We didn’t have time for shock. “Get behind me!” I yelled.

  Ruza unslung her crossbow, primed it, crouched by my legs and loaded a bolt. Robeep put his back to us, muttering something about a worthy opponent. It had caught us off guard but that wasn’t going to happen again. I held Plank straight up in my left hand and buffered with my right, high on the blade and ready to intercept. Distant shrieks were overpowered by a screech, straight ahead.

  The ghoul erupted out of the mist, dousing us in grey while my weapon shifted ever so slightly, barely in time. Its blurring form crashed into me, nearly taking me off my feet and yanking Plank to the side. I barely held on to the grip. The monster tumbled, rolled and skid, giving me a proper look while a rebar bolt entered its side and Robeep missed a double-weapon smack.

  It had overly long, lanky limbs. They were scrawny rather than muscled, yet its full height must have been 12 feet or more. Instead of hands and feet, claws broke through the skin chaotically, like massed tumors of ingrown nails. Its head was the same. Finger length chipped black-brown incisor teeth surrounded its mouth, erupting out of the cheeks, chin, nose and even one eye. The skin was a deep blue, almost purple with patches of dark green scales scattered about. It preferred an animalistic posture, keeping extremities bent close and striding on all fours. Thick black ooze leaked and dripped from the wound. A putrescent stench wafted over us.

  Ruza fished in my backpack while the creature howled again and slowly backed into the fog, too far away to attack without exposing my allies. The distant shrieks grew closer. Shit, we need to finish this fast. Another screech preceded its form leaping out of the shifting mists, much slower than before. I caught one arm with my weapon and it grabbed hold. The other tore a chunk of skin out of my side. Only the bone plates and protrusions prevented me from getting disemboweled.

  In a moment of sheer panic, I headbutted the claw. Overgrown talons snapped while stars polluted my vision. Blood stung my eye and a metallic tinge joined the taste of rot and bitter in my mouth. Only the stream of System notifications piling up remained clear. By the time my focus returned, it was already loping past us. I tried to follow by turning around and saw Ruza tracking with her crossbow but not taking the shot as the mists closed behind the ghoul.

  “Stand and fight like a proper meatbag!” Robeep yelled, clearly frustrated because he was unable to do anything.

  “Shift around. I think it’s going to come from the same direction it went again,” I said.

  We reformed our formation. My pants clung to my leg, saturated with blood and half my face felt wet and soaked. This time I crouched too, hoping to anchor myself and present as small a target as possible. The piercing shrill announced another assault, head on again. Only the lifter leg pushing off with full force prevented it from pinning all of us in one go. My knee shot up unwillingly, forced by the motion, hitting it square in the stomach. It felt like someone just tried to shatter my kneecap with a baseball bat and the ghoul threw up acrid mush over me.

  A second bolt flew past, embedded inches above the first. It shuddered, but still deadlocked me, pushing against my blade with its full weight as my muscles trembled and finally began to give. My prosthetic compressed again. I stopped my resistance, allowing myself to fall, teetering backwards on one leg. In the split moment afforded me by the maneuver, I positioned the lifter leg close to its forward bent knee and willed it to kick.

  It was fascinating. I saw it all in slow motion. At first nothing happened, as if there was no flesh in the way. Then a circular spray of black shot out, followed by shards of bone ejecting every which way. There was no crunch, no resistance, only the sound of a brick falling onto pavement paired with a quick hydraulic hiss. Most morbid of all, the impact outright severed its leg. The recoil sent a spike of pain up mine.

  Even then it bit down and only tucking my chin to my chest prevented my face from getting torn off. A weight crashed against my horns and all the vertebrae in my neck cracked loudly. A wet sucking noise was followed by viscous fluid soiling my spine and the ghoul went almost still. I rolled the twitching corpse off me while viscera spilled out of its lone exposed eye socket.

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “None can escape Brainseeker,” Robeep exulted, “Even the mist creatures fall before its might. Let us find another. I wish to hone my skills against these cowards.”

  “We have to hurry,” Ruza shouted over the approaching shrieks, “They’re closing on us!”

  We fled for a while and gained some space but glancing at my status showed my blood steadily dropping, already down to the mid-forties. “I’m going to pass out soon at this rate, you need to bandage me.”

  In truth, my limited vision swam and pain lanced through my side with every step. It took far too long for Ruza to unearth the first aid kit. I’d foolishly put it at the bottom. She threw several MRE’s and clean clothes aside getting to it. I hastily wrapped and tied off a bandage around my head while she tended to my side, pulling the loops tight by setting her foot against my back. The shrieks grew louder and louder. My status stabilized.

  “I’m good, let’s go!”

  I couldn’t even hear my own voice over the chaos, but Ruza somehow did. She pulled Robeep along, who’d turned around, preparing to fight. My throat felt like it was coated in sawdust, both from labored panting and trying to spit out the foul taste. I didn’t dare to swallow out of fear it would start a ceaseless cough. Muscles cramped and blood soaked through the bandages. Ruza and Robeep slowed down further, unwilling to leave me behind. And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, shifting mists parted in favor of sunlight.

  The cacophony faded as we continued onwards until I simply collapsed face first into the sands. There was nothing left to give, but it had been enough. We made it, somehow. Resting felt far too dangerous and we walked for a good while before settling down in the shade of a large rock, the only break in the sea of sand. We ate in silence and drank half our water. I had to peel my eye open, stuck with crusted blood as it was.

  “That was a most formidable foe. Even so, Susawa, you must work on your balance. You cannot afford to take such injuries if we are to face it again,” Robeep said.

  “Are you insane? I’m never fighting those things again.”

  “I see, I see. You have a point. To truly master the art of omnicide, one must face a variety of foes rather than waste time perfecting oneself against a singular opponent. Wise indeed.”

  “We were lucky,” Ruza said while getting up and circling around me.

  “By what possible definition of the word was that lucky?”

  She spoke while replacing my crudely applied head bandages, “The warnings tell the ghouls hunt in packs, like all mistmen. Supposedly, they come twenty to thirty at a time.”

  I threw my eyes to the sky, accusing the heavens of insanity. My neck cracked again, painfully. “You’ve got to be joking. No wonder entire armies die. I’m almost afraid to ask, but what’s a mist horror then?”

  She pushed back, clearly annoyed with the disrupted angle. “They say the horrors are quick like the ghouls but with the strength of ten men… strong men.”

  “I wish to face one of these horrors, it shall be a worthy test of our might. All will fear the apocalypse we bring as we parade their corpses,” Robeep said, “In fact, we should fashion helmets from their skulls. Thus, we will be the true horrors.”

  I ignored him, “And they roam in groups as well?”

  “Yes, it’s why none survive in the mists, although legends claim of a city thriving there.”

  “With those around? I doubt it.”

  “There, all done.” She rapped the top of my head with a knuckle and I heard something snap. A white shard bounced off my shoulder. “Oh… sorry. I just broke the tip off one of your horns.”

  “Eh, don’t worry about it. We should keep moving. I didn’t survive that just to end up below the sands.”

  We oriented ourselves with the line our footsteps had left behind, figuring the further away we got from mistmen, ghouls and horrors, the better. About half a day later, vague tall outlines appeared in the distance. Ruza paused and rubbed her eyes for a moment and then shook her head. As we got closer, the forms became clearer in the ever-present heat haze. They were gigantic trees with short, stubby branches and no foliage.

  Ruza paused for a few seconds, and then fell unto her knees, swearing, “By Cor’Athaz’s oppressive rays, by the cursed sands, by the melting rains and the thousand horrid deaths. WHYYYY?!”

  I was at a loss for words. She punched the sand with her right, over and over. Robeep muttered that while he was impressed with her dedication to murder the desert, it might be a little ambitious, even for us. Soon tears joined the stamps of blood her worn fist left in the dune peak. I gently put a hand on her shoulder, unsure about what was going on but hoping to offer some small comfort.

  Eventually, she calmed down and whispered, “Ten years to escape… Ten years only to barely make it out.” A sob interrupted her lament, “The route is gone… Ten years I suffered alone, only to end up here again.”

  Sounds like we’re stuck.