Europa III

  I never really thought about how wearing a gas mask—depriving yourself of two natural senses—cuts you off from feeling the beauty of the world; and, in doing so, allows you to see the reality of the world. It had been just moments away from midday when the myrmidon Perseus and his soldiers arrived in the Garden, and since then, we’d been travelling for about six hours.

  In the beginning of our journey, as I eyed the pink river—eerily so the same colour as my eyes—and the glittering abyss and the slowly darkening amber sky and the pale purple sun and the odd-blue grass and the distant, black mountains—all this, all this beauty… it all slowly faded.

  Slowly I came to feel the malignant rot of the ‘beautiful’ river, crashing upon itself like some tumultuous being of death; so too did the amber sky, ever shifting to the dead painting of black for which this world was known, lost its lustre—its magnificence; even the sun… man’s first love—even the sun showed its true colours: it wasn’t beautiful, it wasn’t vibrant, it wasn’t warm… it was dying.

  About thirty minutes ago, the road of decapitated imps upon which we travelled finally broke to the left alongside the swerve of the river. By now, the sky was a rich cognac—and most of the conversation of the group had died.

  Betty herself… who made this whole ordeal somewhat bearable, had become an entirely different person as the reality of where we were set in. Elder Cecelia too, although she had served in the early days of the Great Imp Wars, so in my out-of-character defence of her: she had a reason to change.

  Everyone did, really. We all had been told all our lives how the world we lived on was like. We’d heard the stories, we’d absorbed the fear. Everyone… but me.

  Sure, I’d recognised this world past its allure. But I wasn’t afraid. Some part of me, some cancerous desire, was begging me, pleading with me, commanding me to take off my mask and breathe in the rot which ruined my life.

  ‘If you do, you’ll become more powerful than the one yet fell.’ Those were the words, the thoughts that had somehow ravaged their way into my head.

  Yet I knew this was… for lack of a better term: retarded. Only one sister of Helen had ever survived the rot twice, and it had left her mind no better than had she succumbed to the Rot instead.

  Our minds could not survive. The desire would become too strong, the thoughts too erratic. It’d be… chaos. If I didn’t die from it, eventually I’d succumb, and then I’d fall all the same. Wouldn’t that be… something—

  My thoughts fell to nothing as the whole convoy stopped.

  Perseus with his red cape swaying about looked from his left to the right as another son came up beside him. “Is everything alright, Sir?”

  I scanned the area. With the pink river still on our left, our right had become craggy black rocks stacked atop one another. In the road far ahead, in a field of bluegrass which the rocks circled around, you could see a small, square hut made of copper—and if I had to guess, that was the entry of the foxhole.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Yet we’d stopped. Something was wrong.

  Perseus’ grey mask turned back to face the group, looking at everyone. He tilted his head, slowly raising it up towards the top of the wall of rocks to our right. “AMBUSH!”

  A whistling arrow flew from the right into the chest of a soldier beside Perseus. Blood spurted out like a fountain as the plebians of the group dropped to a fetal position.

  My hand, shaking, drew the pistol from my waist and aimed it straight at the top of the rocks. There was nothing there.

  Locking onto something running towards me, I lowered the pistol down and to the right—but I wasn’t fast enough. A limber, child-sized grey imp with a mane of white leapt from the grass and chomped down on my forearm, twisting my arm, making me drop the gun, and bringing me to the ground with it atop me.

  Screaming in pain, I pivoted myself on my right hip and threw a left hook into the temple of the imp who was still gnawing through my red sleeve and feasting on the meat of my wrist.

  It screeched as it flew off my arm and caught its landing a foot away from my head. Immediately, the imp drew a bone dagger from its loincloth and moved to hammer it down towards my face—but a bullet from behind me hit its swordhand—and then its chest—and then another in its head, turning the imp to a bubbling body of mangled flesh as my mask was drenched in its blood.

  I could barely see anything beyond the blood, but something else that was red wrapped itself around my chest and lifted me to my feet. “Come on, Europa,” Elder Cecelia’s voice comforted me. “We’ve got to get to the Foxhole.”

  With my left arm—the one not fucking scarred! With my left arm, I wiped the blood off my goggles and my vision revealed the five remaining sons—Perseus included—defending their position in a circle around the plebeians.

  One of the sons had a red-haired imp by the head and was dashing it against the grass and the dirt in some mad rage, forming a scarlet puddle. Another was firing shots past me and Elder Cecelia, and Perseus and the last two were scanning the way forward.

  “TAP YOUR HEADS IF YOU’RE BREATHING ALRIGHT!” one of the sons screamed into the group of plebeians laying face down in the grass.

  All but one did, an elderly man I’d noticed back in Eden and recognised now on account of his white shirt. On closer inspection, there was an arrow that had breached his throat and broke through his nape. God be good.

  As Elder Cecelia and I entered the circle of the sons, Perseus turned back to us. “Sisters, is the way… safe?”

  I couldn’t tell. My psychic abilities, as latent as they were, wouldn’t work. I couldn’t even hear properly. Their rifles were so loud.

  “There’s less… behind us,” Elder Cecelia told him.

  Perseus nodded and rose from his knee. “SISTERS, GUIDE THE PLEBEIANS. SONS, CLEAR THE FIELD AND PROTECT THEM! RETREAT INTO THE FOXHOLE!”

  As the sons pressed forward, Elder Cecelia put her hands on the backs of the plebeians and bid them rise. After following suit, we gathered the plebeians and moved as a unit towards the field.

  Once we broke the rock wall, a score of imps hidden from behind readied spears and bows as they charged us.

  Perseus and the two sons at the van let loose volleys of bullets, turning the twenty or so imps into a grotesque mound of blood and gore. All the while, stray arrows and spears whistled toward us.

  A singular spear hit straight into the unprotected canister of another pleb, this one a young girl. Before her chest wound, from which blood gushed out like a waterfall, took her life, I watched the girl start to spasm and jerk around as she clawed the nozzle of her mask. The Rot had taken her—but there was no survival—not with a wound like that.

  I was dragged down by someone as two arrows flew over my head, making splashes in the river behind us. Turning to face saviour, I saw it was not Elder Cecelia, but Betty.

  “Come on!” her filtered voice pleaded into my ear.

  It was only then I noticed my legs had turned to jelly, and I was weighing her down. Finding my footing, I searched for my gun—but I’d dropped it earlier.

  Once the field was cleared, Perseus and the two vans raised their guns to the sky and broke past us through the group of civilians, lowering them back the way we came.

  “SISTER!” Perseus turned his head at us. “Turn the Rot Converters… get the wounded! Get… plebeians. And then yourself. Two… a time!”

  As the sons opened fire down the road, the group of us ran to the square entry of the Foxhole. Elder Cecilia pulled open the bulky door, then turned several locks on a big, iron case beside it, revealing a circuit board with a lever.

  After she pulled it, she turned to us: “Besides Sister… who else is wounded?”

  Three hands raised—including Betty; she’d taken an stray arrow which heavily grazed her arm, causing red waters to rush down her plain white clothes.

  Elder Cecelia huddled Betty and I together, and pushed us towards the door. “There’s a first aid kit… begin treating them!”

  I nodded in shock as beyond the sons mowing down hordes of imps, I saw an ascendant moon of blood finally break upon the sky. Night had come.