Rainer stepped out of the changing room stall and struck a pose, arms wide.
"Behold! A man reborn!"
Gone was the pale hospital refugee. In his place stood a figure in soft, black track pants and a matching hoodie—a comfortable, anonymous youth. The only point of contention were the shoes. The sneakers looked like they'd been dunked in a vat of radioactive lime and accented with molten gold.
Rommel, who had been standing guard like a grim-faced suit mannequin, looked him over. His expression was the kind of analytical dismay usually reserved for catastrophic tactical failures.
"Why," he began, each word strained as if pulled from a deep well of suffering, "did you not change the shoes?"
Rainer blinked, genuinely perplexed. "Why? What's wrong with them?"
"They look," Rommel said, his voice flat, "like a unicorn threw up on them."
"Oh, come on! The soul resides in the footwear, Rommel!" Rainer groaned, tapping one fluorescent sneaker against the tile floor. "You of all people should know that. It's basic philosophy."
"We have been over this. GBG policy," Rommel stated, as if citing law carved in stone. "You dress in the recommended style: black suit and fedora. It projects unity. Authority. Only special soldiers, Capos and above, are permitted such… deviations."
His brow furrowed then, a genuine flicker of concern breaking through the bedrock of his irritation.
"If a Capo sees you in that, they will assume disrespect. Or insanity. Both are problematic."
Rainer rolled his eyes so hard he briefly saw the back of his own skull.
'Authority. Right. Because nothing says "unshakeable power" like a matching hat.'
He thought then looked at the brooding expression before him.
"Rommel. Breathe with me. We are not going to a board meeting. We are headed into the actual, literal wilderness. What's a Capo going to be doing out there? Collecting protection fees from the squirrels? Inspecting the beavers for union activity?!"
Rommel's left eye developed a faint, persistent tic. He brought a hand up to massage his temple, a low groan escaping him.
"Ugh. Fine. Wear the… the colorful punishment attractant on your feet. But when you're chewed apart by wildlife drawn to your candy-coded feet, don't say I didn't warn you."
At that precise moment, Gabriela burst into the mall's clothing section.
Her earlier calm was gone, burned away by a kinetic urgency. She didn't stop to explain. She saw Rainer, planted her hands squarely on his back then shoved.
"Wh-what the hell are you doing?!" Rainer yelped, stumbling forward into Rommel's rigid frame.
Rommel grunted, catching him with the solidity of a brick wall.
"What's with the sudden rush?"
Gabriela didn't immediately answer. She simply became a relentless force, pushing them both toward the mall's gleaming exit.
"Move! Now! We're late, but there's a slim window to intercept them—they only got there twelve hours ago!"
"Who is them?!" Rainer yelled over his shoulder, struggling to keep his new, treacherously squeaky sneakers under him.
Gabriela's voice cut through the mall's saccharine muzak.
"Mr. H's men."
The name hung in the air.
Immediately, all resistance vanished. The argument about shoes, policy, squirrels—it all evaporated, leaving behind a cold, hard clarity.
Rainer and Rommel's eyes met over Gabriela's pushing hands. In that shared glance, the reality of the race solidified from a theory into a fact.
The time for arguments was over.
···
An hour later, the city was a fading bruise on the horizon. They'd passed the sterile government district, then the repetitive sprawl of suburbs, and finally broken onto a rough track that clawed its way into the craggy southern highlands. The world outside the windows turned into a patchwork of wind-scarred rock and stubborn pockets of pine, all washed in the bleak, flat light of a grey afternoon.
Gabriela drove, her eyes constantly flicking between the rugged path and her smartphone, which glowed with thermal overlays of the terrain. Little vehicle-shaped heat ghosts pulsed on the map.
Tearing her eyes off, she took a look at their surroundings, the tires crunching over gravel.
"You might not know it, but I was raised here. In Greyhaven." Her voice was softer now, almost conversational against the growl of the engine. "Before moving to Veridian Falls. I grew up hearing tales about these highlands. A lot scary. A few comical. Most… unbelievable."
Rommel gazed at the trees running past his window, a dark green blur.
"Let me guess. Monsters live here." He rumbled.
Rainer, lounging in the back, smirked.
"Hey. I don't mind anything, as long as they're cute and don't try to eat me."
Gabriela's smile in the rearview mirror was thin, the kind reserved for telling a scary secret by firelight.
"You might not believe it. But monsters are real."
Rommel's eyes twitched with pure, distilled skepticism.
Rainer poked his nose between the seats. "Hey. Did I ever mention the time I played a game of Pac-Man with a werewolf? Spoiler: I was the dots."
Gabriela looked ahead, her eyes losing focus as though seeing something beyond the dirt track.
"Interesting story. But I have one better."
She took a deep breath, the air in the car suddenly feeling thinner.
"Legend has it that beneath these highlands lies a world. Unseen. Where things that hate the sun come out to play at night, and worse things than werewolves prowl the greater caverns below."
Her voice dropped, taking on a storyteller's rhythm.
"Cave divers have come back… changed. Traumatized, babbling. Most just go missing. And the strange thing? Whenever the authorities go in to check, they never find a thing. No bodies. No signs of a struggle. Just… darkness, and silent walls."
Rommel scoffed lightly.
"Typical. You'd have to be insane to be a cave diver. I wouldn't believe their stories even if they hooked me up to whatever they're snorting before jumping into a dark hole in the earth."
Rainer looked out the window, a slow, intrigued smile spreading across his face.
"Cave diving, eh?" he murmured. "Now there's a sport after my own heart."
Rommel glanced back, deadpan.
"Case in point."
"Brace yourselves!" Gabriela gripped the wheel, voice tightened.
Her warning was all they got before the car lurched over a bone-jarring bump. Rommel's hand shot out, gripping the doorframe with white knuckles. While Rainer was thrown into a brief, flailing ballet in the back seat before thumping down.
When the car stabilized, Gabriela slowed to a crawl, the tension in her shoulders easing.
"We're there." She killed the engine, the silence rushing in like cold water. She pulled a compact pair of binoculars from the glovebox and handed Rommel a spare handgun.
Rainer looked between them. "Hey. What about me?"
Gabriela turned, offering a sympathetic smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"Sorry. I only have my piece and one extra."
Rommel looked at her as if she'd just suggested they dance a jig. With a sigh that spoke of profound weariness, he took the gun and handed it to Rainer.
"Don't patronize me, Gabriela. I always have my gun on me."
"Oh. Sorry." Gabriela blinked, momentarily flustered. "I never meant to—"
*Click-clack! Snick-snick!*
The familiar, metallic symphony cut her off. Rainer had already field-stripped the handgun, his fingers moving with an unconscious, fluid grace. He reassembled it just as fast, the final click sounding like a period at the end of a sentence.
"You two can have your lover's quarrel after my prize has been claimed," he said, pushing the door open. A rush of cold, pine-scented air flooded in. "This is a nice piece, by the way."
"We are not lovers," Rommel groaned, dismounting with significantly less theatricality.
Inside the car, Gabriela remained perfectly still, momentarily speechless.
⌯⁍ ⌯⁍ ⌯⁍
The three of them moved up the hill in a loose, tactical advance, using the gnarled trees for cover. The world was preternaturally quiet, the only sounds the crunch of their footsteps and the distant cry of a hawk.
Five hundred meters out, their target came into view: three sleek, black SUVs parked haphazardly near the lip of a cliff, looking profoundly out of place against the raw landscape. The doors gaped open like black mouths.
Gabriela slid behind a thick pine next to them and raised her binoculars. She scanned, her body going very still.
"See anyone?" Rainer whispered, his earlier bravado dialed down to a low hum.
Gabriela's expression twisted from concentration to pure perplexity. She lowered the binoculars and shook her head.
"It's empty. Car doors are open. No movement. No apparent signs of life in or around them. Though, engines seem active."
She looked at them, the confusion clear in her eyes.
"That's all I can tell from here."
Rommel's frown deepened, carving lines into his face.
"We'll have to move up. Close the distance."
Rainer's sharp grin returned.
"Now it gets exciting."
"I'm coming too," Gabriela stated, and it wasn't a request.
They moved up the slope using random trees as cover. At the vehicles, they fell into a professional, wordless routine—a quick, brutal form of CQB, clearing each open SUV with rapid, overlapping fields of fire. It was over in seconds.
Gabriela stood back, her pistol held low. "There's no one here," she said, her voice hollow with confusion. "No blood. No signs of a fight. It's like they just… stepped out and vanished."
"Perhaps they all went down," Rainer said.
"Down?" Rommel turned.
Rainer was standing a few yards away, beside a gnarled old pine. A thick, high-grade rope was anchored around its trunk in a complex knot. The rope ran taut over the cliff's edge, disappearing into a yawning, shadow-filled opening in the cliff face about twenty feet below.
They gathered at the precipice and looked down. The cave mouth was a jagged tear in the world, with an eerie darkness within.
Rommel stared down, his eyes reflecting the black cave below. A muscle in his jaw tightened. The high-grade rope tied to the tree was the only sign anyone had ever gone down.
"Looks like our mystery prize," he said, his voice a low rumble, "is in the there."
A beat of heavy silence followed as the wind whistled over the cliff.
Then Rainer looked from the taut rope, to the cave, then finally to his companions, a grin spreading across his face.
"Well," he said, his tone shifting. "This is quite the cliffhanger we've found ourselves."
Rommel's eyes squeezed shut. He brought his hand up, pinching the bridge of his nose as if physically trying to suppress a headache.
Beside him, Gabriela's professional composure shattered. She pressed her lips into a tight, quivering line, a sharp, stifled sound escaping her nose as she valiantly, but failed to stop a laugh from bubbling up.
The moment of eerie tension evaporated, replaced by the familiar, exasperated dynamic of their trio.
The cave waited below, silent, eerie. But for that one second, standing on the edge, they were just three people caught in a ridiculous, dangerous situation.