We have about three hours of sunlight left to walk another thirteen miles to reach Savi.
-"Jeremiah, what is that?"
-"What do you me-, what the hell caused that?"
I turn my head and all I can see is a column of smoke rise from a nearby hill. It's too big for a gunfight and pitch black meaning that the fire is still going. It's like a goddamn towering inferno, peeking my curiosity to go see what it is.
-"Come on."
-"Where are you off to now?"
-"I'm going to see what's going on. Help Alonso up hill but stay back just in case we have some unwelcome guests."
I reach the top and all I can see is the horrors that started the smoke.
-"What the fuck?"
It is a tire fire with people either dead or dying burning away within. They try to scream, but no words can erupt from their burnt lips and lungs. Their skin crackles and melts like coyote hide. I can do nothing for them. I fall to my knees and vomit from what I see and the horrid stench that comes from this massacre. When the heaving stops and I look up once again, I see the banner of Caesar's Remnants blowing in the wind and protruding from the tower of blackened smoke.
-"Jeremiah! What did you fin... oh no."
-"Maldita sea, this smell is terrible!"
-"Put your bandanas over your mouths. You do not want to breathe this in."
We start to inspect the wreckage.
-"Who could have done this?"
-"Blood-thirsty mongrels that can only be satisfied with arson, enslavement, rape, crippling, death, and destruction. The monsters of Caesar's Remnants, Alonso."
I continue to search. I then see light shine on my back, but the smoke is blocking the sun? I turn to find a hole through the pillar of smoke and the giant wings of a great beast approaching.
-"EVERYONE DOWN, NOW!"
I dive into the smoldering ground and they do the same thing. That ear-bursting screech and the force of wind just over my head is completely unbearable.
-"Jeremiah, qué coño was that!?"
-"Harbinger, Alonso! Must've smelt the charred flesh from miles away. It's comin' back!"
We dive again and that's where I find our salvation. A blessed hunting rifle. Five bullets in the clip but with the amount of corrosion and damage that was done to the inner mechanism meant that this thing had only one shot left.
-"Amelia, catch!"
I toss the rifle to our ranger.
-"Next time it makes another run, plug the fucker!"
The wings stretch out far and wide as it comes ever nearer. Me and Alonso dive whilst Amelia stands her ground and aims straight and true. One shot was all it took to have the great beast fall to it's demise forty yards away.
All we could hear was the sound of a guitar tuning as a man walked into the smoke and say,
-"I guess it is true to say that beauty did kill the beast."