AN: Figured I might try my hand at titling chapters. Don’t quite know if it’ll stick.
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The Mire was an endless stretch of bleak chaos… and endlessly boring. After the first hour alone, looking out the window lost much of its meaning beyond alertness. It got to the point where instead of looking into the sanity-draining fog, I started to memorize the glowing golden runes engraved into the hummer just to pass the time.
Pop music likewise got very old, very fast. By the dawn of the fifth day out into the Mire, even Bartmoss got sick of it. He simply swapped with Paige, and sent the superhuman woman back to the torture known as Haman’s car. It seemed his pride kept him from outright telling the man to turn it off.
One thing was sure. Any good will Overseer Haman managed to build was entirely destroyed in the endless loops of music. The worst part? I couldn’t even block it out. My helmet was designed to cut out loud sounds, but the music stayed just quiet enough not to trigger it. I’d almost take the whispers of corruption then the insanity that was Haman’s playlist.
It shouldn’t be much of a surprise, then, that I was all too happy when something broke the monotony of the Mire. On the way out, there’d been a few skirmishes with the beasts that dwelled in the fog. They were minor, blissful interruptions to the torture that was Haman’s music. I never thought the day would come that I actually preferred fighting over something.
As for the skirmishes—they weren’t much to talk about. It wasn’t like a Mire Tide washed over us or anything. Just a few stragglers easily taken care with a dozen shots between the eyes. Or more than a dozen, as things were. As it turned out, very few of the weaker calamities could survive an entire convoy shooting at them for a few seconds.
As for actually traveling the Mire? It wasn’t terrible. There were times we went off road, but ancient infrastructure from before the Mire was left in plenty of places. Travelling along them threw us off track slightly, but the sightlines and ease of the broken roads more than made up for it—
My ears twitched forward, and my focus instantly snapped onto the Mire. I sat up in my seat, and focused forward. Was I just imagining it? I pulled my tail into my lap, and felt the rising fur along the limb. Instinct screamed something was off.
”Sir?” I hesitantly spoke up, and looked forward into the fog-clad Mire. I couldn’t quite place what I felt. The voice modulator turned my voice into a low rumble.
“Something wrong?” He dialed down the music. The catchy pop music throbbed into a low pulse in the back of my twitching ears.
“Something…” I repeated back. The fog looked as it always did. Something was making my instincts react to danger though. I just couldn’t see it. Eyes beyond the fog, maybe?
Overseer Haman nodded, and pulled out his radio. It glowed with a golden light, and crackled to life. ”All units, be advised, possible danger ahead. Slowing down.”
“Roger!” A chorus of replies came back from the varied vehicles of the convoy. The entire procession slowed around us.
I glanced back at Paige, only to find her looking forward just the same as me. For whatever monstrous enhancements the behemoth of a woman had, it seemed her perception wasn’t much better than mine. ‘Course, a human getting on par with an Apex was already impressive enough.
Haman drifted, and we pulled out of the convoy ever so slightly so we could see around the vehicles. The surrounding walls of fog were restrained and held back by the golden glows emanating from the vehicles. It gave us some visibility, though it wasn’t great.
“Calamities?” Haman asked, and totally muted the music.
”I—“ A pulse of vertigo passed through me, and Seek abruptly snapped to the side instead of straight forward as it’d been the entire time. “STOP!”
Haman slammed on the breaks, and his hand flew to the horn. It blared out loudly, causing the entire convoy to react. Every single vehicle around us slowed to a stop. Everyone except the APC and the hummer in front of us. The APC was a heavier vehicle, and as such took longer to slow down.
The hummer in front, though, continued to drift forward with its tires squeaking. A panicked voice came across the glowing radio. “Overseer! Something’s wrong!”
Haman lifted the device to the side of his face. “Throw it in reverse.”
“I’m trying!” The wheels of the vehicle screeched and smoke poured off of them. Despite all of the driver’s efforts, the vehicle continued to creep forward.
One of the doors opened up, and a man jumped out to save himself—only to be whisked into the air and catapulted forward at an insane speed. He slammed into something in the air, and promptly exploded into a red mist.
Something audibly popped, and the front hummer lurched forward. It was pulled quicker and quicker forward by an unknown source. ”Save us—heuk!”
The driver was cut off as the entire hummer was launched into the sky. It flew so quickly the g-force alone knocked out those in the vehicle long before they died. The hummer flipped, and disappeared beyond the visibility of the fog.
Boom!
A flash of light exploded outward from a completely different direction, and several softer pings whizzed out into the air from discharged ordnance that the vehicle was carrying. Just like that, a full squad of the syndicate’s men were wiped out without even a chance of survival.
“…” The radio crackled, though nobody spoke up. A stunned silence seemingly settled across the entire convoy. My eyes stayed locked on the direction of destroyed hummer as if I could see it through the fog.
”What a waste.” Overseer Haman sighed, and dropped his radio. “The map, Barghest?”
My hands froze on my tail. They were gone. Just like that. What if that was me up there? What if I didn’t even get a chance of survival? What would my promises to come back safely even mean? I didn’t have super human durability or anything like that—I just knew the right way to go. It wouldn’t keep me from being turned into a red paste.
”Barghest.” The Overseer’s voice hardened.
I flinched, and obediently lowered my head. “Sir?”
”The tablet.” His voice lost some of its edge like he was tired.
I pulled out the tablet, and pulled up the satellite images of the area. They were incredibly blurry, as could be expected. The Mire was a constant, so the satellite had to peer down through the dense fog to see much of anything. “Sir.”
He scrolled through the maps, and focused on one. “The spatial anomaly must’ve drifted south. I thought we’d miss it.”
”Can we go around?” Paige asked from the backseat.
”There’s no telling how wide this stretches, milord. The route we planned was already several days south. We could end up running out of supplies.” Haman tossed the tablet back to me. “What way does your ability say, Barghest?”
”Left.” But that didn’t mean much. Already I could feel it starting to drift. The route that was open enough for Seek wouldn’t stay open much longer.
“That’s back toward the brunt of the anomaly if it stayed on the same latitude.” Haman tapped the steering wheel with his hand. “What do you think, Lord Paige?”
”Your psionic ability works toward the path of least resistance, yes?” Instead of answering him, the giant woman asked me a question.
“It should.” Seek was finicky at best, though. It wasn’t like I trained it much. Not to mention I didn’t even know how to train as a Psyker. I could give a million ways to train an Awoken, and yet didn’t know the path forward for myself.
“That would indicate going around to be a more difficult path.” Paige said simply. It cut right to the heart of the problem. There was a path, I just wasn’t sure if it was a safe one. Or how far it went. Or if it’d change halfway through.
Haman pressed the button of the radio again, and static broke out. “All units, pull close and bundle up. We’re pushing through.”
”Sir! That’s suicide—“ A voice abuptly cut out. A moment later, a different voice cut across. “Affirmative, sir.
A chorus of replies came across, and the convoy abruptly shifted. We’d been mostly in a line this entire time with the hummer and APC at the front. Now, the eleven vehicles behind us—a mix of off-roaders and cargo transport—pulled up tighter toward our rear.
”Guide us, Barghest.” He nodded to me, and pushed the vehicle back into drive. “I’d rather get through this alive. Don’t mess this up.”
The fate of every person in the convoy—except Bartmoss’ people maybe—was now in my hands. For one small, tiny moment, I was tempted to give the wrong direction. To make Hades suffer a massive loss. The death of an Overseer, Bartmoss, and the entire convoy would be heavy.
Pain throbbed up through my tail from where I’d been gripping it too hard. My mind flicked to the man that’d jumped out of the car to try and save himself. These were all still people at the end of the day. They all had people to get back to the same as me. Could I really strip that away by willingly misleading them?
”Yes, sir.” A heavy weight landed on my shoulders. My ability was simply to find objects, not traverse through a complex spatial anomaly that could move seemingly of its own free will. If it even had a will.
I brushed a hand along my tail, and looked forward toward the seemingly mundane landscape—no, that wasn’t quite right. It was so hard to see that I missed it several times, but the Mire itself seemed to vibrate unsteadily. The fog pulsated with instability like the heart of a massive creature.
“That way.” I pointed toward Seek’s new direction. We’d be leaving the road behind. “The route keeps changing.”
”Mhmm.” Overseer Haman stepped on the gas, and led the way forward into the spatial anomaly. Instinctual dread welled up in me from being so close to absolute and definite death.
At first, everything seemed fine. Seek pointed us forward, and slowly curved back toward our destination after a few minutes. Then it snapped to the right instead. “Right.”
”Roger.” Overseer Haman quickly adjusted directions, and the rest of the convoy followed right behind us.
Out beyond the confines of the car, things were starting to change in the Mire. The ground gave way in spots, and massive divots and craters started to appear.
Thunk!
A boulder brutally slammed into the ground just in front of us. Dirt sprayed up in every direction. Haman whipped the steering wheel, and barely avoided crashing into the boulder. The motion tossed me hard into the door of the car. “Seatbelt.”
”… yeah.” I usually didn’t wear one since they pressed on my tail weirdly, but getting tossed out of the car sounded even less fun. I clicked it down—”STOP!”
Seek went haywire. It felt like someone grabbed the needle of my internal compass and violently ripped it out. My ears flattened, and an intense bout of dizziness made my stomach catapult.
Usually, I’d shut it off when that kind of thing happened, but I couldn’t risk missing something important. Not when everyone relied on me. If I messed something up, everyone would die.
The entire convoy ground to a halt in the middle of the spatial anomaly. It felt like we’d stopped on a minefield, and were just waiting for the other shoe to drop. The fur along my tail steadily spiked up, and the slight instability to the air intensified with each passing second.
One moment passed into two. The sense of danger emanating from the spatial anomaly rapidly increased. It was like a wild beast had its fangs wrapped around my throat, and was just waiting to start tearing. It drank in the fear erupting from every single vehicle in the convoy.
”Sir—“
”Forward.” I cut off the guy on the radio.
“Quickly.” Paige called from the back. Were her senses even better than mine? I could pick up that something was off, but the way she spoke made it seem like she could actually see the anomaly itself.
Haman whipped forward into the Mire, and swerved around a massive Paletree that’d somehow managed to survive the anomalous field. Its roots were half exposed, and it was tilted at a full forty-five degree angle from the ground.
The moment we passed it, the fog opened up in front of us. The sight just ahead was enough to make every single piece of hair on my body raise in discomfort, and a chill to go down my spine. A bolt of pain flooded up my spine from how hard I gripped my tail.
The fog opened into a monolithic furrow that dug deep down into the ground. It was like something absolutely gargantuan dragged itself along the ground, and left a streak of destruction in its pathway. The Mire billowed around the edges of the furrow, but looked like it was almost hesitant to refill the space.
Lakes and ponds filled the entire area from gargantuan divots. The size—its width was easily double that of Silverport. Its length was unknown, and was lost in the fog on either end.
”Holy shit.” Haman stopped just on the edge of the downward slope down into the canyon. “If this thing redirected toward the UCS…”
Although he didn’t finish his thought, it sent a spike of pure dread through me. The tall walls the cities were so proud of wouldn’t matter. If it hit Silverport, there would be no more Silverport. Oh Pyre. Sylvie wouldn’t even have a chance to get away. No one would. The walls offered protection, but they also trapped citizens into tin cans waiting for the slaughter.
An intense urge to go back to Silverport radiated through every fiber of my being. What if something like this happened while I wasn’t there? What if I went back and the city was just gone. If there was something that could cause this much destruction, then there was likely another. Misfortune never traveled alone.
The convoy pulled up around us. Our fifty-something group looked infinitely small compared to the jagged cut across the planet. Our entire expedition… we looked like mere insects—no, fleas on the side of the canyon.
“Pyre.” The radio crackled with someone’s quiet prayer. “… too late to turn back?”
“What in oblivion could’ve caused that?” Various forms of curses filled the radio, and chatter spread across the channel once more.
“Forward, Overseer.” Paige spoke up. She sounded disinterested, like this was just another Tuesday for her. Just what kind of shit had she seen to not feel infinitely small by this?
”Yeah… yeah. Which way, Barghest?” The man grip turned white on the steering wheel.
I focused on my connection to the downed freighter, and took a breath. Sitting here wasn’t an option. ”Straight across.”