Chapter 240: UNKNOWN ORGANISM

Content Warning: Graphic violence, blood and gore, death, and child endangerment.

One cub was sobbing too hard to climb the raised platform.

Tilla shoved him upward with both hands.

“Come on!”

“I can’t!”

“Yes, you can!”

A Warder claw erupted behind them.

The child screamed.

Tilla spun and kicked it with both feet.

The hand recoiled.

She snatched the cub up again.

“MOVE!”

Nahla stood on a raised stone ledge surrounded by blood.

Her gray otter hair was stuck to her face.

Two patients were screaming beside her.

One was not screaming anymore.

She checked his throat.

Nothing.

Nahla looked at the people crowding around.

“HE’S DEAD!”

Nobody moved.

“He’s…”

“I KNOW!”

Her voice cracked like a whip.

“If they’re bleeding, bring them to me!”

She pointed toward the dead male.

“If they’re dead, stop blocking the living!”

His brother stared at her in horror.

Nahla grabbed his face.

“Grieve later.”

His eyes filled.

“Do you hear me?”

He nodded.

“Good. Help Sari.”

Sari was kneeling beside a male whose thigh had been shredded open.

Her hands shook.

Not enough to stop working.

She pressed cloth into the wound.

“Hold this!”

The wounded male screamed.

“I can’t!”

“You can!”

“I CAN’T!”

Sari grabbed his wrist and forced his hand onto the cloth.

Her own eyes were wet.

“Then scream while you do it!”

He screamed.

But he held it.

Inside Swanly’s shelter, she heard all of it.

Every scream.

Every crash.

Every horn.

Every cry for help.

Her whole body wanted to run outside.

She did not.

Sira was pressed against her chest.

Eira clung to her other side.

Kairo, Nilo and Miko were behind her near the raised sleeping platform.

Swanly’s white tail had wrapped around them so tightly that Miko’s face was almost buried in fur.

“Mama…”

“I know.”

Another pale hand slammed through the wall.

Swanly moved.

She shifted both girls backward into Kairo’s arms.

“Hold them.”

Kairo grabbed Eira immediately.

Nilo took Sira.

Swanly pulled her bow from storage.

The System hovered beside her.

LEFT.

Swanly turned.

The Warder lunged.

TWANG.

The arrow struck through the palm and pinned it to the wooden wall.

It kept moving.

Swanly stared.

“Oh, come on!”

Its fingers closed around the shaft.

Pulled.

The arrow tore free.

Miko whimpered.

“It didn’t die.”

“No.”

Swanly reached into storage.

A short blade appeared in her hand.

“No gun yet.”

The System looked at her.

APPROVED. AMMUNITION IS LIMITED AND REPLACEMENT COST IS HIGH.

“I know.”

The Warder snapped toward her.

Swanly waited.

Closer.

Closer.

She stepped sideways.

The claws missed her stomach by inches.

She cut into the underside of its wrist.

Black fluid sprayed.

The hand jerked.

Sira hissed.

Eira hissed louder.

Miko stared at them.

Then hissed too.

Nilo looked at him.

“You’re not a snake.”

“I’m helping.”

Swanly almost laughed.

Then the Warder caught her blade.

Its fingers clenched.

Swanly’s eyes widened.

“Let go.”

It did not.

“Fine.”

She kicked the wall.

The arm twisted with the movement.

Swanly ripped the blade downward through the softer joint.

The Warder collapsed.

Kairo breathed again.

Swanly turned immediately.

“Everybody okay?”

Eira reached toward her.

“Mama.”

“I’m okay.”

Sira’s tiny lower lip trembled.

“Up.”

Swanly wanted nothing more than to grab both of them.

Instead she heard another scraping sound.

“Not yet.”

Sira’s eyes filled.

That nearly broke Swanly more effectively than the monster.

“I’m right here.”

Outside, voices rose.

“ASH!”

“SALT!”

“RESIN!”

The System’s instructions were spreading.

Tovan had people hauling baskets onto platforms.

Sari threw a handful of wood ash into a fresh crack.

The Warder inside convulsed.

Its pale skin immediately bubbled.

Sari screamed:

“It works!”

People heard.

Hope travelled faster than fear for the first time all night.

“ASH!”

A warrior dumped an entire basket into another opening.

Three hands recoiled beneath the soil.

Mora poured bitter tree resin into a trench.

Raku followed with ash.

The Warders thrashed.

Then withdrew.

Swanly heard the cheering outside.

Small.

Exhausted.

But real.

One hand near her shelter retreated.

Then another.

Swanly stared.

The System’s golden map showed the red signals moving downward.

Her knees almost gave out.

“They’re leaving.”

The fairy did not answer.

Swanly looked at it.

“System.”

Its little face had gone strange.

“Host.”

“What?”

THE WARDERS ARE RETREATING.

Swanly laughed once.

Half sob.

Half hysteria.

“Good.”

She looked toward the cubs.

“We…”

NOT BECAUSE YOU DEFEATED THEM.

Her smile vanished.

“What?”

Everyone near her went quiet.

Swanly stared at the fairy.

“Why?”

The System turned toward the floor.

A severed Warder hand lay beside the wall.

Its fingers had been twitching continuously.

They stopped.

Miko noticed.

“Mama…”

The hand jerked.

Once.

Then slid toward the crack.

Swanly frowned.

It was not crawling.

Something below was pulling it.

The hand disappeared.

Crunch.

Swanly froze.

Kairo’s ears flattened.

“What was that?”

Crunch.

Wet.

Heavy.

Chewing.

Nilo’s little face drained of color.

“Something ate it.”

Outside, the same thing happened.

Raku stood over two severed Warder arms.

One disappeared.

He stared at the crack.

“What…”

CRUNCH.

Mora backed away.

“Raku.”

Another limb vanished.

CRUNCH.

The entire battlefield quieted.

Then something pushed through the earth.

Not a hand.

A hooked leg.

Stone-colored.

It bent at three joints.

Then another leg.

Then four more.

A body dragged itself out.

Low.

Broad.

Covered in overlapping gray armor that looked almost identical to rock.

No visible eyes.

Its head turned toward blood.

Then split sideways.

The entire skull opened into a wet horizontal mouth lined with rows of inward-facing teeth.

Tilla screamed.

Someone shouted:

“WHAT IS THAT?!”

The creature ate the remaining Warder hand.

Whole.

The System jerked upright.

UNKNOWN ORGANISM.

Swanly swallowed.

“No.”

Another one emerged.

Then a third.

“System.”

SCANNING.

“Faster.”

SCANNING.

One of the creatures turned toward a wounded male.

It had no eyes.

It did not need them.

Blood dripped from his thigh.

The creature’s head snapped toward him.

Swanly understood.

“BLOOD!”

Nobody heard.

She screamed louder.

“THEY’RE FOLLOWING BLOOD!”

The creature launched.

Raku intercepted it.

He transformed fully.

His huge crocodilian jaws closed around its armored neck.

The Hollowmaw twisted.

Its mouth opened sideways and bit into Raku’s shoulder scales.

Raku roared.

Then rolled.

His enormous body twisted violently.

Once.

Twice.

The creature’s joints tore.

Its armored head ripped from its torso with a wet snap.

Raku came up breathing hard.

Black-gray fluid poured from his jaws.

Mora stared.

“Do that again.”

Raku spat.

“I was planning to.”

The System finally flashed information.

TEMPORARY CLASSIFICATION: HOLLOWMAW. SUBTERRANEAN SCAVENGER.

“Hollowmaw?”

DATA INCOMPLETE.

“Of course it is.”

ARMORED DORSAL SURFACE. EXPOSED UNDERSIDE. LOW VISUAL CAPACITY. STRONG BLOOD AND VIBRATION RESPONSE.

“How do I kill it?”

DOWNLOADING.

“I hate you.”

NOTED.

Swanly heard something scrape above.

A Hollowmaw was climbing a wooden support.

Straight up.

People screamed from the platform above it.

The whole safety plan collapsed in one second.

“They climb!”

Panic returned.

Worse.

People began jumping from platforms.

“NO!” Swanly screamed. “STAY UP!”

Some listened.

Some did not.

One female landed directly on soft earth.

A Warder caught her ankle.

She went down.

The Hollowmaw reached her before anyone else did.

Its mouth opened.

Her scream ended wetly.

Swanly looked away.

Just once.

Then forced herself to look back.

You did not survive an apocalypse by pretending death was pretty.

Kael burst into the shelter.

Black fur receded from his face and chest.

Blood soaked one side of him.

Not his.

Mostly.

His golden eyes found Swanly.

Then the children.

Counted.

Five.

Alive.

His shoulders dropped a fraction.

Soren came seconds later in humanoid form because his full body could not fit through the doorway.

Raku remained outside.

The System’s map flashed between Swanly’s eyes.

More red.

More movement.

Swanly looked at both males.

“Go.”

Kael stared.

“No.”

“Kael.”

“No.”

A scream came from the eastern shelter.

Another.

Swanly pointed.

“They need you.”

“They are not my concern.”