A week ago the water had gone bad. Taps running orange as somewhere else in the hive broke. The order from on high had come down and it was only a temporary malfunction, they should drink what unspoiled water they had and it would all be fixed soon.

Three days later the water had still been bad and they had nothing else left to drink. The pleas for something to be done to fix it had become more urgent and there had even been talk of heading elsewhere in the hive, better than drinking the filth that came from the taps.

In response the doors had been sealed, an entire subsection of the hive cast off and left to rot. Until all they could do was scrabble against the sealed doors unable to escape and condemned to die.

They'd been abandoned by the Imperium.

With the choice between the orange filth flowing from the taps and dying of thirst they'd drunk. Even if it was filthy there was no other choice. If it was bad they would die either way, and by trying at least there was a chance it would be fixed.

The pain that had come had been expected as their bodies groaned in protest. As the water rebelled in their bodies and they had wretched to even keep it down at all. Vomit flowing from their mouths, shit from their bowels. Until the sewers had begun to overflow and clog as they grew weaker.

At first he'd carried the sickest, helped them clean themselves off even after their strength waned and prayed that someone would come and save them. But as the hours progressed his own body had rebelled more and more, and the weakest among them had died.

Noone had come to answer their prayers.

That was what it meant to be abandoned.

Now they sat around only waiting to die, as the water took its toll on their bodies and they vomited it back up. Covered in their own filth and trapped unable to even wipe it off anymore. His body racked with pain that even death itself might be a blessing.

For in the dead eyes of those around him he saw his own despair reflected. And they were soon going to become corpses anyway, perhaps giving up would make it faster at least.

From the sewer it rose, a monster made of all the filth and refuse they'd cast out. Permeating the world with a smell worse than death as it clambered free. Great rolls of fat heaving as the sewage and the sludge poured from its form. Bloated and obscene it stood like the worst nightmare he'd ever seen as its eyes fell to rest on his limp form.

Deep down his mind revolted from the fear, screaming at him to run. He couldn't, not from fear or conviction it couldn't be called bravery. Just the simple truth that there was nothing left in him to move his limbs. His emaciated body had already lost everything worth living for as he waited for death.

It wobbled forward as the earth trembled at its passing. A great gaping maw opening like a wound on its face as pus flowed freely from its mouth and a giant hand swung round towards his head. Lightly it patted him gently where he lay.

"Fear not, for Grandfather does not abandon his children."

The monster pulled him to his feet, and in the moment they found purchase as new strength seemed to flow from the monster into his limbs. Even as all around him more smaller monsters spilled from the sewers and dragged the others from the ground. From tiny laughing creatures like putrescent boils grasping still living children and welcoming them with smiles on their faces. To the bloated almost man like variants letting the broken rest on them as they pulled them up.

The great beast's voice boomed like thunder, power echoing through the streets around them. "This place is not safe for you children." Power flowed into him through the voice, aches and pains falling away as strength wormed its way into his flesh. "Come with me children and I will take you away from here."

He followed, even as the smaller demons dragged the others along beside them. Helping them to put one foot in front of the other each time, counting all the while. "One, two, three, four."

Each step becoming a number as the daemon lead them away. The massive bell in its hand ringing in time with their steps as one became ten, as ten became a hundred and more and more people were pulled from the ground to march in the tide that was its wake.

"One hundred and twenty five, one hundred and twenty six."

Their bodies had not healed, his wounds ached as much as they always had. But there was power now in their broken limbs and each step slowly became easier. That simple promise echoing through the ringing bell as it drove them onwards.

The thing that lead them was a monster in every way he could believe. But every one of them continued to put one foot in front of the next, unable to give up the strength that let them move on. Because there was nothing else that would come for them at a time like this.

"Two thousand and six, Two thousand and seven."

Legions marched, footsteps and voices echoing as one as the throng only grew. Still the bell in its hand rung constantly and single chant kept in time pulling them free of the pain.

Thirty thousand and eight, thirty thousand and nine."

The gate stood before it, that sealed void created to keep them trapped in here and suffering forever.

The bell rose and with an unearthly clang tore it asunder in a single swing. The monstrous creature crashing through solid steel as though it were mere paper even as it turned back with a smile. "Come now children your freedom awaits."


AN: Flint water crisis, Cholera ah this one was easy to come up with. I reopened this, through the great power of I felt like writing more, Attached it to the old one because ah same kind of set and they're oneshots anyway. Was tempted to write the entire Chaos Primarchs stories as more sympathetic arcs, still unsure on that but may add it to the end of this as well one day.

This set has much more daemons, with all the wonderful ambiguity of whether or not I'm writing actual sympathetic Chaos, or Chaos as monsters taking advantage of the downtrodden.