Broken
It's getting worse.
Twice now, I've woken up to terrifying sounds outside; the sound of gurgling laughs and wet footsteps.
The Floodmen draw nearer by the day.
Elemental and Krim haven't slept in a while, constantly on guard, lest the enemy breaking through into our small sanctuary.
***
We gather around the largest fire in the cave, faces glowing eerily orange in the flames. Tavin sits on a crate, moving a roll of bandages between his fingers, and Bryce is cross-legged on the ground next to him, spinning a knife.
"I'm saying it straight," I say, heart hammering. "We're leaving, very soon. We have to, before we rot down here."
"Finally," Bryce grins. "I was getting bored of being down here all this time."
"Bored?" Krim glares at him. "You live in a cave surrounded by psychos who kill people for fun."
"Yeah and? Routine gets old."
"You're not wrong about leaving," Tavin says. "The gas that seeps through the gaps in the rock is getting worse. Ronin's wound is reacting badly, and our rations will run out soon."
I glance at Ronin, his arm in a sling, but eyes steadfast.
"But where do we go?" Leon asks. "Back into the flood tunnels?"
"Up," I say. "We go back up, to the upper floors."
"Airo's up there."
"Then do you plan to rot down here?"
"We'll be faced with a war on our hands, Sword. There's no telling how much stronger he grows by the day."
"Then we'll fight," I plough on. "We'll fight him."
A silence follows, until Bryce whistles and says,
"Ambitious. So what do you plan to do with the Floodmen? Ask 'em to move aside politely?"
"We'll break through them with force," I say.
"Now you're speaking my language," Luc grins, cracking his knuckles.
"I second this," Mist says, going through her pouch of flint projectiles.
"I wouldn't be so earnest if I were you," Tavin warns. "The Floodmen are different from the other survivors you've fought before."
"How so?"
"They aren't so much mindless, but they might as well be. They've brainwashed themselves, they've drowned in this sector so long they worship the water like a god."
"Worship?"
"Yes. They offer it everything. People, blood, food, anything."
"All the more reason to wipe them out," Leon says. "This is heresy. There is only one Deity in this world and it's definitely not a puddle."
"They are armed and organized," Tavin continues. "And they are insane. They do not fear death."
"Neither do we," Luc says.
Tavin studies him for a minute, then says,
"There's a difference between bravery and stupidity."
"So you're saying we stay here?" I ask .
"No. I'm saying that if you go in without a plan you'll be dead in under a minute."
Great. Love that.
Later, when the others are resting for arguably the final time, I find Tavin checking the crude map he's scratched into the ground using a bit of charcoal. Dots for camps, winding lines for tunnels, crosses for "don't go here or you'll die excessively".
"You're coming with us, right?" I ask.
"Bold assumption."
"You said we'll die without a plan," I say. "You have one but we don't. Shouldn't you come with us? Don't doctors save people?"
As soon as the words leave my mouth, I regret it.
His jaw tightens and he looks up at me.
"And why would I leave an easily defensible position to run into a cave of insane murders with half-healed strangers?"
The tension is growing. I really am terrible at this until Bryce pops out from behind a rock.
"He's just scared of getting attached," he grins. "Isn't that right, unc?"
Tavin throws the charcoal at him and he ducks with a yelp.
"I'm going," he continues cheerily. "You guys are crazy - my kind of crazy."
"Bryce," Tavin says through his teeth. "Go to sleep."
"I will if you let Sword convince you to stop being depressing."
"Bryce."
"…ok."
I stare at Tavin.
"Well?"
He sighs heavily, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"You want me to tell you why I'm hesitating."
"Yes."
"You won't like it."
"I haven't liked anything in this place."
That earns me a small, humourless puff of laughter.
"This place… it doesn't feel too different. This Facility, it feels familiar, not new to me."
"You mean… you were somewhere like this before? Where?"
He looks at me with his sunken, hollow, feelingless eyes.
"Right now, the world is at war. War against an alien race that has been deemed living blasphemy against the Deity. I was there, I was there on the frontline."
My stomach tightens. A veteran of the ongoing Skather War is here before my eyes. From the sounds of it, a combat medic, but…
…a hero of Erisen.
The Facility rule is choking him, clenching around his throat.
"I watched people around me die in swathes. Sometimes being with people who you treasure means you get to be the closest when you watch them die. I…"
He paudes, voice cracking suddenly, and his cold exterior suddenly seems like its melting. As if by habit, he touches the small silver ring on his finger.
"I-" he chokes. "…I… I will outline the plan I've set out for you tomorrow."
"Tavin."
"But I won't go with you."
I decide not to push it further and head back. As I walk away from him, I glance back at his form hunched around the fire, and he looks old, broken and fractured.
Even though he's only a few years older than me.
When I get back to the group, Nyx shifts, sitting up. She's awake.
"What did he say?" she asks softly.
"He won't come."
***
For a plan, we really don't have much.
Tavin sketches it out on a rock.
"There's a ledge just outside, narrow but pretty stable, along the waterline here," he's saying, pointing. "Floodmen patrol all along the other side…"
His voice is drowning out, and I'm finding it difficult to pay attention. My mind keeps wandering to his story.
"You must hit fast, and hit hard," he continues. "You can't get drawn out into a long battle with them. Try and push them into the water - even if they worship it they're not immune to it."
"I'll be tossing people in all day," Luc grins.
"You'll be first if you get cocky."
Luc shuts up.
"Theres a vertical shaft about four hundred feet down, abandoned. It should lead up to the higher level since we dropped down in when the shifts were occurring above. Your goal is not to wipe the Floodmen out, it's to reach this shaft and escape with as many of you alive as possible."
"Love the 'as many as possible' part," Neo mutters.
"Anything else?" Elemental asks.
Tavin talks a bit more about tactics, the escape route, and more, and once he's done we gear up, grab the last supplies, and prepare to leave.
"Are you sure you're not coming?" I ask him one last time.
"Go," he says flatly.
I turn, and leave the soldier behind, confident in our abilities.
Unfortunately, nothing could've prepared me for the shit that was to come.
***
The second I step out of the safety and warmth of Tavin's cavern, I instantly regret every decision I've ever made.
It's dark, cold, wet and silent in a way that makes your skin crawl. We traverse the tunnel that leads out of our sanctuary for the last few days, moving quietly without talking. Luc takes the lead, I'm second, and Krim brings up the rear. We come out into a larger cavern, with a long, black underground river running through the centre into the dark.
"Let's move," Elemental whispers.
We keep moving forwards, but I can't shake it. That eery feeling like I'm being watched.
"Something's off," Luc mutters.
He pauses and we glance around, straining our eyes into the dark.
It's Jora who sees them first, followed instantly by Mist, our team's two rangers (Elemental taught Jora to shoot a bow and arrow).
Then we all do.
Fucking hell.
They're perched along the walls before us like pale spiders, not monster nor beasts, but humans. Tens of them, bodies shrivelled up and skin wrinkled, pale-blue like drowned corpses. Hair hangs from their heads like wet ropes, and their eyes are sunken deep into their skeletal faces, wide and bloodshot.
Some kind of mark spirals across their bodies in a darkish liquid that resembles drying blood, and I realise I'm looking at a crested wave symbol.
They're clinging to rock with bare fingers, digging into cracks with nails sharpened to points. One hangs upside down from the roof, head dangling, water dripping from his nose.
He grins at us. There's blood in his teeth.
"Warm…" he rasps. "Warm blood."
"Back up," Leon whispers, but no one moves.
One by one, the Floodmen start dropping down, until there's a wall of them in front of us, at least fifty of them. They're crouching low, knobbly fingers gripping coral and bone-tipped spears.
"Those are people?" Neo shivers.
"No," Luc corrects quietly, clenching his fists. "They were."
"Fun," Bryce mutters.
One of them suddenly twitches, head snapping sideways like a puppet pulled too quickly, wobbling shakily towards us.
He hisses:
"The water has sent you. The water wants you. And to the water, we will give…"
Man.
Screw this place.
Luc cracks his knuckles.
"Get ready," he mutters.
All at once, the Floodmen scream, dozens of throats howling, shrieking, gurgling and screeching. The sound tears at my ears, and then they launch themselves from the walls and ledges, rushing towards us in a frenzy.
***
I don't even think, but my feet skid on the slippery rock as I move into position behind Luc.
We're standing on the widest ledge in the cavern, on our right-hand side of the huge river, at last twenty feet across in width but barely moving, but the enemy don't care. They're sweeping towards us, grabbing and swinging off stalactites in the roof and bounding forwards.
Luc hits them first, and he punches the first one so hard I hear his spine explode in his back, and the man goes flying back into another, both of them tumbling with a splash into the water.
"GET 'EM!!" he screams, and suddenly everyone's fighting.
It's absolute chaos. Floodmen are howling, piling towards us, and Mist is cutting them down with flint shards straight to the skull before they can even get close, thinning the herd alongside Jora, notching arrows and firing like she's done it all her life.
"O Anastasia," Leon says from next to me. "Guide these hands of mine, and forgive me for what comes next."
He draws his dual hatchets and flies into the fray, blades hooking into flesh and tearing apart limbs.
One of them comes for me, going low. His feet slide perfectly across the wet stone as his spear jabs for my gut.
I twist, dodge the spear, grab the shaft and bring my other fist down on it, snapping it like a twig. He grabs at my throat instantly with his claw-like nails, so I bring my knee up with a crack into his ribs.
I draw my arm back, shortsword in hand.
I won't let this hesitation stop me anymore!!
I roar with all the strength in my lungs, and then I slash him clean across the throat. His blood pours out and he falls.
Another comes at me seconds after.
My body's moving on its own, driven by pure instinct. I parry the thrust, and slash him. Once. Twice. Three times. His blood sprays across my face.
Beside me, Nyx slashes another's leg tendons, dropping him to his knees, then slits his elbow joints. Unable to move, all he can do is stare as she kicks him into the water, which is now a frothing mass of writhing Floodmen.
"BREAK THROUGH!!" Artee yells, kneeing one in the face. "LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!!"
He slides across the stone, wrenching a spear out of a corpse and follows Luc, who takes the lead. We're definitely winning, but they're still coming in droves, clambering out the river.
"KILL THEM!!" I yell, slicing the fingers off one trying to get back onto the bank.
Elemental complies and dashes forwards in three huge strides, slicing two heads clean in half.
We plunge forwards, breaking through them, feet pounding against the wet rock. Some of them are behind us, chasing us down, with Mist and Jora bringing up the rear.
"Leon, stop them with me!!"
"Right!"
We turn and face the four or five Floodmen moving towards us, and the ranger duo hurtle past.
"Sword!!" Nyx yells somewhere behind me.
"Let's finish this quickly," Leon says.
He meets the first one head on, splitting their head in half with his hatchet. I dodge a thrust, then another jab from the side.
These guys may be barely called human anymore, but that's just a psychological thingy. Biologically, they're just weak starving husks that can barely exert half their strength, but I can't let my guard down.
I sidestep and horizontally slash one of them. He goes down, and I pivot on my heel, twisting round and stabbing the second through the abdomen.
Wet, bony fingers close around my arm. The Floodman in front of me smiles, blood dripping from his lips.
Then he drops backwards and I go headfirst into the freezing water.
***
The cold hits me like a shockwave. I have no idea where I am or which way up I am or who's here with me, but all I know is I'm in deep shit.
FOCUS!
I force my strengthened muscles to move and break the surface spluttering.
"Sword, grab my hand!!" Leon yells, reaching out, but I'm too far out into the river.
His eyes widen.
"Behind!!"
I whirl around with a splash, and cold fingers close around my neck, pressing into my windpipe. It's another enemy this time, one already in the water, and he screeches in my face. His breath stinks of rot, and then he pushes me under.
My hands claw at his face, and find his eyes. I dig my hands into everything I can - pressing my thumbs into his eyes and feeling the softness give way under them. His grip loosens and I tear his hands off my neck.
Resurfacing, Mist appears at the bank and launches a lightning quick volley into the water, headshotting three enemies around me.
"GRAB ON!!" Bryce yells, hurling a length of rope into the river, and my hands find it.
He and Luc wrench it with all their might, dragging me dripping out of the water.
"You good!?"
I touch my neck and feel a stinging cut. Probably from that man's grip.
"Yeah, just cold. I'll warm up with all this exercise. Anyone got a weapon?"
Bryce hands me a backup shortsword and we pound through the cavern, following the river, breaking through the main force of the Floodmen. Mist and Jora take care of any stragglers that leap at us, and we keep going forwards.
"UP AHEAD!!" Elemental yells. "Tavin's tunnel!!"
The tunnel to the shaft. Our fucking way out!!
"GOOOO!" Dread yells, somehow overtaking me.
"THaT ONE!!" Neo screams, and we skid and fall over each other in our haste to get through.
One pursuer charges in, but I disembowel him brutally and Krim dismantles his jaw with a straight kick. He spins, and falls with a splat.
"Let's go," I say, and we leave the river behind, running along the tunnel.