A loud, piercing racket of metal against metal rang out, startling me awake. "On your feet!" Some guy was shouting, his voice reverberating as though he were in some small room, and not out-

Oh.

"We're about to go hunt for blood beads. Hurry up and get ready!"

As the room quieted back down, I dared to risk cracking an eye. As I feared, the world around me was entirely different than the one I fell asleep in. Instead of sitting underneath a glowing, white tree in the middle of a post-apocalyptic street, I found myself in a neglected concrete room, the columns having long since fallen to disrepair. There was an overwhelming air of depression and desperation. Despite the ringing voice that demanded immediacy, no one down here seemed to acknowledge it at all. I pushed myself up to get a better look at the room.

"You're awake, then?" My head snapped towards the person who spoke. It was hard to tell in the dark, but he seemed to be dressed darkly enough to almost blend into the shadow. His entire face was covered by some sort of gas mask. "Whoa, keep it down." He pointed past me, "Your friend just fell asleep." Glancing back, I saw Io dozing against one of the pillars, much in the same way we fell asleep against the tree. I felt my heart sink. We were probably in the depths of danger of the moment- should I have known that we would get caught up in this? "So," he tried to catch my attention again, "what happened to your masks?"

"Masks? Are we supposed to have them?"

"Forgotten about those too, have you?" He let out a short, muffled 'hm'. "I'll tell you whatever you want to know, but first," he motioned behind himself, "go back there and put on a purifier mask."

Cautiously, I picked myself up and scanned the room as I approached the stash he pointed out. Each person imprisoned here seemed as hopeless as the next- a few silently stood or sat with their backs to the wall, but the one I happened to pass close by, sitting on the remnants of a column, made absolutely no discernable movement, gave no external sign of noticing me. Was he so broken to be so lost to the world?

I looked through the collection of masks and found only unfamiliar designs, not to mention the fact that most of them seemed damaged beyond any hope of use: major cracks cut through straight through the thin metallic material, entire components dangling by a centimeter of intact rubber, shattered glass sitting as an open invitation to slice one's forehead open. After a thorough search, I selected two of the least offending examples (along with some kind of harness to wear them) and turned back to hand one over to Io.

Several adjustments later, the mask was set square and tight against my face. I was going to need to get used to it being there, but for now, it was… doing its job, I suppose.

Another sharp clash and the sound of metal jerkily sliding against metal. The earlier voice shouted down, "Numbers three and four, newcomers, too! Time to work. Check your gear and come up!"

"Hmph," the guy said, "I'm number five, but the folks upstairs want you. They can wait; not like they can get too upset with new hands. More importantly, that mask suits you. Without those things, we revenants would join the ranks of the Lost in a flash, so be careful. So," he brought an elbow to rest on his knee, "what do you want to know?"

I paused. "…'We revenants'? Am I…?"

"Huh. You really have been put through the ringer, haven't you? Revenants are humans that died but got kicked awake again. That's what you've been turned into. As long as your heart is intact, you'll keep coming back, but you have to drink blood or you'll become one of the Lost. It's ironic. Creatures made to fight the horrors of the Great Collapse now have to fight their own fallen kin.

"To the earlier part, about being 'put through the ringer'. Each time we die, we lose some part of our memory, be it big or small. It's usually nothing important, and you don't even notice you've forgotten. Well, your case is a little rare, I guess."

Might as well deal with my other questions from the beginning. "So where are we? What is this place?"

He pointed a thumb back and up, towards the only feasible exit to this room. "According to the folks up there, it's a place to keep laborers who gather blood beads. More concisely and accurately, it's a slave pen."

I sighed. "That's what I was afraid of. You mentioned the… lost?"

"The Lost are revenants who have succumbed to bloodthirst and turned into real life monsters. If our heart is destroyed, we turn to ash, but the Lost don't care if they're left with no heart. Still, it takes them a while to come back, which makes 'em like us revenants. Keep your mask on and drink your blood beads, and you should be fine."

I tapped the side of the mask I was wearing. "So what's the purpose of these things?"

"The air in this place has something in it that speeds up the bloodthirst. We call it miasma. The mask helps filter it out. Mistle purifies the air nearby, but it's been drying up lately, just like the bloodsprings. Be careful where you take off your mask, unless you want to join the Lost."

"Mistle?"

"It's a sort of plant that purifies miasma and renders it safe. It's one of the successes of Project QUEEN. Even if it withers, it can be brought back with medicine made from the Queen's blood, but there's no hope of that now. If activated mistle turned up somewhere, it'd be a big help in exploration."

"You mentioned blood beads a few times, what are those?"

"If we revenants don't drink human blood, we join the Lost, but humans are scarce after the Great Collapse and all. Folks like us don't get blood, but there's something we can use in its place: blood beads. I don't know why such a lucky thing came along, but they started appearing after the Queen frenzied and was taken down. There are some who believe they're her tears, but it doesn't matter much to us where they come from."

A shot rang out through the air, and behind me, I heard something impact a pillar hard enough to shatter its surface. Feeling my blood run cold, I turned around and heard Io give a sharp squeak in surprise. Thankfully, the worst that had happened was some crumbled concrete plinking off of her, but I still couldn't calm that burning anger.

"Newcomers, you're not getting a second warning! Hurry up!"

I turned back to her. "Io…"

"Don't worry," she brushed the dust off of herself and picked up the mask and harness in her lap. "I can attach this myself while we are moving."

I turned back to the recently dropped ladder and swallowed hard. Don't keep them waiting.

Our captors had been force marching us for a while now. I had plenty of time to process everything the… revenant told me. The very word felt alien and unfamiliar. Was that really what I was? Something resurrected that would keep coming back every time I died? Why was I like this? Why were revenants like this? The only comfort I had was Io, who kept pace right beside me. She had made the best of what I gave her, but I still winced when I first saw the cracked visor of her gas mask.

It was impossible to tell where the captors were looking, at us and the other three revenants that were being strung along, or at the utterly devastated world around us- the slumping buildings our route wound around (and through one) and the towering stone spires were the only major landmarks in this concrete jungle.

Eventually, I spied a small group of revenants off in the distance. Milling around, maybe waiting for… well, us to come along. One of them, standing near something that resembled the glowing white tree, except for the fact that it only came up to his knees. His body language suggested he was furious, this being accented by a kick straight to the base of the plant. The leaves shuddered slightly, but it sat there, surprisingly undisturbed. One of his attendants, I figured, mentioned something off to him then got waved off.

He turned to face us as a group as the two revenants at the front each pulled one of the thralls forward and threw them onto the ground. "Hmph. All dried up, just like the others."

"Y-Yeah," one of the prone revenants stuttered, trying to push himself up to a seated position, "the mistle's a-all dried up, so there's no sense in searching with the miasm-sma like this. L-Let's-" One of the captors stepped forward and brought his rifle hard into the base of his neck, sending the poor thrall slumping down to the ground.

The leader reached into a pocket and pulled out a familiar, glittering red object. "You all still know what these are, right?"

The other thrall that was wrenched forward spoke up. "Blood beads, right?"

"Yes, very good. Now, I want you to search for blood beads in the tunnels ahead of here. You see, it's only a short time before the collectors come to take our levy, but once they do, I'm afraid we won't have any blood beads to give them. If we don't find some, Silva's hounds will strip the shirts right off our backs." He started turning his back to the group. "Well, that's the long and short of it."

"Wh-Why does it have to be us?" The first revenant pushed himself back up. The same soldier readied another blow, but the leader signaled him to wait.

"Don't ask me. This damn levy system was Silva's idea. If you have a complaint, I suggest you take it up with him." He dropped the signal, and the first thrall was knocked back down to the ground.

The soldiers started sounding orders to their thralls. Io's grip tightened on my arm, and I set a hand on hers to calm her down. This whole situation was unjust and inhumane, but what were we to do now? We had no weapons, no way to fight back. What could we expect from making an attempt now?

"Next! You three!" The soldiers who had led the thralls off before pointed at us- some revenant who marched behind me, Io, and I. He stepped forward first, and I followed with Io continuing by my side.

"Whoa there. You," Io was ripped away from me, "wait here with us." I looked back and saw that the leader had her by the shoulder. Sensing the situation, one of the soldiers interposed between me and them. "You can have this one back when you return- in exchange for any blood beads you find, of course."

Anger burned in my veins. Keeping someone hostage to keep me in line? I wanted to keep my head down before, try and plan an escape when the opportunity presented itself, but even though I was willing to make my own opportunity now, I still had no plan. Best to play along and hope for the best. The soldier motioned us in the direction the first thralls went, and begrudgingly, I complied.

"Oh," the leader added as we were being led away, "and I hear the Hunter has been showing up around here lately. So make sure you don't all get killed."

The soldiers pushed down the path that led down, inside a wrecked building. The path suddenly dropped away into a yawning chasm in front of us, and I instinctively stopped in my tracks.

It didn't deter the soldiers behind us. "You heard 'im. Move it!" A solid shove on my back sent me falling into the dark abyss.

The landing was not a soft one. I managed to miss everything else during the fall that may have hit and damaged me, but the sudden stop at the end knocked the wind out of me, maybe fractured a bone. Cautiously, I picked myself up and checked myself over. A groan of pain from behind me caught my attention.

"Ugh… Hey, are you okay?" It was the thrall that was unceremoniously tossed down here with me. It was hard to tell with the only major light source being the blue mistle, but he seemed to be dressed in violets and blacks. His scraggly brown hair fell messily over the full-face purifier mask, but I could still see his green eyes sitting beneath the cloudy glass.

I clutched where it hurt; at least I didn't seem to be bleeding. "I've been better. Might have broken something. You?"

"I've faced harder landings than this. Landed on rebar once. Don't worry, you'll get better." He stood as he looked up. "They didn't drop the ladder this time. We'll have to look for another way back. Oh, I'm-" He was cut off by a sudden crashing noise from above.

Instinctively, we each backed off, trying to pinpoint the approaching noise- the source suddenly came into view, a battered and partially rusty hammer, the head as large as a grown man's torso, and the handle seemingly longer than I was tall.

It landed squarely between us, embedding itself in the ground and shaking the ground to a frightening degree. In the next second, various debris landed around it- a length of broken pipe and a chunk of concrete around a piece of warped rebar were the two largest pieces, landing with a smattering of debris.

The other revenant stepped forward after it appeared everything was clear, set both hands on the hammer's handle, and ripped the whole thing out of the ground, hoisting it over his shoulder like it weighed nothing.

"I'm Oliver Collins. Nice to meet you!"