It wasn't just bad decisions! They were choices he'd had to make, damn it! He knew they were bad—he just had to make them.
Where the hell was the second wave? Hell, the sixth! Let it all end right this minute. Burn the whole world to the ground so they all rose from ashes, seeking extinct blood.
But… he shut his eyes, rage dying. Kael…
Eric took a deep breath. For a second, he'd almost forgotten about her. She'd have a big laugh if he told her about this one, then call him stupid for never listening to his instincts.
Then she'd burn him to toast later with a tantrum for almost dying. Probably best he kept this to himself this time. Yeah, just that.
He chuckled.
With a series of groans and grunts, he pushed himself to a sitting position, then to a stand, gripping the brick banister for support. He peeked at his right leg, which nearly gave way beneath him.
He flinched. Even his ligaments had been torn open. If he looked closer, he'd bet he could see bone.
He sighed. He'd have stopped to wrap it up, but there was no time before those fleshed-out spiders realized they could scale the smooth wall.
Maybe if he went far enough, he could bleed to death before they found him again. So, without thinking, he took the only route: a bridge-like path leading to the accessible entrance of a round, gigantic building.
It looked like a mix between a dam and a stadium—a brutalist structure with high walls, reinforced steel beams, and a domed roof that had seen better days.
He limped all the way through until he was close enough to catch the faint white light seeping through the entrance, close enough to hear a cascading sound—like a waterfall, except heavier and drier.
Too exhausted to think clearly, too desperate to investigate as he slowly lost half his blood to the floor, his body growing numb, he limped fully inside.
He wasn't sure what he'd expected to see—maybe thousands of cluttered plastic chairs? A black field of dust, dead grass, or ashes?
But none of that. Just a thoroughly empty space. And at the edge, where the cascading noise came from—
Was that tall, familiar figure cloaked in black?
"Why are you still alive? Why didn't you die?!"
The cloak's hood was angrily pulled down, revealing a face streaked with dark veins across tanned skin. Even his bald head wasn't spared, and as Eric watched, the veins seemed to move with colors.
"Is that… normal?" Eric murmured, not to anyone in particular.
But it was what floated behind the man that truly caught his eye—not the floating ashes rising from the deep where the thunderous noise originated, but a breathing white light in the shape of a rough circle, spinning with symbols Eric had only heard about but never seen.
An ashborn? But he'd never seen an ashborn that looked like that—sickening purple and green, a sore to the eyes. Was he a mutation? An experiment gone wrong?
The image of his last passenger shielding his face with a cloak crossed his mind, and Eric's curiosity dimmed.
"It's you, isn't it? You were the…" An ashspawn's scream cut him off.
The man seemed even more offended when he heard the loud shrieks closing in.
His eyes darkened. Really darkened, pitch black like the inky sky, and as they scanned Eric's bloodied body, he grimaced, "I gave you an easy death."
Eric's jaw clenched. "Your definition of easy is differentnt from mine, then. You blew up my fucking car."
But the man backed away, trembling as though scared.
What the hell was happening here?
To Eric's shock, so smoothly he barely registered it, in the next second, he was staring into the muzzle of a black pistol pointed directly at his chest.
"Hey… hey!" Eric backed away, heart pounding. "I don't want any trouble."
But… "I…" The trembling voice came again as the man's finger rested against the trigger. "No one should see this. I GAVE YOU AN EASY DEATH!"
Behind him, Eric could hear stealthy feet beating against the floor. He took a long breath. More ashes than air filled his lungs.
For a second, he almost laughed in defeat.
This was a nightmare.
It had to be a nightmare.