Windston trudged behind Frem, who headed down slowly, for Windston’s sake.

  The boys moved north, over roots and under them, as quickly as Windston's body would permit without an inkling of an idea of who moved that way too.

  The fog they mistook for morning mist grew thicker as the day progressed. They crossed the distance from the eastern shore, north. There, the beach started its curve west at what was the edge of the southern shore of Mirra’s outskirts. What used to be a fishy village was now a festering mess of corpses amongst blood spattered huts. It was crawling with the bugs, ones that had used and discarded the bodies of those who had lived there. Carts lay overturned and smashed; boats sat weathered and abandoned at the water’s edge; glass shards spewed forth from open portholes all about, at the feet of where they once shut out the world, now twinkling clusters reflecting light overhead, and that of dim green goo the monster bugs leaked as they skittered here, scattered there.

  It was difficult to navigate the carnage. And the smell was like the city itself had been built on rot out of decay; there was no escaping the sickening stench. But the boys carried on.

  As they crossed from the edge of the village, onto the climb of steps that led into Mirra proper, Windston noticed something.

  “No more pops,” he said.

  Frem nodded. The sand ended at an ancient wall of stone. It was covered in algae, infested with barnacles.

  Frem found a flight of steps that climbed it. It led them into a tunnel just as ancient, and that tunnel led to a courtyard older still, to the west of the main road, on the first level of what was known as Mirra’s Rise.

  Mirra was founded ages ago, before men entered Gorals, when the first wave, the original settlers – the Goralians – ruled the land in splendor and glory. Before the first fall – before the first bug plague. When the land had only just begun to rise, and others, in what are now the Freelands, freely came and went.

  That first level was a flat stretch, far and wide. It was cluttered with buildings carved of stone. Or so it was thought.

  Windston had stayed on that very level. During his first night visiting Mirra, with his father and mother, years ago; when it was lively, when the air was thick with the smell of beach lilacs, lake roses, and baking bread. Before it reeked of death and decay. When it was the perfect capital for Gorals, if Gorals needed such a thing. When it was Mirra the great, Mirra the wonderful, Mirra the majestic – an ancient wonder of the known world.

  Now…

  Now it was a wasteland of skulls on spines wrapped in rib cages, pelvises detached, femurs elsewhere. The bones had been picked dry by worms, which were still there, spread about, wiggling, stinging at nothing. Most of what Windston and Frem saw as they crept through town – aside from webbing, spatters of white-green goo, and clusters of the remains of hatched eggs – were little mantis bugs, a pale white and glowing. They stepped on piles of black soot as they scurried about, casting it to the wind, where it faded until unseen.

  “This is a nightmare,” Frem said.

  Windston nodded. He recognized a few buildings here and there, was even sure he saw the inn he'd stayed in, and that restaurant across the way from it down a corridor so narrow, it could hardly count as an alley. “I've been here before,” he said.

  Frem didn't say anything.

  “Years ago. I was with my family, back when they were still alive.”

  “I just hate seeing all these skeletons,” Frem said. “I've never seen so many. It's totally different seeing a thousand skeletons scattered than it is to see a crowded city. It's like, where's all the meat and flesh? Where did it go? Are there really that many bugs here? And why don't they like the bones?”

  Windston shrugged.

  “It’s creepy. Creepy and disgusting. And I hate it.”

  “It’s sad,” Windston said.

  A sudden round of popping. A groan rising into a moan and then a squeal. More popping, the light from the pops shifting the shadows briefly in flashes.

  Frem looked at Windston, and together, they ran in that direction.

  There was nobody there – no men, at least – only bugs. Some were crowded around what the boys guessed were the fallen. But others raced north along a tunnel beneath a bridge.

  The boys raced after them but found it difficult to keep up. The bugs scurried and slinked up and along walls with ease. They could traverse a ceiling if necessary or open their exoskeletons to let loose their wings. They zipped that way with a buzz, faster than Windston, faster than Frem – faster even than the men with the jetpacks.

  They lost them at the end of another tunnel. There were buildings all about, but no sign of bugs – only popping in the distance, north, on higher levels.

  They climbed a ramp and followed it into another tunnel, this one climbing north and then winding east. There, they caught a glimpse of a giant. It was like the smaller bugs in shape and color, but hornier, jagged, and sagging at the abdomen.

  The tunnel cleared thirty-two feet at its peak, and the bug nearly filled it at a crouch.

  It was cleaning itself, propped along the southern wall beyond the eastern bend in the tunnel. It was settled over a cluster of eggs and dropped more in strands of goo that stretched slowly from its bottom to the pile.

  It noticed the boys, cocked its head at them.

  They walked flush along the northern wall, staring at it, Windston feeling more ready to run than fight.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  There was no need to fear. The bug didn't watch them for very long. It was busy; its face wouldn't clean itself.

  Frem noticed, let out a sigh of relief, and then a chuckle. When the bug paid him no mind, he let out a laugh. And then, when a smaller bug crawled out for a closer look, he, turning to Windston and smiling, absent-mindedly blasted it to bits.

  Windston’s eyes widened, and he cringed. But nothing happened. The bigger bug carried on, only looking at them in glances, like a cozy kitty cat deep in the middle of a cleaning.

  “I don’t know why you were so worried,” Frem said.

  But then he stopped. There was a faint hum that grew louder. It became buzzing, and then the light at the eastern entrance became blotted with shadow and then figures. A line of bugs flew in and settled on the floor. They clattered in slowly, some bobbing as they came, as if with limps.

  The larger bug stood. Slowly, it turned its body so that it faced them. As the bugs grew closer, it clicked at them. Click, click, click, click, click. And then it rose, its shell opening, giant wings reaching out and bending against the arching wall of stones.

  “Run!” Frem yelled.

  But Windston’s illness had grown worse. He knew he couldn’t run fast enough, even if some of the limping bugs did so due to injury. As Frem fled, Windston stood his ground, his sword a blinding white light from pommel to tip, its light reaching out all around as pink flames streaked with purple arcs of electricity.

  The enormous bug paused at the sight of the angering blade. But the smaller bugs plowed into him. He was able to cut them down one by one. But the line of bugs entering became a swarm, and rather than run, they flew toward him. There were only a few of those that he was able to halve in long strokes. And then he was buried, subdued, penned and pushed down by more and more and more of these creatures, their mouths squealing, their fangs scratching him, ripping at his clothes.

  The giant must have found its courage in the swarm. It crash down a heavy claw, right where Windston lay, squashing his captors. They were replaced immediately when the giant retracted its claw, and each time after as it slammed down again and again and again.

  “Help!” Windston tried to yell, but his mouth became covered by that of a bug, its drool thick and gagging him – drowning him.

  There was a pop. And then a pop, pop, pop.

  Frem had returned, and he was shooting like mad.

  The ever-growing swarm saturated the tunnel. Frem’s energy burst all around, but to no avail. Windston remained trapped, and the venom leaking from the creatures’ mouths was beginning to pool all over him, its acidic qualities seeming to be softening his skin. For the first time in his life, he was cut and scraped, hacked and gnawed. The blood that spattered was minimal. But it was exciting to not only the smaller bugs, those that stood at the height of a man, but to the giant as well, who pushed them aside fruitlessly to take its own turn at a bite.

  It found itself pierced through the brain before its head fell. It crashed down on Windston. There it lay, sprawled, twitching, as the smaller bugs flew about in a frenzy.

  Frem’s blasting had never ceased. Bugs splattered, guts stained the walls, and there, stones sizzled and smoked. Windston, who had found his sword glowing beneath the carcasses, cut his way out from under the giant.

  Frem was not alone. A man was there, all in black. He walked from the southern wall to the northern, a spike in his hand, his raven hair blowing back in the gusts from the blasts. His face was covered from the nose down. His eyes were a dull gray. His skin was milky, pasty, white. He was veiny, and bruised, appearing as a man dead for days.

  He reached Windston, gripped his wrist, and stared down at him. Just then, a great black bird crashed upon his shoulder. It was a raven black hawk, five feet tall, its talons long and curved; they plunged like knives into the dead man’s shoulder.

  “Come,” it said, and in a deep and menacing voice like none they’d ever heard. “Come with me, and you may live.”

  Windston hesitated, but he didn’t resist as the man tugged at his arm.

  Frem followed them, walking backward, still firing. The man led them to a portal along the wall they hadn’t noticed. There, they found a door. It was dark inside, but the man led them in with a confidence that assured them. With everyone inside, he barred the way, placing a heavy segment of dripping pipe in front of the door.

  Windston collapsed on the floor, and Frem bent over to spew.

  “Up!” the bird said.

  “Who even are you?” Frem yelled back, wiping his mouth.

  “I am Rain Gray!” the bird growled. “Come!”

  Frem scowled and Windston rose. They walked quickly, but they walked. The man was light on his feet, but he stepped with a purpose. He seemed to know the layout of the sewers beneath the city, at least there on that first level. He led them through a series of chambers, damp and pungent, and then out and up a steep climb of green copper pipes. They exited through a capped hole in the middle of a wide street on the western edge of town. From there, he led them along the northern edge of the first rise, a deserted neighborhood.

  They crept about. Halting here, waiting there for a signaling hand from the man or a command the bird would croak. The bird… it flew about at times, circled over as they waited. The dead man stood frozen at such times, as if part of his consciousness was busy elsewhere, as maybe it was.

  Windston realized they were heading closer and closer to what he thought might have been the tallest building there in the northern section of the rise. At its feet, the man led them in through broken doors. The place was festering with the smell of the dead. But there were no bodies, no bones; only blood and gashes in the walls, toppled tables, fallen chandeliers. It had been a hotel, but now it only housed its recent history of carnage.

  A great winding pair of twin staircases met in a rise at the center of the room. Their steps, when not broken, appeared as though someone had climbed them on sharpened stilts. Between them was a grand fountain of stone. Bubbling water spilled clear and flowing, trickling over a heap of its own bricks, toppled at the southern end. They stopped there for a drink. And then the bird beckoned Windston to bathe in it.

  “You will wash,” it said.

  Windston did so. A film like oil stained the water where he lay and rolled about. But it washed away, and he felt better for it.

  They headed up the western flight. On the second flight, they saw that the eastern set held on by a board.

  The second floor was less open. At the end of a long hall of bloody carpet and bashed doors, they found broken windows and clambered out. There was a balcony there, and a rope that dangled from the top. One by one, they climbed.

  The building’s roof was high enough so that it just about met the second rise’s ledge. The rope they’d climbed dangled from its railing, which was fixed upon a waist-high wall of stone. It was a grappling hook, and Rain had apparently left it. They climbed it to the second rise. As he gathered it up, Frem opened his mouth to speak. But he was immediately hushed.

  The bird said, “Quiet,” and flapped about.

  They found Center Street and crept from building to building along its eastern side. Half a mile north from there, and just as far east, they stopped at an old and crumbling building. It was small and unadorned, abandoned, and likely that way long before the bugs arrived. It was clear of spatters – bug or otherwise – eggs or webbing. And its door was intact, as were its windows.

  “Go inside,” croaked the bird.

  Windston pushed into the shadow beyond the doorway to do so, but Frem gripped at his shoulder.

  “Wait,” he said. “Wait, wait, wait. Why are we trusting this guy?” he asked, suddenly throwing his arms down as if he’d been holding the question inside all along. “Who even is he?! We’ve only seen him once before, and he was kicking our asses!”

  Windston looked at Frem, and then at Rain, who didn’t say anything, nor did his bird. He only stared at Windston, deathly still, while the bird did all the watching. “I don’t think he meant to hurt us,” he finally said. Looking at Frem, he said, “Just… come on.”

  Frem hesitated, but he went in.

  The dead man followed them in, but his bird did not. It flew off, calling its name: “Furggen! Furggen! Furggen! Furggen!”