It started with an explosion in the middle of the night.
The precarious shed built with pieces of rusted steel and iron ruined by time quivered, shaking the dust accumulated through the cracks, falling on the heads of those who, startled, woke up in the darkness while trying to understand with the only perception of their ears what was going on out there. The blaze from the nearby bonfires leaked through a few holes, illuminating their faces, expressing the uncertainty of not knowing now what calamity was unleashing out there.
The muffled whispers of the crowd mingled with the whimpers of few others, accompanied by the jingling of the chains in every nervous movement they made when approached to the walls trying to spy on the outside.
Screams and gunshots multiplied out there. Desperate and furious indications of their owners filled the silence in the middle of the pitch-black night, and a few of them, became frightening screams and distressed calls for help by the time passed, followed by brief and unbearable silences.
As the seconds passed, endless and overwhelming, anxiety and fear escalated dominating the overcrowded warehouse.
The explosions became closer and more consecutive. The cries of horror outside too.
"We need to escape!" A terrified whisper was heard among them, "They're all gonna die! They'll kill us too-!"
And then, the air froze inside their lungs.
Even in the darkness, the expressions of fear were infected in every single one of them, acknowledging, at last, what was coming.
That shriek, sharp and primitive —a battle cry—, pierced the night with the icy shrillness of Death.
Immediately, chaos engulfed the entire camp.
Screams and shots everywhere, unleashed hysteria and disorganization, equaling the primitive instinct of what was increasingly heard more clearly approaching unstoppable as the scourge of a plague.
The mob inside the warehouse turned mad, and those closer to the walls started to howl terrified for help against the precarious walls, clashing in despair with their hands the chains that restrained them. Terror alienated them completely.
They were going to die there. Everyone was going to die.
They shouted, screamed in terror, pushed themselves or trampled one another, whilst trying to release from the shackles that also restricted them by the ankles.
"Get us the fuck out of here!" Someone cried.
The terrified supplications multiplied against the gaps of the thin walls, wrapped in howls of horror at the approach of Death, increasing the panic that, by then, had already taken complete control of the place and it was spreading in the settlement like a virus. To the desperate cries of the men who controlled the place, they were joined now by the rest of the inhabitants of the camp who fled in horror leaving their cabins and tents.
Through the cracks could be seen the silhouette of people running by, escaping, increasing the anxiety of those who, inside the precarious shed were chained, were crying out for their lives.
Continuous explosions on the edges of the settlement began to illuminate the scene, revealing the faces in which terror had perpetuated the expression of anguish and the instinct of self-preservation that had completely nullified any rational human notion, showing, in addition, the true nature of our condition of living beings. It was survival what control them all right now. It was all that matters.
The screaming and chaos outside annulled the ears with the effectiveness of a white noise, and all she could distinguish now were the wild beats of her own heart that kicked against her thoracic cavity and pulsed against her eardrums, pumping blood and adrenaline into her veins while with an iron wire, she was trying to force the lock of the chains that grasped someone from his hands and feet.
"Hurry the fuck up!" A haggard dirty old man yelled with dread, shaking his left wrist as she worked over the keyhole. There were two back and forth moves with a tense but consistent pulse, and finally, under her watchful gaze, the heavy shackles fell noisily on the dusty floor. "Feet! C'mon, faster!" He demanded with growing despair.
When the rest of them acknowledged what she was doing, they began to crowd around her, putting their wrists or ankles before her and demanding the same work. And as she noticed it, she began to feel her phalanges ache, and the applied energy threatened to summit her fingers to numbness.
The demand to get rid of the chains was starting to become more virulent among them as the explosions were already replicated within the camp, and against the clock, she repeated the same movements, applying different pressure in each one of the locks.
Sweat ran down her back, arms, and forehead; her jaw, locked and making her ache every muscle of her neck and face. Her complete attention was in every lock that appeared before her in the gloomy place, barely illuminated at times by the explosions spreading outside; she even paid attention to those who were already free, but sure thing was that nobody would wait for anyone, and the cries of those who hadn't noticed what she was doing didn't matter either. Survive: that matters.
A nearby explosion rattled the structure again, and the beams wavered above their heads. The mob howled in horror.
"It'll crushes us!" The voice of a terrified woman caused everyone to despair even more and started to scream.
She didn't mind. Her nerves were in every keyhole that appeared before her eyes.
She was free a while ago.
Someone has to make a difference, she heard someone say long ago. That poor bastard was already dead for sure.
It never mattered to her, because doing it could mean her own doom. If you don't survive, what's the whole point?
Every day was about to survive and avoid death, even when some damn beggar died right before her eyes crying out for mercy. Even if he deserved to die or not.
If you care, it'd be possible you die, and with it, who you were trying to protect.
But not today.
Today was an exception.
The only one of the new batches of merchandise that had arrived didn't reach the 10 years of age. His cheeks were dirty and wet from the tears of despair; his eyes, huge and dark, pleading. He only needed to say it once. I'm scared, she heard him sob, and that old saying from that long-doomed fool hitted her mind making her snap.
With a thunderous stomp then, the shed's door was kicked open making everyone scream in fear. A man from the village appeared with unsteady pace; kinetic shotgun in his hands, and his face disfigured with anxiety and dread. He scrutinized each one of them, hesitant and contemplating the fate of those who were left by their own, surely to die alone like the animals they think they're; those, who ragged, dirty and malnourished, for a few seconds, appreciated that man in the same way as someone appreciates what is divine. They cried then, begging for their freedom to this unlikely savior.
Fire contrasted the silhouette of this man she identified as part of the militarized group in the settlement, one of their smugglers. But the more she observed him, clearer she could see it: he was bathed in blood, and the dirt of the desert was impregnated all over his body.
It was a disturbing realization: there was a slaughter out there.
Immediately, he started to shoot at the chains of whoever it was near, alarming the rest only for a moment and then exhorted them to stand up and run the hell out of there.
"Leave! NOW!" He bellowed, shaking his grown beard with the movement of his jaw as he continued firing to the chains.
He's dead, she thought. We're all dead!
People began to scream and run around her while this man free them, and regaining the notion of her surroundings while the gunshots deafen her, instinct finally gripped on her once more as many times before.
She threw away the wire, hitched up the hopeless child in floods of tears and began to run for their lives like the rest.
The moment she crossed the doorstep, her nostrils were filled with the odor of blood mixed with gunpowder and dirt, causing her overwhelming fear. The nauseating stench product of the butchery injected more adrenaline in her body.
She paralyzed for a few seconds, looking around the whole place turned a mayhem of people running for their lives to The Flats and away from the hills, and finally, she reacted and started to run with the horrified child in her arms. She needed to escape.
Her ears buzzed as her breath escaped of her chest while she was fleeing with all her might. She could hardly pay attention to her surroundings while her badly shod feet pushed against the dusty ground. Fire was the only way to distinguish the dread hidden in the shadows.
Between the deafness and the panic, those howls were the only thing that pierced the numbness that was beginning to saturate her eardrums product of hysteria.
They were much more while the seconds passed.
They were surrounded by those beasts.
The little boy clung onto her while he was crying helplessly. She could feel her thighs hurt from the effort of running. People who she couldn't identify pass by her escaping, paying little attention or even giving her any help. The explosions became more violent and consecutive, and where shrapnel shots were heard before, now were replaced by an unmistakable and distinctive noise and its light: Arc weapons.
The horde that was striding down the hill began to suppress the little resistance. Every shot that hit the ground blow up the place in a ferocious explosion. They fell from above like a thousand strikes of deathly light.
There was no time to take shelter or hide.
Passing a crossroads between tents and another shed, the desperate warning of a stranger trying to escape bellowed from behind with a sense of dread. But it was already too late.
"INCOMING!"
She was hit by the impact of the explosion several steps away, throwing both the child and her with another poor wretches against a near barricade. She lost the strength of her arms, and the boy slipped from her grip.
Everything went dark for a second.
The deafness and the lack of orientation only allowed her to perceive her own heartbeat. She blinked several times trying to get focus on what was going on around her. The lack of stability made her those same times lean her forehead against the ground, impregnating her whole face with dust and dirt, causing her to spit and cough the sour and dry taste of her mouth every time she breathed. Everything was spinning violently around her. She didn't have the strength or the balance to stand up. Almost nothing was audible aside the screaming and the explosions, and the sensitivity to the light made her notice that she was still stunned.
Groping for, she searched around with difficulty with her hands, scratching the soil and getting more and more desperate when she couldn't find who was then the focus of her concern.
She managed to stand up with the little strength she achieved, staggering and panting, only to discover how someone lifted the unconscious small child she was protecting and carried it away in his arms.
She shouted to him, desperate in a futile attempt to try to stop him, stumbling several times as she tried to chase him. She needed to reach him. She wouldn't die in vain.
The bursts of light multiplied across the blackness of the sky, landing violently on the structures to kill everyone in the area. Those weapons, which she knew, were no match for the scant and rudimentary armament that their traffickers handled; those weapons were going to erase them to oblivion.
Those creatures were lethal and came by night, when their presence symbolized with overwhelming dread to any creature, human or not, that they won't reach the dawn.
Even so, she wasn't going to die. Not today.
She recovered slowly her strength and ran desperately towards the raptor. She wasn't going to leave him with any of those men, nobody was worth of trust. That child wouldn't be safe with anyone, except with her. She knew it.
She was about to reach him when different detonations shook the area again. She kept running, covering her head but not looking away from her target.
As she passed by a second crossroads, directly towards the desert plains, she could hear hundreds of cries of complete terror ahead. A large group of people emerged from the shadows and ran in the opposite way, yelling at them with alarm that that route was no longer safe. They ran like hell passing beside her and making her stop suddenly and paralyzing in place. The heart in her throat and the cold of terror running down her spine.
And then, she saw them.
They appeared through the flames several meters ahead from where the terrified multitude had retreated, like a Wrath, and began to slaughter with a killing blow whatever came across their path with their long arms and huge swords.
Those shrieks materialized right before them, and with a single deafening unison, they cried out for more blood in a final assault.
Another explosion burst the air in that way, and the terrified mass of people who tried to escape to The Flats began to back away scared to death, stepping on each other to save their own asses.
There was nowhere to escape. They came from the front too.
They were all dead.
Paralyzed by that horrific vision while her whole body was trembling with terror, at the next second, she tried to follow the trail of the child's abductor among the frightened crowd, realizing with fear that he wasn't there anymore.
Her throat was knotted and her vocal folds sore for cry out, the fear became irrepressible crushing her chest. She had failed, she'd die!
Another explosion burst behind her, and she was certain that the first wave of the horde would appear around at any second. She could hear the swords of that demons tearing apart the flesh of whoever cross their path and the shots of the weapons carbonizing everyone near.
There was no time, she needed to escape. Not today! it was the only thing that throbbed in her head against all odds.
Screaming in terror, the few around her began to run with the only instinct of survival. She backed up a few steps before turning and running back the way she had come along, while the anguish and helplessness for loose that poor child tried to paralyze her.
It mattered once. It would be her death if now, it mattered too much.
She had regained her strength, and her instincts allowed her to recover her balance quickly. She accelerated, until something caught her attention in the desperation to escape.
Something unexpected.
Shooting, and the bewildered screams of the horde of beasts.
She pivoted puzzled, recognizing the detonations by its brightness and sound. Pulse weapons, energetic type, kinetic weapons too, and flux grenades.
Someone else was out there.
She hesitated for a second but trying that it not mattered too much. Now, she needed to escape.
The counteroffensive, whoever they are, was approaching from The Flats, same territory from where these creatures wanted to cornered them; It'd seem that they wanted to do the same. She kept running despite that, her chest burning with an uncontrolled heartbeat.
She went around the corner of an old structure, and suddenly, a lost disturbed cry put her on alert.
Before the scared people, who came from the sides and some frontwards, could stop or even notice it, she braked on her tracks, sliding and falling noisily on her back at the same exact time that one of those ghoulish beasts jumped off from a ledge, cutting off their escape with a terrifying shriek. It was massive, grotesque and wild, with multiple eyes glowing with spectral light as she could achieved to see. It howled with ferocity before its new preys.
Although, falling on her back saved her.
In a single lethal blow, with its sword already drenched in unknown blood, that thing it split in half other two who couldn't avoid it while they were trying to escape.
She barely was able to keep her shit together and started to scream in horror at the repulsive feeling all over her skin. Blood and flesh were everywhere, bathing her whole body in the blood of complete strangers. She scratched terrified the bloody mud where she was laying, recoiling in a desperate impulse to get up and run away for her life.
When she managed to get up, she turned to the right along with other people who stumble upon in horror and witnessed the bloodshed. There was a path hidden in the darkness that lead to an abandoned mine and a salvage yard. That was her only chance to make it.
She didn't want to look back. Death was chasing her.
The beastly howl of that creature was on her heels, firing over her head and over the few people who were running like hell a few steps before her, causing several structures to threaten to collapse in their way and crush them.
What a sadistic and perverse display that beast seemed to have, that it didn't even care to spare them the suffering and die from a clean shot, but the agony of being torn and crushed by a collapse.
The road began to turn into a labyrinth with several small passages, and the small group that fled started to spread as they run through it.
She didn't hesitate, and as soon as she could, on the run, dodging and jumping debris as they fell, turned to the nearest passage. It was narrow than the other, and it was impossible for that beast to get through it, even from above. She was certain of lost it and only turned once to look back.
It wasn't so.
That beast jumped using the impulse of its powerful legs over the steel beams that crossed over the narrow passage, howling and claiming for blood, trying several times to shoot through the spaces that the steel bars showed.
She accelerated with all her strength screaming in horror, and as she fled, the passage grew darker with brief flashes of the explosions from the settlement and the tremors of those same violent burst shaking the place.
The small alley led first to the junkyard. The only glow that it was there was from the fire scattered in the distance that could cast some dim light in the area and the bright of the explosions of the unexpected counteroffensive that had begun to eradicate the horde of creatures of the night.
As she escaped, above her, the structure that covered the passage had disappeared, and what it lay before her was an open field of piles of twisted and rusted scrap of metal. She could hear its howls and strides against the rafters from behind.
All the muscles of her body were on fire, her lungs were lit, and her heart was pumping out of control. There was another passage a few meters away that went off to the side of the hill, and it was her only chance to survive. She needed to get to that passage, or it was over.
The squeak of the iron structures was heard to give in while the creature's howl was plowing through the air. She didn't dare to look back, it was just behind, above her.
She was going to die.
A pulse of energy shot went through the air in a gust of golden light.
It was followed by several gunshots that hit the creature in the air, throwing it against several steel skeletons because of the impact, causing it to writhe in spasms of wrathful pain while it was trying to get back on its feet. It roared louder, angered and bewildered. Someone had snatched its prey.
She tripped over, falling loudly onto her knees while trying to slow her pace, shocked for not understand what was going on now.
A sudden light appeared pointing at her and began to float forward, blinding her sight and approaching with constant speed. She tried to stand up, blinded and puzzled, but she fell again on her back backing up in desperation, using her arms and legs to try to get away from another potential hostile.
"Hey!" An alarmed voice was heard. An odd voice.
It didn't matter. She needed to flee; what was before her wasn't human and it was clear and couldn't consider it inoffensive.
In the moment she achieves to get up and turn around, she sees the creature under the blinding light, making her stifle a horrified cry of terror and stumbling backwards. It was massive with four arms, heavy armored with a hideous mask covering its head and patches of fur hanging over its cape and around its neck. It threw another furious shriek as it wielded the red-tinged blades with two of its arms, and a heavy assault weapon on its others.
Bleeding but still energetic, it charged against the light with a venomous rage at the same time she screamed and threw herself aside backtracking crawling afterwards.
A fleeting silhouette appeared in the path of that light, dodging the gunshots of the weapon of that creature first, quick and accurate; running at full speed against the huge body and pointing the light at the beast while avoiding gracefully the mortal blows and attacking with his own gun.
And then, dimness.
It was a blurry movement against the gloom light of the mayhem that was happening downhill.
A jumping shadow first, a flicker light later, three gunshots and the sound of a slash tearing the flesh at the soft spot of the heavy armor with sharp precision.
Scared, she couldn't process anything that was happened, and coming back to her senses, managed to get up and run away.
"Wait!" That voice sounded more frightened than before, and the light appeared again behind her and pointing at her direction to where she was running.
Without the slightest doubt, she brake on her steps just to take a slab from the ground throwing it to whoever it was, knowing she might hit the target but causing the light to dodge it.
"WOW, nice shot! But why was that?!" It was heard with bafflement. That voice was sounding less human by seconds passed, and whatever it was, it was trying insistently to approach her.
While she escaped, she could easily listen the accelerated pace of this unexpected menace running after her, noticing too late then while kept running that this wasn't the right passage. She mislead it!
The entrance to the mine had several fallen beams that crossed the tunnel, she get through it by jumping above and ducking, feeling that her new pursuer was even more persistent than the previous one. The light that was chasing her made easier the escape at moments, lighting up the treacherous path ahead, only difficult when the angles of the bright made the shadows dance.
"Hey, pretty one! Don't go in there! it's dangerous! Stop!" This voice sounded like a man, and as more as they ran through the mine, the more this stranger sounded distressed.
"She's in shock! She won't listen to us!" Another voice, female, soft and shy and equally distressed but notoriously more synthetic than the other was heard from behind. She panicked at the possibility of two pursuers and speed up.
"Oh, but of course she won't! Seriously, would'ya stop running to ask 'hey, you gonna kill me or not'?" The sarcastic tone was confusing, even though feeling it a threat while she was dodging obstacles. "HEY! You must stop running! Ain't safe there!" The attention was directed towards her again, she could feel it.
And then, the light behind her seemed to increase its brightness and, for her surprise, like if it having its own will and apparently its own plans to manage the situation, it overtook whatever it was accompanying it, increasing its speed, cutting her escape in a swift move and blinding her all at once, directing its beam of light and causing her to stumble on her tracks.
She covered her eyes because brightness was hurting her eyes. Scared and screaming, in a desperate attempt to defend herself, she slapped the air trying to connect a hit, and failing.
She was surrounded, frightened and gasping for air.
The haste steps were heard closer and closer, getting slow as this new thread approached her. Each step was measured and cautious, but constant.
She turned to face it, and all she could see in the glow of the narrow corridor was the figure of what appeared to be a man emerging from the shadows: hooded in worn dark gray cloths and cape, with light leather equipment and light armor. A gun case with its gun in it was holstered in the small of his back, and a knife on the left side of his waist.
But she looked twice then with a sense of dread, discovering something else when she sharpened her sight. It wasn't look like a human.
Its eyes shone in bright teal blue light and, as its voice betrayed it, its features showed the synthetic work of men. It was a mechanical being with the shape of a human.
She started to shudder in panic at the fact of being trapped and helpless without nothing to defend herself with, she began slowly to step back against the wall's tunnel, clutching her fingers against the walled stonewalls in search of anything to use as a weapon.
"OK, I'm not that creepy. There's no need to look at me like that, but I need you to calm down and come with me right now." It was speaking to her in a carefree but amenable tone that only make her more frightened at the sight of its modulator lighting up in bright golden light, showing what, with the glow of that floating light that still blind her and the light of its own vocal chords, she could interpret as its jawbone imitating the facial movement of speech.
The hands where she could see it to identify itself as an inoffensive being, it was studying her carefully for any aggressive reactions. It wasn't going to let her get away.
She could feel a knot in her throat and the physical exhaustion that began to play against her. She began to slide warily against the wall in the direction that she came, while the light in front of her was floating with tentative moves and examined her every movement. She spied briefly what it was, not being able to understand what kind of being could be, only discovering same similarities with the individual that spoke to her and presented itself as friend. It was small like a ball with pointed blades, and it moved them in short and tense movements before the situation. Its only bright eye looking at her with same carefulness.
"Are we cool then? There's no need to keep running. I killed that bastard, but it's not safe for us to stay here, y'hear me? We need to get the hell out of here 'cause this could collapse in any second," It spoke. The voice modulator lit up each time it emitted a sound, illuminated the features of its face in a way that was frightening her.
With a sudden tremor, the whole mine quivered shaking the dust between the wood of the walls with a growling eco of the explosions in the distance, making her despair and choke an anguish whine. Immediately, she looked back at this individual that with watchful and concerned gaze examined every corner of the tunnel while dust was suspended on the air.
"See now? I told ya is dangerous, so- if you just listen to me, kid… I can get both of us safe," It insisted looking back at her with attentiveness.
She didn't answer, still shocked by its presence, and starting to get upset the more she listened to it and insisted on blocking her escape.
Whatever it was, it noticed her attitude, and gesturing and shaking its head in frustration tried to continue to persuade her.
"Look, I don't wanna to take it the wrong way, but it's just very rude to stare at people like that! Even though, well- I'm not exactly what you'd consider a 'person' so to speak, but huh- Nevermind!" It shrugged, taking care of any sudden movement and still trying to sound casual.
She doesn't even care. Irritated and bathed in her own sweat, mixed with the stench of blood and mud, and her eyes full of tears, she hid her hands behind her back crawling discreetly her fingers against the wall, searching for something to use, something sharp. She found nothing.
She noted that this being had a tentative move to make an approach, barely sliding its left foot towards her.
"We cool?" It asked. She perceived that the tone of its voice was becoming tense but concern now, and still with its hands up, another small tentative step narrowed the space between them, frightened her even more.
Her breathing was constrictive and not very disguised because of the fear. It was the only thing that it was been heard in the passage as well as the mechanical movements of this peculiar light emitting device that illuminated her.
Another light drags of the boots of what was cornering her was listened again in the tense silence of the tunnel, making her stress even more, perceiving the attempts to narrow the distance at last as new tremors echoed through the corridor. She could see in the gloom, its bright pupils examining her with heed.
And then, the noise of an incoming radio signal ripped through the air, alarming them both.
"Cayde?! Where the hell are you! Answer, over!"
She saw it startle and look at the small device with a sense of reprehension. It was all what she needed to run away again, this time, to the exit.
She didn't give it time to react that she used all the strength she still had, but her rate pace faded unlike minutes ago, making her stumble while jumping obstacles. She was exhausted.
"I thought we were cool!" It yelled frustrated at her from behind starting to chase her again.
She spied above her shoulder to see if she had any chance to lose it, and almost instantly, she heard it screamed at her with fright, "WATCH YOUR STEPS!"
She turned then, and because of the movement of the light that chased her and the lack of perspective, she didn't saw a beam blocking her path, making her stumble and hitting her head with a loud thud against a rock.
The impact stunned her, making her fall to the ground with a dull sound.
The stabbing pain was making everything turn hazy, and she could feel her whole head burning. She was starting to lose consciousness, listening barely the hurried footsteps of its pursuer approaching and the light that accompanied it blinding her fully again.
She blinked confused a couple of times trying to stay focus, whining and trying to throw useless slaps to defend herself. The silhouette of that individual knelt beside her and started to call her, shaking her by the shoulders with urgency and snapping anxiously its fingers in front of her face. "Hey, girl! Hey! Don't you dare to fall asleep! Look at me, look-at-me! Eyes on me! Do you hear me?! HEY!" Its worried voice was getting distant every time she tried to fight the stupor.
And then, the only thing she could see or hear around was the brightness and the noisy chatter of the radio transmission.
Her body started to feel heavy and without strength, sensing barely being lifted later; then came the smooth touch of leather, the smell of gunpowder and earthy scent, some muffled angry swearing, and lastly the cold against the skin of her exposed arms and legs before everything went silent.