The world of the Forsaken showed the full extent of its mercy in that the father’s throat was ripped out before he saw his son being eaten piece by quivering piece. As their blood spilled out on the grassy field, the last vestige of their bloodline disappeared forever.
95 breaths remaining.
Damn you, Remy thought. His fingers gripped the doorway so hard his knuckles turned white. Yet still he remained in the bunker. He couldn’t help either of them, and he wouldn’t waste the life left in him for nothing. He and everyone else on Earth were Forsaken, and the weak would die sooner or later. Instead, he shouted once more for the survivors to run faster.
Remy’s eyes flashed upward in a particular way. His HUD phased into existence, and he examined the three bars in the upper left corner. They were the same length and were each a different color: red, blue and green. He grunted, seeing the purple corruption infesting the red line. It was what he’d expected, but it still sickened him. Breathing out, he focused on the full green and blue bars. They would have to do.
He turned his focus back to the men and women running for their lives. In the back of his mind, he reflected on the insanity of the world he was living in. Everything had changed when that “heads-up display” or “interface” had appeared in the vision of every person on Earth. It was the same moment they were all notified that their world was now connected to the Labyrinth, whatever that was.
Since then people had come to accept that if they let their eyes unfocus, they could pull up their very own video game interface. They had also figured out that it could give them information and even make them stronger. Some had gained significant powers. The “Able.” That was what people had started calling the minority of the human race that had been granted an ability during the Forsaking.
Remy was one of those precious few. His ability was only second rank, uncommon, far from the nearly superhero capabilities that others had gained. Still, it had let him teach a few survivors to develop their own skills, attacks and defenses. Being “Able” had played no small part in making him the de facto leader of this group, even though that thought seemed like a cruel joke. What kind of leader lost nearly eighty percent of his people?
Dark figures continued to materialize out of the night, each a monster capable of killing a full-grown man in single combat. They gave chase while the survivors sprinted for their lives. A teenage boy was the next to fall. His screams were bloodcurdling as two of the cat monsters sliced through his Achilles. The boy’s shrieks only grew in pitch and volume as he was dragged off into the night. Remy realized he didn’t even remember the kid’s name.
The next to go was a father who chose to spend his life to save his family. He knew what was about to happen to him, but still he bought his wife and daughter precious seconds. The little girl was peeking over her mother’s shoulder, and watched her father turn to face the monsters. She reached her small hand backward and screamed “Daddy!” but her mother held on tightly to her squirming body. The woman’s heart was breaking, but still she sprinted for the safety of the bunker door.
The nail-studded bat the father held glowed red for just a moment as he activated Sweeping Blow. The weapon moved almost on its own. The speed with which it cut through the air was far faster than the man should have been able to manage. More, it struck not one but three cat monsters all at once. The trio of monsters were knocked backward, rolling back along the ground. Sadly, the special attack was not without its price.
The man’s stamina was already low from running; the special attack bottomed it out. The father fell to his hands and knees, gasping. It felt like he’d sprinted uphill in a Georgia summer. He could barely focus. The edges of his vision blackened.
Another cat approached him cautiously. It sniffed and circled his body to see if he would attack again. The man glared at it, but could do nothing more than heave labored breaths. Seconds later, it sprung onto his back and sank its fangs into his neck. A strangled huff mixed with his ragged breathing. More blood spilled onto the ground. A wheezing groan came out and he collapsed to the ground. Seconds later, four more cats latched on, eating him alive. In his last seconds the brave man lost all semblance of courage. His cries filled the air. He screamed for his mother as he pissed himself.
Remington just nodded at the man’s passing and picked up his gun. It was almost time.
81 breaths remaining.
Remy had made a promise to get these people to safety. He wasn’t a fool and wouldn’t waste his life if he couldn’t help, but he was no coward. It could easily be argued that he had done enough getting any of them to the bunker. God knows it hadn’t been easy, and there had been sacrifices. Even though he would not waste his life on a hopeless cause, it didn’t mean he wouldn’t spit in Fate’s eye if he found a worthy one. He saw just such a cause in the pleading eyes of the mother running toward him. Saving a woman and her child was a good thing to buy with the life he had left.
He’d left men and women to die before. Just like he’d watched Sara and Jay die, he could see the big picture and act accordingly. Making difficult decisions did not weigh him down like it did so many others. That didn’t mean he had no heart, contrary to what many in his life had thought. Instead, it meant that his heart was just harder and rougher than others. He was willing to bear pains that others were not. If he thought there was no hope for the people running, he would have already shut the door. Point in fact, Remy had two distinct reasons for leaving the safety of the shelter.
One, he was sure that he could help at least some of the runners make it. More accurately, he was sure he could improve their chances. That fact made it easier to focus on the task at hand. It wasn’t that he couldn’t feel fear or doubt. Those emotions just didn’t stop him from anything he decided needed to be done. He’d learned long ago that pain was a lesser burden than regret. Remington had sworn to help these people. He would try to fulfill that promise if he could, even if it meant risking his life.
Two, he hadn’t made it through the last several days unscathed. There had been a personal cost to getting his group to the bunker. A bite from a small mutated insect, like a flying ant with a scorpion’s tail, had done him more damage than any monster. After everything he had lived through, before and after the Forsaking, the thought that a bug bite was going to do him in had made him chuckle more than once. Not a bullet. Not a bomb. A bug bite. He’d climbed over the bodies of his comrades, swum through rivers turned red with blood, and in the end, it was shitting on an anthill that was going to do him in.
In the past few days, the bite had grown from a small red nodule to a golf ball-sized hole in his side. The edges were black and necrotic. Tendrils of infection spread out from the wound. The contamination reached across his chest and down his leg. He’d held some hope that the bunker might have antibiotics, but in the last day he’d come to realize that a shot of penicillin was not going to kill whatever organism was eating him alive. Better to make his last days count for something.
Gripping his rifle, he took a step out of the bunker. Before he could take a second, a hand grabbed his coat sleeve. Looking back, he met his sister’s eyes.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
She asked the question in a tone that was half accusation and half begging. It held a pleading intensity that was reflected in her fevered eyes. Her face was also wan from blood loss and fever. She had lost three fingers in an attack five days ago. Now the entire limb was fire-engine red and the stumps were black. She didn’t say anything else, but the plea in her rheumy eyes was obvious. Don’t leave me, they said. For once, don’t try and be the hero. Don’t risk your life. Let them die.