the fact of its own existence, a swollen boil for which no lance has been forged) to deliver her from the madness she had been thrown into. When she finally realized no big beast was coming to attack her, she thanked the gods and straightened up to look around the room she had been flung into.
It appeared to have once been some form of shed, ropes and gardening-tools were stored in the corner of the room. The walls and floor were old planks, weakening with moist mold. The roof was timber with clay tiles, and there was a door facing her. This door was a typical brown oak door, about 5 feet tall with a golden doorknob. Standing up, she carefully walked over to the door, trying not to suffer the effects of vertigo, and turned the knob. She gently pushed the door open.
She faced a narrow hallway, shrouded in shadow. A few pictures, mostly of birds and horses, were hung on either side. The walls were made from the same timber as the walls of the small room, but were kept cleaner and were whitewashed. These floors were carpeted with a smooth red mink, and from the ceiling hung multiple bulbs in series. A few of these bulbs were broken, some were flashing incoherently and most were simply not functioning.
As she wondered down this hallway, she could hear something following her. In a flash she snatched a vase off the nearby table and threw it at the thing behind her. She expected a roar of anger. All she got was a howl of pain.
“Ow!!!! Why’d you do that! That hurt!!!”
It was Bryan, with Dmitri right behind him. Bryan was rubbing his forehead, and the vase lay near his feet. Removing his hand revealed a massive purple bump as big as a golf ball was developing on his head.
“Sorry! I thought something was following me!”
“Something was following you!!! His name is Bryan!!!” Bryan exclaimed angrily.
“Well, next time you should try not to be so silent and creepy....”
“Guys, let’s stop the bickering. I hear something.”
It was true. The silent sounds of footsteps could be heard, a creaking noise, and then a sound of breathing. The group could see the end of the hallway. They tiptoed up to it, carefully peeping around the corner.
It was small room, a living-room. The walls were covered with pale dull blue paint, green in the dull yellow light. From the ceiling hung a singular yellow light bulb covered with tissue-paper, a form of makeshift lantern. A large leather settee was in the center, facing a window with a playbox in front of it, mounted on the wall. Playboxes were small devices shaped like cuboids. Each one had a small glass screen about 24 inches in diameter, and weighed about 34 pounds. The devices were made from cheap metals, and projected images onto their screens for 2 hours at a time. Receiving signals from radio-towers, playboxes could display pictures and videos of animals, cities or any other random images that popped up. Sometimes a playbox would show a video of an elephant and its children drinking from a stream, sometimes it would show birds nesting or big predators prowling the forests. A playbox was always full of surprises. Made from the tech of the Old Folk, playboxes were expensive and hard to come by. The playbox was right above a small fireplace, which was smouldering slightly with a few embers.
A few away from the playbox was a small door, a red one with fading paint. Someone had entered the room through the door, and gently shut the door behind him. The small figure sat down on the settee, pulling something out of his pocket. It was a young Dmitri. This younger version of Dmitri looked paler and thinner. It hardly looked like he had eaten anything proper in weeks. His clothes were torn and much too small for him. His hair was untidy, and looked like it hadn’t been cut in months. His face was so thin and skeletal one could see the cheekbones through the stretched skin. His eyes were the worst. One eye was red and bloodshot from lack of sleep. The other was purple and swollen, a fresh bruise.
Young Dmitri sat on the settee facing the playbox. He turned the device on with a small remote, then sat back and watched images flash before him. Some showed birds, others showed streets. Finally, after about 5 minutes, he seemed bored and turned the device off. Then he started to cry.
“I remember this now,” said Dmitri, looking at his younger self.
“What....you never told us about your past before.”
“That’s because I knew you wouldn’t like it. My past was painful. Hard.”
Dmitri was silent for a bit, and then he cleared his throat and whispered again.
“People go through many difficult periods in life. For me, it was a constant feeling of disconnection from myself. Feeling different, like I didn’t fit in anywhere, feeling separate from myself and everyone around me. Never feeling like anything I did was good enough, that I wasn’t good enough. That I was weird, strange, alone.”
The younger Dmitri had by now finished crying, and was patching his wounded eye with a plaster, the thing he had taken from his pocket earlier.
“My dad was a drunkard. He spent his time at the factories during the day, and then went to the nearby pubs to waste the money he’d earned. Then he would come home late at night, so drunk he could barely talk, and take his frustrations out on me. He liked to hit me; I guess it made him feel in control, made him he could slap life in the face repeatedly till it got easier. But of course it never did.” Dmitri stopped speaking for a bit, watching the younger Dmitri who had by now fallen asleep.
“My mother was an invalid for most of my life. She was paralyzed after my dad threw her down the stairs one night when he was too drunk to remember anything. She took her own life a few years later. Used her wheel-chair to roll out into an incoming wagon, it crushed her. I guess I was thankful she escaped. But I was also angry. Angry that she left me alone to face my dad. Angry that I had to go through this cycle of abuse over and over, day after day with no one to give me comfort or bandage my wounds or feed me or wash me or even cut my hair. Life was miserable, and I sometimes wonder why I never ended it. But, then, if I had, I would have been letting my father win. And I wouldn’t let him win. I wouldn’t let him win by becoming cold and cruel like him. So one night, I decided to make a change.”
The younger Dmitri had woken up, and was reaching for something hidden under the settee. It was a gun.
“I decided to end it.”

The younger Dmitri fired the pistol two times into the roof, causing bits and pieces of wood and dust to come cascading down in showers. The noise awoke someone upstairs, who could be heard fast approaching.
A tall man, about seven feet in height, lumbered down the stairs. He was a big man, with shoulders as thick as steel bars and legs as beefy as a buffalo’s. He had a massive potbelly, which wobbled like a lifeless 77-pound tumor when he walked. The man had a beard that hadn’t been trimmed in about 2 years, his eyes were red from abuse of alcohol and his hair was untidy and grew up to his shoulders. His breath was thick and misty, and must have smelled like beer. He was wearing a red bathrobe with a pair of pink slippers and a white sleeveless shirt underneath. His chequered green shorts were stained and yellow with misuse. The man waddled around like an ogre, barely able to stand. In one hand he held a smoking-pipe, in another he held a half-drunken bottle of vodka, stinking of grains and malt.
The man wobbled into the living-room, steadying himself with a small walking-stick he had picked up from a nearby umbrella-stand.
“Boy??? Son??? Is.....that....you???” His speech was thick and slurred with drink. He stumbled around awkwardly like a penguin heavily drugged with methylenedioxy​methamphetamines.
“Boy....did you...fire my....gun??? How....how stupid of you. Do you....want to be.....hit again???”
The man’s threat was as dead as his mind, which seemed to have been overthrown by the booze he had devoted his time to. The man didn’t see young Dmitri approaching him from behind a corner. Young Dmitri knocked the man to the ground, shattering his weak walking-cane in the process. The man yelled, but the sounds were more like a groan of annoyance than a scream. Young Dmitri stood facing the man, a loom of pure unsaturated anger on his small face.
“Boy.....what is this???”
Young Dmitri pulled something out of his pocket. It was a crumpled piece of paper. He opened it and began to read:
“Jonathan Canty, do you confess to the abuse of Mary Anne Canty and her son Dmitri Antonio Canty???
“What the hell is this???” the man’s speech was now clear, apparently sobered by the nasty fall he had suffered moments ago.
“This is a trial. My trial. You will answer all of my questions.”
“Or what???”
There was a look of fierce unshakable determination on young Dmitri’s face. The young boy picked up the walking-cane, now broken into two pieces, and shoved the pointed end of one piece into the man’s left shoulder. The man cried out.
“Okay!!!! Okay!!!! I’ll answer everything!!!!”
“Did you have an affair with another woman when I was born?”
A look of fear spread on the man’s face.
“Well, you see, son....”
“Answer me!!!!”
He stabbed the cane into the man’s right shoulder.
“Yes!!!! I did!!!!! I can’t remember her name, but she was a black-skinned milkmaid who used to work for the O'Shaughnessyconachta family a few miles away!!!”
“Are you referring to Matilda DelGadot???”
“Yes!!! That was her name!!! But everyone called her Tilly!!!”
“Did you have a child with her???”
The man was, for a few moments, silent.
“I....”
“Speak!!!!!!!!”
“I did!!!! But I only found out about it after you were born!!!!!”
Young Dmitri stood still, a loom of pure shock on his face. This is not what he had been expecting to hear.
“I.....have a sister???”
“Yes, son, you do.”
“And you never thought of telling me about it???”
“What did you expect me to say??? When I found out, it was already too late. You were almost one year old, just learning to walk. Your mother and I had renewed our vows!!! I couldn’t admit to what I’d done!!! It would ruin everything!!!”
“What happened to her???”
“She’s dead!!!!” The man yelled in a mixture of agony and misery.
“Wait....she died????”
“She....her name was Lucy. A brilliant child. And if it weren’t for the color of her skin, I would have been proud to call her my daughter. But life was never easy for her. Other commoners abused and mistreated her, reduced her to a grain of salt. For years she went through a number of physical abuses. As a child, she had never known her true father, and I never gathered the courage to speak to her in person. Her mother had been remarried six times to different men since her encounter with me. Lucy was raised in dysfunction and chaos. She suffered unspeakable cruelty. One of her stepfathers tortured her, held her head underwater when she disobeyed, and even put a gun to her head. She was mentally and socially abused between the ages of three and seven. Once she was molested brutally by her sixth stepdad and left for dead in a locked shed outside the town. Her psyche had been scrambled by the horrors she had endured, so her mind did not process thoughts in a normal way and never would. In the end, she couldn’t handle this cruel life anymore. She killed herself at the age of ten, hung herself from a balcony. And of course nobody, not even her dear mother, cared very much. She didn’t even have a proper burial; they just dumped her body in a nearby garbage-pit and left it to rot. It was me who buried her in the end, in a cornfield near the O'Shaughnessyconachta mansion. So much pain for someone who didn’t deserve it. It killed me on the inside, broke my soul.”
“So....is that why you started drinking?”
All of the former drunkenness had disappeared from the man’s face.
“Yes. I hope you realize that keeping that secret, my dear son, it nearly killed me. The effort drove me half-mad. I had a constant argument with myself every day about whether I would tell the truth or not. This little argument continued throughout the years. From morning, when I was at the factory, to night when I came home, I was struggling with whether to say the truth or not. Every day I wake up, motivated to tell your mother everything about me, my dirty secrets. But then I would start to lose confidence and fear would overtake me, keeping my mouth shut. I would go off to the factories to distract myself from my internal conflict, and then go to the pub to drink away my sorrows with the horrible muse known as booze. The alcohol cleared my mind of guilt, at least until the next day when the cycle would repeat itself.”
“Do you realize how much you hurt me and mother???” Young Dmitri was struggling to maintain his composure. He was bursting with fury. Two veins in his forehead were popping out, and his hands had curled into fists.
“I can’t remember anything when the alcohol gets me. Sometimes I would wake up and see that you and your mother had developed some new bruises. I obviously guessed it was my doing. But by that time the alcohol had got a good grip on me, I couldn’t quit it even when I wanted to. I felt horrible, knowing the things I was putting you through. But I needed the alcohol. I needed it.”
Young Dmitri looked at his father with a mixture of shame, anger and pity.
“That’s still no reason to do the things you did.”
“I have no excuses for the things I did. But I can try and stop. You and I can have a normal happy life. I just hope you have it in your heart to forgive me.”
“Sometimes, it’s too late for that.”
Young Dmitri stepped towards the left side of the room.

“Jonathan Canty. I charge you with the indirect suicide of Mary Anne Canty. I charge you for years of abuse and neglect. I charge you for the ruination of a family through you own selfish actions. Most of all, I charge you for being a liar. A coward.”
The man gravely nodded.
“And so I must give you what is required.”
“What is that????”
“Freedom.”
Dmitri's father sighed deeply, aware of what was about to happen. He shut his eyes and proceeded to sing a tune in a cracked voice full of pain:
"She dwelt among the hidden ways, beside the springs of doves. A maid whom there were none to praise, and very few to love. A violet by a mossy stone, half-hidden from the eye. Bright as a star, when only one was shining in the sky. She lived unknown, and few would know when Lucy ceased to be. But my child is in her grave, and there's no difference to me!!!!"
Chloe and Bryan watched in unmasked shock as young Dmitri ripped the heavy playbox from its position on the wall and proceeded to smash it into his father’s face, bashing it till blood came. The large object dealt incredible damage, causing the man’s skull to burst open like a watermelon and shower the room with blood. Most of the blood was on young Dmitri, who still continued his ceaseless and merciless assault till he could no longer hear any breathing. Young Dmitri knelt beside his father’s ruined body, and proceeded to weep. Maybe from guilt, or maybe from that fact that he was now free; a loose tether broken and tossed with the wind.

Chloe and Bryan stared at Dmitri with a newfound shock.
“Well, you can’t tell me you weren’t expecting that. You knew, deep down in your gut feeling, it was going to happen.”
The group watched as young Dmitri stood up and went to the nearby kitchen, wiping himself clean with an old towel. Then he set off for the storage room in which Chloe had been, walking right past the group as if they weren’t there. Bryan was surprised, Chloe was interested.
“He can’t sense us because we don’t exist to him. In other words, we can’t affect the past in any form because it has already happened. He can’t see us or fell us, because we are in a separate plane of reality. Like ghosts.”
Young Dmitri went into the little room and came out a few minutes later. He was carrying a burlap sack, a bone-saw, a bundle of rope, a hammer and a crowbar.
“You two are about to see a darker side of me. So be prepared.”
Chloe and Bryan watched as young Dmitri proceeded to brutally cut his father into many pieces, slicing into the flesh and bone with the bone-saw. Then they watched as he filled the burlap sack with the pieces and tie it up with rope. They then watched as he carried the sack over to another end of the room, where a loose hatch or trapdoor could be seen. Young Dmitri pried the hatch open with the crowbar, and then threw the sack in.
“The hatch is a waste-disposal unit. It leads down to the septic-tanks.”
They watched as young Dmitri sealed the hatch shut with a few hits from the hammer.
“I had chosen a burlap sack for a reason. Burlap dissolves in acidic water. The pieces would be disposed of naturally by the bacteria and fungi.”
Young Dmitri cleaned all of the blood with the same piece of cloth he had used to clean himself, and then disposed of the cloth by throwing it in the tiny fireplace. He then took the battered playbox and smashed it to pieces with the hammer, then carried the pieces out with him. He left through a nearby rear door, where he was facing a small plot of land.
“That land was where my mother would grow flowers or crops before she became paralyzed. She was buried there after her death.”
Young Dmitri dug a small hole and filled it with the mechanical components of the playbox. Then he closed the hole and patted the earth down carefully. He went back inside and washed the mud off his hands. Then he left the living-room, going back upstairs. He came down a few minutes later carrying a backpack, most likely filled with his necessary items. He was also wearing a cleaner shirt and trousers, and was wearing an old hat that must have belonged to his deceased father. He was also wearing a thin pair of chanclas, light open sandals that were held on by three straps across the instep, around the heel and above the ankle, usually worn during warm weather.
Young Dmitri tied the straps of his chanclas tightly and adjusted the brim of his hat. Collecting the gun that had once belonged to his father, Dmitri tucked it into the band of his belt. He slung his backpack and made for the door, his chanclas slapping against the wooden floor like a beating drum.
“I had been planning all of this for months. I had planned to get my father to confess, and then had him over to the Coppers. But I guess my anger got the best of me, and I threw caution to the wind. So I had to improvise. Disposing of my father’s remains, I would head to the eastern regions of Heimland. Somewhere safer for a criminal like me.”
Young Dmitri left the front door, careful to shut it behind him. He left the house and departed for the east.
“The Peacekeepers found the remains a few months later, although by then the remains were too decayed to identify. I heard about their discovery from a local newspaper. And whilst I knew they didn’t have any evidence against me, I feared they would still catch me. So for three years I was on the run, until I found Bryan one faithful day.”
Bryan, of course, remembered that day. He had recently run away from home a few weeks ago when he heard the news that his father and mother were both dead. Hopeless and distressed, he was setting off to throw himself down the nearest waterfall and end his life. Until he met Dmitri, a tortured soul looking for a companion; a friend. And so, on that day, he had made a promise to never leave his side, to be his friend in times of trouble. The two had been on the road since then, until they found Chloe on another faithful day.
It had been close to winter. The two had been on their way to the market when they saw a sign stating that the “Red Wolf will be fighting the Silver Fox TONIGHT!!!” Their curiosity was peeked, and the two purchased some tickets with the small amount of money they had collected either through theft or trading. Near midnight they were taken to a dark and musty dungeon that had once been used to house criminals during the time of the Folk. The dungeon had been filled with sand, and a pit in the center had been filled with mud. It was in this makeshift arena that the fight would take place.
There had been people, mostly commoners and a few Yea’haa’weh, at the event. They had been placing their bets on who would be winning. Six hundred Stones had been placed on the Red Wolf, who was their best fighter so far.
After 15 minutes, the lights came on. A large commoner man with an impossibly large stomach waddled up to the crowd which had formed around the pit. He greeted them in Lowtalk, and a few in the languages of the forests. He then introduced the two fighters. In one corner of the pit was a skimpy young commoner girl, about 16 years of age, with tallow-yellow hair, honey-brown skin tanned with sunburns, and pale blue eyes. She was wearing a tight black leather outfit with thigh-high boots that left almost nothing to the imagination, and was smiling radiantly at the multitude. She was apparently a crowd-favorite. She also seemed to be Bryan’s favourite, as he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He even bet 10 Stones for her victory. Dmitri didn’t bet anything, he was too careful with his money. And in the opposite corner, her red hair grown to her hips, was the Red Wolf. Pale green eyes that spoke of royalty, skin as white as snow. When Dmitri would later think back about his immediate reaction to the redheaded girl, it seemed to spring from an appreciation of natural beauty. The heart-pleasure you get from looking at speckled leaves or the ancient bark of plane trees in hidden woods. There was something richly appealing to her color combination, the ginger snaps floating in the milk-white skin, the golden highlights in the strawberry hair. It was like driving up north to see the misty colors radiating from the Fortress-of-Sienna at night when new machines were being manufactured like blood pumping from a heart. It was like autumn in the Forest-of-Titian, looking at her. This beautiful and radiant redhead was wearing a tight purple suit which covered her entire body like a rubber balloon. This particular suit had odd pieces of armor grafted to it; shards of glass, ceramic plates, bits of metal, bundles of rope, sheets of sandpaper, chunks of plastic.
The red-haired fighter with the odd armor and the sultry vixen with the piercing blonde hair shook hands. The announcer started the countdown, and a brass bell was rung. The fight began.
The Silver Fox launched herself at the Red Wolf, who swiftly dodged her incoming attack like a Peacekeeper dodging a speeding bullet. She kicked out with her left leg, knocking the Silver Fox to the ground midair and dealing a vicious punch. The crowd cheered, whilst Bryan booed.
The Silver Fox stood up, dusting herself clean and balling her fists up in an honor-stance. She charged at the Red Wolf, a bit slower this time, and managed to deal a few punches before the Red Wolf stopped her with an uppercut. The Silver Fox stumbled back, and then charged again. She propelled herself with the heel of her boot and nailed a kick to the Red Wolf’s midsection. The Red Wolf fell back, but steadied herself and grabbed the attacker’s leg. She twisted it in a 90-degree angle and then dropped it, causing the Silver Fox to hit the ground with a hard “thump” noise. The Red Wolf climbed on top of her and showered her with a series of flying fists, to more cheers.
“I should’ve bet my money on the redhead.”
“That’s what I’m about to do,” said Dmitri as he tossed a few Stones to the announcer.
It was by this time in the match that the weapons were thrown in. A long silver barbed whip for the Silver Fox and a bronze battleaxe for the Red Wolf. The two picked up their weapons, and fought.
The Silver Fox lashed at her opponent with her whip, managing to lasso her in the leg and drag her to the ground. The Red Wolf repelled this attack with a swift motion of her axe, loosening the thick rope and causing the Silver Fox to lose her balance. She fell down, and the Red Wolf raised her axe in victory.
But it was far from over. The Silver Fox stood up and launched her whip once more, directly at her opponent’s chest. However, it seemed the strange armoured suit proved useful. The whip was unable to get a proper grip amongst the strange bits and pieces grafted onto the armor, and kept falling down like a limp tree in a storm. The Red Wolf adjusted her axe, and finally managed to slice the whip in half as it lashed for one more attack. Clearly annoyed, the Silver Fox resumed her boxing-position. The Red Wolf dropped her weapon, and resumed an honor-stance. The two launched themselves at each other once again.
The Red Wolf hit the Silver Fox square in the jaw, who responded with a fist to the stomach. The Silver Fox kicked her opponent with a booted leg, and the Red Wolf responded with another fist to the shoulder. The Red Wolf wrapped her left leg around her opponent’s right leg, tripping her and causing her to fall down in the slippery mud with a thud. The Red Wolf dealt a combo to her opponent’s face, finally causing some blood to show. The Silver Fox kicked her opponent straight in the nose, causing more blood to show. This earned her a gouging of her eyeballs by the Red Wolf, who was by now simmering with rage. The Silver Fox screamed and thrashed around blindly, finally slapping her opponent so hard she toppled off her. The Silver Fox tried to crawl away, but the Red Wolf grabbed her by the leg and pulled her back, dragging her through the mud. The Silver Fox kicked her opponent’s wrist with her free leg, causing her to release her. The Silver Fox, now free, scrambled away, blood streaming thickly through her nostrils. The Red Wolf would not be giving mercy, though.
Grabbing her opponent by the hair, digging her nails into her scalp, the Red Wolf dragged the Silver Fox back through the mud and placed her at the center of the ring.
“A chair!!!!A chair!!!!” The men cheered.
“A chair??? What the hell are they talking about???”
Dmitri and Bryan would soon find out.
A small black chair, made of wicker with a steel frame, was brought out by a few spectators. The chair was handed to the announcer, who tossed it into the muddy pit. The chair landed a few feet from the Red Wolf, who looked at it with a new uncertainty in her eyes. Finally, prompted by the crowd, she picked it up. She carried the chair to where the Silver Fox was collapsed, and lifted her opponent. She placed her on the chair, facing forwards. A few spectators tossed fresh tethers of mule-cord into the pit. With these the Red Wolf fastened her opponent’s wrists and feet firmly to the chair, to prevent her escape.
“Oh no...” muttered Dmitri.
“Why???” questioned Bryan.
“I think I know what she’s about to do. Back in my home they called this viragtatgariv.”
“What does that mean???”
“It means “chair’s torture” in Lowertalk.”
The Red Wolf now stood facing her opponent with a mixed look of pity and determination on her face. A spectator brought out a bucket filled with something and passed it to the announcer. The announcer passed this to the Red Wolf, and looked at her with expectation. Finally, against her better nature, the Red Wolf picked the bucket up. She proceeded to scoop the substance out of the bucket, cupping a little bit in her hand.
“What’s that???”
“It’s Vitriol. A mixture of sand mixed with vinegar and sulphuric acid. It’s acidic mud, it burns on contact.” “What’s that supposed to mean.....”
He was about to find out.
The Red Wolf smeared some of the acidic mud all over her opponent’s face. The Silver Fox howled in pain, her screams echoing across the dark dungeon. When she screamed, drops of the substance seeped into her mouth, causing her to scream even more. Her golden skin was scalded to a deep red, the color of searing meat. Large blisters as big as quail-eggs appeared all over her cheeks and lips. Her screams were horrific, hardly human.
“Oh my god!!!!Oh my god!!!!”
Bryan, coming from a community of pacifists, had of course never seen this much brutality and violence in his life. He was staring with wide-eyed shock and disbelief, unable to consider how people could sit back and watch this violation of a living being’s health without even flinching. In his horror, a familiar poem came to mind: “Sabbe le saththa ne bhavanthu re sukhi vie tattha”, a saying in Lowtalk meaning “May all beings be free from sorrow and pain.” Of course he wasn’t sure why a prayer for peace would come to his mind in the midst of this horror, but he knew it was a sign he should do something.
Without warning, he stood up and screamed:
“Stop the fight!!! Can’t you see she’s really hurt?????”
The crowd looked at Bryan with a mixture of condescension and mild sympathy.
Dmitri pulled Bryan down immediately.
“What d’you think you’re doing??? Can’t you see this is madness???”
By now the Red Wolf was smearing some of the acidic substance into her screaming opponent’s eyes. The Red Wolf was wearing gloves, so the acidic mud didn’t affect her.
“Don’t worry, Bryan. This is not to kill her. It’s just supposed to make her tap-out. Give up and let her win."
“How d’you think she will tap out when she can’t even speak!!!”
It was, of course, true. By now the Silver Fox’s tongue had swollen to twice its normal size, and her screams were no longer even human. The sight was sickening, and it seemed to be affecting the Red Wolf as well.
Amidst the cheering and jeering of the crowd, Dmitri heard the Red Wolf whisper to her opponent;
“Bonvolu tee rezigni en nunn.”
Of course he knew what the words meant. They were words in High-Talk, an extinct language from which the languages of Lowtalk and Lowertalk emerged. The words simply meant “Please submit immediately”.
And, thankfully, the Silver Fox heeded the warning.
The Silver Fox bowed her head in submission, and the crowd cheered. The Red Wolf dropped the bucket of acidic mud onto the ground, and let the toxic contents spill onto the ground. Over the loud noise Dmitri couldn’t hear what the Red Wolf was saying to her opponent, but it looked like an apology.
The medics on the outside now rushed in to free and heal the wounded and defeated fighter. The Red Wolf had clearly won. But she didn’t look too happy. As the money rained down from the crowd into the pit, Dmitri was sure she was crying.

After the fight, Dmitri left with some fuller pockets and Bryan with an emptier wallet. He’d always had a sense that the Red Wolf would win. Perhaps it was an old saying about redheaded folk: “You'd find it easier to be bad than good if you had red hair. Redheaded women buck like goats.”
Dmitri gave Bryan some money to go and buy himself a sandwich. Dmitri was about to go with him, but something caught his eye. A flash of red in the corner of his eye. He turned his head to see what had caught his attention. It was the Red Wolf, walking alone to a small rusty caravan that must have been where she lived. This caravan was old and yellow, its wheels so rusted that it had to be propped up with bricks for support. It was covered with a thick layer of dust, and had one lime-green door with a brass doorknob. For unknown reasons, Dmitri suddenly felt this strange urge to visit the Red Wolf. He told Bryan to wait for him near the local pub, the Royal Oak, and set off for the caravan.
Reaching it, he raised his hand to knock on the door, but decided not to. The strange force that had compelled him to pay a visit to the Red Wolf now insisted that he look through the nearby window.
Standing on his toes and peeking through the dusty window, he could see inside the caravan. A small room with a bed in the center, a sink beside it and a cracked mirror hanging on the wall. The bed was made of ironwood, and was already forming mold. The sink was rusty and damp, and didn’t seem to be functioning. On the ceiling hung a single small oil-lamp in a glass vase, showering the room with dull a yellow light.
The Red Wolf was kneeling on the ground, facing the bed. In one hand she held a bottle of whisky, in the other she held a syringe. She was sobbing uncontrollably. This was the kind of crying Dmitri had seen only once in his life, the kind of crying that shook a person to the soul so hard that they shivered and rocked back and forth in pain and misery. Dmitri had seen his mother cry like this, when she was recovering in a hospital-bed the day after his father had pushed her down the stairs. It was hopelessness.
She was sobbing, weeping so hard Dmitri thought she would burst from the seams if she cried any more. It was so depressing and sobering. She was trying to cry softly, covering her face with a dirty rag. Dmitri had never seen such a deep wretchedness before. The Red Wolf was looking at the syringe in her hand. She was looking at it with a mixture of need and revulsion on her face. Dmitri had never seen such a broken person, it made his mother look joyful by comparison. The Red Wolf, although Dmitri was starting to dislike that name, had now taken a big swig from the bottle. Dmitri observed something; she seemed to hate the taste of the alcohol, but was consuming it anyway. So, she wasn’t drinking for pleasure. She was drinking to forget something. Dmitri could also observe the syringe in the dull yellow light. It was filled with a silvery fluid, which Dmitri knew from his time as an addict as the addictive and dangerous drug known as Duramax. Coming in a pill and liquid form, this deadly “gateway drug” was still sold on the black-market, albeit covertly. Judging from the size of the syringe, which was about 4 inches in length, Dmitri could tell (from his experience as a Duramax addict) that three doses of Duramax was filling the syringe. Only one dose was require, but three was a lethal amount. And then Dmitri realized something; of course it was a lethal amount. The Red Wolf was planning to kill herself. And as she aimed the needle at her skin and prepared to sink it in, Dmitri burst through the wooden door, knocking it down with his shoulder. The Red Wolf screamed in shock, and dropped the syringe. The large glass object hit the floor and shattered, filling the air with a smell of aspirin and almonds.
The Red Wolf flipped the whiskey-bottle in her hand, about to shatter it to use as a weapon.
“Wait!!!! I’m not going to hurt you!!!”
“That’s what they all say!!!”
It took Dmitri a few seconds to explain the situation.
“You’re just stalking me. And, besides, what does my life matter to you???”
“It doesn’t matter to me much, but it matters to whatever brought me here.”
“Fate?”
“Probably something like destiny. Either way, I’m not letting you kill yourself.”
“Try and stop me.”
The Red Wold lunged for a nearby butter-knife hung on the wall. Dmitri reached it first, knocking it off the wall and throwing it out the open hole where the lime-green door once was.
“Why can’t you just let me die??????” Her voice was shaking, but not just from all the alcohol she’d been consuming.
“I don’t know why, and I don’t care. You’re not dying on my watch. You have the right to be alive.”
The Red Wolf was silent for a bit. Perhaps Dmitri’s words had sobered her a bit.
“You want to know why I want to die???”
Dmitri, feeling destiny tug on his brain again, nodded. And she explained. She explained about her family, the attacks in the valley, how she’d run away. How, starving and cold, she had signed a Slave Contract (a binding legal agreement; a pact that could be oral or written. An oral pact is made by means of an oath given to a specific person from whom he/she wants a favour. He/she who makes the oath asks for the wanted favour and offers his/her servitude or other forms of payment in exchange, and no evidence is left of the pact except for an indelible mark where the person has had a tattoo to seal the pact. The mark could be used as a proof to determine that the pact was made. It was also known that on the spot where the mark was left, the marked person could feel no pain. A written pact consists in the same forms of an oral pact, but includes a written act, usually signed with the person’s blood, although sometimes animal blood or red ink is used instead) that would make her a fighter in arenas for three years in exchange for warm food, a place to stay and creature comforts (mainly booze and drugs). She explained that her Slave Contract had been active for two years now, and she had been planning to kill herself before it ran out. The Slave Contract granted her drugs and alcohol through which she could forget her grief and guilt, and she felt like she couldn’t live without it. But through some words of assurance from Dmitri, he managed to convince her to kill herself and instead run away with him and Bryan.
The persuading was rather easy (especially since she was drunk when the persuading had taken place), and the Red Wolf (real name Clarisse, now known as “Chloe Dalcassian”) left with Dmitri. Dmitri encountered Bryan later and, after some more persuasion, convinced him to let their new comrade tag along in their group. Along the way Bryan would come to like Chloe, seeing that she shared their same interests, was good with painting, educated, could speak eight languages and was kind-hearted when she wanted to be, although this emotional side was what she kept isolated. And so the group of three had been on the road for nearly two years. And now, fittingly, they would be Ghosties together.
Dmitri thought of all of this. When he spoke again, it was with some newfound hope.
“During my father’s abuse, a friendly Asimov named Quackery had been supplying me with Duramax to cope with the pain he inflicted on me. Finally I just got addicted to it. From the ages of six to nine I was a serious addict of Duramax. When Quackery didn’t provide me with the pill, I would go out into the street to find more. With money I got from stealing or selling things I stole, I managed to find at least two pills in a day. I was a drug-pig, my life depended on the pill. It really killed me, nearly took my soul. But I overcame it. I guess it was the hope that I would finally find someone who cared enough about me that I no longer would need Duramax as a companion. Eventually I found that kind of person in both of you. Chloe, Bryan, I’m really grateful I found you guys. Really grateful.”
Bryan, always a drama-queen, reached out and hugged Dmitri so hard he felt their ribs piercing each other. Chloe stood and watched, hiding her smile.
And then the scene of Dmitri’s childhood home vanished. There was a dull buzzing sound, and then the familiar voice of the Salardeuyuni-Mirror:
“FULL EXTRACTION COMPLETE. CANDIDATES: THREE, TWO MALE PLUS ONE FEMALE. MEMORIES EXTRACTED PER INDIVIDUAL: ONE. MEMORIES EXTRACTED IN TOTAL: THREE. SUCCESS RATE: ONE-HUNDRED PERCENT. THAN YOU FOR PARTICIPATING IN THE MEMORY-EXTRACTION PROCESS. WE HOPED YOU ENJOYED YOUR EXPERIENCE. COURTESY OF LUCIAN INDUSTRIES.”
The three of them were whisked away on a gust of wind. A series of flashing lights, moving colors and odd shapes. Visions, too many to count, flashed before them. They were tossed through wide abysses and pulsing vortexes. Portals of multiple sizes and dimensions opened and closed before their eyes. A sensory overload, almost nirvana. They were flying; soaring so fast Dmitri couldn’t feel his arms or legs. A strange voice was now singing from the chaos, a deep monotone tune like a series of brass instruments. In the tunes Dmitri heard words from a feminine voice with the tune of crystals:

“I see only currents of ether,
boiling seas
sparkling on the placid face of the moons
viscous gold pitches melted in craters
the ebb and flow of this liquid gold
Dreamer of caves
I am the traveller of a fireproof boat
the spheres have a skeleton
perforated of cells
channels with active circulation
intended to produce the hidden virtues
Inconstant world
with momentary eruptions and vapors
whose alterations do not make any more scandal
I admire the perpetual variations
maculae on your radiant and frantic face....”

He heard yet another strange voice respond, a masculine voice with a tune like trumpets:

“I’ve so many questions to ask her
what message has she got for me
if only I’d gone away
I always thought it was a game
there’s light to be had here
there’s a body in that house a warm body
waiting for something to happen
she appears at present a perfect crystalline purity
tell me what you know
of space’s crystallization
you know that gleam in the eyes
I’ve noticed your body is different from others
the bits and pieces are cold
extraordinary thing the cold it slows down circulation
someone out there’s seen something
I should understand why for some
death yields all its meaning
that’s the enigma
a way of stopping others from coming close
a question of survival.....”

Yet another voice, this one with a tune almost like an accordion or giant cello:

“We’ve been told space
is like two dark lips colliding
Like science fiction
it outlines a small cosmos
Where fear hides in a glow
where negative space
Becomes a place for wishing
a constellation of hazy tunes
Of faint sharp vowels
a glossary of meteors
A telescope to god
a cold bright white
Maybe distance damages us
maybe Jupiter
Will suddenly surprise us
with a notion of holiness
But instead an old planet
takes over all the space
And we are reminded
of the traces of fire
In our gaze
defining our infidelities.....”

And then a lively voice with a tune of a pan-flute or clarinet:

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
Children waiting in their sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
Against the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.”

And suddenly thousands and then millions of voices joined in the cosmic choir. Deep voices, high voices. Some like tornados, some like whirlwinds, some like the pattering of the rain, some like fierce storms. Some singing, some humming, some screaming. It was chaos and order, light and dark, death and life, peace and war. And then an even louder voice that overshadowed the millions of other voices; this voice was the loudest of them all. It was a mixture between a masculine and feminine voice, with a voice as deep as the thunder and sweet as the northern winds. This voice was so grand it seemed to give life to the cosmos itself, the voice of the Creator. The voice of Termagaunte. This beautiful and magnificent voice aroused the choir into louder song, creating and destroying. A perfect balance between the evil and the good. This was heaven and hell at the same time. It was madness, and yet it was pure sanity. Cold as the hearts of glaciers, yet hot as the cauldrons of hell.
The grand voice, the voice of the Creator, sang with a mixture pride and humility. It sang out about loss and gain, about victory and defeat. About a story that was yet to be finished. A story that would be finished. The voice was so splendid; it made Dmitri cry for the first time in five years. The voice reached its grand climax, causing the planets and stars and galaxies to shake with righteous thunder. And then all of it stopped. And then everything went black.
Dmitri woke up, brought back by a bucket of water thrown in his face. The water chilled him to the bone, but at least it woke him up.
Dmitri observed the room. He was still tied up, and he could see Bryan and Chloe at the other end of the enclosure. He was back in the dark and musty room of the bandits. The giant machine, the bandit leader, was looking at Dmitri through its cold steel eyes with a look Dmitri could only describe as “robot surprise”. It was clearly interested in Dmitri, although its face was not really moving to indicate its mood.

“How…amazing.”
“Wa..what???”
“Fantastic. How amazing!!!”

The machine was obviously excited, although its monotone voice barely give it away.
“Wait….what are you talking about???”
“Be quiet. I’m getting the Doctor.”
The giant Asimov left the room through the nearby door, ducking to make sure it didn’t hit its head on the wooden frame. The bandit machine came in through the door a few minutes later, followed by a smaller Kawai-69 in a labcoat. And although machines were unable to express physical emotions, Dmitri could tell this robot was the “Doctor”, and she was scared.
The Doctor approached Dmitri, studying him like a rare and exotic bird.
“Marvelous.”
“Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on????”
“All will be explained. Jimmy, wake up the other two.”
The commoner bandit named Jimmy threw two buckets of cold water on Bryan and Chloe. This woke them up, screaming I shock. Chloe was the first to react.
“What the hell was that for???”
“Good. Your glow is gone.”
“Can someone please explain what’s going on here???” By now Dmitri was more angry than annoyed.

“It’s a long story, but the Doctor will explain.”
The bandit machine pushed the other smaller machine in front of him. Dmitri could tell this Doctor was about 15 years old, judging by the thin shade of rust on her metal shell. The Doctor crouched down next to Dmitri. The big machine bandit pointed his gun, a small rusty pocket-pistol, at Bryan.
“Try anything funny, and your friend loses his head. Proceed, Doctor.”
The Doctor proceeded to talk. Her voice was feminine and soothing, like a normal Kawai-69.
“Well….you see…..”
The Doctor rubbed her hands together sheepishly. Dmitri had never seen a robot get nervous before. Something really startling must have happened.
“When you were injected with the drug cocktail, you and your friends may have gone Gatoshta.”
“What???”
“Gatoshta: the state of mind in which an individual can travel in-between dimensions.”
The Doctor explained some more.
“You and your friends were given a mixture of KG and small amounts of Duramax. The mixture was supposed to knock you out, put you to a deep sleep similar to a coma. But only for a few minutes. But instead of a medically-induced coma, you went Gatoshta.” “Of course ‘Gatoshta’ is just folklore. I still think they were just pretending.”
“That didn’t look much like pretending to me, Leader.”
The Leader, the big Asimov robot, stood back silently, waiting for results.
“The drug cocktail had been made by me. I measured each dose carefully, non-lethal amounts. However, when the needle was injected into your skin….you started glowing.”
“G….Glowing???”
“Yes. First a deep shade of deep turquoise-blue, followed by shades of sapphire-blue, azure-blue, cobalt-blue, cerulean-blue and deep indigo. Then a pale lime-green followed by shades of avocado-green, jade-green, olive-green, emerald-green, bottle-green and sea-green. Each color-change occurred every 3 seconds. I calculated and wrote it all down. And then that’s where everything went….mad.”
“You started convulsing like snakes, writhing and wobbling like worms thrown in a frying-pan.” It was Jimmy, the commoner who had injected Dmitri with the drugs.
“You were thrashing around so much you nearly tore through your restraints. It was shocking. But the mumbling was even stranger.”
“The three of you started mumbling things under your breath. Some of it I could pick up, some of it was probably in High-Talk.” It was another bandit, a young Yea’haa’weh boy of about 14.
“This whole episode was most likely Gatoshta, a state of mind so distraught that a person gains the ability to minimally travel in-between various dimensions. We are unsure of what triggered it, although the legends of the medical-records of the Old Folk states that any living being with a defined mass can go through Gatoshta. It is even said that the Folk could once make themselves go Gatoshta on command, like flexing a muscle.”
“Either way, Gatoshta or not, the sight was terrifying. One moment you three were thrashing around like wild serpents set loose on dogs, the other was some incredibly loud screaming. The screaming was about 200 decibels in volume. It was, quite literally, ear-piercing. But it didn’t end there. Suddenly your lady-friend over here started yelling for someone called “Billy” to run. Judging by her moan of dismay, this “Billy” most likely didn’t run. And your friend over here started saying something to someone called “Ma”, who we could assume was his mother. You were silent for some time, only making a few occasional groans here and there. But it was the injuries that made us assume it was Gatoshta.”
“Injuries???” It was Bryan, who looked incredibly confused at this point.
“Well...”
The Doctor pulled out a long knife.
“No!!!!!”
“Don’t worry! I’m not going to hurt you!”
The Doctor carefully slid the knife under Dmitri’s tattered shirt and cut it open. Dmitri gazed down at his chest and arms, and gasped in shock. His whole body was covered in long cuts.
“Each cut is roughly 19.4 inches in length, and was most likely inflicted by some form of blade. We can assume the blade was bone. Your friend over here suffered no injuries, although he got a small bruise on his elbow that we can only assume was from falling down from a height, somewhere like a ladder or a staircase. Your lady-friend sustained no injuries.”
“How did……was it a dream or not???”
“I saw wounds appear all over you!!! And there was nobody around to do it!!! It was like something invisible was cutting you with knives. Maybe something in another dimension, another reality.”
“Wait….something cut me in the real world whilst I was under the drugs???”
“Perhaps the Gatoshta was to blame for that. Legends state that those who go Gatoshta and sustain injuries will develop them in the real world. Injuries sustained in other dimensions will appear on their bodies on the other side.”
“This all seems like poppycock, but you have to admit it’s weird. Very weird.”
“What did you encounter in your dream???”
Dmitri thought about it for some time. Finally he answered.
“I saw….things. Creatures. A few of them cut me.”
“Bone-blades???”
Dmitri nodded.
“And what did you encounter???” The Leader was now talking to Bryan, who still looked dazed.
“I fought a beast that was once my mother and father.”
“Did you fall down anything???”
“I fell down the staircase once. It was dark; I could barely see where I was placing my foot.”
“This is all rather interesting; but it’s your lady-friend who has us all interested.”
Chloe realized why. Strapped to her belt, made of pure bone-white ivory, was an heirloom-sword. And when she looked in her pocket, she could see a little black statuette of a horned devil peeking out.
“It seems your lady-friend brought two items back with her from……wherever she went. In truth, a person may go Gatoshta anywhere. Random dimensions and worlds, some unexplored.”
“Did you see any loved ones??? Perhaps close relatives???”
Bryan and Chloe nodded.
“And were they....not normal???
Both nodded yet again.
“Then you two must have gone Gatoshta in a Superhallucinogen. Or somewhere nearby.”
“What’s a Superhallucinogen???”
“A dreamscape or multiple dreamscapes layered on top of each other. Superhallucinogens are isolated hellish nightmare-worlds said to be surveyed over by the Black-Pool and the Tusked-Slave, two horrible monstrosities beyond our comprehension. If you went to a Superhallucinogen, that would explain the nightmarish scenes you witnessed. According to the legends of the Folk, Superhallucinogens feed off your childhood memories and pervert them to suck away your joy and soul. People rarely escape the Nightmarelands, and few ever do so with their sanity intact.”
“This is all rather interesting, but I’m still interested in business.” The Leader seemed to have had enough of the gossip. He also seemed a little nervous himself. Perhaps he was scared. Scared of something much bigger than him; some higher force that should not be pursued for.
“What business are you talking about???”
“Slavery, of course!!! You didn’t I brought you here and drugged you just to tell you bedtime stories, did you??? You three Ghosties will be sold at the black-market, the flesh-trade. Tonight.”
“Wait…what????”
“But we will most likely have to Mute you three to prevent anything like the Gatoshta incident from happening again. You’ll be taken to the Slaughter-House, and the Butcher will Mute you and get you prepped and ready for slavery.”
“This is madness.”
“Not as mad as what we just witnessed a few minutes ago.”
“Wait….how long were we gone???”
“The Doctor counted five minutes and twenty-five seconds.”
Dmitri was shocked.
“That can’t be!!!! It was almost three hours in there!!!!”
“Maybe that’s how it when you go Gatoshta. Time goes slower. A lot of weird and unexplained things happen in the realm of the supernatural. Enough talk. Tie them up.” The Leader gestured to two more bandits, both of them smaller Asimovs. Dmitri took the time to observe the Leader in the light coming through a tiny hole in the wall that functioned as a window. He was obviously much bigger than the average Asimov machines, but it was more than that. It was his color. This particular Asimov, although mostly covered in rust, ad an odd colored shell. In the places where the rust hadn’t got to, the metal was smooth and red. This bandit machine had once been a priest.
The two Asimovs tied Dmitri’s eyes and gagged him, then cut him loose and tied him again with thicker and stronger rope. They tied up Chloe and Bryan too, but not without revolt. Dmitri could hear Chloe aim a kick at one of the Asimovs, and then heard it swear angrily in Lowertalk.
He was carried o something similar to a trolley. He was taken down some form of hallway, a long dark passage that smelled like a morgue. He was loaded onto a smaller moving object and shifted a few times. Then he felt the pull of gravity and the wind in his hair. He was being lifted into the air.
At about twenty feet, he was flipped over onto some larger machine. Most likely a hovercraft. The hovercraft carried him across a river (he could hear the sounds) and dumped him on a pile of what Dmitri hoped were not bodies. Then two more machines and a group of commoners strapped him to a gurney and carried him to a dark building. Bringing him inside, then threw him in a small cell. The walls were brick and the floor was smooth cold cement. They removed Dmitri’s blindfold and gag and threw him into a corner. Dmitri, loosening his restraints, managed to stand up and observe the outside. Through the bars of the cage he was in, he could see the interior of the building. And it was amazing.
A massive building made entirely of a cold silvery metal. The floors, except for the ones in the jail-cells, were paved tiles that reflected light off the thousands of windows on the roof. The frame f the roof was like a giant steel ribcage holding the building together. Pipes ran all over the roof and walls like giant tree-roots. There were cells, like the one Dmitri was in, lined along the walls. About two hundred in rows of three, stacked on top of each other like building-blocks. Dmitri could actually hear someone in a cell above him, and the person didn’t sound too pleased. He could also hear prisoners in cells on either side of him. Cells up, left and right. Like apartment-blocks.
Dmitri looked at the massive churning machinery in the center of the building. These machines were similar in shape to oil-derricks, and must have been used when the Folk were still around. Dmitri stared in amazement, and fear.
“So……this is the Slaughter-House.”
For the next few days or so, Dmitri spent his time in his cell. The Slaughter-House, he would later find out, was named so for a reason. Every day six random “inmates” were selected to be turned into Muties. These Muties were then sold at the flesh-trade in a few days. Dmitri was disbelief. They were going to Mute him! Chemically castrated, unable to speak and as loyal as a dog to whoever his master may be. Robbed of logical thinking, free will and analytical thought, robbed of his skills and memories, even memories of Chloe and Bryan. He couldn’t accept Mutation as the end of his life; he would not let them Mute him. And so he tried a simple tactic: feigning insanity.
For the next few days Dmitri pretended he had gone mad. When bandits were sent to collect him for Mutation, he would scream and thrash about like a snake held underwater. Biting, scratching, and clawing until they let him go. The bandits assumed Dmitri had gone insane after his “Gatoshta experience”, which had by now become the talk of the town. News of three captives going Gatoshta quickly spread to every section of the bandit’s lair, including the bowels of the Slaughter-House.
It was due to this reason that Dmitri, who was in Cell-2345, and Bryan and Chloe, who were in Cell-7899 and Cell-7900 respectively, were spared from being Muted. It seemed the Leader was not planning to sell any slaves that would be “dangerous” to potential customers.
Whilst Dmitri was isolated in his cell, now ignored by the bandits and no longer bothered or molested, he spent his time listening to the conversations of the other prisoners. He could hear small snippets of conversation, random words and phrases he didn’t understand.
“......is not equivalent to a broken leg. Who came up with that analogy????” said one.
“Someone who hasn't experienced either seems the only possibility,” responded the other.
“.....it's far more akin to a giant spasm, contorting your leg against your will. And stopping it seems highly unnatural; since each doctor prescribes different pills...” said someone else.
“Nobody has fluctuating broken legs or fractured limbs that cause them to count the precise number of steps they take...” said someone else. “......and despair if it's the wrong amount.....” said someone else.
“.....healing bones that turn reality into hallucinatory nightmares, or make you stay awake all week....”
“......and start berating chairs......”
“......broken legs are quick to heal, and cause a lot less pain......”
Finally, tired of listening to random voices, Dmitri buried his head in-between his elbows and went to sleep, with much difficulty as at night he could hear screams coming from the Mutation-Stations, small timber buildings with roofs made of corrugated steel and doors made of oak-wood. It was, of course, in the Mutation-Stations that inmates were Muted.
That night Dmitri had a few nightmares. A few he couldn’t remember, although he could visualize small parts of each dream. He could remember seeing large men in black robes, a flag with a cross, a pit of fire and a black tower rising through the clouds. He woke up 7 hours later.
After about three days, he was given food.
It was a plate of some grey sticky gruel, most likely some form of mutated grain. Some dry strips of bacon were thrown in to add a bit of flavour to the disgusting porridge (which tasted like sand and had the texture of jelly or stale bread). Dmitri ate the salty bacon and ignored the porridge. He would later find out from a fellow inmate that the porridge was made from dead bodies.
He was given a form of jumpsuit, a loose grey one with the number of his cell on it, and was sent out three times a day in the morning, afternoon and evening for breakfast, lunch and supper. He ate with a few other inmates, about 10,000 in total. They all gathered outside in a big courtyard, a flat block of land that was built on top of an overhanging ledge that dropped down a nearby cliff all the way to a lake at the bottom. Cascading waterfalls surrounding the area collapsed into this lake, and it seemed the lake was the bandits’ source of water. The land itself was almost like a big bowl, with water being poured in from all sides. The area surrounding the Slaughter-House were thick woodlands, full of pine and fir trees. Judging from the green trees and flowing water, Dmitri could tell they were in the tropical regions of the Raginwald. Close to the Harbor, if he was not mistaken.
There were rows of benches lining the courtyard, which was shaped a bit like a rhombus and paved down with cement. The cement was still drying, soaking into the soil and forming sinkholes in which some prisoners would accidentally trip in. In one day, Dmitri had to help three separate prisoners free their feet from sinking cement-holes.
The food occasionally served at the tables was moderately better than the porridge served at night-time in the cells. Each prisoner was given a pound of bread, a pound of cheese and a pound of meat. This three-pound formula made for an odd sandwich. But at least it was food.
Whilst Dmitri was eating his three-pound sandwich, he managed to start a few conversations with fellow commoners. Some inmates had been here for two weeks, some for two months. Some had been kidnapped the same way Dmitri and his group had been. Most of these inmates had been discussing about rebellion. Some of the inmates who had been here the longest, such as Timothy Darrowway and James Darrowway who had lived in Thetmis, had so far counted about six-thousand bandits in total, all governed by the Leader who was in turn governed by someone he had referred to as the “Boss” or the “Red”. Dmitri had heard that name before; it brought back some ugly memories. So far Dmitri had also realised that none of the inmates were afraid of him for being a Ghostie. Perhaps they didn’t know, perhaps they didn’t care anymore and simply guessed that infection would not be the worst thing to happen to them right now. Perhaps it was better to be free with Red-Eye in your blood than to be healthy and enslaved in a slave-camp before being chemically castrated and sold off.
Dmitri discussed things with a fellow inmate named Jerry, who had been infected with Red-Eye two weeks ago. He was developing pustules and a yellowing of the eyes, and would soon suffer from internal-bleeding. Dmitri was also going through a stage of the infection: a rapid swelling of the tongue. He could already feel the muscles of his tongue start to thicken as if made of wood. Soon his tongue would swell so much he would be unable to hold it in his mouth, and it would be a foot long as thick as a tree-branch. He wouldn’t be able to talk, and would barely be able to eat food or swallow anything. Dmitri could remember once spotting a Ghostie (before his infection) in the markets of Rebaria, a small district a few miles from his home and Disra. This Ghostie had a tongue which stretched all the way to the place where his heart was, and was dripping yellow drool onto the road. This Ghostie was mercilessly “pacified” (killed) by two Peacekeepers in the road, but now before Dmitri heard his screams. Long and gravelly, like a dog being choked under water. It was hardly even human anymore.
After finishing his food, Dmitri left his plastic plate on the table and was walked back to his cell by a group of security-drones. His cell had a small silver potty at one corner, and a tap near the other. There was a small circular grill in the center of the room, a sort of drain built to discard fluids. Dmitri had an idea of which kinds of fluids.
At night he slept with his head rested on his curled elbow, in the style of the Massa warriors of the western section of the Heimland. This Yea’haa’weh tribe trained their people from a young age to sleep in a way that they don’t drift off into deep-sleep, but remain on the boundary in-between sleep and wakefulness. This way, they are light sleepers and will wake up with the slightest abnormal sound. Should any attackers arrive at the camp, the Massa will be up and ready to fight before the attackers have even stepped foot into the settlement.
Dmitri had no dreams, at least none he could remember. He woke up the next morning just as the son was rising up. His tongue had swelled up to the size of a child’s chancla.
He decided to stay back from the daily food-routines, and had a discussion with a fellow inmate named Wilson in the cell next door. Wilson was the Ghostie he’d met earlier.
“Morning, Damiri.”
“It’s...actually.....Dmitri,” he said with some difficulty.
“Oh. Ok. So....what do you want to talk about???”
“Escape.”
“Nice try, friend. If any of us knew how to escape this hellhole, we would have left a long time ago. Ask the guys who’ve been here for months, and they’ll tell you that there are no tunnels or secret passageways to assist in escaping the Slaughter-House. And any inmates who have tried to escape before are Muted and sold immediately, or sometimes killed with their bodies dumped over the waterfalls. Escape is pointless.”
“So....you’re saying we......give up???”
“I’m saying we wait. Wait for the right moment.”
The right moment would come six days later.
Dmitri had been trying to contact Chloe and Bryan in some way, but there were always too far from him to talk to. Of course they saw him and made attempts to sit with him when eating, but these efforts were stopped by the drones who had been commanded by the Leader to keep the three “Gatoshta Ghosties” away from each other. So Dmitri tried another method. Whistling.
When he and Bryan had been on the road as a duo, Dmitri had taught Bryan to speak Silbo, the language of whistling used secretly among groups. Silbo is a rather simple language: to memorize the formula one must remember an equation: continuity, continuous, minus (-) and plus (+). There are 4 vowel-classes of /i/, /e/, /a/, /u/ and /o/. There are 5 perceived vowels with significant overlap. Each vowel is represented by a specific tone or tune (high, low, wobbling, soft and loud). Voice (/k/vs/ɡ/) is transmitted by the whistled feature [-continuity]. A silent pause in the whistle communicates (/ɡ/), while a [+continuous] consonant gives the quality (/k/). Placement of the consonant (dental, palatal, fricative) is transmitted in whistle by the loci, the sharpness or speed, of the formant transitions between vowels. Consonant classes are simplified into four classes. Extra high loci (near vertical formant loci) denote affricates and stridents, rising loci denotes alveolar, medial (loci just above the vowel formant) denotes palatal, and falling (low loci) denotes pharyngeal, labial, and fricative. This gives 8 whistled consonants, but including tone gradual decay (with intensity falling off) as a feature on continuous and interrupted sounds gives 10 consonants. In these situations gradual decay is given [+voice], and continuous is given [+liquid]. The slightly complicated whistle-patterns (despite the various tones and voicing) were easy to learn, though, and soon Bryan was able to whistle an entire sentence in Silbo across a stream as if he was speaking to Dmitri right in front of him.
With Silbo, the two could communicate over long distances, and could sometimes even communicate when they were in separate rooms. And, after Chloe joined the group, she learnt it too. Dmitri had an idea.
The next day at breakfast, Dmitri sat next to Wilson. He could see that already nearly fifty men and women were missing. They were probably Mutes by now, washing the feet of rich aristocrats in foreign lands. Dmitri, spotting Chloe about 30 feet away from him and Bryan about 15, he decided to test his whistling.
Dmitri covered his mouth with his cupped hands and whistled a small message:
“Canyouhearme????????” He whistled in one single word.
He waited for a bit. Finally, losing hope, he started eating his food. But then:
“I....can.....hear....you....Dmitri.”
It was Chloe, whistling from the corner of her mouth. She was pausing to catch her breath before she whistled again. It seemed none of the inmates were interested with the whistling conversation happening right now, or maybe they just thought it was birds tweeting.
“Hello.....Chloe....it’s.....been...such...a...long...time!!!!!!!!!”
“I....know!!!!”
“Hey.....guys!!!!!!!”
“Bryan!!!!!!”
“So....what......are.....you.....guys.....talking....about????”
And so they talked, blissfully aware that the security-drones couldn’t understand them, and neither could the other inmates. It was their secret language.
After breakfast, Wilson asked Dmitri what was up with all the whistling, and then he asked if it was a language. “It is, Wilson. And maybe I’ll teach it to you.”
And he did. It turns out, a few inmates could actually understand Silbo but not speak it since they had never been taught. And in a few days, Dmitri was a teacher educating a group of “students” how to speak Silbo. Soon a majority of the inmates could speak it, and conversations could be had everywhere.
Now siblings who had been separated for months could talk to each other again. Now plans of escape could be discussed freely without fear of capture. And it seemed the bandits didn’t understand any of it, or maybe they thought it was just the inmates passing time with whistling. And so plans were discussed.
“We.....need.....to.....get.....out.....of.....here....” said one inmate.
“Yeah......but.....how???????” asked another.
“My.......brother.......made........a......glass.....knife.....it.....can....cut....steel....if....used....properly,” responded another.
“We’ll.......need......more....time.......and.....a......better......plan......” said Dmitri.
“I.......think......I......have.....an.....idea.....” whistled Wilson.
And they formed a plan. More accurately, they formed a rebellion. One by one the message spread through the medium of whistles, and soon nearly all of the inmates were willing to rebel against the bandits. The ones that didn’t join the retaliation were the ones who had simply given up, accepted their fate as Mutes and slaves. These were the ones who were just waiting to get it over with, who just wanted this whole business to finally finish.
That night the inmates didn’t do to sleep. There were whistles echoing off the walls, messages being sent by dozens of people at a time. It was almost chaos, like an orchestra of flutes playing out of tune. Snippets of words were flying around like rocks being tossed in an ocean wave. Inmates were so impatient to whistle their message across, they were overriding each other with their own separate messages and creating a very confusing soup of sounds:
“.......left door.....”
“......six guards......”
“.......patrol till midnight......”
“........defenses.......”
“........tear gas........”
“.........drones........”
“........thousands of cameras..........”
“.......active till five.......”
“........after lunchtime.......”
“......matron.......”
“........cadavers.........”
“.......key.......”
“.........Doctor.......”
In the end, despite the confusion, a plan was made among the inmates and by morning Wilson (who had risen to a high position of power and status among the inmates after he stopped a fight between three fellow inmates over a piece of bread) was ready to present the idea to Dmitri, who had become a sort of celebrity after his “Gatoshta incident”.
“Dmitri,” he spoke rapidly in Silbo as he sat down next to him.
“Wilson.”
“I think I have a......plan.” The word “plan” was whistled in Silbo at the end to hide its meaning from the ears of the security drones.
“Let’s hear it.”
The rest of the conversation was whispered in Silbo. There were no pauses to separate words, but they managed to whistle their messages just fine:
“Ok. The Darrowway brothers managed to escape to one of the Mutation-Stations late at night when the cameras were turned off to prevent overheating. They used a glass knife to pick the lock of one of the doors, and found themselves in an office.”
“An office?
“Yeah. So they found a desk and smashed its lock open. They found documents, maps and blueprints of all the other Slaughter-Houses.”
“Wait.....there are more Slaughter-Houses????”
“Yeah, it turns out that there are twenty. Each one is for a specific group to be housed in. SL-12 is for Yea’haa’weh slaves, SL-13 is for machines. SL-06 is for Drekkin. Sl-20 is for Indies and Spider-Folk. We’re in SL-10, for commoners and Ghosties. The others are secret, hidden near the Big Pike Mountain.”
“So....what did they find out???”
“They found a full map of the facility. They know every nook and cranny of this place. The building is structured as such: there is an underground basement that connects with the Mutation-Stations. And then there is the surface floor: this floor is divided into three sections. Each section has hundreds of cells built into it. These cell-blocks are stacked on top of each other, as well as on either side. The cell-blocks on the top are near where the drones are perched. There are cameras hundreds of cameras scattered all over the building, with one camera outside each cell to watch the prisoner inside. There are 10,000 cells, with 10,000 cameras in total. When prisoners are sent off to be Muted, more prisoners are found to replace them. The cameras turn off at midnight to cool down and prevent overheating, but are active for 88 hours of the day. And since each day is 90 hours with 45 hours of daylight and 45 hours of night, the cameras are only off for two hours within the whole day. That gives us a time-limit of only two hours; so about 7,200rough minutes or 432,000 seconds to do whatever we want. That’s surprisingly short, but we have to make do with what we’re given. When the cameras are turned off, the drones are activated. Although they are active for only 2 hours of the day, they are extremely vigilant and getting around them without being caught would be tricky. The first floor is built in a “J” shape, with the long part being where the cells are kept and the curved section being where the guards stay. The guards patrol the hallways after the drones turn off and the cameras turn back on. There are six guards, three commoners and three machines. The guards maintain the cameras and drones, and alert the rest of the bandits if anything is amiss. The guards, thankfully, walk the hallways for only 30 minutes. That gives us a time of 1 hour and 30 minutes, shortened by half an hour. But it gets a bit worse. After the guards are sent out, the maintenance-workers arrive to check on the cameras and drones and to sweep the hallways. They are active for 55 minutes. That gives us a new time-period of 35 minutes. But of course it gets worse. After the maintenance-workers finish their shift, the Leader arrives to check each cell to see if all the prisoners are there. And he stays around for 30 minutes before leaving.”
“Which gives us.....”
“Only a grand total of five minutes to escape this place.”
Dmitri groaned. He felt like screaming in anger, but of course this would alert the drones to their discussion. “But there’s a way we could do it.”
Dmitri leaned in closer.
“It has something to do with the matron.”
The matron seemed to be an assistant to the Doctor. She was a scrawny Yea’haa’weh teen of about 14. Her job was to carry cadavers and waste-materials to the disposal room, where the substances were boiled down and turned into grey porridge. “The matron handles cadavers. And I think I have an idea.......”
Wilson told his plan. And of course Dmitri said “hell no” to it. But, after more and more persuading from Wilson, Dmitri agreed. And so the plan was made.
It was after supper. The inmates were about to leave their plates and be escorted back to their cells. Once again 50 inmates had been Muted, and another 50 had been found to replace them. Dmitri had told the plan to Bryan and Chloe through Silbo. They both agreed. Wilson was about to leave his plate behind, when Bryan stood up. He ran over to Wilson and revealed a concealed weapon; a glass knife he must have crafted a few days ago. Without hesitation, Bryan stabbed Wilson in the gut. Blood squirted out like a fountain in Thetmis. Wilson screamed and collapsed, falling down to the ground with a heavy thud. The drones had been alerted. Bryan quickly threw the bloodstained knife to Chloe, who concealed it inside her thick mane of crimson hair.
The drones approached Bryan, who stood and looked at Wilson with a look of fake shock on his face.
“I.....I think he tripped and got stabbed by a rock or something!!!” Bryan was good at acting. And since the drones weren’t particularly smart, they believed him. The rest of the inmates stood and watched, a few of them smiling. Hey were in on the plan.
One drone turned towards the door and called out in a deep booming radio-voice:
“CALLING THE MATRON. CALLING THE MATRON. THERE HAS BEEN AN EMERGENCY.”
The matron immediately rushed out, a scrawny teen wearing a miniskirt that earned the looks of a few of the male inmates.
“What happened???”
“INMATE-2346 HAS TRIPPED AND WOUNDED HIMSELF.”
The matron stared at Wilson with a slight look of disbelief.
“Are you sure? This looks like a more serious wound.....”
“MATRON. YOU ARE COMMANDED TO DO YOUR DUTY. YOU KNOW WHAT IS TO BE DONE. SO DO IT. THAT IS AN ORDER.” And with that, the two drones left to escort the rest of the prisoners back to their cells. Bryan followed the crowd, Chloe right behind him. And with that, the first half of the escape was complete.
The matron fixed Wilson on top of her small cart, then covered him with a sheet and wheeled him away. The bandits’ lair had very little medical supplies, and none that could be wasted on slaves. Therefore, when an inmate got injured, he or she was normally taken to the storage-room where the cadavers were kept and then left to die. Then his/her body was turned into porridge for the other inmates. Circle of life. The matron’s job was to take Wilson, who was by now unconscious, and leave him in the rancid room to perish. Then she was tasked with taking his body to the Kitchen, where the porridge was made.
But the problem was Wilson was not really unconscious.
He could remember telling Dmitri his plan: “.....Dmitri.....I’ll need you to stab me.” Of course Dmitri protested, but he had finally convinced him after he said Bryan could do the job. Wilson was thankful Bryan had stabbed him in a safe place, missing all of his vital organs. As he lay with the sheet over his body, he dug into the left pocket of his jumpsuit and pulled out his own glass knife.
He pulled the sheet off himself and leapt at the matron. The girl screamed as Wilson landed on top of her, pinning her down and covering her mouth with a balled fist. Wilson could guess that this white hallway with the paved marble floors was near the Kitchen, the place the food was made. He lay on top of the struggling matron, getting a whiff of her perfume. Sunflower oil and aloe. Taking a closer look at her now, Wilson was a little surprised. She was barely a teenager, more like a child. Guessing her age, Wilson assumed she was about 12. And, since the matron had been working here for three years, she must have been taken from her tribe by the bandits at the age of nine. Kidnapped before she could receive her first true weapon. How tragic.
“Listen....just stop struggling.”
The matron stopped moving. Tears were streaming down her eyes. Wilson felt a little sickened that he could be hurting a child like this. Is this what he had become?
“I need you to give me the key.”
The matron, real name Willow, knew what key the slave was referring to. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a large cyan key made from turquoise. The master-key that could open all the wooden doors in the facility, as well as the padlocks on the cells. Wilson grabbed the master-key, admiring its design. It was a foot long, made of turquoise stone, smooth and supple to the touch. Fixed into the key was a large black onyx gemstone with a mottled-white pattern. Wrapped around its exterior was a complex and layered lattice of gold metal. The gold was sculpted into broad strokes at the lower part of the object, but with increasing length the patterns became progressively more intricate. The onyx and the turquoise coloration distracted Wilson for a bit, who felt like this object was definitely some form of Old Folk tech. A key that could open all doors with keyholes??? It was definitely created by the Old Folk. Wilson wondered where the bandits had gotten this key. But no time to think of that now.
With the heavy key in hand, Wilson rolled off the matron. The matron was trying to steady her breathing, and was having a horrible time doing so. She was hyperventilating. She must have suffered with asthma for a long time. Wilson, feeling pity for the girl, pulled out the only souvenir he kept from his home: an old pine-scented inhaler. This inhaler had belonged to his brother Chucky, and was the only object he found from his brother’s body after he was taken by the Surakh. The inhaler was his only reminder of home, his last piece of his past. But someone needed it. So maybe it was time to let go.
Wilson passed the inhaler to the matron, who grabbed it gratefully. The inhaler still functioned, and the matron took long deep breaths of it until her breathing steadied.
“Thank....you.”
“Thank me after you escape.”

Dmitri had been waiting for Wilson’s signal. In a few more minutes the cameras would turn off and the drones would start patrolling; and then the guards, then the maintenance-workers and finally the Leader himself. Dmitri was using the dripping tap in his cell to count the seconds. With each drip, a second passed. Drip, drip, drip. He waited. Drip, drip, drip. He waited some more. Drip, drip, drip. He was getting nervous now. Drip, drip, drip. The cameras turned off.
All the cameras facing the outside of each cell flicked off to cool down. Two hours. Dmitri could hear the drones start to activate. Then he could hear the buzzing sound of their propellers. They were patrolling.
“Wilson....please make it back safe.”
And he did.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dmitri could spot a moving shape in the shadows. It was Wilson. Hiding from the view of the drones, who only flew up and down instead of turning around corners, he was slowly sneaking with a cloth hung over his head and another cloth wrapped around the rest of his body. He looked a bit like a shepherd, or like the prophet known as “Jiesous Krist” from the Kristyan religion. A salty smell of fish filled the air. Dmitri guessed what the substance was. Gelanine.
Wilson had explained that the drones relied on heat and ammonia-levels to detect inmates. And since living beings produced a lot of ammonia, they were easy to spot even in the dark or behind walls. However, there was a substance known as Gelanine (or “Chemical-G”) that could reduce a person’s ammonia-levels as well as lower their body-temperature to the temperature of the room they were in. The cloths Wilson had wrapped himself in must have been soaked in Gelanine, which is how he was now moving right underneath the nearest drone without it spotting him. But he had to move quickly. Gelanine dried and turned to useless jelly after a few minutes of exposure to oxygen in the air.
Wilson slowly positioned himself right below a hovering drones, and then pulled something out from under his robes. It cast off a silvery light, and seemed to be made of steel. A steam-pipe.
Wilson raised the pipe and smacked the drone near one of its propellers, causing it to crash a few feet away from Dmitri’s cell. With quick movement he smashed the drone to pieces, and then covered himself with the soaked sheets once again before the other drones could notice. There were five. Now only four. Wilson pulled something out of his pocket. Throwing-stones. With some surprising accuracy, Wilson managed to knock each drone down one by one. It was a slow and tedious process. But finally it was done. One minute had passed.
Wilson, now removing his sheets, approached Dmitri’s cage.
“Ok. We have a few minutes. Let’s do this.”
He flashed the cyan key at Dmitri, and Dmitri smiled.
One by one Wilson started opening the cells, alerting the inmates inside. And of course these inmates hadn’t been asleep, they had been patiently waiting with their own assortment of weapons hidden behind walls and inside their miniature toilets. Pipe-wrenches, glass knives, plastic forks, ceramic plates, bricks and stones, socks filled with iron nails. The inmates gathered near Dmitri’s cell. Finally, after Wilson had released all the prisoners in the first level, he opened Dmitri’s cage.
“Go and free the rest of them up there. Second and third rows,” Wilson said to two tall lanky men Dmitri recognized as the Darrowway twins. Wilson passed them the cyan key, and then some hair-pins to pick the locks if needed. The Darrowways set off for the nearby spiral staircase that reached the second floor where the second row of cells was stacked.
“Ok. We have to move quickly.”
The two of them waited. Thirty seconds had passed. Finally, after some speedy work by the twins, the rest of the prisoners (10,000 in total) were out and walking. They were each wielding their own homemade weapons, and one prisoner even had a jingy, a crude bomb made from a glass bottle filled with a flammable liquid such as gasoline and a wick that was to be set alight just before it was thrown.
Dmitri started whistling a message in Silbo. Three simple words.
“Let’s......escape....together.”
The prisoners started nodding their heads in agreement.
“Ok. The guards haven’t started their patrols yet. They’re still asleep. Let’s pay them a visit.” Wilson flashed a smile so brilliantly mad Dmitri couldn’t help but wonder why he hadn’t tried to learn about him more before. Wilson seemed to be crazy, in the right way. And maybe Dmitri wouldn’t mind if he joined their little group, if willing.
Wilson led a small group of prisoners whilst another group went off to see if any other prisoners, Muted or not, were still there. Wilson’s group neared the curve, the place the guards were waiting. He looked at the prisoner holding the jingy and nodded. The prisoner lifted a muscled hand and threw the projectile blindly down the curve. It bounced, and finally shattered. The wick, lit with a cigarette-lighter, ignited the fluid. There was a crackling of fire. And then some horrific screams.
Dmitri peeked around the corner. He could see three guards, commoners, screaming and patting their suits, trying to brush off the fire that was sticking to their clothes. They were standing in a pool of the flammable liquid. There were three machines. These machines stared at the burning commoners with a look of clear awe and fascination in their cold unfeeling eyes. It made Dmitri a little sick. One prisoner, using a slingshot made from three twigs and a roll of smuggled duct-tape, fired three large stones as big as golf-balls at the machines. Each rock hit a machine in the head, bursting out the other end and leaving a trail of sparks behind. The machines stuttered in confusion and finally collapsed, their circuits fried like woodchips.
And, with time running out, the group charged.
Running past the sizzling corpses of the guards, they were met with a new section of the place.
A long hallway that split into an “X” shaped section. Each branch of each section split off into four directions. In total there were twelve routes, each one shrouded in darkness.
“Which one do we go down?”
“Pick a random one.”
They chose a pathway on the right, and went down it immediately. In a few seconds they realized it was a dead end, and went back. And then everything went to hell.
A maintenance worker, probably getting up to go use the bathroom, spotted the crowd of inmates. He screamed, alerting the rest of his crew to their presence. Wilson knocked the worker with his pipe, and then gagged the unconscious man with one of his Gelanine-soaked cloths, which were now turning to jelly-soaked rags.
But it was too late. Three maintenance workers, worn down from lack of sleep, saw the posse of prisoners and blew their silver whistles. Suddenly an alarm rang out, red lights flashing like the insides of a giant pulsing heart.
“Run!!!”
The inmates scrambled in random directions as bandits wielding guns and swords came pouring in from the various pathways. In the chaos, Dmitri could barely see anything. Wilson grabbed him and dragged him away from the screaming crowd.
“Dmitri, we’re going to need a better plan.”
“There are only two options; fight or flight,” said Dmitri with some effort. By now his tongue was the size of a ripe orange. Wilson looked at Dmitri as if he were completely stupid.
“Fight, obviously!!! We have too much to lose!!! It’s either we fight and die, or live the rest of our lives as dumb sterile Mutes.” So Dmitri and Wilson retreated back, looking for other inmates in the bright red light. Finally they stumbled upon Bryan and Chloe, leading a group of inmates. Some of these inmates were already Mutes, staring at Dmitri and Wilson with dull watery eyes like cattle.
“All the inmates have been let out.”
“Wilson says we fight.”
“Obviously!!! D’you think the second option is any better???” Chloe pointed at the group of Mutes to show what she meant. The Mutes didn’t seem offended by this, but for obvious reasons. They didn’t feel anything anymore.
“Gather the prisoners.”
Dmitri put his fingers to his lips and blew a long shrill whistle. It was actually one word:
“MEN!!!!!!” he whistled in Silbo, as it was easier to whistle than to talk.
There was a brief ghost-silence.
“Gather together and fight!!!!! Protect those who can’t fight!!!!!! Save the Mutes!!! Kill every bandit!!! We can’t let them win!!!!!” The inmates seemed to hear the message, as groups of them were now joining together to push back the attacking bandits. The inmates, wielding their homemade weapons, attacked.

It was chaos. An inmate with a glass knife stabbed a bandit right in the eye, and then took his rifle. A well-fed second inmate tackled two bandits to the ground, and snapped their necks with his massive weight. More and more inmates pushed into the crowd of bandits, dwindling their number to a few dozen. The bandits fought back viciously, and managed to kill three inmates, then six, then twelve. But they didn’t stop fighting.
By now the bandits were suing their shield to hold back the aggressive inmates, who were slashing at them with steel pipes and monkey-wrenches and wooden chairs and anything they could get their hands on. One inmate grabbed a bandit and used his body as a shield from the flying bullets.
Dmitri found a bloodstained sword on the ground, and picked it up. Bryan armed himself with a sewage-pipeline and Chloe gripped a piece of wood with a dangerously long nail sticking out of it.
“Let’s fight.”
They charged at some bandits, Dmitri nailing a solid punch to one of them. He felt the bandit’s jaw break and drove the sword through the man’s skull, in-between the eyes. Blood squirted all over Dmitri like a urinating hippo. He gasped, blood filling his mouth. He tried to spit it out, which was almost impossible with his massive tongue. Looking over, he could see that Bryan and Chloe had not developed their massive tongues yet. But they would probably develop the symptoms the next day. If they survived till the next day. The corpse fell with a heavy thump. Dmitri kicked it away, and then pulled the sword out of its head.
More and more bandits were arriving from the 12 pathways. It was a never-ending wave of people. Machines, commoners and a few Yea’haa’weh. But mostly machines. And they were all armed to the teeth. Rifles, shields, heirloom-swords.
Chloe pulled something out of her jumpsuit-pocket. It was a little black statuette of a horned devil. Dmitri guessed the bandits had let her keep it after the “Gatoshta incident.”
She tenderly stroked the devil’s horned head, and then cracked it open. It turns out the statuette was made from some form of miry clay that resembled stone. With the statuette broken, it was revealed to conceal something inside. Chloe pulled the object out. It was something wrapped in fine cloth. She removed the cloth, revealing a vial of red fluid underneath.
“What’s that???”
“My father always said to keep Deovel with me. He said some day the statuette might save my life. I never understood what he meant, but I think I do now.”
She held the vial in the moonlight. The contents glittered and shimmered.
“This is Rosslyn. A mixture of Gelanine, brandy, Stormbeast-blood, nitroglycerine and gunpowder. When exposed to air, it ignites.” “So.....you’re holding a makeshift explosive in your hand???” This was also a bit surprising, since no person in Heimland had seen a functioning grenade in 20 years.
“This is more powerful than a regular explosive. When ignited, it can spread to a radius of six miles and affect everything within that radius.”
“What does it do to what is touches???”
“Stormbeast-blood, a vital ingredient in Rosslyn, is incredibly flammable. With a flashpoint of 38°C, Rosslyn can incinerate anything it contacts. And, if it ever contacted you in open air, could melt the skin right off your bones. Rosslyn is the most dangerous explosive substance in Heimland. My dad must have given me the vial knowing I might need it someday. He hid it inside Deovel before he gave it to me.”
“But how d’you know the substance in that vial is Rosslyn? What if it’s just something else? A plague or contagion?” “I guess we’ll just have to see.”
Chloe was about to dash the glass vial on the ground. Dmitri lunged forward and stopped her.
“What are you doing??? Do you want us to die???” he said with some effort.
“I think it’s the best option.”
“Wait....what d’you....”
“I’ve been thinking of killing myself, Dmitri. Ever since I got infected. I was planning to escort you and Bryan to safety at the colony, and then kill myself. But now I don’t see much more time. I don’t know if I can protect you and Bryan from this, Dmitri. Everyone I try to protect only dies in the end. And don’t you realise what being a Mute means? Such people prove themselves useful for tasks requiring brute force, such as pulling sleds and other work commonly performed by beasts of burden. In other words, they’re as low as cattle. Mutes remain sentient and possess a personality and even a sense of humor, but they lose the capacity for verbal communication. They lose the capacity to think at all, to dream or imagine. They can’t even remember the things they knew before Mutation. So I think it would be merciful if you died from my hand rather than live life as stupid Mute slaves who don’t even have knowledge of where to eat and sleep or how to tie knots. This is the end.”
She raised her hand, but Bryan grabbed the vial from her open palm before it hit the ground. He tucked the vial of Rosslyn in his pocket and looked at Chloe with a look of disbelief.
“How can you decide whether we live or not? If we live, we live. If we die, we die. If we’re Muted, we’re Muted. You can’t decide that for us, Chlo. We make our own decision.” And with that the two ran off with their weapons outstretched, leaving Chloe alone with a look of pure hopelessness on her face.

Dmitri swung his pipe at a nearby bandit, bashing his skull inward. Bryan punched another bandit wielding a Remington, then took the gun and killed the crook with his own weapon. Wilson joined them soon, flanked by about a dozen inmates. The thousands of other prisoners were wrecking their own havoc on the bandits, who were outnumbered but still fighting like rabid dogs held underwater. “What’s that???” Wilson was pointing at the small glass vial in Bryan’s top pocket.
“It’s a doomsday device. Chloe was about to kill us with it.”
“The redhead gal??? I always knew redheads were crazy.”
“This is not about the color of hair. This is about whether it’s right nor not. Listen, if the worst happens, we’re not going to let them take us alive. And we won’t let any of them survive this, either. Agreed? If we go down, we’re taking them with us.” He pointed to the vial. Bryan and Wilson nodded.
The three of them joined the rest of the inmates, who were diminishing the bandits’ numbers. It was obvious that these bandits most likely never had any fighting experience and relied on intimidation or sedatives to get the job done. None of which seemed to be working on the furious bandits. Dmitri saw one large inmate grab a bandit and throw him onto another bandit, knocking them both down. Then he slammed himself on both of them, killing them in the process. Dmitri saw another inmate punch a bandit so hard his fist went through his head. Dmitri saw the Darrowway twins castrate another bandit with a glass knife. Another thing Dmitri noticed was that most of the bandits were male.
Dmitri swung his sword and decapitated a nearby bandit wielding a Hempant-69, his sword slicing through the bandit’s throat like butter. Bryan crushed another bandit’s skull with a fallen brick. Wilson jumped onto a bandit and ripped his nose off with his teeth, screaming like a maniac as he did so.
Suddenly Dmitri saw someone approach from the dark pathways. It was the Leader, followed by a group of machines. The Leader, wielding a sniper-rifle in one hand and an assault-rifle in the other, started to kill inmates one by one like fish in a barrel. But these fish weren’t giving up so easily.
The inmates charged at the incoming machines. One inmate punched an Asimov and ripped his head off with his bare hands. Another fired off six rounds into a Samura-22 and finished him with a kick to the chest, shattering his interior circuits. Another sliced off an Asimov’s hand, and was doused with flammable fluid as a result. The Asimov, seeing its opportunity, then ignited the fluid with a cigarette-lighter. Both the Asimov and the inmate went down in flames. Dmitri was shocked. According to the three Laws that machines followed, causing death or harm to other living creatures was erroneous. The Laws are programmed into each machine upon its creation and are unbreakable; if broken it will result in the immediate self-destruction of the machine via detonation. And maybe that’s what happened just now. The machine, knowing it had broken a Law, killed itself rather than being detonated. The Leader was surprisingly not detonating, despite the fact that he was killing more and more inmates as the time passed. Dmitri guessed his CPU-DSM (his mechanical brain) was built different than that of other machines. The Leader didn’t have to follow the Laws, and this was dangerous.
Dmitri, feeling his nose starting to bleed now, sat down on the cold floor whilst the chaos ensued around him. All of his pustules had burst, and his mucus was starting to congeal again. If he didn’t stop overexerting himself, it would solidify and choke him. He was exhausted. His tongue was hanging out like a dog’s. His vision was blurry, but he could see the Leader was now being overpowered by the other inmates. Now the Leader was fighting with his bare hands, his bullets were out. Now Wilson was climbing on top of the massive robot and stabbing into its eyes and face with a glass knife. Dmitri’s vision became clear again. Wilson had been passed a large heirloom-sword. Dmitri realized it was the white ivory one Chloe had brought back after she went Gatoshta. He’d been wondering where the sword went, and he guessed the Darrowways had found it in hidden the office. Wilson raised the ivory sword, pointing the blade downwards.
“Sic semper tyrannis!!!!”
And with that he drove the blade down, stabbing it through the Leader’s mechanical head. Sparks flew as the sword went deeper and deeper into the massive machine. And finally it went right out the other side. The Leader collapsed in a puddle of hydraulic fluid, and Wilson howled in victory.
The inmates were celebrating their victory. Nearly all of the bandits were dead, and the remaining dozens were fleeing for the outside. Some were caught and killed immediately; others were let loose because, after all, there was nothing a bandit could do without a leader. It would be like a snake moving without its head. Dmitri was still sitting on the ground, exhausted and relieved that the battle was over. But of course it wasn’t.
From behind Dmitri, a few yards away in one of the Mutation-Stations, came a tall figure. About 2 meters in height, the figure was wearing a thick rubbery mask to hide its face. A smell of rancid bacon emanated off the mask, and Dmitri guessed it was pig-skin. The giant figure was holding a hammerhead, a large stone mace weighing nearly a ton at the hilt. The figure slowly started moving towards Dmitri.
The celebrating inmates now stood silent. A few yelled in horror, and some tried to make Dmitri get up and run. It was no point trying to charge this figure, most of the battle-courage had vanished and the inmates were now paralysed with fear.
“Dmitri!!!!! Run!!!! It’s the Butcher!!!!!”
But Dmitri couldn’t run. He was so exhausted, and he knew he would start choking if he tried. He sat there as the figure approached him step by step.
In the sunlight, it could be seen that the Butcher had a leather bag strapped to its hip and a hunting-horn at its belt. It also had a sheathed sword, and was shirtless. The top half of its body was covered with husky white fur wit traces of black stripes.
Dmitri guessed this was a Yea’haa’weh. However, he had never seen a Yea’haa’weh so big before. A voice in his head kept telling him to stop being stupid and run away, it was the same voice that had told him to visit the Red Wolf and kill his father. For once Dmitri didn’t want to listen to the voice, and was inhaling deep cool breaths to try and get his heartbeat back to normal. The Butcher was getting closer, and quicker. Suddenly a switch flipped in his head. What the hell was he doing???
Realising that he was about to be killed, Dmitri tried to hoist himself up and run towards the inmates. But his arms were jelly, his tongue was a sponge and his legs were spaghetti.
The giant figure approached, and raised its hammerhead to deal a killing blow. Dmitri, realising he was too tired to stand, rolled away as the hammerhead came crashing down.
The weapon missed him by a few inches. The Butcher growled and swung it again. This time Dmitri purposely dodged it. He could feel the adrenaline pumping through his veins again. He could also feel his mucus starting to solidify. Dmitri finally managed to stand up. With some effort he avoided the hammerhead again, and managed to nail and hit to the giant figure’s chest. The Butcher barked in pain and lunged at him, swinging its hammerhead again. Dmitri dodged and nailed a hit to the slow-moving behemoth. Again the Butcher swung its weapon, and Dmitri dodged and hit it in the face. This caused its mask to come off, and Dmitri stood and gasped at the figure’s face.
The Butcher had the head of a dog.
The dog-headed man, obviously infuriated, placed its hammerhead gently on the ground and yelled something in a language Dmitri couldn’t understand.
"﴾۞¡Δʘ̃hwƩʘ۝wʔwkʘ۝ɸƩtΔʔʘ۝wkɹhdΔʘ﴿!!!”
Dmitri, too shocked to react, was punched directly on the nose by the Butcher’s swinging fist. This seemed to awaken Dmitri from his trance, and he reacted with a fist to the dog-man’s stomach. The beast howled and stood back, baring its teeth and growling fiercely. Dmitri realised what the Butcher was. The people in his village called them "Threrkens" (meaning “dog-people” or “hounds”), said to have been the result of the Old Folks’ experiments. This particular Threrken in front of Dmitri was a Berserker-Threrken, an alpine species. Dmitri had always assumed that Threrkens were myths, fairy-tales like “tellyfoons” and “raydiyoes”.
The Butcher unsheathed his sword and swung it at Dmitri, slicing his jumpsuit and causing a trickle of blood to seep out. Dmitri retaliated with a solid hard kick to the Threrken’s groin. This caused it to stumble back and drop its heavy sword.
Dmitri could see the beast had two different colored eyes; one amber-yellow and one cobalt-blue. The blue eye was now glowing with energy. Dmitri realised what it was channeling. Wild-Magic.
The Threrken suddenly fired off a red pulse of glowing raw energy. This pulse knocked Dmitri to his feet, and scalded his jumpsuit like a crisp. The Threrken then fired off an energy-blast from its chest, sending Dmitri flying across the smooth floor. The Threrken then fired off two more blasts from its hands, causing Dmitri to slam into the walls at high speed.
The Threrken suddenly ran to the nearest wall and latched onto it; climbing until it was right above Dmitri. Then it dropped down and nailed him a body-slam. Dmitri felt a few of his bones crack as the heavy beast landed on top of him, and then felt his jaw break as the beast nailed him a punch.
The Threrken fired off more and more concussive blasts, pummelling Dmitri like a punching-bag. Dmitri felt like a rag-doll in a washing-machine, tossed around and beaten relentlessly. Suddenly the Threrken fired off a pulse of fiery energy. Dmitri dodged it, and watched as it sank into the wall and singed its way through. The Threrken fired another fire-ball, and Dmitri dodged it again. Dmitri, grabbing a fallen monkey-wrench nearby, swung it at the beast. He managed to whack it in the face, causing a few canine teeth to fly out.
Dmitri whacked the beast again and again till it was shielding itself from the blows with its muscled arms. Then he shoved the weapon into the beast’s open jaws and kicked it once again in the groin. This time blood seeped out, chunky yellow blood. He punched the beast again and again till it was against another wall.
The inmates were watching all of this with awe, and shellshock.
Suddenly the Threrken excreted a saline fluid from its skin that hardened into an icy coating. This coating protected it from Dmitri’s feeble punches. The Threrken grabbed Dmitri by the neck and threw him to the ground. Stepping on top of him, the beast grabbed its nearby hammerhead and prepared t deal a death-blow.
But Dmitri, seeing the ivory heirloom-sword nearby, grabbed it. He realised that the Threrken’s weakness was its bright blue eye, which seemed to channel its magical energy.
And as the beast raised its hammerhead, Dmitri drove the weapon into its blue eye. The beast howled in pain, the howls of a wounded dog. Its screams were so loud they caused the nearby pigeons to fly off in shock. The beast stumbled back, clutching its bleeding wound. It feebly raised its hammerhead with one hand and prepared to strike at Dmitri, but this was put to an end when Wilson shot the beast six times in the back with his Remington pistol. The Threrken collapsed with a heavy thud, facing the ceiling. Its hammerhead fell to the ground with a heavy clunk.
Dmitri, standing a few feet away from the dying creature, could see it was trying to tell him something. He leaned in and listened to its last words:
“﴾۞y....¡ŋWlʔʘ.....kʔwŋWʃʘ....ʃŋƩyʔʘ....ŋʔΔʊʔdᶢʘyʘ...nɹʔʘ....wʃʔyʘ......ʔhʘ̬yʘ.....ɸɴʔnɸʘ.....yµʘ.....ŋyʘ̃ʯʔʘ.....Ƿɴʔɯɹʘ....ʃʔʔʘ.....yŋwʔʊʯŋʘ﴿....."
And with that the Threrken, known as the Butcher, took its final breath and died. The monster was dead. They had won. But Dmitri, despite the cheers going on in the background, felt like this wasn’t over.
The sun was rising when the inmates left the Slaughter-House. Dmitri, carried by Bryan and Chloe after he had collapsed when his mucus had congealed and choked the air out of him, was exhausted after the battle with the Threrken. Of course he hadn’t understood what the creature had been saying, but he guessed it would come into play later.
The inmates were each planning to go their separate ways. One group was planning to head off to Thetmis, another was heading to Rebaria and its neighbouring cities. All of them wanted new lives, and a few wanted to return to their old ones. These men and women had been farmers, fishermen, merchants, clergy, tailors and such before they were taken by the bandits. The Darrowway twins were planning on starting a smithy in the Forests, and were taking all the Mutes along with them. A few of the Ghosties, apart from Dmitri and his group, were heading for the Harbor. Dmitri, Bryan and Chloe agreed to go with them. Wilson was planning to go to the Tagaloa, a nearby archipelago. When Dmitri asked him why, his answer was simple:
“Because I’m a lone-wolf, Dmitri. Every person I care about eventually leaves me. The rain is my closest friend, but like most friends it will be gone soon. I love adventure, and I love it even more when I’m alone.”
And with that, Wilson turned around and headed off into the distance, his back turned to the group. Dmitri never saw him again.
The inmates had managed to harvest new clothes from the dead bandits’ bodies. Now all of them were wearing leather jackets, blue-jeans and Stetsons. Like most people in Heimland.
And so each group went off on their own ways, their new lives. Dmitri, Bryan and Chloe were close to the colony, they could feel it. They had gathered supplies and food for two days from the bandits’ storerooms. They set off. By now Chloe and Bryan had both developed exceedingly massive tongues the size of ripe cantaloupes. They now communicated with Dmitri through Handspeak, which was a form of simple sign-language used among Ghosties for communication.
“Well. Where are we off to now???”
“Once we pass these mountains, the colony is straight ahead. It’s just a simple walk afterwards.”
And so they walked, despite the cold and the congealing mucus and ceaseless coughing-fits and dehydration and hunger, they pushed through. They passed multiple black jagged mountains, most of them unnamed and unexplored, until they could finally see the paved road that went out of the Raginwald and stretched to the Harbor. Dmitri turned to face his friends, his tongue hanging out like a wet rag.
“Are you ready?” he gestured in Handspeak.
They nodded. Dmitri set off, the group following him.

The road was long and narrow. But the view was splendid. And horrifying. On the other side of the Raginwald, past the “wall” section of the mountain-range, were the Badlands. The lands where the settlements of Surakhnit and Indagar stood waiting for unfortunate victims to stumble into their wastelands. You would think, judging from the dull grey sky and barren sandy land as cold as ice, that few people would venture into it. But for years the Badlands had been a number-one spot for thrill-seekers and suicidal to visit. If one wanted to die without the ramifications of killing oneself, a single trip to the Badlands would do the trick.
They looked away from the sight of the dead land and continued walking till they met with the footpath that led to the main-road. For days they walked, occasionally stopping to make camp and leave the next day. They were no longer troubled by bandits, as they seemed to have annihilated the bandit activity in the colder regions. They would only have to worry about bandits in the Harbor, which was mostly run by them.
They continued to walk until they could it.
Tall grey buildings that reached for the sky. Dull paved roads overgrown with weeds from lack of use. The air was a wet blanket, covering the entire city. The Harbor, or what remained of it, was once the largest trade-center in all of Heimland. It brought resources from the Tagaloa through ships overlooked by Rapidos. The place was a ruin now.
As they entered the city, they could hear a group of Mocking-Birds calling out to them from a nearby dead tree. Mocking-Birds were mutated versions of crows that had, annoyingly, developed the sense of speech. As the group passed the birds, the pests ceaselessly nagged them with their raspy dry cawing voices:
“YOU DIE!!!! YOU DIE!!!!! BLEED AND DIE!!!! BLEED AND DIE!!!!”
Dmitri told Bryan to ignore the birds, as Mocking-Birds were about as smart as chickens and had no knowledge of what they were doing. Bryan ignored the birds’ chastising.
“THE RED!!!!! THE RED!!!!! THE RED IS COMING!!!!!”
This shocked Dmitri. The Red??? What on earth were these birds talking about???
“What do you mean???” Dmitri told the birds in Handspeak. Surprisingly they answered.
“BEWARE THE RED, BOY. HE SHOWS NO MERCY, FOR HE IS MAD.”
“How do you know all of this???” Bryan asked them in Handspeak.
“WE ARE SMARTER THAN WE LOOK, BOY. NOW KEEP MOVING, OR ELSE YOU WILL BLEED!!!! BLEED!!!! BLEED!!! HE WILL MAKE YOU BLEED!!!!!”
The birds continued their babbling as the group walked away. Dmitri had never felt this scared before.
They stopped at a broken trailer parked near a sewage-line. The machine must have been active when the Folk were still around. They set up camp right next to it and fell asleep. And the night was peaceful. For a little while. Dmitri suddenly felt something tugging his leg. When he opened his eyes, he screamed in horror.
A massive alligator, gripping his foot with its elongated mouth. But this was no normal alligator; it had a yellow underbelly, boar-like tusks on its upper jaw, razor-sharp teeth and dagger-like fangs, fins on its neck, rows of large pinkish red spines running down its back and large spikes on its tail that formed a large mace. This mutated alligator was about 30 feet in length, and was 5 feet in width. The massive beast had six large eyes as big as dinner-plates; these eyes were a pale lime-yellow, and staring at Dmitri like a cat at a mouse.
Dmitri tried to kick the beast in the head, but it seemed to not affect it. The alligator whipped its head to a side, flinging Dmitri like a ragdoll into the wall of the trailer. Dmitri slammed into the trailer, feeling his head start to bleed. The alligator was now dragging him, dragging him towards the sewer where it came from.
Dmitri tried to grab onto something. In the end he managed to grip onto a nearby bush. He held on as the beast tugged harder and harder. Finally his grip altered and he was dragged back some more.
He tried to call for help, but his massive tongue wouldn’t let him. Finally, seeing Bryan sleeping nearby, he grabbed a small pebble on the ground and chucked it at him. It hit him in the head and woke him up.

“...Huh....?”
When he saw the alligator holding Dmitri, he screamed and got up quickly. Rushing over to Chloe’s side, he woke her up and gestured towards the massive beast. Chloe didn’t scream, however, and quickly grabbed a fallen tree-branch. She gestured for Bryan to attack the beast with it.
Bryan rushed at the alligator and shoved the tree-branch into its gargantuan mouth. The beast growled in anger and let go of Dmitri for a split second. Dmitri got up and was about to run away when the alligator chomped down on his leg again, holding him in an iron grip. Bryan had by now climbed on top of the mutant behemoth and was bashing its head with a large cinder-block he found lying nearby. The cinder block barely did any damage, as the beast’s mutated armoured skin was as thick as leather and strong as steel. Dmitri grabbed another pebble and threw it at the monster. It didn’t flinch. Bryan grabbed an iron rod and aimed for the beast’s eyes. He stabbed it in one of its eyes, causing the best to moan in pain and let go of Dmitri. Bryan, seeing his opportunity, repeatedly bashed the beast’s other eyes with his rod until they were only a bloody red pulp. The beast, now blinded but not giving up, rolled over and crushed Bryan under its weight. It tried to grab Bryan with its jaws, but Bryan was too quick for it. Bryan stabbed the beast’s fangs and teeth with the iron rod till they shattered. To his horror, new teeth and fangs sprouted out of the beast’s mutated gums.
Out of the corner of his eye, Dmitri could see Chloe near the sewage-line, looking for something. Finally she saw what she wanted and reached in to grab it. She pulled it out. It was a porgy, a red fish with a deep flat body with large scales common in Heimland. She grabbed the thrashing porgy in her hands and threw it at the alligator.
Surprisingly the beast stopped its assault on Bryan and went for the fish. This gave Chloe enough time to grab the nearby Remington and fire six shots at the beast’s skull. Its thick armor caused the bullets to fly right off, but the sound of the gun seemed to scare it. The mutant beast, blinded and scared, retreated back into the murky depths of the sewage-line where it came from. Chloe gave a howl of victory, and Bryan celebrated with her. Dmitri felt an intense pain in his leg, and saw that his skin and muscle had been lacerated by the alligator’s teeth and fangs. He could even see his bone, and knew the wound was lethal. But suddenly, he witnessed the strangest thing.
His skin started to stitch itself together. One by one more skin-fibres and sinew and tendons started to grow and join together until finally most of the damage had been healed. Except for a few gashes here and there, and a great loss of blood, the leg was almost fixed.
Dmitri stared at his regenerated leg with shock, horror and confusion. Finally, taking a deep breath, he fainted.
When he awoke the next day, he could smell food cooking. It was Chloe frying some porgies with stale bread to make what Bryan called “toasties”. Dmitri looked at his leg. It was bandaged with some gauze and cloth. Dmitri felt no pain in his leg, although it was a bit numb and he couldn’t move it. Later on Dmitri would find out that he would never be able to move it.
Chloe served Dmitri some toasties, which Dmitri ate thankfully. He was hungry. And confused. A mixture of both, perhaps.
“Good morning, Dmitri. We’ve got a lot to tell you,” said Chloe in Handspeak.
She explained that the colony was not too far from here, and that it was just a straight line till they made it. It would take them about two days to get there. Dmitri nodded, but his mind was somewhere else.
“Dmitri? What’s wrong?”
Dmitri explained what had happened. How his leg, on the verge of ruination, had partially stitched itself together.
“Wow.....I....don’t know what to say. You’re saying it regenerated itself?”
Dmitri nodded.
“But not completely. It fixed most of the damage, but didn’t finish the job.”
He tried to life his foot, to no avail.
“I’ve heard of this before....but I never thought it was real.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a story of a Ghostie who had been shot in the shoulder. When he ran back to his camp, he tried to fix his wound through multiple methods; ointments, creams, hot soaks and compresses, bandages, disinfectants, drugs and even bloodletting from the wounded area. None of it worked. Finally the wound miraculously healed itself.”
“Almost like my situation. So....why?”
“Well, I have a theory. Not sure if it’s true.”
“Tell me.”
Chloe leaned in closer, making sure Bryan couldn’t see her moving hands when she talked to Dmitri, who was munching on his toastie exceedingly quiet.
“Red-Eye deforms a person, twists and warps them past recognition. It gives them pain and suffering, it tortures them mentally and physically. Yet it never kills them. The virus never kills its victim. Why is that? Well, I have a theory that the virus is purposely keeping its victim alive.”
“You mean.....preserving the victim?”
“Exactly. I have a theory that the virus, although causing the person great pain, is not willing to let the person die. It only seeks to torture the person, not kill it.”
“You mean.....”
“I think this virus is a living entity. Or maybe an organism composed of multiple entities, like some form of multicellular bacteria. I think this virus can think and fell. And I think it enjoys the suffering it inflicts on its victims. And that’s why it doesn’t want its victims to die. So it keep them alive, healing their wounds and things like that. If the person died, the fun would be over. The virus enjoys its playtoys very much, and will do anything to keep them alive for longer.”
“So.....Ghosties are the virus’s playtoys?”
Chloe nodded gravely.
“Oh god......”
At that moment Bryan, sleeping next to the sewage-line with a loaded Remington in his lap, woke up.
“Do I smell toasties?”
The group ate. Dmitri was still thinking of what Chloe had told him. If the virus was living and wanted Dmitri to continue living so it could play its sick and sadistic games with him, why not just kill himself. Now he realized why Chloe had tried to kill all of them in the Slaughter-House, and no longer blamed her for the thought.
The next few days of the trip were gruelling. Travelling through the city was like walking into the realm of the undead. There was hardly any sound, except for the occasional Mocking-Bird or cyborgs wandering the streets. There were plenty of cyborgs in the Harbor. They managed most of the remaining machines (such as the blast-furnaces) and kept them active. They had run out of food by now. Water, as well. There were no streams or fountains to refill from, as most were full of acid. But the group nevertheless pushed on, even when the days were exceedingly hot and the nights exceedingly cold. They would walk, stop, camp and then go in a few hours. No time to waste. No time for proper rest. Sleep-deprived, Bryan was starting to see hallucinations. He claimed he could see men in black robes, and dragons and elves and unicorns with machine-guns. It seemed madness would be taking over his mind is nothing was done, so Chloe gave him a Duramax and hoped for the best. The next few hours were exciting.
Apparently, the Duramax had an exceedingly positive effect on Bryan. He was suddenly all so happy it was annoying. When Chloe explained that they needed to find food or else they would die, Bryan simply joked that dying was an inevitable thing and that we should “just wait for the streams of life to take us on.” Maybe giving him the Duramax was not such a good idea, in retrospect. Bryan could suddenly remember things about weapons he couldn’t remember before. He could remember some of his grandfather’s old devices, and never stopped explaining them.
“You see, my grandpa lived during the time of the Folk. In fact, he worked as a soldier in their military. He was given a Nucleus, a sort of weaponized suit. A Nucleus is a suit composed of Ymirstuff, the alloy used to make the gates of Thetmis and Disra. The first layer of the suit is a layer of Ymirstuff, underneath that is a crystalline gel that stiffens upon impact; a bullet would pass through and then be given resistance upon entering the gel. Behind the crystalline gel is a standard ballistic plate made of titanium, then behind that is a sheet of diamond-graphite alloy (to make it less brittle). After that is another layer of gel, since medium-armor omits the diamond and the light-armor omits the diamond and the extra gel in the back. The idea is to have a soft impact, followed by hardening, then hitting a ballistic plate; and if a projectile is powerful enough to get through both, it hits diamond, then more gel. The gel is also able to dissipate some direct energy weapons, doubling its use. And beneath this layer of crystalline gel is yet another ballistic plate, made of carbon-steel, which has a carbon content up to 2.1 percent by weight, a yield strength of 260 megapascals (MPa), and a tensile strength of 580 MPa. Underneath this ballistic plate is another layer of gel and under that is a ballistic plate made of Maraging-Steel, which is made with 15-25 percent nickel and other elements including cobalt, titanium, molybdenum, and aluminum with a low carbon content. This has yield strength of between 1400 and 2400 MPa. Underneath this ballistic plate is another layer of gel and underneath that is a ballistic plate made of stainless Steel, with yield strength of up to 1,560 MPa and a tensile strength of up to 1,600 MPa, is made with a minimum of 11 percent chromium and often combined with nickel to resist corrosion. Underneath this ballistic plate is yet another layer of gel, and under that is a ballistic plate made of an alloy of cobalt and tungsten. Under this ballistic plate is another layer of gel and underneath that is a ballistic plate made of Inconel which is an alloy of austenite, nickel and chromium and can endure extreme conditions and high temperatures. Underneath that ballistic plate is another layer of gel and under that is a ballistic plate made of vanadium. Underneath that is another layer of gel and under that is a final ballistic plate made of an alloy of rhodium and tungsten. In total there are nearly ten layers of crystalline gel and just as much layers of metal ballistic plates. This thick armor gives the Nucleus extreme durability, and the crystalline gel itself protects its wearer from severe temperatures. The Nucleus is equipped with an assortment of weapons, including various blades and firearms. It is also loaded with biological weapons including teargas and mustard-gas. Grandpa would wear his Nucleus out in battle. He worked mainly as a sniper, and his favourite weapon was the assault-rifle and baton. He fought about 20 battles in his career as a soldier, before he met grandma and had my dad. Afterwards, the Nucleus suit was left in the basement. But grandpa always set to polishing it every Sunday after we came back from Church. After he died, the suit was sold to a rich family by the name of Oppenhol.....”
Bryan would not stop talking. His vibrant energy and enthusiasm at least helped take Dmitri’s mind off thoughts of starvation and a killer virus that wanted to keep him alive long enough to torture him over and over. Bryan’s ceaseless chatter also kept Dmitri and Chloe awake for the whole night. The next day they set off, exhausted.
By now Bryan’s drug-induced euphoria was slowly fading away. Dmitri was starting to lose hope.
Thankfully, Chloe had managed to fish for some porgies and had restocked their food. Water was their only issue. Bryan, still high on Duramax, suggested they drink their own sweat and urine. Dmitri and Chloe, seeing no other option than death by dehydration, complied.
Dmitri collected his sweat in a rag, and squeezed the fluid from the rag into a glass bottle, and there was a lot of it. Chloe did the same. Now they had enough water to finish the journey. And, no, they would not be drinking their urine as Bryan suggested. He could take that idea and snuff it.
For a few more hours they walked. By now the night was fast approaching. And that was when the strange things happened.
The group decided to make camp for a few hours and leave after getting some rest before the sun came up. Chloe started a fire and cooked some porgies on twigs. Dmitri had managed to catch a wild rabbit, and had skinned and cooked it on a makeshift grill of branches. They ate and went to sleep.
In the middle of the night, Dmitri realized the next stage of the Red-Eye sickness had struck him. Now greenish-purple rashes had developed between his toes and nostrils. The rashes were dry and itchy, and kept Dmitri awake. He tried to scratch them, but this only seemed to make them worse. Dmitri could remember a recipe for soup his mother had written down when before she became paralysed: two spoons of honey, oatmeal, Shea butter, water, salt, buttermilk, onions, curry leaves, coriander leaves, green chillies, red onions, pickles and mangos with red chilli pepper. This soup was good for curing skin ailments, and would work wonders on Dmitri’s rashes right now. Not removing them, but at least making them bearable. Unable to sleep, he decided to stay up for the whole night.
And out of the corner of his eye, he saw something.
A strange grey shape, like a man or a ghost. It shimmered for a bit, and then seemed to disappear. The sight lasted only a few seconds, but disturbed Dmitri all the same. He did not sleep at all that night.
When Chloe woke up the next morning, Dmitri asked her about what he had seen the night before.
“Grey men? You must have seen an NPC.”
“NPC?”
“Non-Person-Creatures. NPCs are pretty weird, especially since no one knows where they come from.”
“Well, are they dangerous?”
“Nope. They’re just.....weird. Anyway, you don’t need to worry about NPCs. As long as you don’t stare directly at one of them, you’re fine.”
“What happens if you stare directly at them?”
Chloe remained silent about that.
They left, Bryan right behind them. For some reason Bryan was extra chirpy today, despite the fact that the Duramax should be fading away by now. When Dmitri asked him about it, his answer was simple:
“The jitterbug gave me a little boost!’
“Jitterbug?”
“Oh dear,” muttered Chloe under her breath. Recently it had gotten a little easier for her and Bryan to use their voices for communication. Dmitri still spoke in Handspeak.
“What is it, Chlo?”
“I think he was bit by a Pete.”
“You mean?”
“Those slimy critters that climb into your bed and inject you with drugs if you bother them. I think Bryan was stung by a Pete, and now he has some Le’Veon in his blood.”
Le’Veon was the narcotic substance that the Placeholder-Bugs, better known as Petes, injected their victims with. The substahnce was used in the production of KG, and gave a person many hallucinations.
For nearly the whole time, Bryan wouldn’t stop talking about some “Temple”.
“You should really see it, guys. It’s so cool! And structured so perfectly! The interior room is 27 meters long, 9 meters wide and 13.5 meters high. The entrance-room is 4.5 meters deep and 9 meters wide, as wide as the sanctuary itself. The walls of the Temple have openings in them, narrower on the outside than on the inside. Against the outside walls, on the sides and the back of the Temple, a three-storey annex is built (each "storey" being 2.2 meters in height). Each room in the lowest storey is 2.2 meters wide, in the middle-storey 2.7 meters wide and in the top-storey 3.1 meters wide. The temple-wall on each floor is thinner than the floor below so that the rooms can rest on the wall without having their beams built into it. The granite stones which with the Temple was built were prepared at a distant quarry, so that there was no noise made by hammers, axes, drills or any other tools as the Temple was being built. The entrance to the lowest storey of the annex is on the south side of the Temple, with stairs leading up to the second and third. The ceiling is made of beams and boards of cedar preserved with resin. The annex is built against the outside walls of the Temple, and is joined to them by cedar beams. The inside walls are covered in cedar panels from floor to ceiling. The floor is made of pine. An inner-room, called the Resting-Place, is built in the rear of the Temple. It is nine meters long and is portioned off by cedar boards reaching from the floor to ceiling. The room in front of the Resting-Place is 18 meters long. The cedar panels are decorated with carvings of flowers and birds. The whole interior is covered in cedar, so that the stones of the walls are not visible. In the further rear of the Temple is a room known as the Meeting-Place; this room is nine meters long and nine meters wide and nine meters high, all covered with pure refined gold. The central altar is covered in cedar panels. The interior of the Temple is covered in gold, and gold chains are placed around the entrance of the inner room, which is also covered in gold. Two large statues of winged warriors, made of olive wood, are at the center of the Meeting-Place; each statue is 4.4 meters tall. Their wings are 2.2 meters long, the distance from one wing-tip to the other is exactly 4.4 meters. The statues are built side by side, so that two of their outstretched wings touch each other in the middle of the room and the other two wings touch the walls. The wings are covered in gold plates. The walls of the Main-Room are decorated with carved figures of winged creatures, palm-trees and flowers. A double-door made of olive-wood is set in place at the entrance of the Meeting-Room; the top of the doorway has a pointed arch. The doors are decorated with carved figures of winged lions. The doors are built into a rectangular door-frame made of olive-wood. Two folding doors made of pine and decorated with carved figures of gold and silver are also built. The inner-court is built in front of the Temple, enclosed with walls which have one layer of cedar beams for every three layers of stone. It is 44 meters long, 22 meters wide and 13.5 meters high. It has three rows of cedar pillars, fifteen in each row, with cedar-beams resting on them. The ceiling is cedar, and is supported by two marble pillars. On eac side-wall (there are two of them) are three rows of windows. There is a Hall built into the court; 22 meters long and 13.5 meters wide. The foundations are made of five large rectangular stones, each stone 3.5 meters in height and 4 meters in length. There are two bronze columns, each one 8 meters tall and 5.3 meters in circumference. They are at the entrance of the Temple. There are two bronze capitals, each one 2.2 meters tall ,placed on top of the columns. The top of each column is decorated with series of interwoven chains and two rows of baubles. The capitals are shaped like lilies, 1.8 meters tall, and are placed in a rounded section above the interwoven chains. There are 200 baubles in two rows on each capital. At the center of the temple is a large round tank of bronze; 2.2 meters deep, 4.4 meters in diameter and 13 meters in circumference. Outside the rim of the tank are two rows of bronze flowers. The tank rests on the backs of twelve bronze bull-statues that face outwards, three facing in each cardinal direction. The sides of the tank are 75 millimeters thick. The tank holds about 40,000 liters of pure water, which the Overlords once used for purification-rituals. There are ten bronze carts; each one 1.8 meters long, 1.8 meters wide and 1.3 meters high. They are made in the figures of lions, bulls and eagles. Each cart is square with a solid frame. Each cart has four bronze wheels with bronze spokes. At the four corners are bronze supports for a basin, the supports are decorated with spiral figures.There is a circular frame 45 centimeters from the top of each cart and 18 centimeters down. The wheels are 66 centimeters high. There is a 22 centimeter band of metal on each cart. There are ten basins in each cart; each basin is 1.8 meters in diameter and holds about 88 liters. Five carts are on the south side of the Temple, and the other five on the north. The bronze tank is at the south-east corner.......”
He continued talking about the mysterious Temple, which Dmitri and Chloe simply assumed was in his imagination.
They had made it to a sort of crossing, a road split by a massive cataclysmic event. A long searing crack ran from one end of the city to the other, created a 2 mile-long gap. There was no way to cross it. But Bryan begged to differ.
Without warning, Bryan steadied himself and ran straight at the crack.
“Ah!!!!!!!” was all Dmitri managed to scream as he leapt to tackle Bryan to the ground, but Bryan dodged him and kept running.
Running straight for the crack, Bryan braced his legs like a predator cat and took a jump. A surprisingly large one, as he landed on the other side.
Chloe and Dmitri stood in shock and awe, their tongues hanging out like dogs on a hot summer’s day.
“What the f....”
“I don’t know what that was. That was just weird,” said Dmitri in Handpseak.
“How did he jump that?”
“I think it had something to do with the Le’Veon in his blood. Apparently it must give a person some impressive athletic skills.”
“That’s all fine and dandy, but we two have not been stung by a Pete. Therefore, we can’t make that jump.”
“There may be another way.”
Chloe pointed to a nearby tree. Dmitri of course understood.
When the trio had been on the road before their infection, they encountered many streams and lakes to cross. Dmitri developed a way to cross these water-bodies without ruining their clothes and gear; pole-vaulting. Using a basic stick of around 10 feet in length, a person can, in theory, cross a stream 20 feet in width. It depends on the speed the person is running at, and the technique Dmitri taught Bryan and Chloe.
Chloe walked up to the old tree, dried out and charred, and plucked a nearby branch. It was about three feet in length. She ripped off five more branches. She tied each branch together with some old mule-cord and made a makeshift jumping-pole. The pole was about ten feet long, just right. Chloe used her hunting-knife to smooth the pole and sharpen one end of it.
Dmitri reached out for the pole. Chloe stopped him.
“I first want to say a prayer to my gods, for you and me. Me especially, because I’m terrible at pole-vaulting.”
Chloe held the pole in both hands and muttered a High-Talk prayer to the pagan deities of Kseufuisfis, Ih'fe'i'oh, Istepedonith, Ihwfhwodnpqith and Fjsjfhcnkset under her breath:
“Please, mighty gods! Feed me the truth of the true nature and spirit of life and destiny! I am one of you and my enemies are trying everything to destroy, kill and rob me from the inside and outside physically, mentally and spiritually! My effort is valid, but the journey is hard! Sometimes I want to submit entirely, but I know if I give up that my enemies win! I will lose my life both physically and eternally if I submit, and will not go down without a fight! I, your little sheep, am not going to be led to the slaughter without a fight! I, your humble servant, have teeth and hooves, and I will fiercely bite and kick for your glory till the journey’s end! Even in safety I am around wolves dressed as lambs and shepherds. I hate that the people around me disguise themselves as sheep, when they are truly vultures and fierce eagles and lions! Please guide me, gods, in spirit and in truth. Truly and sincerely I bless you. You and I are kindred spirits cut from the same cloth; for I am like a man drowning, every time I go to breathe and finally get to the surface to take in air I am again pulled down before I get a chance. To live seems harder and harder every day, it seems the harder I try to find people I can trust the more demons that surround me. I need help to fight this battle, a battle that seems both physical and spiritual with me; I am fighting for my life and I am surrounded by enemies. The only reason I am still around is because of those you have sent my way; but the more I try to get closer the more the enemy tries to serrate me from them. It feels like everything I do to come closer is in vain; I speak to priests and they tell me to pray but fail to guide and teach and instruct as to how and what. I ask, but receive no answers. I pray that will change. I pray through your guidance I will make it through this journey. So be it, mighty gods.”
She handed the pole to Dmitri, who stepped ten feet back from the gap. Steadying himself, he started to memorise the technique. He tested the pole. The pole was the most important factor about vaulting; one with give will bend as you ride it across, potentially losing momentum. Stiff poles are better because you can transfer all your forwards momentum into them, and they're easier to control. As for the dead trees, you want to keep it light enough to (presumably) move to the gap and stretch it across without the weight pulling the end into the gap, but still maintain rigidity and density so that it's much less likely to bend or snap as people cross it. The stick was thick and strong, but bendy at the same time. Perfect. The stick wasn’t hollow, and was light enough to be manoeuvred quickly. Dmitri held the stick out in front of him, just below his eye. He aimed it carefully, straightened his shoulders and tensed his muscles. His adrenaline had spiked, and his mucus was congealing.
He started to run, keeping his legs at a brisk pace of three feet per leap. He leapt three times till he came to the edge, then jammed his pole into the cold ground and forced himself up. He pounced up like a spring-loaded piston, reaching the center of the gap. Then he let go of the pole and flung himself straight. He flew through the air, and finally crossed the gap. Unfortunately, he landed right on Bryan, who was standing there and watching this whole thing with a mixture of amusement and pity on his drugged face. Smashing into Bryan, he could hear a groan of discomfort as the two of them roledd around for a bit. Dmitri, realising he was on top of Bryan, quickly stood up and dusted himself off. Bryan looked like he’d seen better days.
“What.....the hell......was that for???” He motioned in Handspeak.
“Sorry! I didn’t aim properly!”
Dmitri turned around to face Chloe, who was standing on the other side.
“How do I get her to this side now? I dropped the pole.”
“That’s easy.”
And without another word, Bryan leapt across the wide gap to where Chloe was standing. Grabbing her, he hoisted her onto his back in a lamb-position and jumped across the gap. It seemed Le’Veon gave a person some impressive attributes.
“Why didn’t you just do that before!!!” asked Dmitri angrily in Handspeak.
Bryan, not answering, dropped Chloe gently on the ground and started walking in a straight line. Dmitri helped Chloe get to her feet, and the two hurried after him.
For a few more hours they ran behind Bryan, who was surprisingly fast despite his slow pacing. Trying to catch him, Dmitri dropped his bags and supplies and sprinted behind him. For hours they chased Bryan, as the day got hotter and hotter. Finally, when they were catching up to him, it was night-time.
“Bryan! Stop!” yelled Chloe for the umpteenth time.
Dmitri, his tongue lolling around like a tired dog, was thirsty and hungry. His snot was also starting to congeal. He was angry now. Angry at Bryan. Because of him, they were now going to die here.
They made it to a desert-area, lukewarm thanks to the cooling rays of the moon. Bryan had finally stopped running, and was making his way towards a group of ruined buildings. Concrete structures slowly being buried by sand.
Chloe got a hold of Bryan, shaking him furiously.
“We’ve been trying to catch you for 12 bloody hours!!!!!!!!!”
“Hush now, please. We’re here.”
Suddenly, a few seconds after he said it, flashing lights appeared all around them. They were lanterns, being held up on sticks. The sticks were carried by groups of masked people wearing robes and desert-gear.
Dmitri had by now fallen down on the ground, curled up in the sand. “Bryan has brought us into a trap”, he thought to himself.
A masked figure, a bit taller than the others, stepped down and proceeded to walk up to the group.
“Ghosties?” the figure asked in a gruff voice.
Bryan nodded, Chloe as well.
The figure raised his hand. Chloe prepared herself to block the weapon. But the man wasn’t trying to hurt them. He’d raised his hand to remove his mask. The face underneath was pale, with long teeth and yellow eyes with red irises. A Ghostie. The man smiled.
“Sandy Newmaker, infected for 20 years. Welcome to the colony.”
Dmitri, hearing those sweet words, buried his face in the sand and cried with joy.
The next few weeks at the colony were heaven. The three of them were each given proper medical-attention, warm food and places to sleep. The colony was mainly composed of Ghosties and cyborgs, the outcasts of society. It had been founded about 40 years ago by a Ghostie named Kelly Affleck. Now it was managed by Sandy Newmaker.
Sandy was a surprisingly nice guy. He answered all their questions, and made sure they were comfortable. He was also, despite his age of infection, able to speak with his mouth.
“This is because I sliced my tongue in half and stitched it up. It allows me to talk, and makes it easier to do a lot of other things.” At first, Dmitri and his group refused the surgery. But after a few more weeks, they were tired of communicating in Handspeak. So they had a cyborg named Peter slice their tongues in half, and then stitch the pieces closed. Shortening their tongues allowed them to speak and eat food normally once again.
Sandy seemed to have a lot of knowledge of chemistry, especially narcotic and hallucinogenic substances like Le’Veon. “Le’Veon, the venom of the Placeholder-Bug, is a hallucinogenic that causes a person to experience a ton of weird visions and such. But, if the right doses are given, the effects of Le’Veon on a person are completely different. You see, Le’Veon functions as a catalyst. It taps into a person’s DNA and gives them access to latent abilities and powers. About 5.4 doses of Le’Veon is required to cause these abilities to develop. People injected with the right dose of Le’Veon have observed some weird changes in their bodies; they can stretch like rubber even when nullified, become immune to damage from being cut or pierced (regardless in what manner, be it vertical, horizontal, or otherwise. Instead of being wounded or even killed from such attacks, the user's body simply becomes sliced into pieces. In this state, the user is still alive and can control his sliced up body. They can then manipulate the sliced up pieces to either reattach themselves back together or execute unique attacks), can emit and control soap and bubbles from their body (these bubbles are created from the user's body and can even manifest while the user is wearing gloves. The bubbles are also capable of not only cleaning off dirt but can also "clean off" someone's power. The user can thus essentially drain their opponent's energy with these bubbles and leave them in a clean and shiny state that is extremely smooth), allows the user to control darkness and its unique property of gravity (the darkness is visually demonstrated by a black smoke-like substance spreading out from the user's body. The darkness is a void that devours and crushes everything. Due to this, the user can absorb physical matter and attacks of any type by sucking it into the darkness. The user can also use this ability to irresistibly pull the opponent to them, regardless of their current state), allows the user to produce as well as to create, control, and become fire (with this in mind, the user can create devastating fire-based attacks and gain a high resistance towards most heat-based attacks. The flames can also be used to bolster the kinetic force of physical attacks. The user is also able to avoid normal physical attacks by turning into fire and allowing the attack to harmlessly pass through their fiery body. Igniting oneself also has the added effect of burning an opponent if he or she had tried to physically harm the user) and can generate and control white, wafer-thin, razor sharp strings attachable to seemingly any surface from seemingly any part of the user's own body. This all sounds like mad tales to you lot, but I’ve seen it in action. My friend Jerry was stung by a Pete with the right doses of Le’Veon. The next day, he was climbing walls and turning himself into a fire-ball. It was amazing, and shocking. I think Le’Veon has something to do with the force of Wild-Magic. So far I have observed that 1 to 4 doses of Le’Veon causes delusions, 5 doses cause visions, 5.4 doses cause superhuman abilities and powers, 6 to 10 doses cause extreme hallucinations and 11 doses and above are lethal.”
He went on to explain the odd substance known as Le’Veon.
“So....you’re saying Bryan has got superpowers now?”
“Not really. I haven’t observed anything unusual from him apart from his visions and super-strength. I think he was stung with just enough doses to give him abilities, but not enough doses to give him powers.”
“So will it be permanent.”
“No. The effects are not permanent. Of course a few permanent side-effects remain, but the powers and abilities a person receives when administered the right dosage of Le’Veon will gradually fade away once the venom leaves the person’s body. You’re friend might be all right by the morning.”
And the next day, he was right. Bryan’s visions and unusual strength had all disappeared, and he was left with some serious side-effects. His skin had stretch-marks, he vomited frequently and he suffered from some extreme sneezing-fits. But apart from that, he never had any powers ever again.
Sandy managed the colony with his cyborg associates. Every day he would send a team of raiders out to scout for food and other things the colony would need to sustain its occupants. Some days were better than others. Some days the colony would have to starve. But most days the colony was getting along just fine.
Dmitri, Bryan and Chloe were reaching the final stages of their infection.
By now Dmitri had developed an extreme photosensitivity and aversion to all UV-light. He now had to completely cover himself with the same robes the other Ghosties in the colony wore. A few weeks later he suffered the next symptom of Red-Eye: hysterical blindness near mirrors. Now Dmitri and Bryan could barely look at mirrors anymore, they could see nothing in reflective surfaces. This was a result of the nerve-cells in their eyes slowly starting to deteriorate. In a few more weeks their front-teeth had started to grow out like rabbits. They could barely chew their food anymore. But since most Ghosties in the colony had overgrown front-teeth, they didn’t complain.
Life was actually decent. Most of the Ghsoties were open and friendly, and offered tips of how to handle the changes in their bodies. “Shave your teeth. Sounds ridiculous, but it works. Use a file and grind your teeth down to a manageable size. Hurts like hell, but it’s better than nothing.”
“Apply gel all over your skin before you go out in the sun. If you have to pee, do it in the evening.”
“Apply some aloe on the pustules, it makes them bleed less.”
“When you feel you’re snot is congealing, take a deep breath and blow it all out. Sneezing is your best option.”
“Don’t scratch your rashes; just rub them gently with your thumbs if needed. It makes the scratching go away, at least.”
“If you start internal-bleeding, don’t scratch the bleeding areas. Just be patient and the bleeding will stop. After all, the virus doesn’t want its playtoys to die.”
Life was good. Really good. Dmitri and his group even volunteered on a few raiding mission. Sometimes they would bring back some vegetables or mouldy bread, sometimes some fresh rabbits and jungle-fowl. Sometimes they would bring back old parts of wagons for the cyborgs to use. Either way, they were helping the colony to survive.
The only weapons the colony had were spears, swords and a few guns. Jingies were also used. The raiders brought a few of their own weapons with them when they went out. It was a dangerous world out there, with bandits and beasts waiting in the dark. But overall it was safe. Dmitri loved the raiding. It was fun, exciting. But that all changed one day.
The group was returning after a successful raid. They were wandering the old city, evening was fast approaching. Sandy was with them, he had joined their posse after his daily routine of leaving letters in the nearby cities was done.
“What did we get today, Boy?”
“Boy” was the nickname Sandy used for Dmitri. He called Chloe “Girl” and Bryan “Child”. Bryan took offence to this, but said nothing about it.
“Some vehicle parts, a few cans of beef, two bottles of beer, a sack of potatoes, three rabbits, two jungle-fowl, some apples, cashew-fruits, metal shrapnel and three-hundred Stones.”
“Good. We’ll get twice the amount tomorrow.”
But tomorrow would never come.
It was night now; Dmitri and Bryan were wearing black robes whilst Chloe stuck with a beige one. Sandy was in front of the group.
There were six other Ghosties with them, and two cyborgs.
“I’m gonna get a good-night’s sleep. I’m exhausted.”
“Me too, Bryan.”
“Make sure to get up at 6 tomorrow.”
“No promises, Chlo,” said Dmitri, smiling.
Suddenly the two cyborgs in the front collapsed. Sandy rushed over to see what was wrong. He flipped one cyborgs over to see the damage; bullet-holes.

“Bandits!!!!!!!!!!! Take cover!!!!!!!!!!”
And they took cover. Each Ghostie ducked behind a vehicle or tree. Dmitri ducked behind an old rusty wagon, Bryan and Chloe joined him.
Bullets started flying. A few got some Ghosties in the heads and shoulders, but the wounds healed themselves. Sandy was loading his rifle. He gestured for the others to do the same. Dmitri reloaded his Remington, Bryan loaded his Hemphill and Chloe loaded her Horton. There was a brief silence. Then another bullet was fired, hitting a nearby tree.
Sandy got up and spotted the bandit crouching behind a nearby tree. He fired two shots and killed the man, then killed his comrade right next to him. A few more bandits opened fire, and were met with some retaliation from the Ghosties.
One Ghostie, a middle-aged man, managed to kill a bandit hiding behind a ruined building. He was shot in the spine by a bandit sniper, who was killed by a stray bullet. Two more Ghosties sacrificed themselves, firing off shots in random directions and killing three bandits before being shot themselves. The bandits had them surrounded. They had to make a distraction.
“What do we do, Chlo?” asked Dmitri in Handsepak.
“I have an idea.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a jingy. She pulled out a small matchstick and struck it. A small flame ignited the stick. She lit the jingy and threw it at a nearby grove of trees. It struck the nearest tree and started a fire. A few bandits fired at the spot, and were shot themselves. Sandy reloaded his Remington and fired at two bandits, killing them both with headshots.
At this point all hell broke loose. The Ghosties came out of their hiding spots and opened fire in random directions. A few hit some bandits, a few missed. Dmitri could count about ten bandits remaining, with about 15 killed so far.
He opened fire on a nearby bandit machine, blasting its circuits to pieces. He fired at a Yea’haa’weh and blew its antlered head off. Chloe fired at a bandit sniper and killed him from the tree his was perched on. Bryan fired at another sniper, then reloaded and fired again. A few more Ghosties fell, a few more bandits fell.
Sandy was leading the charge, killing bandits left, right and center. There were about four Ghosties left standing, plus Dmitri and his group. Dmitri reloaded and fired at a nearby bandit, showering the ground with droplets of blood as thick as syrup. His snot was starting to congeal, he quickly blew his nose and scattered massive wads of mucus in random directions. One wad of snot actually hit an incoming bandit in the eye, causing him to fall back and land on a nearby spike. More bandits were falling they were winning. “We’ve got it!!! We’ve won!!!” But it was not to be.
Something small landed near Sandy with a clink. It didn’t take him long to realise it was a grenade.
“Boy!!!! Girl!!!!!! Child!!!!! R.....”
The grenade blew up, sending shrapnel and bits of metal in random directions. Dmitri fell to the ground, avoiding the projectiles. Bryan and Chloe were not so lucky.
Bryan collapsed near Dmitri, a large piece of metal lodged in his eye. It had penetrated his skull, and he would die in a few seconds.
“Bryan!!!!”
Bryan reached out and touched Dmitri’s face with a shaking hand.
“My....Kristyan.....soldier.”
And with that Bryan Dunphee, adventurer and son of Hugo and Lavender Dunphee, took his last breath and died.
“No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Dmitri tried to get him to wake up, tried to make him stand. But it was all in vain. He looked over at Chloe, who was also dead. A large shard of metal was lodged in her stomach, and a thick stream of blood soaked her body and the seeped into the ground.
“Bryan!!!!! Chloe!!!!!!”
Dmitri was in denial. They were dead? No. It couldn’t be. This was not how the story should end. They were his friends, his family. They couldn’t die, right?

Dmitri, realising there was nothing he could do, looked at the sky and wept. In his mind he cursed every god in existence, every religion and deity in creation. He was angry, and sad. More than sad, he was in pain.

“Why!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!???????????????” he screamed at the sky, as if it would answer him. Why did it have to end like this? He got no answer.

Observing the environment around him, he could see none of the other Ghosties survived the blast. Most had shards of shrapnel lodged in random places. Some, like Sandy, were nothing but burnt crisps. Dmitri realised he was alone.

And then he remembered something about the Red-Eye sickness; the virus manifested in multiple symptoms over a period of a few weeks after the infected developed red irises: first pustules grow all over the body, then a yellowing of the whites of the eyes, then an eroding of the vessel-walls of the circulatory-system causing internal bleeding, then severe dementia, then fatally degenerative cognitive-ability as a result of encephalopathic tumors, then purple blemishes that bled on contact, then severe coughing fits, then choking due to the congealing of mucus in the lungs and nasal-passage, then swelling of the tongue, then development of greenish-purple rashes between the toes and nostrils, then, then hysterical blindness near mirrors, then an overdevelopment of front-teeth causing long rabbit-like fangs and finally loss of memory backwards at the rate of a day’s worth of memories per week.

He would not remember any of this. Once the final symptoms activated, he would forget any of this happened. He would forget his name. He would forget where he came from; he wouldn’t even remember where he was. He would forget his friends. Bryan. Chloe. They wouldn’t exist in his memory anymore. Once the final symptom activated, he would forget all the adventures they had together. The battles they fought. The things they went through to get here.
It was the end of the story, Dmitri knew it. There were still some bandits alive. They would be calling reinforcement in a few minutes. And then Dmitri would be taken prisoner, the only survivor. Or maybe they would kill him. That would be better. But no. He would not let them take him alive, if he was going down, they were coming with him. Reaching into his nearest pocket, he pulled out the vial of Rosslyn Bryan had given to him. In his final moments, his last thoughts were of Bryan and Chloe.
Looking up at the sky and closing his tear-filled eyes, he smashed the vial on the ground.