Chapter 22: The Unseen
The Southern Marshlands – Two Weeks After the Purge
Sade's lungs burned, each breath a ragged sob she couldn't afford to release. Her feet, wrapped in rotting canvas, sank into the sucking mud with every frantic step, the wet shluck sound deafening in the oppressive silence of the marsh. She dared not stop. She dared not slow.
She looked back, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
Nothing.
Just the endless, twisted cypress trees, their branches draped in ghostly gray moss. Just the stagnant, oily water, reflecting a sky the color of a day-old bruise. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound.
But it was there.
She could feel it in the vibration that traveled up through the soles of her feet, a deep, sub-sonic thrum that made her teeth ache. She could hear it—not a sound, but a pressure, a constant, low-frequency hum that seemed to emanate from the air itself, pressing in on her eardrums. It was the feeling of being sized up by something vast. Something that saw the world in dimensions she couldn't comprehend.
It had taken her brothers first.
They had been checking the eel traps, thinking the marsh was safe, a place the Reapers and Rippers avoided. They were right. The marsh had worse things. One moment, Ola was laughing, holding up a fat, silver eel. The next, he was gone. Not dragged. Not pulled. Erased. There was a ripple in the air, a distortion like heat haze, and he simply wasn't there anymore. The only sound was the soft plop of the eel falling back into the water.
Tunde had screamed, raising his spear. The vibration intensified. The hum became a dissonant chord inside Sade's skull. Tunde's form seemed to… pixelate. To break apart into a million shimmering fragments before dissolving into the thick air.
Sade had run. She had been running for what felt like hours.
Her legs screamed in protest. A root, hidden under a mat of decaying leaves, snagged her foot. She fell hard, the impact driving the air from her lungs. Mud and foul water filled her mouth. She spat, scrambling backwards on her elbows, her eyes fixed on the path behind her.
Empty.
The vibration grew stronger. The hum deepened, resonating in the hollow of her chest. The water in the nearby puddles began to quiver, concentric rings forming on their surface as if from an unseen impact.
It's playing with me.
The thought was cold, clear, and utterly terrifying. It wasn't just chasing her. It was herding her. It was enjoying her fear.
She pushed herself to her feet, her body trembling with exhaustion and primal terror. She had to get to higher ground. The old radio tower on the ridge—if she could just reach it, if she could get out of this water-logged bowl…
A new sound joined the oppressive hum. A faint, rhythmic thwumping. Distant, but growing closer. A sound from the old world. A helicopter.
Hope, sharp and painful, flared in her chest. She changed direction, veering towards the source of the sound, forcing her leaden legs to move faster.
She burst out of the treeline and into a clearing at the base of the ridge. The helicopter was closer now, a dark, angular shape against the gray sky. It was heading towards the ridge. Towards the tower.
The vibration beneath her feet ceased.
The hum vanished.
The sudden, absolute silence was more terrifying than the pursuit. It meant it was done playing.
Sade didn't look back. She sprinted for the base of the radio tower, for the rusting ladder that led to salvation. Her hand closed around the cold, wet rung.
A wave of force hit her, silent and invisible. It wasn't an explosion; it was a negation. The air in front of her unfolded. The world tore like paper, and through the tear, she saw a landscape of shifting, impossible geometries and a light that was no color at all.
It was the mouth of the thing that had chased her.
She felt its attention focus on her, a weight that threatened to crush her soul. The ladder in her hand began to feel insubstantial, its molecular structure beginning to buzz and separate.
Then, a sharp crack from the sky.
A high-velocity round, larger than any bullet Sade had ever seen, tore through the air and punched into the center of the unfolding rift. There was no explosion, but a violent, localized distortion—a screech of reality reasserting itself. The tear snapped shut with a sound like a thunderclap happening inside a vacuum.
The oppressive presence was gone.
The helicopter—a brutal, modified gunship—hovered overhead, its side door open. A figure stood there, holding a massive, smoking anti-material rifle. He was clad in sleek, dark armor, his face obscured by a mirrored helmet that reflected the stunned terror on Sade's face.
Courier.
He lowered the rifle. His helmeted head tilted, first at Sade, then scanned the now-still marsh. He made a sharp, gesture to the pilot. A rope ladder tumbled down from the helicopter, landing a few feet from her.
It wasn't a rescue. It was a retrieval.
He had not saved her out of kindness. He had eliminated a rival predator in his territory. And now, he was collecting the sole witness. The one person who had seen the new kind of horror that was emerging in the Scattered Kingdom.
Trembling, her body screaming in protest, Sade looked at the ladder, then back at the silent, murderous marsh. There was no choice. The unseen was gone, but the seen was just as deadly.
She reached out and grabbed the rope. The war had another front now, and she was its newest, most terrified soldier.