Alex

  This is what we trained for.

  I kept repeating it in my head like a mantra.

  This was what all our grinding and training was for. The endless days spent inside the simulation. The repeated deaths. The hours of fighting these creatures from hell until our fingers cramped and our minds went numb.

  This was why I joined this unit.

  Pull yourself together, Alex.

  And yet…

  And yet I couldn’t stop the dread washing over me.

  It gripped my lungs like a vice.

  I couldn’t breathe properly. Each inhale felt shallow, incomplete, like the air itself had thickened. My eyes were locked on the horizon behind us, on the Swarm that was running at us with terrifying synchronization.

  I had thought I was scared earlier, when we were firing blindly into the darkness. When I didn’t know what I was shooting at. When I didn’t know whether I was actually killing anything or just wasting bullets.

  Now I wished I could go back to that ignorance.

  Now that I had seen them.

  Now that I knew how many were coming.

  Maybe it would have been better if that explosion had never gone off.

  Maybe we were better off not knowing that hundreds of nightmares were sprinting after us like starving wolves.

  “Ooooh boy!! Na my eyes dey deceive me abi wetin?”

  Master Orezi’s voice came from the front.

  He had said exactly what all of us were thinking.

  Still, I couldn’t help the bitterness that rose in my chest.

  Weren’t they supposed to be our heroes? Our gods walking among men? The elite that we were meant to rely on?

  Why did he sound just as shaken as I felt?

  If our supposed hero was this afraid, then what were we meant to feel?

  Was this how hope was supposed to look?

  “Hey, anyone with chemlights?”

  Master Kamcy’s voice cut through the suffocating tension inside the vehicle.

  “Sir, here.”

  One of my teammates quickly reached into his pouch and pulled out a single chemstick, handing it over without hesitation.

  What was he planning to do with that?

  I trusted him. It would be hard not to. He had been performing beyond expectation since we were attacked. But there was something about his eyes.

  They unsettled me.

  “I’ll need the whole pack,” he said calmly.

  My teammate awkwardly murmured, “Sure, sir,” before handing over the full bundle of chemsticks.

  Master Kamcy took them and turned to face us.

  “I’ll create light so you can see. I’ll clear our perimeter. Once I do, mount the guns and support Team 1. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  We responded without hesitation.

  It was hard not to. He spoke like someone who had already seen the outcome and was merely informing us of it.

  He glanced toward his two official teammates.

  They nodded.

  “Good. Cover me when you consider appropriate—”

  His words were cut short.

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  There was a flash.

  A slicing sound, followed by a wet impact.

  Something slapped against the floor near my boots.

  I looked down.

  It was a chunk of flesh.

  Still twitching.

  Like a severed lizard’s tail, I instinctively took a few steps back.

  It writhed grotesquely for a few seconds before the meat convulsed violently. The exposed fibers pulsed, then burst outward in an eruption of jagged bone spikes that shot in every direction.

  They were aiming for him.

  Master Kamcy reacted instantly.

  He leapt.

  His body twisted mid-air, his limbs spreading unnaturally wide as the bone spikes shot beneath him, embedding into the walls and floor with sharp metallic clangs.

  Blue àse erupted around him.

  Then came another flash.

  Another slicing sound.

  The spikes were cut apart mid-growth, fragments raining down like splintered ivory.

  He landed smoothly.

  He didn’t get enough time to rest before another tentacle lunged in from above, bladed and slick with dark ichor.

  He spun.

  His leg rose in a sky-high kick that pinned the tentacle to the roof of the vehicle.

  Only then did I notice the weapon in his hand.

  It looked like a large dagger, though thicker, longer, and shaped with an elegant curve.

  With a single motion, he sliced the tentacle clean off.

  The severed appendage thrashed violently as he kicked it out of the vehicle.

  After saving us yet again, he turned to us.

  “I’m going out. Don’t waste the opening.”

  Blue àse engulfed his body.

  He grabbed the side of the vehicle, spun with the motion of the moving transport, and launched himself onto the roof.

  As I watched him go, I couldn’t shake the feeling his eyes gave me.

  It wasn’t just confidence.

  It was the calculation in his eyes. It was the cold look deep in his eyes, like someone who had seen too much.

  Like someone who had already sacrificed parts of himself and accepted it.

  It reminded me of someone else I knew.

  Someone who inspired both fear and admiration in me.

  Mr. Adeyemi.

  “Alright, you heard the man! Get ready to cover him!”

  Lady Khadija’s voice snapped me back to reality.

  She grabbed her shoulder radio.

  “Prepare yourself, Team 1. Looks like help is coming after all.”

  Kamcy

  The wind tore against my face as I stood on the roof of the speeding vehicle.

  Behind us, the horde ran.

  I stared into them.

  Into hell.

  To the left, I could see Team 1 and Team 3.

  Team 1 was barely holding on. Their vehicle’s left side had been peeled open like a crushed tin can. Soldiers leaned out from the exposed frame, firing relentlessly into the Swarm. Muzzle flashes lit their faces in brief bursts of orange.

  Team 3 was worse.

  Much worse.

  A Wolf caste had breached their vehicle.

  Through the torn hull, I could see it moving.

  Its huge, muscular body was matted with fur stained in blood.

  It tore through soldiers like paper.

  Another Wolf caste leapt onto the vehicle roof while smaller Swarm units climbed over it, their collective weight causing the suspension to sink dangerously.

  If that vehicle flipped, they were done.

  I turned my gaze forward.

  Into the fog.

  That was where the tentacles were coming from.

  That was where the strongest aura pulsed.

  Sigh.

  They couldn’t wait until I formed my core, could they?

  With the amount of àse I had, and this weapon draining it constantly, I had five minutes at best before exhaustion set in.

  Five minutes before I blacked out.

  Well.

  Here we go again.

  I reinforced my body and leapt into the chaos.

  Onyinye

  Inside our vehicle was hell.

  Limbs.

  Blood.

  Gore.

  The metallic smell of iron mixed with gunpowder choked the air.

  The simulation had trained us, but nothing prepared you for the fear of knowing you had a single life.

  My comrades screamed as they were torn apart.

  The perpetrator was a Wolf caste.

  It slashed through armor like cloth. Bullets tore chunks from its body, spraying black blood across the interior, but it did not stop.

  It was of no use, though, as another one leapt in through the torn rear door.

  So I hid.

  Behind Mark’s body.

  I’m sorry, Mark.

  I’m really sorry.

  But I don’t want to die.

  This wasn’t like training.

  You knew that too. You fought hard.

  But I’m not like you.

  I’m not brave.

  I can’t die today.

  My heartbeat thundered in my ears as I watched another teammate get grabbed.

  The Wolf caste bit down on his arm.

  The sound was wet.

  Crunching.

  Bone shattered between its jaws.

  It ripped the arm off completely.

  Blood sprayed in an arc across the ceiling.

  He screamed.

  The Wolf lifted its claw to finish him—

  A flash caught my eyes.

  It was like something caught the moonlight.

  Before I could even turn my head to observe, the impossible happened.

  A massive glaive tore through the Wolf caste’s paw.

  Through its shoulder.

  Through its skull.

  The blade pinned it to the metal floor with a sickening crunch.

  A man stood atop the end of the polearm, a man I recognized instantly.

  He wore a smile.

  A wide, splitting smile.

  But his eyes carried no joy.

  Rather, they carried murder.

  Blue àse burned around him.

  “Hi there.”

  Was all I heard, followed by flashes. All rapid, precise, and brutal slices.

  The Wolf caste that had been rampaging moments ago was reduced to pieces. Limbs separated cleanly. Heads rolled. Torsos split open, spilling steaming entrails onto the vehicle floor.

  Another leapt at him.

  He spun. The glaive moved unnaturally.

  The blade cleaved the creature in half from shoulder to hip. Its organs spilled out in a cascade of blood and viscera.

  He moved like a dancer.

  Every spin of the glaive was accompanied by arcs of light.

  Creatures were diced like ingredients on a cutting board.

  Yet somehow, despite the confined space, despite the chaos, his blade never struck the vehicle walls.

  Never struck us.

  It was as if it passed harmlessly through what he did not intend to cut.

  No.

  That wasn’t it.

  The glaive kept changing length.

  Shrinking.

  Extending.

  Adjusting according to his will.

  Within seconds, the interior of the vehicle was filled with severed Swarm bodies instead of ours.

  Then he turned.

  And hurled the glaive toward me.

  It whizzed past my head.

  I froze.

  I thought he had executed me.

  Stiffly, I turned.

  Behind me, embedded deep into the metal hull, was the glaive’s blade.

  A jagged hole surrounded it.

  And along the shaft—

  Blood trickled down slowly.

  Thick.

  Dark.

  Whatever had been behind me was no longer there.