June 7, 2007. 23:48 -somewhere in Antartica.
It was a dark night.
The jet cut through the storm like a needle through cloth, its engines screaming against the wind. Snow lashed the fuselage in sheets.
Outside the windows, there was nothing, just white chaos and black sky, the world reduced into nothing than just some noises and blur.
Ethan leaned toward the window, his breath fogging the glass slightly.
Then, land.
Jagged and dark, the Antarctic coastline carved itself out of the blizzard below them, ice shelves jutting into black water, the white plains stretching endlessly beyond.
"Prepare to land." The pilot's voice came through, calm and steady.
The jet tilted, beginning its descent.
The jet touched down hard, wheels grinding against ice. The engines wound down slowly, their roar fading into the howl of the storm outside.
The door slowly opened.
The blizzard hit them immediately, wind and snow pushed them, their boots stepping against the ice below, waiting.
Finn raised his palm against his face, shielding his eyes from the snow driving sideways. "It's very windy out here."
"No shit, dumbass." Strix laughed, pulling his collar up.
Renata's scarf blew hard to the side in the wind, snapping against her neck. She ignored it. She already had both hands on the N9, sliding the action back with a clean move.
Ethan stepped out last.
Ethan walked a few steps before turning to face them, raising his voice just enough to cut through the wind.
"Alright, listen boys. Since we already have footage of Rafa's last known position from people around him, we will follow Rafa from that known direction, which is fourteen kilometers northeast of here."
Ethan grabbed and fixing the information device in the form of a watch on his right hand. "Stay close, guys. Don't fall behind."
Nobody argued. Nobody asked questions.
They began to pulled their NVGs down one by one, the world shifted into pale green and white. The chaos of snow has reduced to a readable blur, at least.
Ethan turned northeast and started walking.
The squad walked closely behind him, their boots sinking into the snow as the blizzard drowned out every sound. The wind was too loud for conversation anyway.
They walked in a single line, Ethan was at the front.
The blizzard pushed against them from their side, relentless and indifferent.
Every few minutes, Ethan would raise his right wrist, eyes dropping to the device screen as the map flickered against the storm.
He would study it for a second, then lower his arm, adjusting his direction slightly, and keep walking without a word
The kilometers passed in silence.
Then Ethan raised his wrist one last time. He stared at the screen longer than usual, then slowly lifted his gaze.
"Is that a church?" Edward's voice cut through the wind from behind.
Finn squinted through his NVG, leaning slightly forward. "Oh yeah, it is a church!"
Through the blizzard, the shape became clearer as they got more close. Blackstone walls stood across the white plains while towers rose high above them, their peaks hidden by the storm. The whole structure looked old, like it had been there for a very long time.
The squad followed Ethan toward it without a word, boots pressing deeper into the snow with each step, the church growing larger and larger until its walls filled their entire view.
They pushed the door open.
Inside, darkness. Complete and heavy, the kind that swallowed everything beyond arm's reach. No candles, no light, no movement. The storm outside fell away as the door shut behind them, replaced by a silence so total it pressed against their ears.
Their NVGs swept across the vast interior. Empty pews stretched ahead in long rows, the towering statues lining the walls casting strange angular shadows under the green tint of their lenses. Dust hung still in the air, undisturbed.
Nobody was there.
They moved through the church, NVGs cutting through the dark. The hallway with arches stretched overhead, iron candleholders lining the walls, all of them cold and unlit.
Their boots echoed against the floor despite every effort to stay quiet, the sound bouncing off the walls and returning to them from directions it shouldn't.
The ballroom next. The space opened up enormously, three floors of empty railings circling above them, the ceiling lost in darkness. Their NVGs couldn't reach the top. Morrow swept his muzzle across the upper tiers. Nothing.
Then the dining room. A long table sat abandoned, chairs pushed in neatly, plates and cutlery still arranged as if expecting guests that never arrived.
The armory corridor followed, its wall mounts empty, brackets stripped clean.
Then the chapel room, smaller than the main hall, its altar bare, a single overturned chalice on the floor.
Ethan stopped mid-step.
He turned slowly, his NVG sweeping the corridor behind them. Empty floor. Shadows. Nothing moved.
Strix glanced at him from the side. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." Ethan turned back and kept moving.
The squad followed.
But Renata didn't move immediately. She stood at the rear, her hand resting on the N9, eyes fixed on the darkness behind them.
Something is wrong, she knows it. Not a sound, not a shape. Just a feeling, the kind that settled at the base of the neck and refused to leave.
She then turned and followed the others without a word.
They continued through the dark, room after room, corridor after corridor. Nothing. No movement, no sign of life, no trace that anyone had ever been there at all.
Finn let out a long breath. "We didn't find anything."
"Yeah." Edward turned to Ethan.
"I guess we'll set up things here for the night." Ethan said, his voice steady. "We move again at dawn."
Finn groaned quietly. "We flew all the way to Antarctica just for an empty church."
"Don't complain, Finn." Edward said.
"I'm just saying." Finn muttered, dropping his pack against the wall. "Not even a rat was in here."
Strix looked around the dark hall, his NVG scanning the ceiling. "This place gives me hella of the creeps. Honestly, feels like we're being watched.."
"Nothing is watching us." Morrow said coldly, sitting down against the wall without another word.
"You don't know that." Strix replied.
"I said nothing is watching us, Strix." Morrow looked at him sharper.
Renata leaned against the opposite wall, N9 in her hands, saying nothing. Her eyes moved slowly across the room.
Ethan stood in the middle of the space, arms crossed, staring at the floor. "He was here, somewhere. The footage doesn't lie."
Finn looked at him. "And now?"
"And now we wait." Ethan said. "Get some rest."
Without another word, the squad began moving. Packs hit the floor, hands working in the dim green of their NVGs.
Finn and Strix unrolled the first tent, the fabric whispering against the marble floor as they spread it out. Edward and Morrow set up the second beside it, quick and practiced, tent poles clicking into place without needing to be told.
Ethan cleared a small space in the center of the room, pushing loose debris aside with his gloved hand.
He set up a portable camp stove, the small flame catching on the first try, casting a warm orange glow across the floor for the first time since they had entered the church. It was a small light, almost nothing against the vast darkness around them, but it pushed back just enough.
Renata filled a steel pot with water from her pack and set it over the flame without being asked.
The squad gathered around it loosely, the warmth drawing them in despite themselves. The orange glow caught their eyes, the NVGs pushed up now, finally being unnecessary with the small fire between them.
The water began to heat slowly, a thin curl of steam rising toward the dark ceiling above.
Renata watched the pot until the water began to bubble. Then, Ethan reached into his pack and took out a few small bundle of tea bags.
Strix noticed it and leaned forward. "I didn't know you packed some tea, Capt."
Ethan just smiled and brushed it off.
One by one, steel cups came out. Ethan poured them carefully, the steam rising thick and warm into the cold air of the church. He handed them out, starting with Renata, then working down the line.
Morrow wrapped both hands around his cup, staring into Ethan. "Thanks, Ethan."
Edward took a slow sip, eyes closing for just a second. "That's good."
Finn took a sip, but instead he burned his tongue immediately. "Shit, that's hot!"
"Cool it first, idiot." Strix said.
The fire crackled quietly between them, the tea warming their hands, the vast dark church stretching silently in every direction beyond the small circle of orange light.
Suddenly— Thump!
Strix's cup dropped from his hands, tea spilling across the stone floor.
"YO, THE FUCK WAS THAT!"
The squad snapped upright instantly, hands reaching for weapons.
Ethan looked to Strix. "What? What happened?"
Strix pointed toward the doorway leading into the hall, his arm shaking slightly. "There was a figure. Walking past. Right there."
His finger slowly dropped from the empty doorway. "It wasn't a shadow, it was, well it looked like a person. Just walking past, calm as anything."
The squad stared at the doorway. Empty stone. Darkness beyond.
Finn slowly reached for his rifle, his earlier boredom completely gone.
Morrow was already on his feet, cup set aside, hand on his weapon.
Renata rose without a sound, N9 raised, her body angled toward the doorway.
Ethan stared at the empty hall for a long moment, then looked back at Strix. "What did it look like?"
Strix shook his head slowly. "I don't know. I just, it wasn't Rafa. It wasn't anyone I recognised. It just walked past and disappeared."
The sound of fire crackling between them filled the silence.
They moved out of the room, slow and deliberate, boots placed carefully against the floor.
The hall stretched ahead of them, long and dark. And there, at the far end, a figure.
Bald. Suit pressed clean despite everything around him. Only his back visible, standing completely still, facing away from them.
Ethan took a slow step forward, his voice cutting through the dark. "Hey there. Don't move. Turn around slowly and tell me your identity."
The figure obeyed.
It turned slowly.
Edward recoiled instantly. Strix stumbled backward into the wall. "YO, WHAT!!!" Both of them screamed.
The face, if it could be called that, was destroyed and brokenly-gore. Wrong in every way a face could be wrong.
The skin split open in jagged tears, flesh hanging in loose strips from the cheekbone. One eye socket was empty and black, the other filled with something that wasn't an eye.
The jaw sat wrong, unhinged slightly, teeth exposed where the lower lip had been torn away entirely. The skull showed through in patches, white bone gleaming wet under the NVG light.
Then it raised its hand and waved.
"Hello, boys..." The voice was calm. Warm, even.
The neck began to stretch, cracking one by one as the head climbed higher and higher above the shoulders, tilting, rotating, until the destroyed face hung completely upside down, staring at them from above.
Renata fired once.
The bullet punched clean through the forehead. No spray. No recoil from the impact. The wound simply sat there, open, the inside of the skull visible, grey matter, pale bone, dark cavity — yet nothing dripped. Nothing moved. The creature didn't even flinch.
It just kept smiling with what remained of its mouth.
The figure split apart.
Behind it, a wall of red rose from the floor, flesh and skin surging forward like a wave, wet and thick, blocking the entrance entirely. The smell hit them before anything else.
"OPEN FIRE!" Ethan shouted.
Rifles cracked, rounds tearing into the creature, shredding it, but it didn't fall. It didn't bleed. It just absorbed every bullet and kept moving.
"FALL BACK!"
They spun and ran, boots hammering against the marble.
Then the floor moved.
The marble cracked down the center, splitting wide, the edges curling upward like lips pulling back. Broken teeth lined the gap, jagged and uneven, jutting upward along what was becoming a throat that descended into nothing but dark. The floor wasn't a floor anymore.
It swallowed them whole.
They fell, tumbling through the dark, the walls of the throat pressing close on every side, wet and grinding, until the ceiling opened up above them and the floor slammed up beneath their boots.
The ballroom.
They hit the ground hard, stumbling, catching themselves against railings and pillars before turning into wet flesh and slipping their grips, falling into the ground.
The three floors of empty galleries circled above them, the darkness pressing down from every direction.
The walls melted.
Stone gave way to flesh, wet and pulsing, ribs pressing through the surface like the ballroom itself was breathing. Bones threaded through the ceiling, knuckles and joints jutting downward. The floor beneath their boots felt soft, organic, wrong.
Then the creature descended from above, its head and neck merged with the ceiling, hanging down. "Anchor yourself to the foundation of everything you are."
"FIRE!"
Rounds tore into it from every direction, the squad spreading wide across the ballroom floor, but the creature absorbed every shot and kept descending.
Then it attacked.
A massive skull tore free from the ceiling, the size of a boulder, launched directly at the squad. It screamed through the air, teeth snapping. They scattered in every direction as it crashed into the floor and exploded into fragments, bone shards skittering across the flesh-covered ground.
Before they could regroup, a scythe swept horizontally from the dark, low and fast, the blade a sharpened bone, the handle wrapped in dark flesh. The squad leapt simultaneously, boots leaving the ground as the weapon cut the air beneath their feet and vanished into the wall.
Then the hands of colossal came. Flesh stretched thin over enormous bones, muscle threading between the fingers, each one the size of a man.
They erupted from the floor and walls simultaneously, clawing to them. The squad ran, diving, and rolling.
One hand with its fingers crashing into the ground where they had stood a breath before, the impact shaking the entire ballroom.
Rifles cracked in rhythm, rounds tearing into the creature from every angle. Each hit carved something away, flesh peeling back, the figure slowly losing shape at the edges, melting where the bullets found it.
The squad kept moving, kept shooting, kept dodging.
The skull came again, larger this time. Finn dove hard to his right, it crashed and shattered behind him, fragments raking his back. He pushed up and kept firing.
"Believe..." the creature's voice rang through the ballroom, bouncing off the flesh walls. "You have just begun to live... To live!!"
The scream cracked at the end, the voice fracturing, breaking apart like something tearing from the inside.
The scythe swept again, bone blade catching the dim light. The squad launched upward, boots leaving the ground, the weapon passing beneath them. Renata fired mid-air, three rounds punching into the creature's shoulder, a chunk of it dissolving away.
It was smaller now. But still moving.
The colossal hands erupted again, clawing down from above. Edward rolled left, Morrow dove right, the fingers cratering the floor between them. Strix fired upward into the wrist, flesh peeling away in strips.
"Don't let the world deceive you..." The voice was worse now, layered, like two broken recordings playing over each other. "Don't let their words betray you. Don't let their lies deceive you. Let them do their worst."
Ethan changed his magazine without breaking stride, rounds already flying before the new mag locked in. The creature's torso was half gone, the outline flickering, edges dissolving with every hit.
The skull launched a third time, faster, angrier. Morrow sidestepped without flinching, it exploded against the wall beside him, bone fragments raking his arm. He didn't stop firing.
"All that we suffer through leads to determination..." The voice was barely recognizable now, something wet and grinding underneath every word. "The trials we all go through gives us the strength to carry on. Something within us burns, desire feeds the will to live. A reason to believe..."
It suddenly paused.
"I will see redemption."
The scythe swept again, upper this time, nearly hitting them. Finn and Strix jumped, Finn grabbing Strix's arm mid-air as the blade passed beneath them. They landed hard and kept shooting, rounds hammering into what remained of the figure.
It was barely a shape now. Melting at the edges, the flesh running downward, bones dissolving where the bullets struck.
The hands came one final time, slower, weaker, the fingers dragging rather than clawing. Renata emptied her magazine into the nearest one, the flesh peeling away entirely, leaving only bone, then nothing.
"Pull me out of my mind..."
The voice was almost gone. A whisper underneath static.
The squad converged, every rifle aimed at the center of what remained, rounds pouring in without pause.
The creature shook.
"WE WILL NOT DIE THIS WAY!!"
The scream tore through the ballroom, the walls trembling, the flesh rippling.
Then it melted. All at once, the remaining mass collapsed downward, running across the floor like wax, pooling between the cracks of the stone beneath until nothing remained but the quiet of the ballroom and the sound of heavy breathing.
The walls were stone again. The floor was solid again. The bones were gone.
The squad stood in the center of the ballroom, rifles raised at nothing, chests heaving.
Then a hand closed around them from behind.
Massive. Silent. None of them had heard it coming.
It seized them all at once, fingers wrapping around the squad before a single warning could leave anyone's mouth, and slammed them forward. The wall exploded outward, stone fracturing in every direction, the impact ripping the air from their lungs as they tumbled through into the hallway beyond.
They hit the floor hard, scattered, gear scraping against stone, rifles skidding away.
Ethan pushed himself up first, blood on his lip, ears ringing.
Then he saw her.
She stood at the end of the hallway. The broken gore was gone. The stretched neck was gone. The destroyed face was gone.
In its place, a woman. Tall, still, her skin, the pale of raw flesh pulled smooth. Her wings spread behind her, enormous and slow, each feather a strip of dark meat layered over bone, opening and closing with a quiet, wet sound. Her face was calm. Almost gentle.
She looked at them the way something looks at something it has already decided about.
She moved without warning.
The distance between them vanished in an instant, her wings folding back as she closed the gap, her first strike catching Finn across the chest and launching him sideways into the wall before anyone could react.
Ethan surged forward, driving a straight punch into her jaw. She barely moved, her head turning slightly with the impact before snapping back, her elbow crashing into his ribs, folding him over.
Morrow came from the flank, his fist hammering into her side. She caught his arm mid-swing, twisted, and sent him spinning into Edward. They crashed down together in a heap.
Strix lunged at her back, arms wrapping around her shoulders, trying to drag her down. Her wings snapped open, the force hurling him off and slamming him into the ceiling before dropping him to the floor.
Renata moved fast and low, driving two sharp jabs into her stomach, then a knee toward her midsection. The woman caught the knee in her palm, held it, then shoved Renata backward down the hallway, her boots skidding across the stone.
Ethan came again, Morrow beside him this time. She took both of their strikes without staggering, her counterattack sending Ethan crashing into the wall and Morrow sliding across the floor.
Finn got back up and charged. She stepped aside, her hand catching the back of his neck and driving his face into the stone wall.
The squad was scattered across the hallway, battered, breathing hard.
She stood in the center, completely still, wings spreading slowly behind her.
"Damn, this shit was hard." Edward pushed himself off the wall, wiping blood from his nose.
Ethan stood up straight, eyes locked on the woman as she watched them regroup. His mind was already moving.
Four. Every time she attacked, she hit four at most. Never all six at once. There was a limit somewhere in her.
"Listen." His voice was low and fast. "She can only engage four of us at a time, maximum. So we can use that." His eyes swept across the squad.
"Finn, Strix, you two draw her attention, don't stop moving. Renata, Edward, you shoot from the flanks, keep her eyes splitting. Morrow, you're with me. We close in when she's committed to a target. Don't ever stop and hesitate."
Nobody argued.
They spread out across the hallway, the formation opening wide.
Finn moved first, coming in fast with a right hook. She turned and caught it, but Strix was already at her back, his boot driving into her spine. She spun, her elbow sweeping wide, forcing Strix to duck under it.
Gunfire cracked from both sides. Renata's shots from the left, Edward's from the right, rounds grazing her wings, drawing her attention sideways.
Ethan and Morrow closed the gap from the center.
Ethan's fist connected with her jaw, Morrow's knee drove into her ribs simultaneously. She staggered, one step back, the first time she had moved backward at all.
She recovered instantly.
Her wings snapped open, the force throwing Ethan and Morrow apart. She launched herself upward off the floor, twisting mid-air, both feet extending outward in opposite directions. Her right heel caught Finn across the temple, her left foot smashing into Strix's shoulder, sending both of them crashing down in the same motion before she landed clean, not even stumbling.
"MOVE!" Ethan shouted.
Renata reloaded without breaking stride, already repositioning. Edward drew the angel's gaze with a burst of fire, rounds sparking off the stone wall beside her head. She turned toward him, committing, her body angling for the charge.
Morrow hit her from behind, both arms driving into her back. She buckled forward slightly, just enough for Ethan to come up underneath with a brutal uppercut that snapped her head back.
She grabbed Ethan's arm before he could pull it back, yanked him forward, and drove her knee into his stomach. He folded, gasping.
Finn was back up. He came in low, tackling her around the waist, driving forward with everything he had. She didn't fall, but she slid back two steps, her wings beating hard to stabilize herself.
Strix leapt from the side, his elbow crashing down onto her collarbone. Renata fired twice into her wing, the flesh tearing, dark and wet. The wing faltered, dropping lower.
She screamed. The sound wasn't human.
Her remaining wing snapped wide, the shockwave throwing the nearest squad members off their feet. But Ethan had already seen it coming, dropping flat as the force passed over him. He rose immediately, Morrow beside him, both of them pressing forward before she could reset.
Strike. Counter. Dodge. Shoot. The hallway became a blur of motion, the squad moving like a single organism, feeding her attacks to the two drawing fire while the others punched through the gaps.
She was still winning. But only barely now.
Finn backed out after a wild swing, breathing hard. "What if we just shoot her at the same time?"
"Good idea." Edward was already repositioning.
"Circle her." Ethan commanded.
They spread fast, the six of them fanning out until the angel stood in the center, surrounded on every side. Six rifles raised simultaneously, fingers on triggers.
She looked around at them, wings spreading slowly.
"Fire!"
The hallway erupted. Six rifles unloading at once, rounds converging from every direction, tearing into her from all sides. She screamed, the sound cracking and inhuman, her body shaking under the concentrated fire, flesh peeling away where the bullets struck.
Then the wings exploded outward.
They grew in an instant, doubling, tripling in size, the flesh stretching and expanding before sweeping in a single violent arc around her entire body.
"BACK!"
The squad threw themselves backward, boots scrambling against the floor.
The wings connected anyway.
Not with their bodies, but with their rifles. The blade edge of the feathers caught every weapon simultaneously, the crack of metal splitting sharp and clean through the hallway. Six rifles hit the floor in twelve pieces, cut straight through the barrel, the halves clattering and spinning across the stone.
The squad stared at the pieces at their feet.
The angel stood in the center, wings settling slowly behind her, watching them.
The angel raised her hand slowly, fingers spreading wide. Red light gathered in her palm, pulsing, growing, the glow crawling up her arm and bleeding into the flesh of her wings.
Then Ethan stepped forward and punched her clean across the face.
Her head snapped sideways. The red light flickered and faded away.
She turned back to him slowly, expression unchanged.
"Run." Ethan said, his voice flat and certain.
Nobody moved.
"I said run!" He didn't look back at them. His eyes stayed fixed on the angel, his fists raised. "GO!"
Boots scraped against stone. Finn, Strix, Edward, Morrow moving first, then Renata, her eyes lingering on Ethan for a half second longer than the rest before she turned and ran.
Their footsteps faded down the hallway.
Ethan stood alone in the dark, facing her.
The red light began to gather in her palm again, slower this time, her eyes locked on him.
He exhaled once, steadying himself.
The red beams erupted from her palm.
Dozens of them, fast and relentless, tearing down the hallway in every direction. Stone exploded where they hit, the walls cratering, dust and debris filling the air.
Ethan was already moving.
He broke left, his boots pushing hard off the floor, body low, weaving between the beams as they screamed past him. One grazed his shoulder, the heat searing through his gear. He didn't stop.
He cut right, then left again, the beams adjusting, tracking him, tearing up the floor at his heels.
Then he launched himself forward, closing the gap in two strides, his body leaving the ground entirely.
His hammer fist came down onto the crown of her head with everything he had.
The impact drove her downward, both knees hitting the stone floor, the red light in her palm extinguishing instantly.
The hallway went quiet.
Ethan landed, breathing hard, standing over her.
She rose slowly.
Then she lunged.
Her fist drove forward, Ethan slipped inside it, his forearm deflecting the strike before his left jab snapped into her jaw. She rolled with it, her elbow swinging back across his face. He ducked under, answered with a right hook into her ribs.
She caught his follow up, twisted his arm, drove her knee upward. Ethan bent with it, absorbing the blow, then shoved her back and reset his stance.
She came again, faster this time. A straight right, a left cross, a spinning backfist. Ethan blocked the first, slipped the second, took the third across the cheek, his head snapping sideways.
He spat blood and kept moving.
Her kick swept low, Ethan jumped it, his knee driving into her chest as he came back down. She staggered one step, then seized his leg before he could pull it back, hurling him into the wall.
He hit hard, bounced off, and threw himself straight back at her before she could press the advantage.
His combinations came fast. Left jab, right cross, left hook, body shot. She blocked most of them, but the body shot folded her slightly, creating the gap.
Ethan drove his elbow into her temple.
She dropped to one knee.
He pressed in, but her wing snapped out, catching him across the chest, sending him sliding back across the stone floor.
They both stood breathing hard, facing each other in the dark.
Suddenly,
Footsteps echoed from the far end of the hallway.
Slow. Deliberate.
A figure emerged from the dark, black robes bleeding into the surrounding shadows, the fabric shifting like a night sky with stars moving through it. The King. His hood swallowed his face entirely, his voice cutting through the hallway like it belonged there.
"What are you doing, The Shapeshifter?"
The angel tilted her head. "I'm just playing."
Her body collapsed inward, folding, reshaping, flesh and bone rearranging with a wet crackling sound until eight legs erupted from the mass, a giant spider filling the width of the hallway, mandibles clicking.
Ethan stumbled back a step, his eyes moving between The King and the creature and back again. "What the hell is going on?" His voice cracked slightly. "Who the fuck are you guys? This isn't human!"
Boots behind him.
He spun around.
His entire squad stood there, weapons gone but present, Finn and Strix breathing hard, Edward and Morrow side by side, Renata at the rear.
Ethan stared at them. "Why are you guys coming back?"
Morrow raised his hand and pointed his thumb behind him. "Uhmm, right there."
Ethan looked past them.
The Humanoid stood at the end of the hallway. Still. White eyes glowing faintly in the dark, his shadow body absorbing everything around him.
#14 End.