The silence that followed the violence was heavier than the humid, cloying air of the forest. It wasn't a peaceful silence. It was the stunned, ringing quiet of a library immediately after a bomb has gone off.
Raina leaned back against the calcified trunk of a tree that looked like it had been grown in a bone orchard. She slid down the slick, grey bark until her ass hit the mud, her chest heaving like a bellows. She stared at her hands. They were covered in a mixture of black slime, red clay, and the dark, viscous blood of the creature lying ten feet away.
The Boar-Kin—the leader who had taken a spear through the chest—was a grotesque monument to biology gone wrong. It lay twisted in the violet ferns, its massive, hairy legs twitching in a final, post-mortem spasm. The hubcap lashed to its chest was shattered, the wooden spear protruding from the center like a cruel flagpole.
"Check the perimeter," Raina wheezed, her voice sounding raspy and strange in the dense fog. "Standard procedure. Clear the zone."
Nix, who was currently wiping Boar-Kin gore off his glasses with a leaf that looked disturbingly like a tongue, nodded. He didn't look like a soldier. He looked like an IT guy who had stumbled into a death metal music video.
"Zone is clear, Rainy," Nix said, jamming his glasses back onto his nose. They sat slightly crooked. "The straggler has retreated. Their morale broke when the Alpha went down. And when the shotgun went off."
Raina closed her eyes for a second, trying to stop the world from spinning. The image of the shotgun blast—the sound of it—replayed in her mind. It was an anchor. A tether to reality.
"The shotgun," Raina whispered. "Marcus."
"Statistically probable," Nix agreed. He was walking around the clearing, stepping over the bodies of the fallen pig-men with a casualness that Raina found deeply unsettling. He stopped near the spot where the mysterious projectile had fallen from the rift. "And this."
He bent down and picked up the object.
Raina forced her eyes open. She expected a grenade. A flash-bang. Something tactical.
Nix held up a half-eaten Granny Smith apple that he had found before, but dropped in the last of the fight.
He inspected it again, turning it over in his small, nimble fingers. He sniffed it. Then, to Raina's absolute horror, once again, he took a loud, crunchy bite out of the unblemished side.
"Crisp," Nix noted, chewing thoughtfully. "Slightly acidic. Definitely Earth-origin. I would bet my favorite screwdriver this is Pearl's. She has a high caloric drive when she is stressed."
Raina stared at him. The absurdity of the moment hit her like a physical blow. She let out a laugh that sounded more like a bark of pain.
"You're eating the evidence," she said. "We are stranded in a swamp full of bipedal bacon, and you're having a snack."
"It's high blood sugar, Rainy," Nix said, offering her the apple. "You look pale. You're going into shock. You need fructose."
Raina slapped his hand away, ignoring the apple. She pushed herself up to a standing position, her boots sucking loudly in the muck. She walked over to the dead Boar-Kin leader and kicked its heavy boot. It was solid. Real. The impact jarred her knee.
"Tell me," Raina said, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous register. She turned to face the small mechanic. "And don't give me any of that cryptic, mechanic-speak bullshit, Nix. Tell me where we are."
Nix sighed. He took another bite of the apple, chewing stalling for time. He looked at the canopy of grey leaves, then down at the mud, then finally at Raina.
"We are exactly where I told you we are," Nix said. "The Shadow Weald."
"That's a name," Raina snapped. "That's a label you put on a map. I want to know what it is. Because not three hours ago, I was moving lumber in a basement in Texas. Now I'm in a fever dream killing pig-monsters with a slingshot. So you have two options. One, you tell me I hit my head and I'm in a coma. Two, you tell me the truth."
Nix adjusted his suspenders. He looked almost apologetic.
"You didn't hit your head," he said softly.
Raina put her hands on her hips, ignoring the tremors in her fingers. "So this is... what? Purgatory? You called it Purgatory earlier. Like... the Bible? Dead people waiting for the bus?"
"No," Nix said quickly, shaking his head. "Not Purgatory like the Sunday School version. That is a theological construct. A waiting room for souls. This..." He stomped his foot on the ground. "This is dirt. This is matter. You can touch it. You can smell it. God, can you smell it. It is entirely physical."
"Then where is it?" Raina demanded. "Is it underground? Are we in a cave system?"
"Think of a house," Nix said, using the apple to gesture. "Earth—Texas, Weedfield, the Diner—that is the living room. It's nice. It has furniture. It has gravity that makes sense. The High Veil... that is the penthouse. Lots of light, very expensive view."
He pointed at the gloom around them.
"This is the crawlspace," Nix said. "This is the space between the walls where the rats live. Where the mold grows. It exists right alongside the living room, touching it, but you aren't supposed to see it. Sometimes, the floorboards rot. Sometimes, you fall through."
Raina stared at the dead pig-man. The crawlspace. It made a terrifying amount of sense.
"So we fell through the floorboards," she murmured.
"The Slipgate," Nix corrected. "The machine in the basement. It weakens the floorboards. It makes the barrier... porous. Usually, it is controlled. Today, it wasn't."
Raina rubbed her face, smearing more mud across her cheek. She walked in a small circle, trying to process the impossible. She was a practical woman. She understood engines, supply lines, ballistic trajectories. She did not understand dimensions.
"Okay," she said, stopping and pointing a finger at Nix. "Okay. I'm going to suspend my disbelief for five seconds because the alternative is that I'm insane, and I don't have time to be insane right now. If this is a real place... how do you know so much about it?"
Nix froze. He held the apple halfway to his mouth.
"I read a lot," he tried.
"Bullshit," Raina stepped closer, looming over him. She wasn't threatening him, exactly, but she was demanding answers with her entire posture. "You knew what these things were called. You knew their hearing range. You knew the plants. You knew how to bend that tree without snapping it. You aren't just a mechanic from Austin, Nix."
Nix looked at her. His large eyes blinked slowly behind the dirty lenses. He seemed to be weighing the cost of the lie against the cost of the truth.
"I am not from Austin," Nix admitted quietly. "Not originally."
Raina felt a cold chill that had nothing to do with the damp air.
"Where are you from?" she asked. "Canada? Or... here?"
"Not here," Nix said, looking offended. "Do I look like I belong in a swamp? Look at these shoes. These are Italian leather. No, Rainy. I am not from the Weald. I am from the High Veil. The Penthouse."
Raina stared at him. "You're an alien."
"Interdimensional traveler," Nix corrected, sounding prissy. "Alien implies I arrived on a saucer and want to probe your cattle. We are much more civilized. Usually."
"We?" Raina latched onto the word. "You said 'we'. You and who else?"
Nix flinched. He had stepped into a trap of his own making. He mentally scrambled, realizing he was about to out Eira and Liri. Raina still thought they were just stuck-up, eccentric, Euro-trash models with a weird skin condition. If he told her the tall blondes were Elves, her brain might actually snap.
"Me and... Pearl," Nix said, recovering quickly. "Pearl and I. We are... similar. Species-wise. Not mimics. Not monsters. Just... from elsewhere."
Raina blinked. She thought about Pearl. The girl who ate ten times her body weight in pancakes. The girl who could lift a commercial refrigerator with one hand. The girl who looked like a cute, harmless teenager but sometimes stared at a steak like she wanted to murder it.
"Pearl," Raina said, the pieces clicking together. "She's a... High Veil person?"
"Glimmuck," Nix said. "That is the species designation. We are small. We are dense. We are very good at fixing things and eating things. And we like humans. Usually."
Raina sat down on a rotting log. She put her head in her hands.
"I'm working for aliens," she muttered. "I'm renovating a diner for aliens."
"We prefer 'Ex-Pats'," Nix said, taking another bite of the apple. "And Marcus is human. Mostly. He's just... complicated."
"Everyone is complicated," Raina said, her voice muffled by her hands. She looked up, her eyes hard. "So what about the tall ones? The sisters. Eira and Liri. Are they from the Penthouse too?"
Nix waved his hand dismissively, a gesture of masterful deflection. "Oh, them? No, they are just... very specific. Aristocracy. Old money. Inbreeding, probably. You know how those types are. Very particular about their tea and their swords."
Raina nodded slowly. That actually made sense to her. She had met rich people before. They were often weirder than aliens.
"Okay," Raina said, taking a deep breath. She stood up again, dusting off her pants. "Okay. I'm buying it. For now. Because I have a dead pig at my feet and an alien eating an apple in front of me. So, Mr. Interdimensional Traveler... how do we get out of the crawlspace?"
Nix tossed the apple core into the bushes. He wiped his hands on his pants.
"That is the variable," Nix said, his tone turning serious. "Usually, I commute."
"Commute?"
"Yes. There is a stable portal on Main Street. Behind the old theater. I use it to come and go. It's like a service elevator. Very reliable. But this..." He gestured to the spot where they had fallen through. "The aperture in the diner basement? That was a rupture. A pothole. It opened, we fell in, and the road was paved over immediately."
"So we can't go back the way we came," Raina summarized.
"Correct. The physics don't support it. If we tried to open it from this side without a stabilizer, we would likely just liquefy ourselves. It would be messy."
"So we have to walk to Main Street?" Raina asked. "In this dimension?"
"Essentially," Nix nodded. "We need to navigate the Weald until we find a thin spot. A place where the reception is better. Or..."
"Or?"
"Or we hope Marcus finds a way to open the door without blowing up the neighborhood," Nix said. "He heard us. Or saw us. The shotgun blast proved that. They know we are alive. They are looking."
Raina looked at the grey mist surrounding them. She felt a strange sensation in her chest. It wasn't fear anymore. It was a grim, steely determination.
She walked over to the dead Boar-Kin leader. She reached down and grabbed the handle of a rusted, heavy knife belt strapped to its waist. She unbuckled it, ignoring the smell, and strapped it around her own waist.
It was heavy. It felt good.
"Okay," Raina said. "We move. We find a thin spot. We survive."
She looked at Nix. She really looked at him—not as the weird little guy who fixed the toaster, but as a survivor who had just fought back-to-back with her against a nightmare.
"You did good, Nix," she said quietly. "For a Glimmuck."
Nix beamed. It was a genuine, wide smile that showed far too many teeth.
"You have adequate combat instincts for a human," Nix replied. "Your improvisation with the root system was inspired. Crude, but inspired."
"Gee, thanks," Raina rolled her eyes. She pointed into the fog. "Which way to Main Street?"
Nix pulled a small, shattered compass from his pocket. The needle was spinning wildly. He tapped it, shook it, and then put it away.
"That way," Nix pointed confidently to the left. "I smell pizza."
"You smell pizza," Raina repeated flatly.
"I have a very refined olfactory system," Nix said, starting to walk. "And Pearl loves the pepperoni at Tony's. If there is a portal opening nearby, the scent of pepperoni will be the first thing to cross over. It is a universal constant."
Raina stared at his retreating back.
"I'm following an alien following the smell of pepperoni through a monster swamp," she said to the empty clearing.
She looked down at the dead pig one last time.
"Still better than my last job," she muttered.
She hitched up her belt, gripped her club, and followed the Glimmuck into the mist.
As they trekked deeper into the Weald, the terrain began to change. The dense, claustrophobic forest gave way to a swampier, more open area where the trees were spaced further apart, their roots rising out of the black water like skeletal knees.
Raina kept her eyes moving. Scan left. Scan right. Check six. The military training was a comfort here. It gave her a framework for the chaos.
"So," Raina whispered, stepping carefully over a patch of bubbling mud. "Since we're walking... tell me about the other things. You said 'things' fall here. What else is in the crawlspace besides the Bacon Brigade?"
Nix was walking a few feet ahead, using a stick to test the depth of the water.
"Biodiversity in the Weald is... aggressive," Nix said over his shoulder. "You have the Boar-Kin. They are the dominant tribe in this sector. Scavengers. Slavers. Not very bright, but numerous."
"Great," Raina muttered. "And?"
"Then you have the Skitter-Weeds," Nix said casually. "Carnivorous flora. They look like piles of wet laundry until you step on them, then they wrap around you and digest you over the course of a week. Very painful. Avoid the blue moss."
Raina immediately looked at her feet and sidestepped a patch of blue moss.
"And the big predators?" she asked.
"Shadow-Cats," Nix said. "Imagine a mountain lion, but made of smoke and teeth. They don't make noise. You usually don't know they are hunting you until your head is detached from your body."
"You are really bad at pep talks, Nix," Raina hissed.
"You asked for data," Nix said defensively. "I am providing data. But don't worry. The Shadow-Cats usually stay in the high branches. We are in the mud. We are beneath their notice."
"Let's hope," Raina said.
They walked in silence for another ten minutes. The air was getting warmer, wetter. The smell of rot was being replaced by something else—a faint, acrid smell like burning hair.
"Hold," Raina whispered. She grabbed the back of Nix's suspenders and pulled him to a stop.
"What?" Nix whispered back.
"Movement," Raina said, pointing to a ridge about fifty yards to their right. "At two o'clock. In the treeline."
Nix squinted, adjusting his glasses.
"I see it," he murmured. "Bipedal. Moving fast."
Raina gripped her club. "More pigs?"
"No," Nix said, his voice puzzled. "Too skinny. Too fast. And... is that a flashlight?"
Raina looked closer. There was definitely a beam of light cutting through the fog. It was yellow, weak, flickering. Not the stark white of a tactical light, but the warm glow of an old incandescent bulb.
"Who has a flashlight in hell?" Raina asked.
"A scavenger," Nix surmised. "Another person who fell through the cracks. Or..."
"Or?"
"Or a lure," Nix said grimly. "Some of the predators here mimic technology. Angler fish tactics."
Raina stared at the light. It was bobbing, moving parallel to them.
"Help!" a voice called out. It was faint, distorted by the distance and the fog. "Is someone there? Please!"
It was a woman's voice. High, terrified, human.
Raina's instinct kicked in.
"It's a survivor," she said, starting to move toward the ridge.
"Wait!" Nix grabbed her arm. "Rainy, stop. Think. Statistical probability of a human female surviving out here alone with a flashlight? It is near zero."
"It sounds real," Raina argued. "If it's a person, we can't leave them."
"It could be a Mimic," Nix said. "A real Mimic. Not like Pearl. A skin-walker."
"Help me! My leg is broken!" the voice screamed again. It cracked with pain.
Raina looked at Nix. "If that was you out there yelling, would you want me to do the math, or would you want me to come get you?"
Nix hesitated. He looked at the light, then at Raina's stubborn jaw.
"I hate it when you use moral equivalency against me," Nix grumbled. "Fine. But we flank. We do not approach directly."
"Deal," Raina said.
They moved off the path, circling wide through the brush. Raina moved with a predator's grace, placing her feet carefully to avoid snapping twigs. Nix followed, surprisingly quiet for someone wearing dress shoes.
They crept up the side of the ridge, using the thick ferns for cover. The voice continued to cry out, sobbing now.
"Please... I can hear you... don't leave me..."
Raina reached the crest of the ridge. She parted the ferns slowly, peering down into the small gully below.
She saw the source of the light.
It was a flashlight. An old, yellow plastic Eveready, lying on the ground. Its beam was pointed up at the trees.
Next to it sat a woman. She was wearing a torn hiking outfit, clutching her leg. She had blonde hair, matted with mud. She was looking around wildly, tears streaming down her face.
"It looks real," Raina whispered to Nix.
Nix was sniffing the air. "It smells... dusty. Like old books."
"That's not a monster smell," Raina said.
She stood up, revealing herself.
"Hey!" Raina called out, keeping her hand on her knife. "Stay calm. We're coming down."
The woman looked up. Her face lit up with relief.
"Oh thank God," the woman cried. "Oh thank God. I fell... I was hiking and the ground just opened up..."
Raina started to slide down the embankment. "Nix, cover me."
"I am covering," Nix said, holding his sharpened screwdriver ready.
Raina reached the bottom of the gully. She approached the woman cautiously, keeping a few feet of distance.
"I'm Raina," she said. "What's your name?"
The woman smiled. It was a sweet smile. A grateful smile.
"I'm Sarah," the woman said. She reached out a hand. "Please... help me up."
Raina reached out.
And then she saw it.
The woman's hand.
It had six fingers.
And the fingers didn't have fingernails. They had small, hooked claws that were currently retracted.
Raina froze. Her eyes snapped to the woman's face.
The "Sarah" mask slipped. Just for a fraction of a second, the skin around the eyes rippled, revealing something dark and chitinous underneath.
"Sarah" wasn't smiling anymore. She was hungry.
"Nix!" Raina screamed, throwing herself backward.
The woman's jaw unhinged, splitting open like a blooming flower of teeth and muscle. She lunged, not with a limp, but with the explosive speed of a trap springing shut.
"It's a trap!" Nix yelled, sliding down the hill after her.
Raina rolled, bringing her club up just as the creature that looked like Sarah slammed into her.
They rolled in the mud, a tangle of limbs and teeth. Raina smelled the "dusty book" smell now—it was the smell of dry rot, of dead insects.
"Get off me!" Raina roared, driving her knee into the creature's stomach.
It felt like kicking a bag of wet sand. The creature hissed, a sound like a leaking steam pipe. Its six-fingered hand clawed at Raina's face, missing her eye by an inch and leaving three burning scratches across her cheek.
Raina managed to get a hand free. She drew the Boar-Kin's rusted knife.
She didn't think. She didn't hesitate. She drove the blade into the creature's shoulder.
Black ichor sprayed out, sizzling where it hit the mud.
The creature shrieked—not a human scream this time, but a chaotic noise of static and feedback. It scrambled back, crab-walking away on limbs that suddenly seemed to have too many joints.
Raina scrambled to her feet, heaving for breath, the knife dripping black goo.
The creature crouched by the flashlight. Its human guise was melting away, revealing a lanky, insectoid nightmare with pale, translucent skin.
"Not Sarah," Raina panted.
"Skin-Thief," Nix corrected, standing beside her. "I told you. Statistical probability."
The creature hissed again, preparing to pounce.
But then, it stopped. It looked past them, toward the ridge line. Its antennae twitched.
A low rumble vibrated through the ground. It was deeper than the Pig-Men. Deeper than thunder.
The Skin-Thief looked terrified. It chattered once, then turned and scurried up a tree with impossible speed, disappearing into the canopy.
"It ran away," Raina said, wiping the blood from her cheek.
"It didn't run from us," Nix whispered, staring into the darkness where the rumble had come from.
Heavy footsteps approached. Boom. Boom. Boom.
These weren't hooves. These were paws. Massive paws.
A pair of eyes opened in the darkness of the treeline. They were yellow, glowing with an inner light. They were set about eight feet off the ground.
"Shadow-Cat?" Raina whispered, gripping her knife.
"No," Nix said, his voice trembling. "Too big. Too... solid."
The creature stepped into the dim light of the abandoned flashlight.
It was a bear. But not just a bear. It was a monolith of fur and scar tissue, standing on its hind legs. It wore tattered remnants of armor—plate mail that looked centuries old. And across its back, strapped with heavy leather belts, was a massive, double-bladed battle axe.
The Were-Bear sniffed the air. It looked at the spot where the Skin-Thief had been. Then it looked at Raina and Nix.
It didn't roar. It didn't attack.
It leaned forward, its massive snout twitching.
"You smell," the Bear rumbled, its voice deep and gravelly, like stones tumbling down a mountain, "of pancakes."
Raina blinked. She looked at Nix.
Nix lowered his screwdriver. He looked at the Bear, then back at Raina.
"I think," Nix whispered, "we found a local."
The Bear took a step closer, towering over them. It looked down at Nix.
"Maple syrup," the Bear clarified. "And... unwashed Glimmuck."
"Hey!" Nix protested.
"Are you... friendly?" Raina asked, feeling incredibly small.
The Bear huffed, a sound that shook Raina's ribcage.
"I am hungry," the Bear said. "Do you have the pancakes?"
Raina slowly reached into her pocket. She didn't have pancakes. But she had something else she had grabbed from the breakroom before all hell broke loose.
She pulled out a granola bar. Chocolate chip.
She held it out, her hand trembling slightly.
"No pancakes," Raina said. "But... chocolate?"
The Bear stared at the granola bar. It sniffed it. Its massive, clawed hand reached out, surprisingly gentle, and plucked the bar from her fingers.
It unwrapped it with a dexterity that shouldn't have been possible for paws that size. It tossed the wrapper aside (littering in the Weald, Raina noted deliriously) and popped the bar into its mouth.
It chewed. It swallowed.
The Bear looked at Raina. The yellow eyes seemed to soften slightly.
"Acceptable," the Bear grunted. "I am Korg. I kill Pig-Men. You kill Pig-Men?"
Raina nodded vigorously. "Yes. We kill Pig-Men. Lots of them."
Korg nodded. He patted the massive axe on his back.
"Good," Korg rumbled. "Pig-Men are loud. They ruin my nap."
He turned around, presenting his massive, furry back to them.
"You follow," Korg said over his shoulder. "Night is coming. The Night-Things are worse than the pigs. I have a fire. And I have Mead."
Raina looked at Nix. Nix shrugged.
"He has Mead," Nix said. "And he hates pigs. The enemy of my enemy is my giant bear friend."
"This is my life now," Raina whispered to herself.
She sheathed her knife. She looked at the flashlight on the ground, picked it up, and turned it off.
Then, she and the alien mechanic followed the armored bear into the dark.