The roiling red smog-clouds engulfed the sky like a never-ending bubbling, boiling broth, so much so that it encircled down to every horizon. In stark contrast to the black beneath, black which spread in every direction laid a city first made up of gothic towers of adamantium and plasteel, their silhouettes made jagged by the countless bouts of acid rain across the millennia and the millions and millions of gargoyles and statues of Aquilas and saints that studded them. Below, were even more decrepit rockcrete, crumbling close-knit hab blocks stacks and stacks of them and manufactorums that spewed the red smog in a stream which hadn't abated even slightly over the course of thousands of years.

A speck, one among billions named Attelus Kaltos walked in one of the many alleyways which wound throughout the hive. His hands in the pockets of his black flak jacket, a smoking Lho stick in the corner of his mouth. His footfalls echoed on the rockcrete ground in a way which seemed odd to his ears, but he couldn't identify why. It'd taken him a while to get used to his inhuman senses since his "enhancement" which now seemed a lifetime ago and he supposed it a by-product.

The itch on his nose made Attelus fight the urge to push the thick fringe of long brown hair from his sharp, almost feminine features despite the fact no one was around to see the horrific scar torn into left cheek. No, he corrected, no one around I can see.

The thought made him narrow his eyes, stop and glance around himself; even his enhanced vision could only pierce the blanket of smog a few metres, even when he blink-clicked his photo-contact lenses to heat vision. The smog's burning stench writhed inside his nose like it had a life of its own. Attelus blinked away the welling tears blurring his vision for the millionth time, and after a few more seconds of searching and finding nothing, he began on again.

This world was one he'd never set foot on before, just one of countless hive worlds across the Imperium of Mankind. Just yet another small step on the road he'd begun, so much so, he'd already forgotten its name. Not that wasn't without the realms of reality as Attelus knew he didn't have the best memory for names. With his thumb and index finger Attelus took the Lho stick from his lips and exhaled smoke but stopped as he realised why the sound of his feet seemed off, it echoed as if he walked on a varnished wooden floor inside a cavernous hall.

He didn't know what to make of this, his mind seemed to throb, and his thoughts became murky as if the smog had slipped inside his skull. Attelus didn't want to continue walking, to confirm it.

Something caught the corner of Attelus' eye, and his attention snapped to the wall on his right. Words were spray-painted there, which he couldn't quite make out. Despite himself, Attelus started to approach it, the extreme familiarity of it ticked at the back of his mind, but he didn't know why.

It wasn't until he was only a few inches away he could read it, and the realisation sent a freezing shiver under his skin. It read in blue: 'Frig the arbites!' In a primitive, running scrawling. It was the exact same graffiti he passed every day when he walked to work at Taryst's tower back on Omnartus.

Attelus was sure that such a sentiment would be sprayed on walls the Imperium over, but this was the same he knew as he'd seen it twice a day, almost every day for six months.

But that wasn't possible Omnartus was...Omnartus had been...

Attelus began to back away, then a movement caught the corner of his eye, and he turned. He was no longer in an alleyway, but the walls had spread apart so far he seemed to stand on a wide-open plain in a valley made up of rockcrete.

The sound of thousands of echoing footsteps approaching his left made Attelus shudder in fright and turn.

Thousands of figures suddenly filled the new valley, swaying marching his. Figures who's features flickered from inscrutable grey blurs into vaguely familiar faces, but the faces would never stay on the same figure twice.

His heart slamming through him, Attelus began to back away, his twitching, fear addled fingers reaching for the powersword sheathed at his hip as good as it'd do him against such overwhelming numbers. But he found himself even incapable of that as another fully-formed figure materialised at the crowd's head, it wore white power armour, its face hidden behind its helm but there was no missing the large golden I emblazoned on its chest.

'E-Etuarq?' Attelus managed to say through a wall of clenched teeth.

'No,' the Inquisitor's voice boomed from its grill. 'I am Inquisitor Edracian; the sad, foolish puppet Etuarq killed so he could manipulate you into causing the murder of billions.'

'I-'

Attelus' reply died in his throat as others started to materialise alongside Edracian, shambling toward Attelus with the too-familiar emotion of hatred swirling in their eyes. First was a pretty young woman, with jaw-length brown hair, wearing thick brown robes of the Ecclesiarchy, the Emperor's church. Attelus didn't know her until she started to flicker. Attelus couldn't help cry and reel back as he recognised the brown, rotting corpse she kept becoming.

'A-Amand-'

'Interrogator Amanda Heartsa,' said the young woman as she became the corpse permanently. 'Like Edracian you never met me, but I was tortured for weeks at the hand of Taryst, then murdered so you could take the pict-'

'I know! Please, don't-'

'Which lead my father, Inquistor Torathe into the abyss of insanity and order the destruction of an entire world.'

Attelus clenched his teeth and balled his gloved hands into fists so hard they began to shake. He wanted to back away, but he found his feet rooted to the spot. Another became colonel Barhurst the selfish, cowardly leader of the Rogue Trader Taryst's mercenary army. He'd been murdered so the shapeshifting "mimic" mutant could take his place and take over. Attelus met Barhurst eyes; he held no sadness for Barhurst demise.

Then six more figures became visible, and he knew them all instantly, they were the mercs Attelus had fought alongside in their war against the gangs on Omnartus. Much to his shame, he could only remember the names of Callague and Jarvus who's deaths occurred just before everything went to hell. They didn't say anything; they didn't need to as Attelus couldn't help wilt beneath their glaring.

Beside them, Major Olinthre appeared into life, his once handsome face contorted into an ugly a dark blue, veined simulacrum. As he shuffled the lolling tongue in the colonel's hanging mouth bounced about. Attelus looked at the ground, colonel Barhurst's second in command's death was one he was directly responsible for.

'I died because you were too pathetic, too lost in your own selfish grief for the death of your foolish girlfriend to help me when I needed your help the most!' Olinthre snarled, each syllable sent a wave of cold, shivering pain throughout his bones.

Tears welled in Attelus' gaze, Olinthre was right, but that made him wonder: Why wasn't Elandria among the dead? Quickly, Attelus shook away the thought; he knew why she wasn't; he knew why.

'I only went up to Taryst's quarters because you manipulated me!' said Olinthre. 'You planted the suspicions in my brain that made me take you up there to my death!'

'I-I-I know! I-I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean-'

'And not just that, you then went and allied with my murderer! The accursed mutant shapeshifter like it was nothing. Nothing.'

Attelus fell to his knees, unable to reply through his hyperventilation, he hoped it would make him paradoxically faint as he did on those stairs so long ago, so he could escape this.

'Face me!' roared another voice and Attelus couldn't help turn to its source.

Taryst himself swayed his way, his once healthy tanned skin so pale it was almost translucent and so wrinkled and wizened he seemed to have aged five hundred years, which was how old he was when he died, his youth extended due to extensive and expensive rejuvenant treatments.

'If you had taken up my offer and joined my organisation! You could have saved me, protected me, frig you!'

Attelus didn't reply, he just glared at the Rogue Trader and got back to his feet; in all honesty, he didn't mourn that bastard's death at all. Attelus suspected that very few people did, especially in the end when he fell into the depths of paranoia, he was a reminder, along with the scar on Attelus' face, to not make the same mistake.

Taryst's spectre seemed to see this as it stopped, its eyes widening as it dissolved into a shade then became lost amongst the millions of others.

'Apprentice,' hissed a familiar haughty feminine voice and a lithe woman wearing a black bodyglove grew into view. She stormed towards him, her face a hideous rictus as she shook in rage.

'Glaitis...' said Attelus.

'You turned the others against me,' she snarled, spittle bubbled from her teeth and down her chin. 'It was your fault that I died.'

'No, I-'

Yet another materialised beside Glaitis, it was Major Olinthre, but it wasn't the major, the ugly, almost ear to ear smug smile indicated it was...

'The mimic,' said Attelus. 'You aren't here to accuse me of killing you, are you? It was Glaitis who you so idiotically, mindlessly worshipped, she stabbed you through the heart, in-spite of your supposed loyalty.'

'Yes, but it was your horrible betrayal which drove her to do it,' It said. 'Yours and Hayden's and Castella's and Darrance's! And it was you who inspired them to do it. It was your fault you horrible little worm, you traitor. You turned against her despite all she did for you, took you in, gave you a job, gave you a purpose but you spat on her kindness. How dare you! How frigging dare you!'

'I see even in death you still mindlessly serve.' said Attelus. 'Even in death, you're still a sycophant, mutant.'

The Olinthre-thing's face turned even redder with rage, its hands clenching into fists, then It too, disappeared into anonymity.

Attelus looked at Glaitis. 'Why are you still here? I feel no guilt for your death.'

'Ah, but you see if you had not betrayed me, your friend, Jeurat Garrakson would not have sacrificed himself to kill me,' said Glaitis. 'And you had manipulated him into it, so my Cult would not have you killed for murdering me.'

Attelus looked away, clenching his jaw.

'See? See?' Glaitis shrieked. 'I am correct! You clenched your jaw, that tell I told you to gain control of, did I not? You did that. You did that.'

'P-perhaps I-I did,' said Attelus as he glanced around, the wraiths had encircled him now, led by the shades of Olinthre, Barhurst, Callague, Jarvus, Attelus' other Omnartusian comrades and Interrogator Heartsa. Then other spectres solidified into people in quick succession, some Attelus recognised right away, some he didn't at all. There was a tall, lanky man in gang leathers and short, shaggy black hair, his bare arms coated in tattoos who at first seemed vaguely familiar. Attelus realised who it was, it was his dead comrade's Verenth's brother, and it sent a sharp, cold shiver through him when he realised both had died at his hand. Verenth's brother three years ago in a skirmish in Omnartus, and Verenth recently on Sarkeath. Attelus' gaze fell to the ground, he'd killed Verenth and many others, slaughtered them while controlled by a daemonic blade. That still wouldn't stop the horrid, painful guilt swirling through him at the mere thought of it.

Then appeared the security guard who Attelus made take him to the roof of his building in a desperate bid to stop an Adeptus Arbites Ornithopter slaughtering innocent civilians back on Omnartus. Attelus had tried to tell him to leave that doomed hive world, but the man obviously hadn't. Yet another innocent person caught in the cross-fire.

After him, was Medicae Aheth, Attelus made sure not to forget his name, he was Inquisitor Brutis Tybalt's surgeon back on Omnartus he had stayed behind to treat and protect his patients as Space Marines slaughtered everyone in Taryst's tower, while Attelus and the others ran. Karmen claimed it was pragmatic they run because it was only them who held the knowledge of their enemy's agenda, but at times, Attelus couldn't help feel it was cowardice, that they should've stood and fought. Attelus had given him Aheth autopistol, he just hoped Aheth had died quickly, and with the dignity he deserved.

Following him was the big, bulky man in gang leathers, Selg who was Verenth's friend and right-hand man Selg had apparently ripped a man's throat out with his teeth once. He died abruptly and brutally by a bolt round exploding out his chest. Then came the spectres of the Stormtroopers who'd accompanied Attelus and the others in the escape of Taryst's tower.

Alongside them walked an old, fat, balding man whose hate-filled eyes seemed the most withering of all. Following him was a young, skinny man who shuddered as if in the grasp of the most overwhelming weeping imaginable. Attelus couldn't remember either of their names, but he knew them, they'd both worked with his former apprentice, Adelana, in a mailroom in Taryst's tower. They too had died at the hands of the Space Marines, and they too didn't deserve the brutal deaths fate handed them. Sometimes, Attelus couldn't help relish the fact that the Space Marine chapter The Desolation Inculpators were declared Excommunicate Taitorous and wiped out, despite the fact they were also pawns in this. Just like him. So, perhaps, then, he too deserved the same fate as well? Too bad it would only be temporary.

Behind Adelana's long-dead colleagues the spectres suddenly grew, bubbling into sinister, armoured silhouettes of Space Marines that towered over all the others in the sea all around, exactly a thousand of them. However, Attelus had no idea how he knew and many others who died in the three year period between the Omnartus Incident and the battle on Sarkeath.

Then came a Marangerian captain he knew the face of, but not his name. He was the captain who met Attelus and the others after their capture by the soldiers of the Velrosian 1st regiment on Sarkeath. After him, the thousands who had died on that cursed world fazed into existence. The men and women of Attelus' homeworld, of his country Velrosia who died at the behest of Attelus' and Karmen Kons' mission to find and take down the traitor, the former Inquisitor, Etuarq. As much as their deaths were a consequence of their positions in the universe, regret still riddled him. They were his childhood heroes, the famous and elite 'first among equals.' The battle reduced the Elbyran regiments, made up of thousands of warriors reduced to a few dozen. It hurt, it hurt so much he didn't know any of their names as they were the true heroes. But in the end, they succeeded, by the skin of their frigging teeth, but they managed to win, and that would've been enough for the likes of Kalakor or Karmen and yet...

Attelus train of thought melted away as more familiar faces became obvious among the dead of the Elbyran contingent. One was a scar-faced middle-aged woman in the uniform of a Velrosian scout and a cameleoline cloak on her shoulders. Attelus knew her name, scout-sergeant Adreen; she was one of the heroes featured the most in the propaganda alongside Commissar Delan Tathe and scout-trooper Dellenger. Attelus hadn't spoken to her much before her death, but she'd seemed down-to-earth, wise and sharp-witted. Attelus remembered how she teased him by saying he was "more than just a pretty face," just before the battle began which made him blush like all hell.

It didn't take much to make him blush, now he thought about it.

Then came Vark, still in his Inquisitorial Storm Trooper carapace, still with the same hard-eyed glare and snare which never seemed to leave his nondescript face. Vark was an elite Storm Trooper employed under Taryst and the last survivor. He was very religious and saw the galaxy in black and white, and this led to his eventual execution at the hands of Commissar Delan Tathe. Vark was a skilled soldier, but he was...an idiot. He was another person Attelus wouldn't miss, in all honesty.

Following Vark were the three friends...the three friends and comrades who had died at Attelus' own hand. Verenth, Helma and Jelket and seeing them forced tears to take over his vision and icy agony coursed through his very bones. His knees shook and wanted to collapse beneath him, but he fought to keep his feet.

Verenth's hooded snake-like gaze pierced into Attelus like a powersword thrusting through his guts. An agony Attelus knew first-hand. Despite his intensity and almost evil outward appearance, Verenth was deep down a good person of strong faith in the Emperor, and he had overcome his justified hatred for Attelus to work along with him against their mutual enemy which was a powerful testament to his strength of will and sense of duty. It helped Attelus swore to Verenth he could kill him once they'd finished, but through no control of Attelus that turned out to be an impossibility and even when Verenth learned this, he still kept fighting. Despite having the option to use more technologically advanced weapons, Verenth was a gunslinger Attelus had yet to see the equal of.

Helma and Jelket, both wore their Storm Trooper carapace armour, and they glared at him, but not nearly with the same intensity as Verenth whose whole face seemed made to project hatred despite the scars on Helma's quite masculine features. Helma was a captain in Taryst's private military, and when Attelus first met her, she was a hard-line, manipulative bitch who was willing to leave Adelana and her workmates to be slaughtered by Space Marines. But over the three years, she'd mellowed, Attelus supposed she'd been humbled by the struggles she'd been through as an Inquisitorial soldier. Developing a strong sense of self-awareness and empathy, as well as being an effective fighter. Despite being much older than Attelus and much more experienced as a leader, she was one of the most accepting of all the agents he brought to Sarkeath about him being in charge.

Jelket's glare was as comical as Verenth's was intimidating and a shudder of guilt mingled into the agonising horror swirling in his diaphragm. Even in death, poor Jelket was a joke, a man who never seemed great at anything no matter how hard he tried and he knew this. Yet, he still never hesitated to put aside his insecurities and step up and help his friends when they were in need. He too had been a member of Taryst's army, a lowly trooper, the last survivor of his squad but that was more out of "luck" or "circumstance" than anything else.

What really hurt Attelus was after he...slaughtered...them he learned that Jelket and Helma were beginning a burgeoning relationship. He hadn't just stolen their lives and destroyed their very souls but stole any chance of happiness for them, forever.

A realisation hit him then, and his attention fell to his feet, that he hadn't just done that to his friends but hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of others.

No, at least millions, Omnartus had over twenty billion people living on it, and they were all dead all because of him. His idiotic, idiotic mistakes that were the reason he kept the huge, ugly scar on his left cheek so he would never forget, never make the same mistakes again. The thought of his scar caused his hand to shoot to cover it through his long fringe of brown hair.

His shoulders began to shake, and the tears fell unfettered. Attelus wanted to scream sorry to the spectres over and over again, but the words became lodged in his throat.

Around him in came the never-ending ocean of spectres, all had materialised into distinct faces, all looked at Attelus with the same hatred glazed gazes as they closed in on him. Now there was no sight of the walls or even the rockcrete beneath their feet.

Then the screaming started, it erupted from the sky above, it split his skull like a log splitter and the agony caused him to collapse to his knees and smothered his ears, but it was futile.

His tears now a product of pain, he cried out and dragged his attention to the sky. It was no longer a crimson cloud of smog but a sea of bubbling, contorting hollow-eyed, hollow mouthed screaming faces all of them bearing the same features of the horde closing in on him. When one would scream, another would burst from its mouth, destroying the last, then another would take its place, over and over again. It was like looking into the very warp itself. Attelus cried out again, but it became lost.

The spectres were almost on him, Attelus wanted to draw his sword, to try to fight them off despite the futility of it, no amount of skill or training or augmentation would prevent him from being overwhelmed but the instinct to fight especially one cannot run was ingrained in him since he could walk. Still, he couldn't find the strength as his whole body descended into a fit of shaking, rocking madness.

'I'm sorry!' he finally managed to scream. 'I'm so sorry!'

Then he became eclipsed, and he curled into a foetal ball.

But there was no pain, no hands grabbing him to tear him apart in a tide of utter agony. Instead, a soft hand laid on his shoulder.

'Attelus,' said a voice. 'You're alright now. You're alright.'

He recognised the voice in a split second and snapped up to find a woman standing over him, a smile on a face as soft and beautiful as her voice, her long teal dyed hair pulled into a ponytail.

'Castella?' Attelus cried.

'Yes, Attelus it's-'

Attelus interrupted her by eclipsing her in a hug. 'Castella! I can't believe it's you! I-I miss you so much.'

'Whoa, whoa,' said Castella as she hugged him back. 'It's good to see you too. It's good to see you too, Attelus.'

Attelus fell into a fit of weeping it hit him so hard he could barely breathe, and him being so short his face became lost in her chest, but she didn't seem to mind.

Through his blubbering, he fought to tell her how sorry he was, but he couldn't contend even a coherent syllable. He wanted to tell her he was sorry for letting her get crushed beneath that pillar back on Omnartus. That she was such a good, kind person, who'd been the only one who treated him with dignity and humanity when he'd worked as a mercenary beneath the bitch Glaitis. He wanted to thank her for praying at his bedside every day when he was in a coma.

'It's alright, Attelus,' she said. 'I died not because of you, but because of my reliance on acrobatics. If I wasn't in mid-air, I might have been able to get out of the way. You'd warned me about that, didn't you?'

Through his sniffling Attelus laughed a muffled laugh.

'And there's no need to thank me. I would have always been there for you, no matter what. I just wish I was alive to help you now.'

'I do...too.'

'But you don't need me, Attelus. I know you are strong enough to manage through it alone, but you aren't alone. Are you?'

'N...No, I guess I'm not.'

A large, heavy finger tapped Attelus on the shoulder. 'Get your face out of her boobs, kid. It's rude, even if even I can tell they're damn nice.'

Attelus froze, his eyes widening and he looked over his shoulder. A tall, well-built man in green flak armour loomed above him, his arms folded across his chest. Despite his face being mostly made of scar tissue, his smile was wide and genial. His tanned skin crinkling around his small violet eyes, the eyes of all those native to the famous fortress world Cadia.

'G-Garrakson?'

The ex-guardsman nodded his shaven head, and his hands fell to his sides. 'What, no hug for me, kid? After all the things we have been through not even the power of boobs can-'

Attelus interrupted him with a hug. 'It's good to see you, Jeurat.'

'Good to see you too, little buddy. It's been a long time.'

'I'm sorry-'

'Look, stop apologising. I knew exactly what I was getting into; it wasn't your fault.'

'But-'

'It wasn't...your...fault. You have enough to feel guilty about already.'

'You...were my friend. The best friend I've ever...had.'

'That's nice to hear. I wish I could be there to help you so damn much too, kid. But before I died, wanted to say this but I didn't get the opportunity to tell you, I loved you, I loved like a son. You were the son I never had.'

Attelus couldn't bring himself even to begin to reply to that as the tears poured down his face even stronger, they got into his mouth he could taste the salt inside them. Garrakson broke the hug, and Castella stepped to stand beside him, facing Attelus.

'Keep going, kid,' said Garrakson. 'We don't want you to give up.'

'We'd be so, so proud of you of all you've done, Attelus,' said Castella. 'All you've accomplished, and we'd be even more proud of you if you keep ongoing. You carrying that weight takes a strength of will that's incredible.'

Attelus smeared the tears from his eyes. 'I see. I promise I will take down Etuarq. I will avenge you both.'

Castella and Garrakson exchanged glances and smiled. The two of them had only met once briefly, but now they seemed the best of friends. Attelus now saw that if they'd the opportunity to know one another, they would've been the truest of comrades. They were both among the best people he'd ever known. Why do the good people always have to die? Why? No, that wasn't true, Adelana was still alive despite how close he'd come to killing her.

'Don't worry about that, Attelus,' said Castella. 'What matters to us is that you have found your purpose; you just keep taking one step in front of another.'

'B...But what if I fail again? What if I fall to Chaos?'

Castella leaned over and kissed him on the cheek and fixed her gaze to his, still smiling warmly. 'Have faith in yourself, Attelus. We do.'

'Or we did,' grinned Garrakson. 'Because we're, you know, dead.'

Attelus snorted as the cynicism hit him. 'What is this? Some psychic vision set up by Farseer Faleaseen to give me some semblance of catharsis?'

Castella shook her head. 'No, Attelus this is a dream, but it's your dream. We're just telling you what you have always known, deep in your subconsciousness.'

'Yep, that's it,' said Garrakson as they began to fade into shards of nothingness, and he saluted Attelus. 'Goodbye and good luck, kid. There ain't much that I know, but I know without any doubt that you're going to carry that weight.'

Garrakson grinned. 'Now that's the understatement of the millennia...My son.'

Castella made the sign of the Aquila and tilted her head. 'I know you're not exactly the most faithful of the Emperor's servants, but still, may the Emperor be with you. You do His work that I know without any doubt. The Emperor protects, Attelus.'

'The Emperor protects,' Attelus echoed as everything around him began fading away. He'd never said that platitudinous sentence with such feeling before, and he never would again. How fitting that he'd say it that way in a dream.

How fitting indeed.