“Halt.”

Thomas said softly just enough for his squad members to hear him.

It’s been three hours since they started searching for survivors in Grandview Heights, but the amount of people they found could be counted on one hand. It was strange, considering the population of this area, Thomas was sure they’d be able to find more.

The amount of casualties were high, but there was no where near enough bodies on the ground for this to be the entire population of this area. Something was off about this place.

Nick stopped and looked over the area in front of them, he saw nothing. It was a road filled with cars and a few bodies just like the last few areas they’ve been through.

He was curious why Thomas, their squad leader stopped them.

“Somethings going on…”

Rachel said quietly, barely causing anyone to hear her. She scanned the surroundings around them but said nothing else.

Her words caught Nicks eye, and even he had to admit he was so lost in his own thoughts that he failed to see why Thomas stopped them.

If he wasn’t so blinded by his duel with Rachel and Thomas, maybe he could have seen things clearer.

From the corner of his eye he could tell that the others were already thinking the same thing as him. Celia didn’t seem as cheerful as before, and even Charles had his guard up.

Thomas looked at them.

“Take ten steps back.”

His squad members did just as he asked and took ten steps back.

It was strange, just ten steps was all it took for them for them to realize they were caught in some sort of illusion.

Thomas was in front of them, they knew that for a fact but now that he was ten steps away they couldn’t see him. It was as if he was never there to begin with.

“What is this?”

One of the squad members asked in a confused tone.

Thomas reappeared, but the air around him changed. He seemed more confident of himself as if he had all the answers.

“Miasma. But clearly not the kind we are used to. This one we can’t see and its odorless, so we can’t detect it either. Not entirely sure when we walked into it, but must have happened when we first entered Grandview Heights.”

“So you’re saying that something is emitting this miasma and causing us to see things that aren’t real. We’ve basically been walking in circles for all we know!”

“That’s not what I said at all, but you assume what you want. I recommend we retreat for now until we know how to deal with this. We can’t work while being blinded.”

Thomas spoke calmly, but his words were true. Under the effects of miasma it would be impossible for them to save anyone.

“Retreat? Where are we supposed to go? We’ve been traveling for three hours, if its like you say we can’t go back even if we wanted to. Our best bet is to find whats causing this and stop it.”

Others in the group also started to voice their opinions about the situation. Majority were in agreement with the man, they should find the source of the miasma and deal with it. That was their only way of actually escaping here, and it’d allow them to rescue others.

“If it's only miasma then I can deal with it.”

Celia spoke up as she looked Thomas in the eye.

Thomas was slightly shocked, he did not believe anyone here would be able to deal with miasma. Reason being was miasma was a fog usually purple in color, but if you walked into it you started to hallucinate. For demonic beings it wouldn’t matter as they were unaffected, however, humans were another story.

The only way for a human to break free from the grasp of miasma was to either leave the area, or break free with their essence. Yet, that was easier said than done.

Mostly due to miasma being corrupted essence that you could visually see. Due to it being corrupted it would be hard for anyone to gather the essence around them to break free from it. A normal person would never be able to do it.

If Celia was capable of breaking free from the miasma Thomas had to look at her in a new light.

Nick and Rachel both looked at Celia with confusion in their eyes. Nick found Celia becoming more and more mysterious as time went on, while Rachel was finding her to become someone of interest.

Celia looked towards Charles and Charles nodded his head.

Charles took in a deep breath while creating hand signs. He mumbled a few words in a language Nick did not understand before he snapped his finger.

The snap caused a burst of essence to spread out. The essence was so intense that everyone around Charles slid back a few feet, some.

Their surroundings changed, they were no longer looking at a road filled with cars and dead bodies. Now, they could see what was really going on and it caused them to view things differently.

☆☆☆☆☆

While Nick’s group was busy resucing any survivors in Grandview Heights, Olivia’s group was stationed closer to the stadium. They were working as a reinforcement group in case anything went wrong.

Olivia herself figured that Dir. Campbell had a heart and did not want to send her out to any combat.

There was a moment when she pulled Olivia to the side and said she did not need to participate as her condition wasn’t suited for combat. It was her chance out, but she just had to say she was alright. Just treat her like everyone else and let her do her part.

Olivia shook her head, she let her emotions get the better of her. In all honesty it was best for Olivia to stay put.

“Do you guys smell that?”

One man in the group asked as he looked around.

The others started to sniff the air but shook their head.

Even Olivia took a whiff, but she didn’t notice anything lingering around in the air.

“What are you on man? I don’t smell a thing.”

The man continued to look around as he furrowed his eyebrows.

“There is definitely something here… trust me on this.”

Olivia’s eyes turned icy blue, thats when she noticed there was something in the air. She wasn’t sure if it was gas, mist or fog, but without the use of her ability she’d never be able to see it.

She looked at the man who smelled it and became curious about him a little.

“How do you expect us to trust you when we barely even know each other? Look here, don’t be getting us all worked up over nothing. Let’s just chill here and wait it out. We are the lucky bunch, we all know we aren’t going out to fight nor will anything come here. And we all know the reason why…”

A large man with golden hair yelled out as he looked towards Olivia at the end of his sentence.

If anything his words was causing more of a stir than the other man’s words.

Behind the large man a cloud of fog appeared, the fog was purple in color.

“What is that?”

Someone asked.

The cloud of fog started taking a shape.

“That’s not normal.”

“Obviously!”

“Must be some sort of demonic beast, but… i’ve never encountered any like this before.”

“What demonic beast? Does that even look like a beast to you? Huh? Blind fool!”

While Olivia’s squad was discussing what this cloud could be, there were two people that were shaken.

One was the man who smelled something in the air earlier, while the other one was her squad leader.

Their squad leader seemed to look fine, but Olivia saw the slight motions of her hand. They were shaking, she felt afraid.

The squad leader turned to her squad and opened her mouth.

“Run!”

With that one command, she sent everything into a frenzy.

The cloud of fog that was taking shape made a face, with a devilish grin. There was no noise, but everyone could tell it was laughing at them.

The squad leader brandished her sword as she dashed straight for the cloud of fog. Before she could reach it, it exploded like a bomb.

The purple fog landed on everyone's skin causing a burning sensation.

Olivia gritted her teeth in pain. Images of her son Nick appeared in her head. She couldn’t succumb to this… she couldn’t die here.