Chapter 24 - Who is Eating Whom Again?

Author's Notes: I got real hungry after wrapping up this chapter for some odd reason.

“HQ! HQ! Come in HQ!” came the frantic cries as the young man gripping the short-range comm device threw wild glances at the shadows around him. He could hear it still, the sounds of the screams as his comrades - his friends - all died one by one. He had tried shutting his eyes to try to block out the world around him, but it was useless. It only made the horrible sounds of the last struggles of those dying around that much more vivid.

“.. Get this bloody bastard..”

“.. Aaah, he got Blake. Blake is down..”

“.. Can’t see a thing, where is he?”

“.. We have to run, run for your lives..”

All the cacophony of voices intermingled into a dizzying chorus of anguish and fear. More than anything else, it reeked of fear. It only made the young man’s hand tremble even harder, his voice also shaking badly as he screamed into the comm device’s receiver.

“HQ! We must retreat! Ambush.. ambush unsuccessful. Maximum casualties, enemy status and location unknown,” he cried out frantically over the receiver. His eyes skipped from corpse to blood-strewn corpse all around him, then he continued in a hoarse whisper. “You have to get us out of here. We are all going to die..”

The young man slumped against the tree he was hiding behind. The rest of his squad had all either been shot down, blown apart or gone mysteriously missing. He was likely the sole survivor of this horror fest. All the response he received from the comm device was more static. He was all alone.

More screams echoed through the air, the desperate cries of people bleeding their lives out on a patch of muddy ground, most of them just as confused and scared as he was.

“HQ! HQ!” More static. The young man slumped down on the ground, a look of abject despair on his face as his tremulous voice barely registered. “Someone. Anyone. Please.. please tell my wife and daughter I love them. I love them very..”

BLAM!

A single short crack of thunder, along with a short flash from a gun’s muzzle, and the young man slowly slid all the way to the leaf-strewn ground, now painted crimson from the blood copiously pouring forth from the single crater that had appeared in the middle of his forehead.

Sighing softly through my teeth, shook my head slowly, a thoughtful look on my face. I had finally decided to put him out of his misery. Even at this point, I wasn’t sure if he was merely a figment of my imagination or a complex mental construct powered by soul energy and controlled by the mysterious entities known as “The Worthy”. After methodically eliminating all the members of this particular squad, I had been intrigued by the almost life-like behavior exhibited by this last survivor. The anti-personnel mines I’d laid out were still going off in the distance, drawing the enemy’s attention away from my actual location. Thus, I had the luxury to spend a moment thinking about the current situation, as well as to study this fascinating specimen before me.

At first, I’d thought they were simple meat puppets, mindless drones conjured up by the masters of this realm. However, the more I fought against them, the more lifelike they became. I realized they each seemed to possess their own individuality. Some were easier to kill than others, some panicked, some ran. Of course, they all died. However, as I allowed myself to examine my opponents more closely, I began to realize that they seemed to be far more than the simple automatons I’d first thought them to be.

Could this possibly be a clever tactic to appeal to my sense of guilt or compassion? Were they trying to rekindle the spark of humanity left simmering in the smoking ashes of my heart?

Hah. Good luck with that.

I grinned ruefully to myself and whistled a merry little tune while I descended from the tree branch where I’d been perched while observing the peculiar behavior of this human-like construct.

Ultimately, it didn’t really matter to me whether they were soul constructs, meat puppets, or the very souls of living individuals trapped and summoned here to be slaughtered wholesame by me. This was a battle for survival, and I’d carefully carved life’s governing principle into my heart and mind since I’d been barely more than a child: The law of the jungle.

The strong survive, the weak are prey. Survival of the fittest. Simple as that.

They kept throwing these silly scenarios at me, and though surely to anyone else but me they would have been soul-crushing in the devastating amount of abject despair and human suffering displayed, to me this was almost like a walk in the park.

Just another day at work, really. Ah, perhaps with a few more zeroes at the end of the daily body count tally. Just that. Hey, I didn’t even have to go through all those mountains of goddamn paperwork. It was like cherrypicking all the most fun aspects of my job, with none of the drawbacks.

Moreover, I could still feel the intoxicating energy surging up within my body. It was constantly on the rise, and I could tirelessly pound after my prey without ever running out of breath, or my arms shaking in the slightest. Hell, I was lugging about two hundred pounds of gear on me, or about three times the recommended army standard, and that’s even though I’d shed all the protective gear.

That wasn’t to say I was in the least bit suicidal. Well, at times I suppose my behavior might be characterized as such. Still, the reason I’d scorned all form of protection was because in this heightened state of awareness, I felt that I was near-invulnerable. Even when my battle-hardened experience and devious tactics failed and I was left in a desperate situation, surrounded on all sides by the enemy, the explosive power and speed of my current body left me breathless - all the more so my enemies, who were literally left without a breath, or blood for that matter. All the holes I drilled into them will do that to a man.

Take this last engagement, for instance. After exterminating and looting a particularly useful cache of anti-personnel mines and explosives from one of the squads earlier in the day, I had set them out in a gleeful manner before extricating myself from the area. Just as the first shouts of pain and surprise began to rang out following a few sharp bursts of thunder - music to my ears - I had relocated myself to the other side of the battlefield in a manner that would have left any spectators speechless. Even I could hardly believe the quickness with which I was able to move, barely disturbing the ground underneath as I lightly pushed off, almost gliding along the air in an exhilarating burst of speed.

Trees soared past my view, and leaves would burst in a flurry of green before slowly drifting to the ground in a tangled mess, the only hint that something had just passed through. At this kind of rate, and with the kind of control I could still exert over my movements, even if a full firing squad were taking shots at me, I doubt any would even come close to even grazing me, even with full automatic weapons tracking my movements. It would simply be a waste of bullets. I no longer required the help of a combat exoskeleton - not that I had access to such at my current rank in the army, in this particular scenario - as my speed could almost match that of a propulsion system, and more than made up in any speed deficiency with sheer agility and mobility.

I would certainly pity any squads unfortunate enough to draw my attention. I was a bonifide Grim Reaper, the reincarnation of a death god made flesh, calmly making my way through my latest crops which were ripe for the harvest.

Suddenly, I had noticed a flash from my left and before my brain even had the time to react and send a command to my limbs, a lifetime of combat reflexes had already kicked in and I was instantly twisting in the air while changing my trajectory. A storm of deafening gunfire ensued from the woods around me, a few of the shots actually coming close to grazing me even though I had changed the direction of my movement with almost inhuman speed. These people weren’t all that bad. A cut above the riffraff I’d been scything down all day.

Just a single heartbeat later, a muted PUFF could be heard as a heavy curtain of smoke began to fill the area. The gunfire continued for a couple more seconds, then stopped at once in a well-coordinated fashion, and an eerie silence filled the forest.

Meaningwhile, I was already plucking out my combat knife from where I’d used it to punch through the chest of one of my would-be killers. Even during the confusion, I’d been able to identify the location of several of the gun muzzles flashing death at me. After I’d dodged the ambush and popped the smoke grenade, I’d instantly gone for the one I judged was most isolated from the rest. My victim, a bearded man with narrow eyes barely even had time to register my movements before my blow expelled all the breath from his lungs. With a ruthless twist of my wrist, I crushed his heart and his weight sagged against me as I soundlessly lowered him to the ground.

He didn’t even have the time to get back enough breath to yell out his surprise.

I reached out and grabbed a small pebble-like device from the man’s ear and plucked it into my ear. After a couple clicking sounds, its interface allowed me to hear the sounds of voices speaking rapidly. This was high tech stuff. This device was not only an earpiece, but also allowed a trained individual to vibrate his own vocal cords in such a way that the device could pick it up and translate it into speech. It was a fairly difficult skill to learn, and only highly specialized troops could be trained for it, let alone be equipped with the devices.

“Did we get him?”

“The hell is this guy..”

“A freaking ghost.. can’t believe it..”

“He’s gotta be a deader. He’s got to..”

“Quiet down. Be alert, everyone check your sectors and report,” came a cold, authoritative voice, cutting all the voices off.

As all the other voices started to check in, it was deathly still and quiet as no one moved. I listened quietly for the next ten seconds, then grinned as I was able to extrapolate a couple people’s positions based on the fact that they’d been the ones right before an uncomfortable silence filled the comms. They must be the flashes I had seen near my current position.

“Bear, come in. Report!”

“...”

“Bear, report now!”

“...”

With deft, practiced moves I pulled the pin from a couple of the grenades the soldier I’d killed had been carrying, then flicked them off into the side opposite from my current location. They made a muted CLINK as they hit the ground and rolled around the dirt and rocks.

“GRENA..!” came the sudden shout, not over the comms but rather from a gruff voice that had shouted in alarm. He hadn’t even said the whole word before a couple explosions rocked the ground, sending dust and debris flying into the air.

Lucky toss, I had aimed it towards the direction where I had judged I’d seen flashes earlier, but in the disorienting twist to avoid the incoming fire, I couldn’t get a good bearing. Of course, I’d cooked the grenades before throwing them, giving my unfortunate victims just enough time to draw the attention of his comrades before being ripped to pieces by the shrapnel.

It worked like a charm. The sounds of footsteps, while not clearly distinguishable to others, were as clear to my ears as though they were wearing bells around their necks. With a cruel grin, I lobbed a few more grenades in several directions before rushing off to my right, the only place where I hadn’t thrown any.

That was the advantage I had here, on enemy ground. They couldn’t afford to be reckless with their attacks, fearful that they might come under friendly fire. While I, in the other hand, could afford to burn down this whole jungle and not even a single friendly might come out with so much as a scalded hand.

A series of explosions shook the ground, and their comms came alive with the sounds of chaos as men spread out in all directions to try to catch me. I merely had to follow their prompts and kill them off one by one. I stabbed some with my knife, others I shot down from the distance. Most never even saw who killed them.

It was over in under 3 minutes. The last surviving member of the highly trained and specialized squad that had ambushed me was the comms grunt and likely the rookie of the whole bunch, since he had stayed slightly behind the formation and was bearing the supply sack along with the comms equipment.

I had sat up on that tree for almost a full minute, quietly watching him with a thoughtful look. At first he had been frantically calling the rest of his squad, but when the deadly silence had been all the response he received, he had hunkered down behind this tree while gasping desperate mouthfuls of air and working frantically at his comms equipment.

Truly humanlike, yet I couldn’t recognize his features as any I’d seen in my previous life. What was it that breathed in all this personality into this construct? Perhaps others might have pondered over this and other questions unceasingly, hoping it would lead to a way to defeat the enemy or successfully escape the confines of the Labyrinth of Souls.

As for me? Hah. I was exactly where I wanted to be. After watching the disturbingly life-like reactions of the last surviving member of the enemy squad, I had finally put him out of his misery. Leaning against the nearby tree trunk, I stooped down to retrieve a pack of cigarettes on the dead man's front chest pocket.

Hmm. Crappy brand, but what the hell.

“Shia, how is it going?” I murmured past the cigarette I was biting between my teeth, looking for a match. This guy's gotta have one, somewhere. I didn't feel the slightest bit of compunction in rifling through his pockets. Hey, if I bite the dust one day, I'd expect the lucky sonofagun to do the same thing. In fact, I wouldn't blame him if he cursed and spat at my mangled corpse if he failed to find a match.

Ah, there we go. I lit up with a contented grin, and nodded my gratitude to the dead guy. Not bad, this guy. Not bad at all.

“Mommy, I’m almost there. I can feel it gathering around me. The energy, it is so wonderful. Just like being held in Mommy’s arms, eating book after yummy book - only even better! I can’t describe it. I don’t know what is happening, but it is almost over. Hang in there, just a little more Mommy!”

I smiled grimly as I nodded, “Don’t worry Shia. Just let Mommy do his work.”

Taking one last drag of the cigarette, I spit it out and stamped it out under my heel. Then I checked my weapon, ejected a shell from the chamber, and swiveled my neck from side to side until a few satisfying cracks resounded in my ears.

“Time for Mommy to feed the baby, I suppose,” I chuckled.

All throughout this day and to this point, as I had kept hunting down enemy after enemy, prey after prey, all the while I had been drawing in more strength, like a tiny snowball rolling down the slope, slowly gathering momentum. It felt like soon I’d become an avalanche, unstoppable in the full scope of its fury and might.

The guardian entities of this realm obviously seemed to have detected this as well. Each scenario was more desperate than the last, the odds more overwhelming. This particular one, with the cute blonde, it directly took me back to one of the defining, and more traumatizing experiences in my younger life.

In the end though, here I was, casually leaning against a tree, standing over the torn and bleeding corpse of the man I’d just shot, blithely smoking a cigarette I’d plucked from his front pocket. I could feel them watching, and this was my big, “Screw you, get on with it. Oh, first let me light up a smoke.”

They certainly were watching, and they were none too pleased. In the previous several scenarios, I had to slog through interminable hour after hour of pure slaughter as I neatly flipped the tables and turned a nightmarish memory or past traumatic experience into an exercise in gleeful slaughter. This time, they simply couldn’t wait. They pulled me almost as soon as I spit out the smoke, and I was not even halfway through my ammunition. The strange darkness once again enveloped me, then spit me back out unceremoniously, with an almost palpable sense of malice.

Almost in the very instant my senses returned to me, I could feel the chilling wind biting into my face. I slowly looked around to find myself standing on top of an icy cliff, looking out over a breathtaking vista of snow peaks and scarlet rivers. Off in the distance, I could see the unmistakable silhouette of the Wei Hao peaks, and that meant in this current scenario, I had just arrived to the site. Yeah, the sight was already familiar to me, etched indelibly as one of the most spectacular scenes of carnage I’d experienced in my entire military career.

I can still remember desperately trying to prevent a slow, steady retreat from turning into an all-out rout that would turn the steady streams of scarlet blood running down the once immaculate hills of snow into a veritable ocean, with endless tide upon tide beating upon the icy crags until they crumbled under the unbearable weight of all that human misery and death.

“Oh, it’s this one. Of course it would be,” I muttered to myself, blowing out a long breath.

I can still clearly recall the final figure for this day. Just one. One single day, when an overbearing peacock of a man, a buffoon, a parade marshall who had received his stars as part of a clever political maneuver, had taken it upon himself to finally break the long stalemate in our eastern front with one brilliant, inspired move. What ensued was a brutally quick and efficient slaughter of all four divisions on our left flank within the next 45 minutes, followed by a surgical strike into the exposed rear of our central command in the following 65 minutes.

The rest was bloody history.

I can still remember setting out with my own elite corps as soon as I received intel of the proposed operation, then only hastening even more when my objections over the comm channels were overridden by said Marshal. I arrived on site just five hours later, barely in time to turn a headlong rout into a steady retreat. In the aftermath, I could hardly swallow my impotent fury as I stared out at the rivers of blood boiling down the snowy slopes. 12,000 men from the four divisions on the left flank, dead to a man within the first 45 minutes. Over 26,000 more casualties within the next hour as our rear forces and central command were absolutely shredded. Then the slaughter truly began in earnest, as our entire eastern front collapsed and a disastrous defeat turned into an all-out rout. By the time I arrived with reinforcements and organized a desperate retreat back into defensible terrain, I could barely receive the casualty reports without my vision turning into a red, pulsing haze that screamed in berserk fury.

89,378 dead or missing. 35,440 wounded. At least the enemy had been coldly efficient, with the number of dead dwarfing the number of wounded. I knew many of the latter wouldn’t survive the night, either.

As for the spineless idiot, the marshal who had devised the brilliant battle plan that had gotten nearly a hundred thousand loyal soldiers of the Federation gutted like pigs in a slaughterhouse, he had used an emergency evac shuttle to beat a hasty retreat, using our most hardened elite troops as a screening force to cover him. None of those poor bastards made it, of course. Just more brave warriors dying for a truly despicable cause.

I slowly closed my eyes and breathed in the biting cold mountain air, filled with the stench of gunpowder and scorched flesh.

No wonder that bitch had been so confident while condemning me to death within this Labyrinth of Souls. How many individuals would be able to use their souls, the strength of their very wills, to clash headlong into the most nightmarish, devastating moments of their lives? One after the other, they would be plunged into the most critical points of their lives, when they were most vulnerable. Even the sturdiest of souls would surely shatter under such an onslaught.

I could feel the ebb and flow of the darkness around me. It kept coming, on and on, like the raging tides of an endless ocean spitting thunder and madness at me, crashing against the shores of my sanity in a constant deluge that seemed endless. Any lesser soul might have collapsed under the unbearable weight of all those lives lost, blood spilled, regrets wound so tightly around the heart that surely it would choke, seize up and die after smoking and sputtering feebly. Any other heart would have crumpled on their mantlepiece, waiting for the merciful coup d’grace.

Too bad, they’d picked the wrong target this time.

You want to devour me?

Just you wait. I could feel Shia trembling next to my chest where she lay, spreading an incomparably soothing warmth that spread through my limbs. It seemed to slightly distort the area around us, creating a strange effect where if I looked carefully enough, even light seemed to bend slightly.

My baby, little glutton that she was, wanted some more yummy stuffs?

I looked towards the snowy peaks of the Wei Hao mountain range laid out before me, crimson rivulets of blood staining its sides as constant bursts of concentrated fire and explosions filled the night, and slowly shook my head with a helpless expression on my face.

Time to bring home some more bacon.