The tear in reality led to a storeroom.

  Evantra took in the familiar surroundings, and tried to steady her shaking hands and the revolver tight in her grip.

  The weapon was a Colt Python – the singular revolver that Carmen Alvarez owned. Practically a relic that could have fetched a decent ectocred if its barrel hadn’t almost been entirely rusted over.

  Evantra still recalled the woman’s bloodshot eyes filled with tears. The last thing she saw before leaping into the Veilsurge. Taking in her surroundings had given her a degree of unexpected relief.

  Good. It isn’t a Mythic Veilsurge.

  Not that a Mundane is any less of a death sentence.

  Flickering fluorescent lights blinked overhead at irregular intervals. Casting a quick glance at the shelves around her still filled with cleaning materials, Evantra spotted a thick layer of dust. In the harsh florescent lighting, she could make out footprints in the ground below, leading out of the storeroom.

  The door was ajar.

  Raising the Colt Python in front of her, Evantra crept forwards at a brisk pace.

  Her breath caught at the sight before her.

  She emerged into a deserted laboratory.

  Filled with bodies.

  Skeletons devoid of skin or sinew were strewn across the floor, hunched up against the walls. They were illuminated intermittently by harsh, flickering fluorescent lighting. They were dressed in identical uniforms, sporting tattered white laboratory coats now stained with dust and grime.

  Evantra sighed in relief when she realised she could still make out Lucas’ footsteps in the brief flickers of light, marking his passage through the dust and grime.

  One small mercy, was that she realised that she could still see.

  Unlike their Mythic counterparts, Mundane Veilsurges led to elsewhere on earth.

  The Lost Territories.

  Places on earth that had long fallen to the Veilcreatures.

  The fact that this place still has working electricity is a miracle, despite being off the grid and abandoned for… what could be decades.

  When they delved into Veilsurges, Ghostslayers had to navigate dark, abandoned buildings, unless they brought sufficient equipment to restore power to the grid. Alternatively, the obstacles that darkness posed were trivialised with optical cybernetics.

  Evantra had neither luxury.

  She ran down the corridor, trying as well as she could to mask her footsteps and to avoid the debris and shattered glass along the corridor. Dark, tinted windows lined the stretch, and without the ability to discern Lucas’ footsteps, finding him in a veritable maze of laboratory rooms would be impossible.

  Forget trying to get back to the exit… If I lose track of where I am…

  She halted, and her eyes widened as she noticed Lucas’ footsteps heading into a room at the foot of a short stairway.

  Then she heard a droning, buzzing noise emanating from within. Her heart hammered in her chest as she held her breath, drawing closer to the entrance.

  Evantra carefully crept around the door to peek inside.

  Teethlings.

  Each was the size of her palm, bearing small bipedal bodies that resembled the human form. A pair of wings sprouted from their shoulders, granting them the gift of flight. Two rows of dagger-sharp teeth lined the roofs and base of their mouths. True to their name, they ate through anything that moved with brutal efficiency. Even though they resembled humans in that they bore similar proportions and features, black veins pulsed over grey skin, and dark red eyes entirely without irises and pupils glowed in the dark.

  They had first been called “pixies” upon their discovery.

  Then when the corpses of Ghostslayers had returned from the Veilsurges devoid of flesh, and in some cases, even bone, they had been renamed accordingly.

  Hundreds of teethlings shifted as one in a hypnotic swarm in the lecture hall, the buzzing noise they emitted like incensed hornets around a nest. Their small bodies shifted in unison as they carved a path through the air, swaying as one.

  Then she spotted him.

  Lucas waved at her, from under a wooden stage to her left, visible through a small hole. Somehow, he had crawled under it, seeking shelter from the mass of teethlings above him.

  She flinched back from the doorway, crouching down as a stray teethling flew right past the entrance.

  Making a break for it is too risky. They’re far too fast.

  Evantra had an idea. If she was still on Earth…

  She took her phone out of her pocket, motioning to it, then putting her fingers in her ears.

  Lucas, bless his soul, seemed to get the message. After lowering the brightness and fiddling with his phone, he gave her a thumbs up with a shaking hand.

  Wouldn’t want his cause of death to be a notification.

  Evananny: Lucas, I’m going to lure them away from you from the other end of the hallway. Once I do, make a break for it. I’ve drawn a map to the exit of the Veilsurge from where I am. You ok? Are you hurt?

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Luke Skywalker: Ok. Taco is restless.

  Evananny: Alright, I’ll hurry. Stay quiet. Keep an eye out for my message.

  Luke Skywalker: Ok… Stay safe.

  Evantra gritted her teeth, and thanked her lucky stars that Lucas was a gem of a child. The fact that he had evaded the swarm’s notice and taken shelter right under their noses was nothing short of a miracle.

  He would be a dead miracle if she didn’t hurry.

  Evantra ran down the hallway, taking a right turn. She winced as she heard the sound of glass cracking under her feet, but she didn’t have the liberty of stealth when Lucas could be discovered at any second.

  That was right when the teethling bit her.

  Evantra watched as the creature’s razor-sharp teeth tore into her forearm. She felt like someone had pressed a searing iron right into her flesh.

  Evantra slammed her arm against the wall repeatedly, crushing it. The teethling’s writhing body went still as blood and viscera erupted from the force of the blows. With some difficulty, she pried it from her skin, taking little strings of her flesh along with it.

  Milky, white eyes lingered on the corpse of the teethling, her expression blank, apathetic to the merciless display of violence she had committed, the creature’s grey blood still dripping from her fingers.

  Evantra Wraithmarked thrust it into her jacket pocket.

  When you were out in the slums, anything and everything could be a means of income.

  You didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

  You killed it and sold it for parts, so you could keep your dilapidated church running.

  I have two problems.

  The first – if I lead the teethlings to the Veiltear, it won’t matter if Lucas makes it out. Both Carmen and Lucas will be as good as dead when the swarm escape. The neighbourhood will follow, shortly after.

  The second – I need a means of escaping or hiding once I draw their attention. I’ll have to circle back to the Veiltear.

  She didn’t have a lot of options. The corridor branched off into two exits.

  One to her left, into yet another corridor, and towards what looked like a lift at the end of the current corridor, about fifteen metres away from the lecture hall’s entrance.

  Jogging up to the lift, she realised that she could pry open the door.

  She peered into the column of darkness leading below, and a plan formed in her mind.

  ---

  Evananny: Lucas, you ready?

  Luke Skywalker: Mmhm.

  Evananny: The instant you hear me yell, I want you to make a break for it. Ready?

  Luke Skywalker: Ok.

  Evantra slammed the metallic piece of debris in her hands against the door and shouted.

  “AHHHHH. GO.”

  The buzzing noise that filled the lecture hall froze. Then an explosion of sound erupted from within, echoing off the theatre walls.

  One.

  Evantra slammed the door shut and threaded the lengthy piece of metallic debris through the door handles.

  Two.

  She sprinted towards the lift.

  Three.

  Evantra heard a slam against the metallic door of the lecture hall as the teethlings were halted in their path. Then she swore that she could hear the crunch of metal.

  Four.

  They’re eating through the door.

  Glancing at the wound on her arm, she didn’t doubt their ability to do so.

  Five.

  Reaching the open lift door at the end of her sprint, she immediately dropped down onto the ladder and drew the metallic door shut. The lift column was encased in darkness the moment that she did so.

  Immediately after shutting the door, she heard a smash as the teethlings carved their way through the lecture hall door.

  Five seconds…

  If I tried to circle back to the exit, I wouldn’t have made it around the corner.

  I’d have been dead meat.

  Then she heard a soft buzzing begin to approach her.

  Evantra held her breath. All she could hear were her thundering heartbeats reverberating through her body, blood rushing in her ears in the silence of the lift column. A pack had likely broken off from the main group, and they weren’t moving.

  Her plan had worked… for the most part.

  She had smeared the blood from her forearm wound along the path leading down the other corridor. She had also reluctantly deposited the dead teethling she had killed a ways down the second corridor. Evantra had bound her bleeding forearm by tearing off a piece of her shirt with the aid of some jagged glass.

  She was afraid to move, concerned that freeing even a single rusted or loose handhold could lead to another racket, which would draw the swarm. As the seconds drew on, she realised that the teethlings outside had not detected her presence, yet they also weren’t leaving, cutting off her strategy of retracing her steps back to the storeroom.

  Looks like there’s only one way for me to go.

  Evantra looked down into the abyss below.

  Leading into the bowels of the abandoned laboratory.

  ---

  “Please, hurry. Evantra went in about fifteen minutes ago. She went inside to find my son.”

  The lights from the police hovervan were visible through tattered curtains. The dark Ectorain outside had stained the windows, and thunder rumbled above them.

  Officer Trevor Foster gritted his teeth, his hand enclosed on the weapon at his hip. A standard-issue machine pistol with selective fire to provide him with the flexibility to accommodate different threats. It was of Liberty corporation make – a merger of various different American gun manufacturers in a vain, desperate attempt to retain their dominance with the emergence of new monsters in the arms and defence industries birthed with the advent of the Veilsurges.

  It was a reliable enough weapon. Frankly, he had been surprised to receive it way out in Wisptown, a far cry from his previous posting in Elsecaller City.

  In a Mundane Veilsurge?

  With Liberty’s best and military grade gear… perhaps he would last an hour.

  In a Mythic?

  Perhaps a couple of seconds.

  Dispatch’s voice cut through the ragged breaths of Carmen Alvarez, who looked pleadingly into his eyes. The woman who had desperately contacted the station. She had informed him that her neighbour had dove into the Veiltear to rescue her seven-year-old son.

  Apparently, “Evantra”, the young woman that had run in pursuit of Lucas Alvarez, had dissuaded her from contacting the police. It was no wonder the people here had such little faith in law enforcement. You heard horror stories of people ending up dead outside of a Veilsurge, with no sign of it being breached by Veilcreatures. Their belongings, mysteriously disappearing.

  It made you wonder who the true monsters were.

  “Officer Foster. Stay out of the Veilsurge. Lock down the entrance. I repeat, do not enter. Secure a perimeter.”

  The ancient radio at his side crackled, courtesy of the scant funding the department received out in Wisptown.

  Trevor watched the woman’s hands shake, a sizeable kitchen cleaver in Carmen Alvarez’s grip. Agony in her eyes, contrasted against the bunched muscles of her jaw betraying her rage. Even for how distraught she was, the woman looked like she was just about jump into the Veiltear herself. He motioned for her to wait a moment, keeping a keen eye on her.

  “Dispatch, news on a Ghostslayer?”

  “Negative. Do not advance into the Veilsurge.”

  Officer Trevor Foster watched as Carmen Alvarez trembled.

  It was a truth that both of them knew all too well, living out in Wisptown. It didn’t matter how bad a Veilsurge got. No Ghostslayer was responding to a request out in the slums.

  There were three clients that Ghostslayers answered to.

  The government, who funded them if a sufficient amount of lives were under threat. Wisptown, of all places, was expendable.

  Megacorporations, with billions and trillions of ectocredits at their disposal.

  Finally, the Ghostslayers themselves.

  For a moment, he considered outright lying. Reporting to dispatch that he had found a ritual instead of a Veilsurge. That Wisptown was under threat of being invaded by a ghost. That if it emerged, it would carve a bloody path straight to the heart of Elsecaller city.

  Decades ago, it might have worked.

  It wouldn’t today.

  Not when Elsecaller City was infested with the paranormal bastards already.

  “Officer Foster, I repeat. Establish a perimet—”

  “Shame the damn things fail at the worst of times.”

  Officer Foster turned his radio off with a click. For a short second, he relished in the look of pure surprise etched across the woman’s expression.

  He shot Carmen a brief smile.

  “Maybe they should have given us a bit more funding. Don’t go in there, alright?”

  He drew his pistol and dove into the Veilsurge.

  Patreon.