Cracks in the Web: Cascade

By Zak Kramer

"Intelligent, witty, thought-provoking, and "

Freedom after seven years. A boy, barely a man, awakens to a brave

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zak Kramer
• Release date: Oct 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781087916903

Book preview

1

Cracks in the Web

Cascade

A plane carrying one with a forlorn endeavor enters Crosha. It breaks away from a stormfront, swarmed by avian nightmares like ants to abandoned bread. From the ground, from which all who see it, fail to hear the sounds accompanying the horror.

From the ground it is a painting. Or as much as things led by primal urges can perceive paintings. It roars out of the storm, faces in the flame. Every turbine leading with neon smoke, a sign of doom doubling as a distress call.

It flies over the coastal walls and towns, work stopping to witness the impending disaster. The animals themselves, beckoned to sight by some invisible force, halt and look in suspense. The wind, the sea, even ruffling of minute movement ceases.

Predators with only their eyes seen in the shadows crank their skulls upwards. Hardy men and determined women from coast to in-land stop and stare. In these serene, suspenseful moments, the barrier between them and ravenous Nature is the lowest it has ever been.

For even mutations of seven inches to seven feet tall, halt. All outward reality and the accompanying dangers cease to exist. From two heads, to claws, from bones protruding from spines and sizzling mucus. From walking plants to static colossi.

Across the two moons in the sky. Inward from coastal fishing and docking towns. Across the woods and the remnants of grand highways returning to primal inhibitions and the green. The entirety of the plane's odyssey is followed by smoke, scars, a hint of an otherworldly presence, and avian nightmares. Never faltering, never failing.

It passes into urban air where the actions of bi-pedal and other mammalian races all stop to stare. The elevation of the passing comet having not changed despite the fire and creaking of metal now making its way to the asphalt. Time ceases to be a concept from the favelas and storage of the Haeve to the skyscrapers of the Elso’s Landing to the elevated and drunken raves in York Square.

Then, as if through the intervention of some eldritch prayer, the plane finally breaks apart. The comet becomes a meteor shower. The hull had held on just enough to rain onto the mountain outskirts.

Only one falls straight down, onto the city. As if gravity itself ignores it like a leper. The orb of fire is not of metal or bird. But the abstract image of a man with carved flesh. He is naked besides the crevices in his form. A plume of black, crimson, and ivory smoke covers his manhood, back, and some of his legs like a hellish cloak as he falls.

His light continues long after the rest impact the mountain or burn themselves to nothing. His mass is far lighter. His flame brighter. It seems, to those entranced, that the sun itself is falling.

He descends, no longer the tallest thing in the sky. As this spell fades and the reality of impact is seeded, three colors accompany the falling comet. Viridian, rustic gold, tyrian purple shine from a pendant on his neck. Then, two eyes of ivory white shine through the smoke. So magnificently they leave a trail of neon as gravity consumes it.

Before the ground is razed the new, local sun ceases to exist. Instead it is now snowing ash; remains of the figure. And here, the world is still. Impacts of metal meteors against the far off mountains.

Then falling particles go against the wind, coalescing back together. Like liquids following a drain. The ash hardens to bone. The ash gains layers of sinew, veins, muscle, flesh and finally hair.

Instead of falling five-thousand feet. The man falls only five onto the steps of Onyx General hospital. Inertia is an impossibility to something that, for an instant, didn’t exist at all.

A Forlorn Man

The same man in pain wakes up, dreaming about days regarding tumultuous times. He’s sweating from the still fleeting phantoms of his mind. The distant sound of a bird cawing beckons him to open his eyes. Yet only his left eye opens, his right one bruised shut.

The walls and ceiling around him blank, painted a dull and an insignificant grey. His body hardly responds when he tries to move, it’s like he’s been covered beneath sand. He moves his one eye to access his physical appearance. He finds a mummy. Most of the body is covered in medical bandages, tape, needles. A cloak that has yet to be pried from his burnt skin. What skin of his he can see is discolored and horrifically scarred.

The soft humming of machines is almost soothing. He recognizes some of them and gains as much information as his muddled mind will allow. He has a collapsed lung, given the tube coming out of his side. His back feels odd and his legs are very asleep, something is out of place. His hip is clearly dislocated and his legs are at an obtuse angle to his head.

His right arm is gone at his shoulder. From this missing appendage, he feels the fleeting phantoms linger the most. A scarred, cracked trench runs from his lower left hip to his right collarbone. It is veiny and the edges sharp like teeth. If he looks closely enough, he swears it could be moving. It is not raw, or infected. Instead it is black, dead. Nothing new.

He has only one possession with him. There is a long, smooth chain of silver-colored material hanging from his neck. It has been seared onto his skin separate from the rest of his scars. Making it impossible to remove by normal means.

Resembling the double helix that makes up DNA, only this one is thicker and has an additional. There are three distinct liquids flowing through the hollow helices. Blood. One is bright red with highlights of viridian. The second black with highlights of rustic gold. The third and final is gold with highlights of tyrian purple.

He does not know where he is in his pain. This fact sends him into a silent, sweating panic. His hand shakes. His already hoarse breathing begins to stutter. He mutters incoherent curses and names that not even he could discern. His eyes gain tunnel vision.

Worse landings. Utterings of a delirious mind.

His body will not respond. Save for his left arm, miraculously free compared to the rest of his form. The man grabs his own hair and guides his numb skull around the pillow. He sees a blood pack labeled ‘universal’ and another pack filled with what seems to be transparent, melting glass labeled ‘passive.’ He’s in a hospital, safe.

He fails to stay conscious and falls into sleep once again.

The man awakens once more. The pain is still with him. He is once again experiencing a horrific cold sweat. His bruised eye has swollen. He is no longer attached to an army of foreign devices. Only the easily removed necessities and simple handcuffs. He sloppily moves his body around to find his hip has been set back in place. No, He thinks to himself. How long has it been?

Assessing his body is fit enough to walk, he dislocates his thumb and slips out of his bonds. Resetting it with his thighs. He stands up straight to pop his shoulders and back, he has been out for a time. He stands at an average height for a Miracle not done growing at 6"1.

He reaches over to the nearest medical tray. Which holds a full heavy bag of the liquid glass labeled ‘passive Vivezet.’ He tears the bag open with his teeth and begins to consume it. What isn’t liquid is crunchy like glass, but it melts in his mouth. The taste is orgasmic like ice cream during a heat wave. Anyone else would die if they tried this.

He looks at his one arm and his veins go from their natural cobalt-blue to a crimson-white. The skin on his body regains some of its natural color. He feels his sinuses clear, his right eye opens but remains bruised. His lungs begin to work again, but breathing is a painful act.

Hair even sprouts on his body as he endures the sensation. His body takes the excess energy and sprouts the same colored body hair as the follicles on his head and face. Not much, scar tissue does not allow for hair. He doesn’t mind, it keeps him warm.

Once his body calms, he looks at the bag and sees his reflection.

His hair is a predominantly ebony-black, with secondary colors of crimson and ivory. His hairline is a feral mix of three colors. The mane itself is damaged, thick, and down past his shoulders. His beard bears little difference: shadow-laced, unconnected, and wild like the work of a poor gardener. His cobalt eyes are sunken and tired.

A nose so slightly crooked that a few led by obsessive-compulsions despise looking at him. His eyebrows are untouched; hiding pepper scars. His body is skinny yet muscular, hardy and weary. Built from a lifestyle of hardship and the genetics to support it.

Dropping the bag in a silent horror, he cannot recognize the figure the reflection revealed. The scars on his legs remain mended and closed as he takes one step at a time. He stumbles to the nearest wall, his own breath annoying. The emanating sweat tantalizing as he reaches out to the wall for support. He’s thirsty and starving, what he had just consumed doing nothing to lighten these sensations.

Closing his eyes as he forces his body to keep standing. Breath silent, leaving the blood rushing to his head as the only sound. He opens his eyes and stares at where his right arm should be. The man closes his eyes and rests his head against the wall to stop the spinning. As he does, a sudden wave of sensations causes him to curl his left hand in a fist to cope. Despite his mental fortitude, he throws up bile. His body twitches again and his back goes into the wall. His physical form unable to process much at all.

When the man opens his eyes, the spinning has stopped and a deep crack has appeared in the wall. He gets back up and limps to the door to find it miraculously open. What? Why? Do they not know what the ivory means?

Then there’s a voice in his head. It is his own. Plaguing him since his first memory. His second voice though this one bogged by shame, paranoia, regret, and obsessive-compulsions. -It’s because you’re not worth anything- The man then speaks to himself, Fuck off.

Fuck. That word reminds him of a scar on his back. From the first time he broke it. Shut up and go through the door.

He walks through to find he is not being guarded. No one is in the bland, uneventful, dimly lit hall. He isn’t dreaming, he is in too much pain to be dreaming. He has been left alone and that makes him paranoid. Where is everybody? They can’t be dead, this place is too clean. -They probably ran away, I mean look at yourself-

The only color seems to be the spectacular gleam of silver moonlight around the corner. Huh, odd. He weakly limps towards it, putting all of his effort into putting one foot ahead of the other. As he does so, he feels lightheaded.

He stops to breathe, his lungs still mending. His breath resembles a croaking frog. The man stumbles and falls against a vending machine as he breaks out into a sad, quiet, pitiful laughter. He must get out of here, he shouldn’t be alone. Something is wrong.

As if the universe itself wants to agree, the building violently shakes and the lights flicker on and off for a moment. The cannon-like sound causes the man to recoil in dread. It takes him far too long to realize it is the cawing of a crow giving haste. The sound that brings him a strange sense of hope, a sense of peace.

A paradoxical series of emotions to be sure. But his circumstances have never been simple. What his mind can flawlessly process is: Someone is coming to kill him. Something else is coming to save him, if a little behind.

Oh, they’re probably hiding.

His body will not respond. The panic and depression overwhelmingly renders his movement nil. Like trying to run in a dream. The necklace begins to lightly hum, its touch like that of a gingerly touch of a loved one. The pendant softly glows tyrian purple.

He closes his eyes and when he opens them again, he sees his sister. Her form is impossibly lit for the dim hallway. Her hair is blonde like the sun shining through an overcast day. Her eyes colored by emeralds. Accompanied by a face adorned with features that royalty would travel to see. She’s wearing ruined and worn travel clothing and a worried look. She sits down next to him. Her voice seems to be laced with television static, Liam, you’re going to die here.

The man, Liam, looks at her and begins to tear up. His throat is so dry he might as well cough up coal dust. Anya, trade? Liam closes his eyes and lays his head to the floor. As it does, he hears a song in his ears. The vial that allows him to see her is playing a song of a sad piano, horns, and flute.

Anya’s tone is harsh but truthful. Her voice like a wrathful wraith. You lose, you fail, and they win. After having seen them be so desperate to prove they were right after all this time. If you fail, they’ll be justified.

Liam would have gotten up anyway, he always does. The ghost just helps him expedite the process. He sighs in his own head, Fine.

In the dim reflection of the cold floor, he sees his tired cobalt eyes darken to a soft, foreboding crimson.

Bone-like wings fly from his back. His skin visually and audibly tearing and stretching. Hanging and sticking to the roots of the wings for dear life. No blood is present, that’d be counterproductive. Veins, arteries, roots, and muscles appear for a moment before his wings can finish growing themselves. When healthy, that bodily horror does not hurt.

But they’re damaged. The bones are visually cracked. No feathers of any kind to speak of. Picked and torn clean by punishment. Just bone and raw flesh now. The crimson pinions yearn against the floor as Liam struggles to his feet.

He gets to his knees as his one arm is about to fail. Liam rises to his feet as the scars of his legs reopen and begin to bleed. From his crimson-white blood comes a dull, melancholic song of a violin and piano that rings through the barren, empty hallway.

His feverish body yearns for the coldness of the floor. Liam opens his mouth to perform the act of screaming, but no sound echoes. It is a silent scream of self-hatred and spite, both great augmentators. One foot follows the other once more, moving so fast the blood can barely leave a comprehensive print. Slow enough to be fatal if he doesn’t find some place to hide.

His pendant is still humming, and the shade at his side the whole way. Like a loved one watching over him as he takes his first steps. The lights flicker once more. Liam braces for the building to shake but his sundered body renders it vain. He falls to the ground once more.

He fails to shift his weight in time and he falls on where his right arm used to be.

Static sounds in his ear. The kind his mind makes as if to say, Hey, uh, that hurt. In the flash of pain and in the moment of impact. He remembers a scythe doing its intended purpose of cutting through crops. If crops were arms. Morbid memory.

His scar reopens and begins to bleed, the music plays louder. From his mouth comes the groans of a dying man. The music almost blares. As he suddenly remembers this fact of life, his left arm flies to his mouth and he holds his index finger to the aforementioned body part. The song stops, leaving only the sound of silence.

In response, he hears crying in the hollow dark. Scenes of a dim cellar and a crying animal flash upon the man’s eyes. The man closes his eyes, accepting he is about to die. When he opens them, they have adjusted fully to the ebony abyss, as well as having returned to their natural blue. He is frozen in absolute terror. His pendant has stopped glowing, leaving him invisible to those whose eyes are not kind to darkness.

The crying is coming from another woman. This one very real. In a nearby room, the door has been left wide open. The cawing of the crow echoes again. The ground shakes lightly and continues to shake like an earthquake.

The noise she makes proves she is in pain. However, the movement of her form and the nature of her tears signifies that it is more of the mind than the body. She’s panicking at the sight of Liam. The sound gives his voice the energy to be lovably sarcastic. Hey. Just trying to find somewhere comfortable to die. This okay?

Her hands go over her mouth. She realizes something Liam can’t comprehend. Her demeanor completely changes. Even though she looks stuck in bed, her face becomes confident and her posture strong. She seems much more content. Her voice quickly loses all sorrow and sadness.

She leaps out of her bed. She is missing her left leg, or, her right from Liam’s perspective. On all threes she grabs Liam and helps him into the room.

She props him up and tends to the wounds he has. Is he close? Liam tilts his head at her, curious at her complete change in character. The quakes become much harsher and much closer.

The woman’s hands are covered in this azure glass. Emanating from the pores in her skin. The same as the contents of the bag Liam consumed. It crawls onto him, glass veins repairing his broken and shattered form. The feeling, like a shower after a workout. A bed after a long day.

Liam’s voice is dark and demented as the lights flicker to darkness, Too close. The woman The door clicks shut with the sound of someone dying in their sleep.

Liam lets his body crumble. His Helix Vial glows and Anya appears again. Shit. The apparition says in disbelief. That’s Carter’s sister. Her name is Surana. Huh, so she did become a doctor.

But Liam sees nothing regarding Surana having silver Nature. Not like how he saw it in the hall. Unless something else, else, led him to her.

Yellow, like an infected wound. The color comes into the room from the door. As they do, Surana leaves Liam’s side and hides on the other side of the room. Liam takes no offense, he isn’t worth much anyhow.

Their glow keeps getting brighter and brighter, until finally they stop. The lights in the hospital room flicker on and stay on. The illumination bleeds into the hall, revealing the yellow lights to be eyes attached to a hulk of a man. While he is skinny, he is no less than 6’7 with a look of murder.

Celsus Remark is the name. William recognizes him from the plane and Súeli-Den. He has returned to finish the job.

His nose has been broken many, many times. His eyebrows damaged, his cheeks and forehead look as though they’ve been freshly mauled by a wolf. His lips are small given the size of his mouth, his beard is long and braided like winter tribes of the south.

No shirt, but instead he has so many runic tattoos that they might as well substitute. His chest keeps moving as though he is laughing hysterically, but no sound or other movement proves this. He is wounded, badly.

Celsus rips the door off its hinges like toilet paper off its rolls. He stomps into the room and picks up the dying Liam like he himself was the roll. As his grip tightens, Liam’s pendant glows purple.

Anya appears once again, frustrated. Liam, at least piss him off. Liam kicks the man in the crotch. Celsus coughs up blood.

Celsus tries to rip the pendant and necklace from Liam’s dying body, but it stays where it is at. As it does Liam can see the image of his sister flicker like a faulty screen. A look of agonizing worry upon her face. But all she can do is watch. When it seems Liam is about to pass out once more, he feels someone else’s grip on his reopened scars.

Liam feels instantaneously reborn, Liam opens his eyes to see Surana on all threes. Holding a knife penetrating just below the Celsus’ waist. All the while Tide-Baring Liam’s wounds closed. His blood and wounds are defying physics with the help of her Nature.

Liam falls to the ground bending and snapping the tall man’s arm as he does. Celsus’ legs have failed him completely, paralyzed. Black, yellow, green, red spot over his waist and legs. The upper body is fighting shock.

Then suddenly, with a violent violin echoing, the tall man is dwarfed from behind by an even more titanous figure. Before Celsus can even comprehend this change, he is taken into the abyss of the hall. His figure torn from Surana and Liam. Though unseen, the resulting sounds the Celsus makes is a crime to all living ears.

He begs for mercy as the sound of his bones crack and become powder. The dim triangle tune becomes almost too loud to bare as it sounds like a sprinkler goes off. He crooked octave of agony and horror sound, corrupted by pain and pressure.

His screams disappear and the pouring of liquid stops as soon as it started. The sounds of his death do not become muffled or fade into echo, they just … stop.

A sense of dreaded elation flows through Liam’s spine as his necklace stops glowing. An unseen force drives him to continue his stare into the dark of the hallway. He can see it. It’s form is lost in the dark, but he can see the eyes. A hollow, ancient, nay, primordial pair of eyes. The whites of the eyes are instead the foreboding crimson of a dead rose. The eye to the left is black with a white pupil. The eye to the right is white with a black pupil. Their color gleaming with a stare almost dreaming.

Surana crawls over to Liam, laughing hysterically. Azure liquid falls from her palms and onto Liam’s wounds, mending them. Sorry, Her voice is muddled, her articulation slightly slurred. I didn’t expect to be alive. What was that? What happened?

Liam ignores her as he grabs her arm, stopping her. Listen, He is falling asleep. He yearns every muscle, every ounce of all he has left to remain conscious. Liam moans as Surana closes his scars again.

He’s lost hearing; suddenly goes blind. He feels vibrations in his ear canal. Shock, the electrical kind. Finally, let me die, fuck. Black.

Unbanished, if Bound

Elias Fairen/Wight

Ninth of January, Autumn Equinox, Seizing Day

A pale man with long, black, curly hair and a shadowy beard opens his cyan eyes in response to a phone ringing. He exhales softly, weary and annoyed. He spreads out from the fetal position and lays flat on the carpet. His stare, his thoughts; his senses are one-thousand miles away. But the phone keeps ringing and he knows it will continue to ring.

The 6’8 man slowly picks himself up from the floor. A history of violence reveals itself as the man stands in the light of a screen. He has only one nipple, his right one hacked at and burnt away. He has been shot, with meaning, four times in his life. The first in the shoulder, the second in the stomach, the third in the ribs, and the fourth grazed his neck.

His stomach was at one point completely impaled. His middle torso reveals pepper scars, shrapnel at one point embedded itself deeply into him. His arms are meticulously wrapped in thick but malleable bandages. No skin can be seen and when he stretches, the sound of shifting glass emanates from them.

His body is toned but far from attractive. The scars are not the kind of ‘perfect imperfections.’ Some of the scars are more like cavities and crevices. His skin perpetually discolored. The flesh around the scar has violent wrinkles of age, the only showing of such a concept on him.

He grabs his armored jacket and sling bag and puts them on with little effort, his scars hindering him none. Therefore implying that he has lived with them for a long time. He clicks the phone built into his bag and speaks to the earpiece in his ear.

Armed with a voice calm, low, and completely clear despite the grogginess of his mind. He speaks only his name, but his articulation and swagger could calm a frenzied drunk. Fairen.

The voice on the other end is female and whispering through static, I need you. Meaghan Hurst. Why is Meaghan Hurst calling him on Seizing Day?

He acts as her envoy, her First Legate. Fairen’s voice is blunt, accent Northern. Where?

Through the static is grunting, male and female. It stops as Meaghan audibly grits her teeth. Onyx General, Apex Ward.

Fairen rubs his eyes, opens his jaw to pop it, and clenches his fist with such force his knuckles crack. His voice is professional and grayer then fog at dawn, I’m on my way.

Fairen hangs up and immediately dials another number; that of his wife. He enters it and waits, reluctant to press ‘call.’ He breathes and closes his eyes, pressing the button. The phone rings, and rings, and rings; ringing six times before dying. There isn’t even an option for voicemail. She’s still out there if it rang six times.

His eyesight grasping the view of the two moons on the television screen. Just enough light to move around unimpeded. He fell asleep on the floor, his preference. Can’t fall out of bed if there is no bed. He reaches over to a rocking chair and flips the switch that makes it decline.

The chair snaps forward, shocking its inhabitant awake. What? Asks the man in the chair. His tone vague of any animosity, for it is instead filled with acceptance. His dark brown hair is wild and unkempt, but it fits him perfectly. His features are exhausted, tired, and dead to the world. Though he is certainly attractive in a cute kind of way if one looks at him properly. The stare his brown eyes hold are evidence of a man who knows too much and has seen too many come and go. His beard is stubble without the shadow. A body that isn’t quite peak human perfection but no one could say with certainty that he is chubby.

Fairen stands over him, his own mind still running from sleep. Emile, Meaghan called, we’re needed towards Apex Ward.

The sleeping man, Emile Warner, leans forward in silence, his head in his hands. Then immediately, he snaps out of the grip sleep had on him. Alright, let’s go.

Turning around, Fairen kicks the couch next to the sleeping man. Where another sleeping man jerks half-awake. Fuck off, the second man says, muffled by the pillow.

Meaghan called.

The second man’s voice is still muffled by the couch. Meaghan Hurst called you on Seizing Day?

Fairen confirms, Meaghan Hurst called me on Seizing Day.

Give me a few minutes. Do you have any water?

Emile? Fairen asks the first man.

Yeah, I got it. Emile walks over to the couch.

Emile undoes his pants as he looms over the man on the couch. As the sound of the zipper rings slowly through the second man’s ears, he jerks violently to his feet, awake. Okay! Okay! For fuck’s sake, I’m awake. The sleeping man grabs a couch cushion and throws it at Emile. Emile, not even staring at the sleeping man, simply swats the cushion away.

The cushion lands on a small mound of blankets and pillows. On said mound is a man who was sleeping in the most uncomfortable of positions. He shoots to his feet immediately, screaming, and cutting the air with a hunting knife. The man’s small eyes scan the room like an animal backed into a corner. His eyes intensely shining greyly. His heavy breath mixed with shock and rage of days long past. His shirt drenched in cold sweat.

The man who Emile was willing to piss on throws up one hand and approaches slowly. Hey, Winston. It’s Griff, Depository, you’re home. You good?

Winston’s misty grey eyes slowly turn to their natural brown, his breath rapidly returning to normal as he recognizes his surroundings. He hangs his head and takes a deep breath. Is the storm here already?

No, Emile walks past Winston and pats his shoulder. Apex Ward. Winston rolls his eyes and sheathes his blade. He goes to speak but Emile cuts him off, Five minutes.

Griff takes off his hoodie. His red beard is thick but not bushy. His brown hair long enough to not be a buzzcut. He walks through the pub and enters a dark room. Winston follows Griff into the black room as Emile sits at one of the pub’s chairs. As soon as he sits down, he asks Fairen. Rough night?

Yeah. Fairen says. Tell me about it. He says it to Emile like a test. Gotta see how awake he really is.

Emile looks to the stairway leading down into the chamber. You came home bleeding. Given your footsteps on the carpet, it was a long night too. You’re too light, all of your equipment was gone. Just you, your bow, and your blade. You don’t have any gunpowder smell on you, so I assume you lost your rifle. Back to the footsteps, you were walking as if drunk or elevated. But I don’t smell anything on you and given the bags under your eyes. I say you’ve been awake for over ten days.

Fourteen, besides those two-ish hours. Fairen groans with a smile. Fairen continues to eat the meat he has deduced to be pork. I’ve gone longer, I’m alright.

"Then why is it just lying on a table?"

Fairen looks up and sees Emile staring right where the intrepid Reminder is. His flowing black blade of bone. With his free hand, he holds his chest and breathes slowly. How can you see it? Fairen says in silent, weary shock.

Emile is deadbeat and defeated. Just because most can’t see it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Fairen goes over to it. I can see the indents of the weight on the cloth.

Fairen gingerly grabs the blade with two hands. He almost caresses the haunting form, his stare guilty like he had abandoned a child. The blade jagged, scorched bone. Fused together by a black fuller of metal no one has ever been able to discern. The black hilt for a hand-and-a-half. The black pommel a counterweight of the blade’s forty inch blade. Everything but the blade itself is made of bone: pommel, hilt, and guard.

"You dreamt about them, didn’t you? Emile asks, only to be answered with silence. Emile gives it a few seconds before his voice takes on a comforting tone. It’s the anniversary, makes sense you would."

Fairen sheathes the black blade to his back with Miraculous expertise. I don’t need to make sense of it.

What you need is peace of mind. Emile leans forward and whispers. No one blames you. The guilt you deserve is no more than Surana’s on that hill.

Their conversation is cut off by Griffin and Winston returning to the pub in skin-tight, fiber-metal self-sealing suits called Integrated Operational Utility Rigs For Your Health, or just IO’s or RIG’s for short. In Winston’s hand are four shots of black liquid. Well, drinking on the job is out. Coffee mixed with the Viélet plant will have to do. Tastes like shit, but it’ll give you a kick and wipe out a hangover.

Griff, Fairen, Winston, and Emile all grab a glass and look at each other. Emile speaks first, head to the floor. "It is Seizing Day, why not?" All four nod and clink their glasses together.

All four exhale and drink. The liquid is dry and tastes of dirt, piss, bark, and grass. But nothing, absolutely nothing could prepare Fairen for the cataclysmic taste of black coffee. His face scrunches up at the bitter, unforgiving heat of a black sun in liquid form. Void of nothing but bitterness and regret. Much like the people who enjoy black coffee.

Griffin tsks heavily, his teeth gritted. His voice a growl, Mother. Fucker. The bags under his eyes disappear, the smoke and alcohol on him flee into the air. Winston’s already small eyes become nonexistent as he shuts them from the shock of his system.

Emile is the only one who shows no problem at all. He just knocks the glass back, purses his lips, and shrugs his shoulders. Emile looks around, nothing much about him externally having changed. Features still dead to the world.

The four head up the stairs until they hit a door. They walk into an industrial catwalk system that leads up to fresh air. In the middle is a service elevator, which all choose to enter. They lift up the gate, get in, close the gate, and push the button.

As they wait for the metal box to ascend, Winston looks at Emile, curious as to why he is wearing a loose shirt and pajama pants. Emile notices and simply states, Going to the second most defended building in the country. I think I’ll be fine.

Bit arrogant?

Emile shrugs, No arrogance in knowing facts. Though Emile cringes a little bit, finding some semblance of irony.

And if a bird descends and tears your- In a blink, at Miraculous speed, Emile takes a knife from Winston and sends it exactly four millimeters away from his eyeball. Another blink and it is the same distance away from his dick.

Sorry. Emile says, bored and bothered he has to do anything today. It is the seventh anniversary of his wife’s death; the youngest daughter of Meaghan Hurst.

Winston takes his knife back. Nodding and confident in Emile’s unarmed, unarmored capacity. No one says anything else. Not even Griffin.

When the elevator stops, Fairen lifts the gate with one arm and the four of them walk into a garage. Fairen pulls the keys out of his pack. A four-doored black, tinted windowed car with government plates spurs and comes to life. Emile and Winston scoff heavily through their noses at some form of inside joke. Fairen takes the driver's seat, with Emile next to him. As Winston gets in the back seat, he quips. Yeah, putting the Easterner in the back seat.

Griffin exhales as he sits next to Winston, You’re not even from this planet’s East.

‘From your point of view’ as your philosophers say. Winston has had enough time to come back. And I come from a plane where people with bows, arrows, and an invisible sword don’t drive cars and fight nature as literally as you do day to day. It’s odd, mammals bend nature. Nature bends back on this planet.

Griffin looks at Winston, You mean ‘we,’ right?

Yeah, speaking from a different point of view.

Tired of the conversation, Fairen puts the gear in drive and speeds out into the night. Fairen turns on the radio and sighs immediately at the sight of the date: 01:48 A.M. January 1st, 861, 7th Age. Emile? Fairen asks as his eyes brighten from their northern blue to a predatory amber. The night lights up to black and white, all miscellaneous colors of the city far off fade to nothing more than ideas. The car itself makes almost no noise, for it uses fuel that has no official name in any Basic language. The Vaulterians named it Buryag, which should translate to ‘source fuel’, which is essentially calcified crystals of the Northern Plague. Can you turn it back local time?

Who even goes by the Venturing calendar anymore? Griffin asks, legitimately confused.

Emile goes to the dashboard radio and starts turning the dials, buttons, and switches. Corporations that survived the closing of the World Rifts. Existentials trapped here. Stegans, map-makers, and scientists. Emile leaves the radio alone. When Fairen looks at it next, it is 00:58/26:00, Ninth of January, 214 A.L.D.

Seven Hells. Fairen mutters, his accent turning incoherent levels of thick. This early? Fairen had been asleep for only two hours.

Emile rolls down his window. To bask in the sight of the two moons and the ending Summer air. It’s the Equinox, just drop it. Shit happens today. Winston opens his mouth to say something but decides against it. Emile rubs his eyes and mutters incoherently to himself, which makes Fairen uneasy. Then Emile almost explodes. Winston just say it.

Nothing important. Winston admits. Wondering why the ninth of all times. For the moons to be this close. Another thing is why everyone chose to call it a ‘plague’ after Adarren.

Silence follows for a time. No one is willing to answer or explain why the planet formed this way. No one in the car quite cares why those corrupted by the Northern Plague become either incredibly hyper-active or nearly dead on Seizing Day.

But that time ends when Griffin speaks, You murder billions. I’d say people could stand to be a little bitter towards the tool.

The car hits a steep hill, descending down to the city of Crosha, Capital Crown of the Central Forum power of Norzon. Even with all of these Miraculous gifts, Fairen still finds the sight overwhelming. He could only imagine Emile. As if on cue, Emile covers his face in sudden, exquisite pain. Fuck, just get us there.

What are you seeing? Fairen asks, on edge. He peeks over to Emile and sees the Norstis veins in the latter’s head speeding as if racing time itself.

Emile sounds like he is still hungover. In reality, he has still not recovered entirely. His overactive mind took too long a look at the city and gave itself a migraine to shut down. Nothing that will get in our way, just skip Harding Street. Backed up from a Minth draconid.

Winston scoffs heavily as Fairen puts the pedal to the floor. Sorry, still not used to . . . central bestiaries. Much less ones susceptible to plague.

Didn’t you live with Legionaries for five months? Fairen doesn’t give anyone time to respond as he turns the emergency brake and drifts down the mountain road. He turns on the lights and speeds through the city scene.

Bars, drinking, smoking, dancers, raves, and even open sex. All normal things in a culture still foreign to a Northerner, an Easterner, and someone with little soul left. The only one who looks the least bit comfortable is Griffin, but there is a look of guilt on his face. As if the scenes remind him of missed opportunities.

Norzonians don’t give a shit about Horde warnings do they? Winston is perturbed and self-conscious.

Well, Fairen asks as he drifts around a corner bar. A disc jockey with working wings coming out of his back flapping them as he drops a beat. Everyone is armed; numbers help.

Fairen sees the familiar red skylights get closer. The road immediately surrounding their source has been blocked off by proper military in RIGs, proper armor, or simply hemp clothes. Not just standard issue, but of Royal Silver make. With each set unique except for the under armor and the clear work of Meaghan Hurst.

Fairen slows to coasting speed as the barricade allows them through. Fairen rolls down his window to be greeted by a masked woman in armored blue war robes. Her emblems signifying ‘captain.’ Her voice absolutely compliments her brown skin, Lieutenant. The woman stands at a Miraculous height of six-foot-eight. Her strides so long that she could outrace any un-augmented animal on the planet if need be.

Fairen pulls out his phone. Captain Lena Teeg, Meaghan Hurst called. Fairen gives her his immediate call history.

The captain’s eyes go wide and she gives the phone back to Fairen. I’ll notify Madame Karina. I’m giving three as an escort until you get there. Then they’ll promptly come back. The captain then proceeds to take a quick shot at Emile. Emile is staring forward with a blank face, his eyes enraged.

Three men surround the vehicle and all four of the material bodies take off at a casual thirty miles an hour. As they watch the three Miraculous guards easily keep pace, Winston asks. "Say, why didn’t you take the job?"

The anger helps Emile conquer his pain, I’m not taking my orders from a flaccid, undeserving prick in an overcompensating chair.

You occasionally do that now. Through a middle man, anyway. Winston points out.

Both Griffin and Fairen look to Emile for his response. Emile scoffs, Yeah, but I also get to tell that middle man to fuck off.

The rage in his voice makes Fairen change the subject. I’ll go in first, you guys find whoever is on duty and help out. Emile. Emile puts one hand on the steering wheel. As soon as Emile nods, Fairen gets out of the car at thirty miles an hour.

Fairen hits the ground sprinting at the same speed and decelerates just as quick as he took off. He stopped right where he needs to be. Across the street is Onyx General Hospital.

In truth, it isn’t a hospital. It is a massive fort in the heart of the city that happens to have the most well equipped hospital in Norzon. The architecture is Existential in nature, as the architect who built it was from another world altogether.

Leaving Fairen, ignorant of architectural taste, unable to discern its appearance adequately. It’s big, it’s made of every material buildings can be made of, and it acts as the backup capital building. That is all Fairen needs (and would like) to know.

He walks up the massive steps to the main, non-emergency entrance where two figures in particular stand. As Fairen approaches them, his internal mood worsens when he sees a 7’2 heavy built mammoth of a man in short-sleeved armor. His black hair is stubble. His braided tribal beard massive but not wild. Old Guardsman Kieran Teeg, Regent of Valor.

His calm, wise, if ambiguously angry whisper booms. You’re late, Northerner. As they stare at each other, Fairen sees his skin is darker than usual. His deeper scars look raw and he has a fresh, long glare. He got back from a tour.

Fairen’s eyes indicate that he wants to murder him. But Fairen himself remains calm and blunt, not taking it personally. Traffic.

The other figure is a blonde so beautiful that her features could only be described as divine and unrealistic. Unobtainable quite frankly. She is a malleable statue that took decades to sculpt. She is a super-model found on marketing boards. Fairen finds it unhealthy. Fairen is also jealous, no scars are visible upon her. No discernible tic present.

Her fair skin complimented by black, Eastern style robes meant for war. Her eyes blue with highlights of red. A voice on the deeper spectrum and mannerisms so articulate she could soothe a rabid bear. Madame Karina Seghrese, Regent of Shadows.

This figure approaches them, clearly intending to stop Fairen’s mood from worsening further. Kieran, head inside and triple check. Kieran doesn’t even give Fairen a glare. He just leaves and walks inside, radiating an aura of an earned arrogance.

Karina’s words imply worry. Fairen? Why are you all here?

Fairen blinks rapidly as he takes his hood off. His mask falls into his jacket. His hair flows downward onto his shoulders. Meaghan called.

The blonde gives him a ‘look.’ She is absolutely unreadable to most. Fairen, one of the few who can, needs a couple of seconds to process it. She believes him, even if she doesn’t believe it herself. She exhales, crossing her arms across her white, sleeveless, formal jacket. Meaghan Hurst called you on Seizing Day?

Fairen feigns insult as his mood lightens. He repeats himself. Meaghan Hurst called me on Seizing Day.

Silence echoes as the Karina processes the information. As it clicks within her mind, she recoils a little before coming back to reality. She reaches into her pocket and takes out a hair tie. Handing it to Fairen, she gets to the point. Follow me, Huron is operating. Fairen follows as he ties his hair. So we had a John Doe appear at the very steps we were just standing on.

Fairen leans forward. You say that like you know who it is.

He literally appeared. A string of a piano and violin, a ball of white light, and some cracked Norstis marble from where he stood. It sounds like someone Fairen used to know. But he has not been seen in years. That’s not the disturbing part, the disturbing part is the things that followed. Do you know who Celsus Remark is?

Before he can think about who that sounds like, the smell of blood instead spurs Fairen to ask: Celsus Remark followed him here and killed him?

Celsus followed the man here and murdered eight other people to try. Karina guides Fairen through a blown out door and into a hallway. The brilliantly decorated hall has been painted blood red. At the end, through a hidden wall, is a devastated elevator. They walk into the elevator shaft and casually drop five floors. The elevator shaft doesn’t even shake, it simply sounds like specs of dust falling from the ceiling.

Her tone is power, her stance confident but not arrogant. Her aura yells that she is in control of every aspect of life around her and well-deserving of it. Celsus fell from that metallic meteor shower of a plane from earlier. We think that’s where Doe came from.

The paint job is worse down here. Why’d you even treat whoever it is in Apex anyway?

Because, The blonde says one word and goes silent as they turn the corner. Her words fail as they see what has become of Celsus Remark.

Celsus Remark no longer exists. The only thing signifying he had existed at all is an outline in the wall. His figure has been imprinted.

The detail is so great and so concise that the work of art must have taken years to complete. The birthmark upon his arm is even discolored, his hair drawn in exquisite attention. The stone cracks in where his armor was cracked. The wall bleeds where he was bleeding, his own personal Norstis yellow and the natural red blood. The concrete has shot out of the wall but has not been damaged or cracked. It is as if the wall itself came to life. Celsus’ face contorted in a look of immaculate horror, he screamed with such force that he broke his own jaw. His eyes were clawed out before he died. His ears caved in upon themselves. His nose became a waterfall of pure, yellow Norstis. His legs were broken, healed, and broken again in an instant. His hands were sliced open at every digit, making them impossible to use.

Because what, Karina? Fairen looks on, more curious than disturbed. He pulls out his phone and takes a picture of every detail. When she fails to respond once more, Fairen lets a question fly. "It’s him, isn’t it?"

A slim, silver-armored, silver-helmed man turns the corner. Madame Regent, if it is clear, we need to open the causeways.

Karina scowls, but her tone is neutral. Of course, lieutenant. Make sure any potential threats didn’t make it to the panic rooms. Security is to be royal guards and Legates only, no one leaves the grounds. Nobody enters, keep press away, this is not Dante’s area.

The silver knight leaves with a nod and without a word. Karina tilts her head towards Fairen as the sound of metal doors lift and clamor. When the metal stops, the sights and sounds of people flood the halls. She tilts her head to Fairen, not making eye contact. You’ll have to see him. Karina walks and Fairen follows.

They walk through an underground complex larger than the aboveground hospital itself. The walls bland and dimly lit, built like a bunker for invasion or wartime. Every door is in similar architecture, the only thing setting them apart from other doors is a different rune. There was a blood trail here, with Norstis contained within it. But the white has become faded, leaving only a chalk-grey-black. The Norstis had killed itself at the behest of its own owner.

Oh. Fairen thinks in a low, calm horror. No. Then Fairen remembers. Things happen on the Equinox. The sad, low cawing of a crow echoes through the hall. Karina is too busy speaking into the screen to notice. Fairen looks behind him and at the very end of the hall, he swears he can see the shadows move. Karina stops to bark at the screen and Fairen follows, halting dead in his tracks.

He continues to stare into the abyss at the end of the hall. Fairen feels his eyes expand, his blue eyes fading into an eagle amber. The lights brighten, the darkness lifts to grey, and he can see stains from time’s past. There is something in the grey abyss. Slightly darker than the rest, ever so slightly. As Fairen continues to stare, red blights intrude upon the dark grey. They get larger and brighter, as if something is opening its eyes.

Karina’s voice breaks him out of his trance, he stares at her as she turns around. Fairen, lets go. Surana is waiting now. Karina starts walking once more and Fairen closes the distance. He flashes a look back to the darkened grey and sees nothing. Nothing at all.

Fairen and Karina walk through three secure double doors, past twelve guards, and four good dogs. Who accept pats from Fairen without a care. They come into a blank observation room, overlooking a team of five surgeons and their patient. At the window is a woman in a wheelchair, wearing hospital scrubs. Karina speaks as she approaches the window, Why were you with him?

Surana sounds exhausted and depressed. Her voice is low, as if she’s delirious from a fever. Who did I disappoint this time?

Karina softly crouches down to Surana’s eye level. Answer? Suri, I don’t want to do it again.

Surana speaks, her attitude is unsurpassed. Her articulation thick and harsh. "He found me, waiting for the scans to come back on the leg I don’t have. Place went on lockdown and started to panic, no one really wanted to help the panicking cripple did they?"

Karina doesn’t change her tone, soft and sweet. How did Celsus end up in a wall?

Surana’s voice quivers as if she’s restraining tears. She fights it through whispers, making her sound disturbed. There was a bird cawing, then there was a man screaming, then there were just the eyes.

Surana’s eyes are horrifically bloodshot, as if she had been pepper sprayed. I kept him alive and it didn’t understand what I was doing. It didn’t mean to blind me, it just reacted like some things do. Why can I hear the walls? The Norstis in them can speak, no, hum. Their language is demanding. There is something about that walking war crime down there. Something follows him, protects him; cares about him. It was separated from him for so long, like it was lost without him.

Hold still, Suri. Karina’s hand goes behind her waist and when she reveals it, her hand is covered by a thin silver gauntlet. The nails of the gauntlet are more like surgical needles. She walks in front of Surana and drops to one knee. Karina rests her hands upon Surana’s face. Fairen looks on as Karina’s eyes glow a serpentine green and her irises split into three. Surana closes her eyes as exhales as the silver gauntlet slowly turns to that of an azure-crimson.

A few seconds pass as a look of perturbed curiosity overwhelms them both. Surana’s eyes roll back and her head gingerly hangs, she has fallen soundly asleep. Lieutenant. A silver guard comes in and wheels Surana away.

The door closes slowly and when it clicks, the aura of the room darkens further. The duo can hear the other’s heart pounding. They say no words, they make no contact, the air becomes stale; the silence creeps like the cold.

Fairen continues to look at the victim. Specifically at one scar, from above his waist to where his right arm should be. The skin and the Norstis layer around it are permanently cracked. The scar is not a fresh red, a faded white, or an infected yellow. It is instead a weathered black.

The blade that had left the wound ate at the skin just as much as it did open it. Burns and shocks, the pressure, and the wetness of blood are sensations Fairen can wrap his mind around. But to be eaten alive? His eyes turn amber just by processing the sight of it.

He needs time. Time to think. Time to adjust. Time to process. Time he does not have.

Karina looks over to Fairen, the latter looking haunted. His head grows heavy as he remembers screaming. Fairen? Fairen’s face is a tale of one-thousand words. All he wants is to close his eyes and never open them again as an acute, impossible sense of guilt overwhelms him. Elias? Karina, still perturbed, still disturbed. Who do you think that describes?

You read her, why even ask? Fairen looks at her, his northern accent thicker than before.

Karina almost smirks, Ironic, I think. Huron Dorian is saving him.

His voice is dark and foreboding, "Meaghan and Cedric have to know, no point in keeping it from them now." Fairen shrugs his shoulders.

So then, Karina stops pacing. She says the dying man’s name, Will. Her tone is contemplative, as if trying to remember something else.

Fairen plays with his hands, looking down to the broken form of his godson. His godson on that operating table. I need to go to the Lighthouse. Fairen looks at Karina as the latter shoots him a nervous look.

Fairen then goes on to explain as he takes his phone out and takes a picture of the man on the table. Meaghan called me, on Seizing Day. She is expecting news and this is the type I sure as hell am not going to give over a phone.

Silence echoes once more as the duo breathe and prepare themselves. Karina looks over to Fairen, studying him as he yawns. How long have you been awake? Fairen, in turn, says nothing. All he does is squint and raise an eyebrow in confusion. Your eyes are bloodshot, your beard is a shadow, you smell . . . poorly. You forgot your arrows.

Fairen looks over his shoulder and realizes that she is absolutely right. Besides the four hours? He meant two but said four as if that small amount would make it better. Fourteen days.

Karina rolls her eyes, "When you get done with Meaghan and Drew, go home. Smoke the Meditation I prescribed you and sleep. You’re a human Miracle." Fairen says nothing, he is still playing with his hands. He moves his mouth without opening it, as if he is stretching the muscles around it. Elias Fairen is thinking about Rose Fairen, his wife.

Karina lowers her head, darkness covering it. You’ll see her again. She can read his mind. Should be effortless with his exhaustion.

That scar, Fairen changes the subject. The woman beside him does not need to know about his love life as well. Where he must have gotten it from, what Will can do. They aren’t going to let it alone. Get everyone ready for incursion. Fairen raises his head, now very antsy. Excuse me Madame Regent, my duty yearns. Winston, Griffin, and Emile are out back waiting for you.

I’m aware, your car is at the stairs. At the end of her words, Fairen turns around to leave. Wait, Karina says as her hand goes to her back pocket. Give this to Meaghan and Drew, fresh from my best plant.

Fairen takes the wrapped plant bag and remains silent, mentally preparing himself. The duo says nothing else as Fairen leaves the chamber and walks back through the now completely empty hospital halls. He skips past the darkened part of the hall. He walks past the ashen-stone figure of Celsus Remark and back into the elevator shaft. He leaps upward and returns to ground level.

He exits the hospital and kneels on the steps where Will had appeared. Putting the plant in his bag and his bow with no arrows over his shoulder. The cracks resemble a burnt bird’s nest. The stairs are from calcified Norstis, which is what gives it its glass-like appearance. The area around the glass is discolored, white and black: Norstis dead and silent. The smell like a nice wood fire. It is Will’s mark when he moves, it is definitely him.

Fairen walks down the stairs to the car where his fellow three Miracles are waiting. Emile speaks first, scanning the crows casually. I take it you’re off to Anvil’s Drop? Fairen only nods. Emile asks again, It’s someone important isn’t it? Silence from Fairen means ‘yes.’

Griffin stands up from the open car door. Fairen and Griffin throw friendly insults to the other. Fairen reenters the car. He speeds off into the autumn night, his mind pulling back to the past.

Five years before the Razing of Nairuum-Den. So, twelve years ago. Fairen was there in the city itself. The crock pot of the Median Hemisphere. Bordered by some of Tidoran Plains to the north and the west. The Gem Mountains to the east and the Fearin Islands to the south. He had come from Norzön, eight-hundred miles Southwest. He was visiting his foster sister, Anya Hurst. Yuri, the eldest, was away on a tariff and Kyle was out clubbing with friends. Anya would have been doing the same, if not for Fairen’s arrival.

Their house was medium, Norstis Miracles live ecently by Norstis game and other violent activities. The exterior was a mixture of wood and brick and solid foundations. It was a rather square house, with the center of it being a spiral staircase. The kitchen, a nook in the corner. The couch, television, and other furniture against the wall at the north end. The west end held a hallway, containing bedrooms and the like. The south held the front door and exit. The second floor was for recreation and trades, Will’s space.

He cannot remember where Will was on this project. They had bonded closely together because of it. Fairen helped hide it. He would have planned out the acquisition of the materials from the embassies. But Will had already made a plan to get the shards.

The way he worked, how flawless it came to him and how he executed the plans. He made his family’s weapons, armor, utility, he was even the