Kai stood still for a moment, studying the area around him. The unsettling silence weighed on him, thick and almost suffocating. Whatever had killed the lizard had moved on, but there was still something out there, something unknown that made his nerves tingle with caution. He couldn't just rush in blind.
He shifted, his boots scraping against the rubble that held the message—"YOU CAN GO HOME MORITFEX"—as he climbed cautiously onto the wreckage. The faint sound of metal scraping against metal was a stark contrast to the otherwise quiet air. His boot left a scuff of paint behind, but Kai didn't stop to check. He didn't have time to worry about small details like that.
His eyes darted to the truck nearby, half-crushed but still sturdy enough to give him some height. Without thinking, he moved toward it, easily climbing up the twisted metal of the truck's side. The weight of the truck bed shifted under his boots as he jumped down into the back of it. The gaps in the trailer allowed him to peer through, providing just enough of a view to check what was out there.
He paused, his gaze sweeping the surrounding area. Still nothing. The lizard-like creature that had been torn apart by whatever was lurking in these ruins was gone, its remains left as evidence of something far more dangerous. Kai stayed crouched, the feeling of unease not completely fading. Even with the clear view, there was always the chance that something was watching him, waiting to strike.
The drone hovered close, its sensors ticking softly as it followed his every move. Kai didn't need to look at it to know it was there. It had been with him since the start, an ever-present companion that had proven more useful than not, even if its silence was unnerving.
Kai spoke under his breath, his voice low but clear. "Nothing out there. Whatever did that—" He glanced at the torn-up remains of the creature, "—has moved on."
The drone beeped softly, acknowledging the statement but offering nothing more. Kai turned away, standing up from his crouch and taking a steadying breath. He didn't have much of a plan, but standing around waiting wasn't going to get him anywhere.
He stepped carefully out of the truck bed, his boots crunching lightly on the debris as he moved toward the far side of the collapsed structure. His eyes scanned the area methodically, checking every corner, every shadow.
Kai's boots scraped against the jagged edges of the rubble as he moved cautiously along the remains of the overpass. The faint green mist was seeping up from an exposed drain, swirling into the air like some unnatural fog. He eyed it warily, noting the faint scent of chemicals, but didn't hesitate. The mist was a constant presence here—something that had become as familiar as the silence of the collapsed world around him.
He could see a gap ahead, a few feet down, where the rubble formed a jagged drop. With a deep breath, Kai shifted his weight and dropped into the space below, his landing light but firm. His feet hit the debris-strewn ground with a soft thud, and he crouched instinctively, ready for anything.
Around him, the remnants of once-occupied spaces lay scattered. A pair of filing cabinets, half-buried under chunks of concrete, had been thrown around in the collapse, their metal frames twisted. The drawers were askew, some open while others were locked shut, their contents long gone. Kai ignored them—nothing worth salvaging here. He moved on, stepping over broken metal beams and cracked asphalt, each footstep echoing in the eerie silence.
As he continued, his eyes scanned the scattered debris. Amid the rubble, he spotted a few tool kits strewn across the floor. They had been tossed carelessly in the chaos of the collapse, but the tools inside were still mostly intact. Kai knelt down and opened one, quickly evaluating the contents—pliers, wrenches, and screwdrivers, all in decent condition.
The path ahead was becoming more difficult to navigate, with mounds of rusted cars and crushed vehicles creating an obstacle course of twisted metal. The air was thick with the smell of old oil and decaying rubber, and Kai's eyes constantly shifted, scanning for any movement in the stillness.
It wasn't long before he came across something that made him pause. Beneath one of the overturned cars, half-buried in the dirt and debris, lay a skeleton. The bones were old, bleached by years of exposure to the elements. But it was the duffle bag beside the skeleton that caught his attention.
Kai crouched beside it, his gloved hands brushing away the dirt. The bag was worn, but intact, and he could see the faint outline of a bulging shape beneath the fabric. Cautiously, he unzipped it, his fingers moving with practiced precision. Inside, stacked neatly, were bundles of money—old bills, now faded and creased from age, but still recognizable.
Kai's brow furrowed.
Who would carry money in a place like this? he wondered. There was no point in it anymore—paper currency meant nothing in a world where electronic money was the only currency that mattered. Yet here it was, a remnant of a past life. A symbol of a time that no longer existed.
He stood up and looked at the skeleton. The body wasn't much of a mystery. Whoever this had been, they hadn't made it far. The money, the bag, it all seemed like a futile effort now.
"What happened to you?" he thought. "Who were you running from?"
Kai didn't take the money. It wasn't worth his time.
As Kai turned away from the duffle bag, his senses sharpened. Something felt wrong, a subtle vibration in the air, a shift in the atmosphere. His hand instinctively went to his rifle, but it was too late.
A low rumble echoed beneath the ground, followed by a series of sharp cracks, as something began to emerge. The earth trembled slightly as a dark purple figure broke through the debris, its body covered in thick, scale-like armor. It was humanoid in shape but grotesque in form, its limbs elongated and angular, and the grotesque visage of its face was twisted in a permanent snarl. White spores sprouted from its shoulders, back, and the base of its neck, releasing a faint, acrid cloud into the air.
Kai froze for a split second, his eyes locking onto the creature's glowing white eyes. They stared at him with an unsettling intensity, as if weighing him.
The creature growled, a low, guttural sound, and then it charged.
Without hesitation, Kai drew his rifle, aiming for the beast's chest. The rifle spat a controlled burst of fire, the rounds tearing through the air. The creature screamed as the bullets slammed into its body, but it didn't stop. The first shot seemed to just stagger it, but then Kai adjusted his aim, focusing on its head.
A final shot rang out, and the creature crumpled to the ground, lifeless, its purple-scaled body twitching in the final moments of death.
Kai exhaled, but before he could relax, the ground beneath him shifted again. More creatures were emerging—these ones faster, their movements erratic as they clawed their way through the broken earth. They were everywhere, coming from beneath the rubble like a tide of predators, all with the same eerie white spores trailing behind them.
The creatures howled as they rushed toward him, their eyes glowing like lanterns in the dark. Without a moment's hesitation, Kai took aim, firing again. The rifle kicked against his shoulder as each shot found its mark, dropping another monster with a series of wet, thudding impacts. The sound of gunfire echoed through the ruins, mingling with the creatures' savage screeches.
But no matter how many he dropped, more kept coming. His heart pounded as his magazine ran low, the rifle's muzzle flashing with each shot. He was out of time. The creatures were getting too close.
'Last shot,' he thought, pulling the trigger. The rifle clicked empty.
Before he could even react, one of the creatures lunged at him from behind, its claws extending with terrifying speed. It landed on his back with a sickening thud, knocking him to the ground. Kai gritted his teeth, feeling the claws scrape against the armor on his back. The creature hissed, its claws raking furiously against the plates, trying to break through.
Kai's pulse raced as he felt the pressure of the creature's weight pinning him down. He fought to push it off, but its strength was formidable. His fingers brushed the hilt of his combat knife, and with a swift, practiced motion, he pulled it free.
The creature was on top of him now, its vile mouth snapping inches from his face, but its eyes—those glowing, unblinking eyes—focused on him with hunger.
"What are you..?," Kai muttered through gritted teeth, and with a grunt of effort, he thrust the knife upward.
The blade sank deep into the creature's abdomen, ripping through its scale-covered flesh. Red, thick blood spilled over him in a torrential wave, splattering against his face, his arms, and his armor. The creature screeched, its claws faltering as the life drained out of it. Kai twisted the knife, pulling it down, slicing through its organs, feeling the creature's body grow limp.
With a final, guttural scream, the creature went still, its weight sliding off him as the blood continued to pool around him.
Kai crouched down, eyes fixed on the creatures that now scattered in front of him, their twisted forms an unsettling mix of human and something else entirely. The drone emitted a soft, curious beep as if studying them too, its mechanical eye observing every subtle movement. Kai's gaze sharpened. These creatures weren't born this way—they were human once. Before the radiation.
He straightened, his thoughts processing rapidly. The way they moved, their behavior… it all seemed eerily familiar. Kai had always entertained a theory in the back of his mind: radiation, when concentrated in large amounts, could cause dramatic shifts in a person's quirk, even potentially triggering mass alterations.
The old world had its consequences, and this was one of them.
"Human," Kai muttered under his breath, his mind working as the creatures began to writhe in place, their mutated forms attempting to regain some sense of direction. "Twisted by the land... or maybe something else."
The drones' beeps became faster, as if trying to understand the situation, analyzing the creatures' movements. It was an almost human-like curiosity that Kai didn't know whether to trust or dismiss.
He squinted, analyzing them more carefully. They didn't just move like feral animals—they were calculating, like they could still remember what it was to think like a person. Whatever had happened to them, it was clear that they were no longer fully human.
Kai's mind raced, considering the possibilities. His theory about quirks and radiation was still just that—a theory. But seeing these creatures, their unnatural, jerky movements, the twitch of their limbs, it became more real. Mass exposure, like what had happened in the Divide, had altered them, made them into something different. Something dangerous.
He had to move.
The wind howled through the broken walls of the overpass, a sharp contrast to the unsettling silence around him. Kai's hand tightened around the rifle. The creatures might have been human once, but that didn't matter now. They were a threat.
Kai raised the rifle, eyes narrowing. They might be human, but they weren't people anymore. Not in the way that mattered.
Kai continued his trek through the overpass, the remnants of civilization scattered across the desolate landscape. The faintest glint of office supplies caught his eye—a pen here, a notebook there, remnants of lives long lost. Amid the debris, a truck sat idly, its headlights flickering like some feeble attempt to signal a presence. But there was no one here, just echoes of the past.
The weight of silence pressed down on him as he moved. The cracked pavement beneath his boots was uneven, and every step seemed to resonate through the skeletal remains of the city. The once-bustling overpass had now become a tomb, a place where life had long since evaporated.
But there was no time to reflect. His mission hadn't changed. Survive. Move forward. Uncover what was hidden in this wasteland.
Kai paused in front of a massive rubble wall that blocked his way forward. The mound of concrete and twisted metal seemed to go on for miles, a barrier to the path ahead. He scanned his surroundings. The wall wasn't just made of rubble—it was a deliberate obstruction, something crafted to hinder anyone trying to move through.
Nearby, a car lay overturned, its belly facing the sky. Another long vehicle lay close by, but the details were obscured, hidden beneath layers of rust and dust. For a moment, Kai contemplated his options. The rubble would take too long to climb over directly.
His eyes locked onto the overturned car. It was a potential stepping stone—a way to scale the wall without wasting time.
With practiced precision, Kai moved toward the car. He pulled himself up, his suit scraping against the rough surface as he climbed. The car groaned under his weight, but it held steady. He reached the roof of the overturned vehicle, pausing only for a moment to catch his breath. From here, he could see the wall up close, the sheer mass of concrete and debris looming just ahead.
The roof of the long car, barely recognizable under layers of grime and decay, seemed like the next step. He jumped, landing lightly on the metal, then crouched to steady himself.
Kai studied the terrain below for a moment. The rubble wall towered over him, but with his vantage point from the car, it was easier to map out a path. He adjusted his grip, testing the strength of his footing before making the final leap. His hands gripped the jagged edges of concrete, pulling himself up with little more than muscle memory guiding him. The drone, hovering nearby, offered no assistance—its beeps were almost a distant hum, blending into the atmosphere of decay around him.
With a final push, he pulled himself onto the top of the wall. He stood, surveying the wreckage that lay on the other side.
Kai landed hard, the impact of his boots sending a jolt up his spine. Before he could steady himself, more purple creatures erupted from the earth beneath him. Their pale, scaly bodies glinted in the dim light of the overpass, and their eyes—wide and malevolent—locked onto him. He barely had a moment to react before they began charging.
His rifle was already in his hands, and without thinking, Kai snapped off the safety. He reloaded in a fluid motion, slamming a fresh magazine into the well. His finger danced over the trigger as he aimed at the first of the creatures.
Crack!
The shot rang out, sending the creature stumbling back. It fell to the ground with a sickening thud, its body twitching before going still. But more kept coming, claws scraping the concrete as they advanced, their twisted forms wriggling like vermin.
Kai didn't flinch. He kept firing, each round hitting its mark with lethal precision. The creatures dropped one by one, but the sheer number of them kept coming, crawling up from the depths of the earth. The weight of the rifle in his hands felt steady, but the realization hit him—he was running low on ammunition.
With a quick glance at his remaining rounds, he made a decision. He threw his rifle over his shoulder, grabbing a flashbang from his pouch with practiced ease. His fingers yanked the pin free, the metallic click echoing in the quiet chaos around him. Without hesitation, he hurled the flashbang into the center of the charging creatures.
The moment the device hit the ground, Kai turned away, pressing his back against a nearby wrecked car to shield his eyes. The flashbang erupted with an earsplitting bang, a blinding light flooding the area.
He spun around just in time to see the creatures stumbling, their hands flailing in front of their faces as they desperately tried to shield their eyes from the light. They dropped to the ground, writhing in pain, their bodies contorting in agony. Kai could see the raw vulnerability in them now—sensory overload had stripped them of their ability to fight back.
His rifle was back in his hands in an instant, the familiar weight grounding him as he aimed at the prone creatures. The first one didn't even twitch before he pulled the trigger, and the second was just as easy, his shot clean and swift. One by one, the creatures fell silent, their grotesque bodies still as he executed them with cold precision.
When the last one dropped, Kai allowed himself a brief moment to breathe. The sound of his own pulse was loud in his ears as he surveyed the carnage around him.
Kai moved along the narrow path, his boots crunching on the debris that littered the ground. The overpass was a ghostly reminder of a past world, its wreckage and twisted metal evidence of the collapse. He had walked for hours now, eyes always alert, constantly aware of the silence that surrounded him.
As he rounded a corner, his boot hit something soft. He looked down, his eyes narrowing as he took in the scene before him. A sandbag circle, worn and weathered from the harsh environment, marked an old defensive position. Inside the circle, next to the wreckage of a few cars, lay the remnants of a human presence. A skeleton slumped against the sandbags, its clothes tattered and covered in dust. Beside it was a mattress—stained and shredded from years of exposure—and a collection of meager supplies scattered around.
Kai crouched beside the skeleton, his hand brushing against a small box nearby. He opened it carefully. Inside was a faded teddy bear, its fur matted and torn but still clinging to some semblance of childhood innocence. His fingers brushed over it, wondering what kind of person might have left it behind.
A sign caught his eye, a simple metal road sign half-buried in the sand. The writing on it was barely legible, but Kai could make out the words: "HIGH ROAD. MILE." Below it, a fallen billboard leaned against the frame, the advertisements long faded and the colors dimmed by the passage of time.
Kai stood, scanning his surroundings. There was no sign of life. No movement. Just the endless stretch of wasteland and the debris that once held meaning for someone. He eyed the rubble near the edge, noticing a way to climb to the surface.
With a swift motion, he scaled the debris, his hands gripping the metal and stone as he pulled himself higher. But as soon as he reached the top, the blinding light of the sun hit him. For a moment, everything went white, the glare overwhelming. He squinted, shielding his eyes with his arm as he adjusted to the harsh exposure.
The Divide greeted him in full force. The sandstorm rolled in like a living thing, the winds howling and whipping sand in every direction. It was a hellish landscape, desolate and unforgiving. The storm battered his skin.
As Kai adjusted to the harsh winds of the Divide, a voice broke through the chaotic noise of the storm. His instincts kicked in, immediately recognizing the source. The drone hovering near his shoulder emitted a series of beeps before Alexander's voice came through, rough and measured, like a whisper over a long distance.
Kai stood at the edge of the crumbled overpass, the wind biting at his face as sand and dust whipped through the Divide. The storm raged on, the desolate landscape before him unchanged. He stared into the chaos, letting his mind wander, but it didn't take long before the familiar, static-laden voice of Alexander came through, crackling from the nearby drone.
"You've been quiet for a while… Knew that killing the Sword wouldn't be easy…. But you and your machine, you survived." The robot's mechanical voice sounded as cold and dispassionate as ever. "There's a lesson here, in the Divide. Old world history about paving and intentions could teach the Islamic Republic a thing or two if they listened… They have an idea of trying to do what's right, but they never quite get there… Maybe you've seen it… Nishapur, elsewhere."
Kai paused, his hand resting lightly on his rifle as he processed Alexander's words.
"Where is Nishapur, and what happened?" Kai asked, his tone detached, almost clinical.
"Nishapur," Alexander's voice replied, "an ancient town, once a cultural hub in Iranian territory. That was before Iraq erased it. The people were slaughtered. Women and children… ripped apart. The town itself? Reduced to nothing but ash. An old world memory, buried beneath the ravages of war."
Kai hadn't heard of this.
"But Iran…" Kai asked, turning his attention back to the bleak horizon, his voice neutral as ever. "They're trying to help the Middle East, aren't they?"
Alexander's voice was dry, laced with disdain. "Trying doesn't hold much weight with me. Iraq doesn't try to kill people. They do it. The Sword kills people trying to protect them. Irony's sharp. And Iraq… their flag may be old, but it's not at war with itself."
Kai stood still, the Divide's relentless winds whipping against him. Dust clung to the air like a suffocating veil, but his posture remained steady, rifle slung across his back. The drone hovered beside him, its beeps quiet yet deliberate, as if waiting for the next revelation to drop from the heavens—or from Alexander's cold, crackling voice.
"You've got a better way?" Kai finally asked, his tone even but edged with curiosity.
The reply was immediate, carried by the drone's grating speakers, low and sardonic. "Yes. And any mercenary can tell you the same. It's not a mystery—see it everywhere. The Sword…" Alexander's voice dragged out the word like a slur. "Sword's too busy carving up the Middle East with knives, roads, borders. Always so concerned with how things should be to bother looking at how they are."
Kai tilted his head, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the horizon. A half-collapsed overpass loomed in the distance, jagged edges silhouetted against the swirling storm.
"They're stretched thin," Alexander asserted. "Frontlines they can't defend. Towns they can't hold. They think paper's power, that lines drawn on maps or signals sent over radios mean control." His voice dripped with disdain, every word deliberate. "All of it? Useless."
Kai remained silent, processing the condemnation. The weight of Alexander's words wasn't new to him. It was the kind of bitter pragmatism he'd heard time and time again, but coming from this disembodied voice, it hit differently—more personal, somehow. He crouched down and ran his hand through the dry, cracked earth, letting the sand sift between his fingers. The Divide, scarred and barren, seemed to echo Alexander's cynicism.
Alexander's voice continued, colder now. "No matter now. The Sword couldn't hold the Divide. They thought they could shape it, control it, bend it to their will. But the Divide doesn't care for their plans or their maps. It took them. All of them. Radiation, fire…" There was a pause, a faint hiss of static. "And what burrows below."
Kai stopped mid-step, the endless wasteland of the Divide stretching before him like a graveyard of old-world ambition. He turned his gaze to the hovering drone, its mechanical hum blending into the storm's wail. His voice broke the tension, calm yet probing. "You mean those creatures in the overpass."
The drone paused, as if considering his words, before Alexander's voice crackled through its speakers. "Tunnellers." The word carried a weight that hung in the air, oppressive and ominous. "Predators that carve their own roads beneath the ground. Divide broke their sky, opened the world above, and with it, the scent of new prey."
Kai's grip on his rifle tightened as he processed the information. He thought back to the semi-humanoids that had lunged at him in the overpass, their mutated forms almost mocking their human origins. Their relentless aggression, the way they emerged as if the earth itself had spat them out—it all made a grim sort of sense now.
"So, they're scavengers," Kai said, his tone flat but not dismissive. He was trying to draw more out of Alexander, to understand the threat in its entirety. "They pick off what's left."
"No," Alexander replied, his voice cold, sharp. "Not scavengers. Hunters. They adapt, learn. Divide's storms and radiation made them more than beasts. They don't just take what's there—they come for it. Be a slower death for the Middle East than bombs and fire…" There was a pause, a faint hiss of static. "But they'll come for its people, from where they least expect…below."
Kai's eyes scanned the cracked ground beneath him, the thought of something lurking just a few feet below unsettling even for him.
The air was thick with the oppressive silence of the Divide, broken only by the faint hum of the hovering drone. Kai stood motionless, his gaze fixed on the cracked and barren ground beneath his boots. The memory of the Tunnellers still lingered—purple-skinned, semi-humanoid horrors that seemed to materialize from the earth itself.
"You mean they're spreading out from the Divide?" Kai asked, his voice calm, yet weighted by the unspoken tension of the revelation.
Alexander's voice emerged from the drone, carrying a grim certainty. "Death'll come from below," he said, the words like a slow, deliberate dirge. "Here in the Divide, gotta watch the sky and the ground. But out there? In the Middle East? It'll be easy prey for what burrows beneath. Soft people. Soft borders. They'll start emerging in time. Might be beyond our lifetime, but probably less."
Kai's grip on his rifle tightened. He didn't like the implications of those words. "You're saying they're multiplying?"
"They breed fast," Alexander said, his voice unflinching, like the weight of a death sentence. "Hunt in groups. Packs. More than enough to bring down the strongest the Middle East has to offer. Once they draw blood…" He let the silence stretch for a beat before continuing. "Seen them tear apart Dahhak."
The name sent a faint ripple of recognition through Kai. "What's Dahhak?" he asked, though the answer was already forming in the recesses of his mind.
"The lizards," Alexander replied, his tone as sharp and unyielding as the jagged rocks of the Divide. "You've seen them. The big ones. The predators that don't need a pack to hunt."
Kai's jaw tensed. The memory of the massive reptilian creatures surfaced, their hulking forms and brutal strength still vivid. "You're saying the Tunnellers hunt them?"
"When they're bleeding," Alexander corrected. "When Dahhak gets wounded, the packs smell the blood. They'll turn on it, tear it apart. Like African hounds taking down a lion. Dahhak might get a few of them rip and shred but the packs? They always win in the end."
Kai glanced at the drone as it hovered silently beside him, its shadow a distorted figure cast against the uneven ground. The sharp wind carried with it a dry, acrid scent, a constant reminder of the Divide's deathly nature. He squinted against the sun and asked, "You've been to Africa?"
The voice from the drone came alive, Alexander's low, gravelly tone slicing through the noise of the wind. "The Divide's not the only place I've walked," he said, the words heavy with a history Kai couldn't see. "Walked the West too, before Iraq came. Before Iran's ambitions carved up the map."
Kai adjusted the strap of his rifle, keeping his gaze forward but his ears open. Alexander's words always carried weight, and Kai had learned to sift through them for the truths buried beneath. "What was the West like?"
"Much like the East," Alexander replied, his voice tinged with something between disdain and nostalgia. "Before Iran came…tribes, nations, towns clinging to life. Scrabbling for resources. The same old story—power and survival. But Iraq…" He let the word hang in the air, as though it were a loaded weapon. "Iraq did a better job."
The Divide had revealed many horrors, and none struck him quite like the tunnelers—the predatory creatures that lurked beneath the ground, waiting to strike. His mind raced through the possibilities, grasping for some explanation. Finally, he broke the silence.
"Did radiation from the blast create the tunnelers?" Kai asked, his tone measured but probing. "Then maybe the detentions and earthquakes from the warheads… after everything fell, they surfaced?"
It was a theory—outlandish, perhaps, but it was all he had to go on. These creatures defied natural explanation, and if anyone knew the truth, it was Alexander.
The drone's mechanical hum grew louder for a moment before Alexander's voice emerged, low and steady. "Makes sense. Truth favors that, matches history of this place." He paused, letting the words hang like dust in the air. "There were signs they were here for a long time, buried deep. Before marked men, before what happened to the Divide cracked their sky."
Kai frowned, staring at the ground as if the creatures might erupt beneath him at any moment. "So, they weren't created by the radiation? Just… unearthed by it?"
"Could be both," Alexander replied. The drone tilted slightly, its red light flickering. "Radiation's made worse things, but these... they feel older. Might've been born the day Kurdistan's embers started to settle. Or maybe the earth just woke them up, angry at what men had done to it."
Kai continued his journey, the harsh wind of the Divide kicking up sand and dust around him, making it difficult to see. He had his rifle ready, eyes scanning the terrain for any sign of movement beneath the cracked earth. But there was something else gnawing at him—something about the strange figures he had encountered back at Marvarian. He couldn't shake the image of the Iraqis in their crescent-shaped armor, strange masks obscuring their faces, weapons that didn't seem to belong to the current age.
He had to know more.
Kai glanced over at the hovering drone. "Those Iraqis in Marvarian, the ones wearing the crescent armor and strange masks... what's their deal?" His tone was calm, measured, but the question was pressing on him.
The drone emitted a low beep, its red light flashing briefly in the muted light of the Divide. Then, Alexander's voice came through, rough as always, but laced with something heavier. "You haven't seen enough of the Iraqis yet to see what they worship… what they hold on to, even after everything that happened to them."
Kai's grip tightened on his rifle as he processed the words. "Worship? What do they worship?"
"They worship what's left of the old world," Alexander continued, his voice tinged with something dark. "That mask, the one they wear, it's not just a piece of armor. It's a symbol, something they've held onto, even after the world around them turned to ash."
Kai's brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of the cryptic message. "You mean the one Amir Kaminari wore?"
The drone beeped softly as it hovered nearby, its single red light casting an eerie glow in the harsh light of the Divide. Alexander's voice came through, low and grating.
"Yes. That mask, the one Zayd fashioned for him, is now an idol."
Kai's grip on his rifle tightened. He'd been expecting some kind of answer, but the way Alexander spoke—it was more than just history. There was something deeper, something troubling about it.
"The Iraqis in Marvarian," Alexander continued, "they wear false versions of it. Thought it was just a mockery at first, a twisted joke... but I know better now."
Kai remained silent, watching the way the sand moved in gusts across the ground, as though the land itself was still unsettled from the wars that had scarred it.
"It's shaped from Divide metal," Alexander went on, the words coming out slower now, more deliberate. "Not with care and strength, like the real one, but with hate. It's crude, effective. Like the blades they carry. Distant mirrors of their commander. A symbol they can hold onto while the Divide tears at them."
Kai's boots shifted in the loose sand as he processed Alexander's words. He had seen it before—the men from the Marvarian Crescent, their crude masks, the blades they carried. But the other men, the ones he had encountered with Iranian gear—those men were different. They weren't adorned with masks or blades, just the cold efficiency of their weapons, the weight of their intentions.
Kai turned his gaze back to the horizon, his rifle tight in his grip. The wind howled through the Divide, kicking up the remains of a broken world, the dust clouding his thoughts.
"But the other men had Iranian gear…" Kai murmured, his voice betraying a hint of confusion. "They weren't carrying masks or blades."
The drone hovered above, its red light casting an eerie glow as Alexander's voice crackled through, rough and low, like a whisper of something long dead.
"For the two swords…" Alexander's voice grew distant, as though reflecting on something older, something deeper. "Iran… they don't have symbols the same way Iraq does. They revere in their mines, their explosives, their guns... that is their religion. Death from afar. Take pride in it."
Kai stood motionless, his boots half-buried in the shifting sand of the Divide as the wind howled around him, carrying the faint scent of rot and rust. He glanced at the hovering drone, listening to the steady hum of its mechanisms, as Alexander's voice crackled through.
"Then why do they work with each other? They hate each other," Kai asked, unable to reconcile the absurdity of their temporary alliance. The conflicts between Iran and Iraq had lasted decades, but now, they were forced to endure one another's presence in the harshest of conditions.
Alexander's voice seemed to come from nowhere, cold and matter-of-fact as always. "You see true. They're not scavengers fighting for scraps. It's not about what they were before, or who they were fighting. Pain…It makes strange allies. The hate they've carried for decades across battlefields now it turns toward something else. The Divide. That's where their attention lies now."
"Then why do they even bother to stay? If the Divide is killing them, why not just leave?"
"Fear," Alexander answered simply, his voice almost a whisper, but still carrying through the static. "Fear keeps them rooted. Fear of something worse. The Iraqis—some of them were already here, keeping the route open to the east. Fear of Ayatollah. Fear of Iran."
"Then why would Iraq blow this place up when they could use it as a resupply line? Use it for the Oil Fields complex?" Kai asked, not understanding the reasoning behind such destruction.
"The oil fields complex…" Alexander's voice softened, the weight of his knowledge settling into the air between them. "That old world wall. The Crescent, Sword, couldn't be allowed to reach it easily. That long road…Kaveh Darvashi…both bad enough. Ayatollah, Zayd, Hakim..." He paused, his mind clearly wandering to darker places, the words careful and deliberate. "You'd think their whole world was that wall, cutting the nations. If i'd never layed eyes on it, never spoke of it…but once found it was all Zayd could see. That and the flag beyond it, another symbol, big enough to challenge him. And the divide, one of the roads that leads to it. Iraq was tasked with cutting that artery. If you can't break the blade in one stroke, dull it, rust it. That kind of murder…it's what any of the Iraqis would have done. Now…the Divide belongs to history."
"Well, I found your logs down there," Kai said, his voice steady, though the words carried a weight of their own.
There was a pause, the silence between them thick, and then Alexander's voice crackled through, low and resigned. "The logs… Didn't think those would be found," he said, as though the realization had slipped past him in the chaos. "You know the Divide better than I thought."
Kai stood still, staring out into the desolate landscape, his thoughts briefly interrupted by the mention of the logs. The wreckage of the past scattered around him, a remnant of what had been lost, both physically and in memory. The logs had been a small piece of something larger, a story in fragments.
Alexander continued, his voice taking on a tone of detached reflection. "Had tech from the crater. Recorder the women gave me… didn't survive the road. On its last legs." His words hung heavy in the air, a trace of regret coloring them. "Cast it and the tapes aside…weren't worth the words anyway, not like I'd forget what happened. If you heard them…" He trailed off, as though he couldn't bring himself to finish the thought. "Nothing more than ramblings for a man who doesn't need them."
The sound of static followed his words, as if the transmission itself struggled to carry the weight of his thoughts.
"You wouldn't have recorded those messages if they didn't matter to you," Kai objected, his voice cutting through the static. There was no hesitation in his words, only a quiet certainty.
Alexander's response was slow, deliberate, as if Kai's statement required a moment to sink in. "Maybe not," he said, his voice laced with a sense of resignation. "Who's to say? You, perhaps. Found them, heard them after I cast them aside. Maybe there was purpose in that."
Kai could almost picture Alexander's face, hidden by the veil of the transmission, as his voice softened but carried the weight of something more complex—something unsaid. "If they matter... if history matters…" Alexander's voice trailed off, the question hanging in the air like smoke. "We'll see at the end of the road. At the end of the high road where Marvarian lies…"
Kai's gaze turned eastward, his eyes scanning the horizon. Marvarian. The name stirred something deep in his chest, an echo of old promises and bloodied histories. He could feel the weight of it already, a place both legendary and cursed.
"…it's silo," Alexander continued, his tone shifting, turning darker. "That machine with you…" His voice became venomous, laced with bitterness. "It can open it, wake it up. Just like it did the one back there."
"You have a lot of hate for the robot with me," Kai said, his tone almost casual, but with a sharp edge. He could hear the disdain in Alexander's voice, and it intrigued him. "Can hear it in your voice."
There was a long pause before Alexander responded, as if the words he wanted to say needed to be carefully selected. "Hate?" His voice finally crackled through the static, smooth but laced with a coldness that sent a shiver down Kai's spine. "No. There's nothing to hate in metal… steel, gold. Or 's just a tool made from the wreckage of the Divide….all that was brought here." His words were slow, deliberate, as though he were trying to convince himself as much as Kai.
"The first time we met, you swore not to kill me?" Kai asked, his voice steady, but his eyes sharp, probing for the meaning behind the words.
There was a long pause before Alexander's voice crackled through the static, a quiet edge to it. "You know the why of it." His tone was rough, but not without a strange clarity. "If you don't… I do. And that's enough." His words carried a weight that felt like they could linger in the air forever. "Trust only walks so far west," Alexander continued, the silence thick between them. "There's a line you don't cross, no matter the distance. And when we first met, Kai, I knew it. You knew it. We both knew what the stakes were. But I chose not to cross that line."
Kai's brow furrowed, the memories of their first meeting flashing back—his first taste of the Divide's brutal, twisted reality. He could see Alexander's face even now, distant and unreadable, "The first time we met, you swore not to kill me?" Kai asked, his voice steady, eyes narrowing as he tried to read between the lines of Alexander's words.
There was a pause before Alexander's voice crackled back through the static, rough and deliberate. "You know the why of it. If you don't… I do, and that's enough. Trust only walks so far west. Earned more than that, though, getting this far." His tone carried the weight of their journey, the years spent walking a path no one else would.
The silence that followed stretched for a moment. Kai's fingers tightened around the cold metal of his weapon, the weight of it grounding him. His path had never been about choice, only survival.
"We walk the same road, carrying the same colors," Alexander continued, his words cutting through the silence like a razor. "Can't break that by making the road red. Want more than that, walk the Divide. Answer'll come, closer you get to home…you and that machine."
"This road leads nowhere. There's nothing in the Divide." Kai said, his voice flat, worn down by the endless miles and the harsh, unyielding landscape that stretched before him.
Alexander's response was slow, deliberate, as though he were carefully choosing his words. "Many in the world think the Divide's nothing but canyon and storm. But it wasn't always like that. There was life here. A town, farther west. An old-world town… but more recent than you think. Something in your lifetime saw it. It had the name 'The Divide' too." His voice shifted, a trace of something ancient in his tone. "But back then, it wasn't cracks in the earth. It was a road—a lifeline from Europe into the Middle East. A supply line, vital for the old world."
Kai's brow furrowed, his mind whirring as he processed the new information. "A road… made by a mercenary?"
"Not just any mercenary. You." Alexander's words hung in the air, heavy with implication. "Back then, you saw the road with eyes facing east. This time…" He paused, the silence between them thick. "The Divide's in the other direction. You walk it now, in the shadow of a different purpose."
Kai's mind raced. Previous Moritfex... The title, the legacy. He'd inherited the mantle, but this? This was something deeper, something tied to the past, not just his current existence. The weight of history pressed down on him, its full weight impossible to ignore.
"And if your eyes try to make sense of it," Alexander continued, his voice a low whisper through the static, "When you reach it… home is not what it was."
"What makes you think this leads home?" Kai asked, his voice carrying a quiet skepticism. The words hung in the air, as if testing the very idea of home.
Alexander's response was measured, the crackle of static almost adding a weight to his tone. "All roads lead back to one's home. Not your birthplace, maybe, but home. Home isn't where you're born into this world. You taught me that." There was a strange finality in his voice as he spoke, almost as if he was reflecting on something long buried. "Part of your message, whether you meant it or not."
Kai remained silent, listening, but he could feel the weight of Alexander's words pressing in on him.
Alexander continued, his voice taking on a more reflective tone. "Home can be a place of mind, a moment where you know who you are, where you understand the history of it. And sometimes... it's about the places you breathe life into. Never would have known the Divide had it not been for you. The road you made with your tracks, again and again. You were the only one willing to make the journey to and from here... a hard road. You kept the land before the Divide alive through seasons and storms, pushing through it all."
Kai's brow furrowed, the reflection on his past choices flickering in his mind. It had never been just a job, he realized. It had been something more, something that tied him to the earth beneath his boots.
Alexander's words came slowly, but with certainty. "You can't feel for a place that hard unless it's home."
"Mortifex has walked hard roads, Middle East and before. Doesn't mean anything," Kai said, his voice calm but laced with a hint of something darker—an acknowledgment of the burden, but also a dismissal. As if the weight of the title, the history it carried, could be shed with just a few words.
Alexander's voice came through the static, steady but heavy with meaning. "It means EVERYTHING... even if you can't deny it, cast it aside, that speaks to who you are." He paused, letting the silence linger, the weight of his words settling in. "It proves what happened here. What you've become. What this road has made you. Mortifex isn't just a title…it's a testament. A reminder. And it's not something you can simply shake off."
"I think you have it wrong…" Kai said, his voice cutting through the tension with a note of quiet defiance. He stood still, his mind racing, trying to push against the weight of Alexander's words.
"Wrong? No." Alexander's voice came back, firm, almost like a judge delivering a final verdict. "I know the truth of it. And you've forgotten. Forgotten everything." His words were sharp, as if they carried the weight of years of frustration, years of watching Kai and others walk the same path.
"Careless. Careless with futures, just like you are now in the Middle East." There was a strange sadness in his voice, a bitterness, as if Alexander couldn't comprehend how Kai had let it all slip away. "You think this is just another mission, just another survival? The road you walked, Kai, it kept the Divide alive."
Kai's brow furrowed. "I'm not sure I follow. What do you mean 'kept it alive'?"
Alexander's tone shifted, almost philosophical, as though he had been waiting for this moment to speak the truth he'd held for so long. "It grew from what you did. You don't see it, but you were part of something bigger, Kai. Settlers... camps... they filled that Old World City, Chance for a new nation, new beginning. New way of thinking. Could've breathed life into the Middle East, bridging East, West. Like the Oil Fields… but not Old World., something you've made. Road was a supply line."
"You're still making assumptions about all this," Kai said, his voice edged with the frustration that had built up over their conversation. His eyes scanned the barren landscape, as though trying to find the answer to all the questions that had been growing in him, unanswered. The Divide stretched out before him, silent and oppressive, offering no answers.
"No." Alexander's voice came back, calm and unyielding, his words carrying the weight of someone who had seen the course of history unfold. "Recounting history."
Kai didn't look away from the horizon. "But there is no other supply line along the road," he said, his tone firm, as if trying to dismantle the layers of myth that surrounded him.
"Not anymore," Alexander replied, his voice laced with something almost mournful. "If one existed, the Two Swords would've claimed it. And it tried to." The words seemed to hang in the air, a lingering truth. The Two Swords, the forces that fought for control over the region, had always sought to grasp hold of any strategic advantage they could, and the supply line was no different. But now, it was a thing of the past, lost to the tides of conflict.
"Then tell me what happened," Kai demanded, his patience wearing thin. He needed to understand, to see beyond the cryptic veil Alexander was weaving.
"Iran saw worth in that road you made." The words came out slowly, like they were reluctantly dragged from the depths of Alexander's mind. "Staked a claim, whether it was wanted there or not... true elsewhere in the Middle East." His voice grew colder, the shadows of past decisions creeping in. "Where the Sword tries to cling to life, the Crescent comes… bearing messages."
Kai's jaw tightened. "What does that mean?" He had felt the weight of the Crescent's influence before, but this was something deeper, something more insidious.
"Some brought by blade," Alexander continued, his voice carrying a grim finality. "Others… by soldiers." The implication was clear. The Crescent, symbolizing Iran, had moved across the land with force, claiming territory and sending its messages in ways that left scars, ones that could not easily be erased.
"You knew what was coming as sure as I know what's coming to you," Alexander added, his words heavy with the certainty of inevitability. Kai could feel the shift in the air, as if the very earth beneath him had become a weight too heavy to bear.
"This time you carry the burden." The words were simple, but their meaning struck Kai like a blow. It wasn't just about survival anymore—it was about responsibility, a weight he had never fully understood until now. "Walk west into the sun, and keep walking until it dies." There was a strange finality to Alexander's tone, a sense of closure in the direction Kai was being pushed toward. The sun, always a symbol of both hope and destruction, seemed to stand for something else now. It was the end of the road, and the beginning of something even darker. "There…" Alexander's voice softened, but there was no comfort in it. "I'll be waiting."
The voice flickered off, leaving Kai in the oppressive silence of the Divide. The wind howled, a mournful echo.