Aaron Graves had never held a rifle before, not a real one, anyway. And if this rusted relic in his hands wasn't real, someone had gone through a sickening amount of trouble to make it feel that way. It was heavy, cold, and hummed under his fingers like it had a soul… or a grudge.
He trudged forward, knee-deep in trench muck. The sky above boiled with sickly clouds the color of bruised fruit. Artillery rumbled in the distance like angry gods banging on cathedral doors. His breath came in short gasps. He hadn't put the rebreather mask on yet, he couldn't figure out the buckles without feeling like he was disarming a bomb.
"Keep up, Saint-Born," said the voice behind him.
That was what they were calling him now, Saint-Born. Like he was some kind of relic-egg cracked open by an act of divine combustion. Never mind that he'd died lighting his stovetop with a butter knife. These zealots didn't care. To them, the details didn't matter. He'd appeared in fire and mud. That was enough.
A dozen soldiers marched ahead and behind, weapons in hand, backs hunched like old statues. Their armor was a patchwork of steel, cloth, and bone. Some wore trench coats stitched with prayers. Others had entire saint effigies strapped to their backs—grotesque, weather-beaten wooden idols leaking wax or blood.
Aaron couldn't stop staring.
He knew some of this.
The sigils. The banners. The chant patterns.
Trench Pilgrims, he realized.
Minor faction. Lore said they wander the front carrying relics to battlefields where saints were martyred. Believed warzones were sacred altars. Half-cult, half-logistical support.
Which meant… this wasn't a front-line assault unit.
It was worse.
It was a processional, a holy escort, marching toward a battlefield not to win, but to witness.
"Where are we going?" Aaron asked, voice dry.
The soldier beside him, taller than the rest, turned. His mask was crowned with barbed wire woven into a crude halo. "To the Wound."
Aaron frowned. "The Wound?"
"A crater where an angel fell screaming into the earth. The mud remembers. We walk to pay tribute."
"A field trip, then," Aaron muttered.
The soldier didn't laugh.
They marched for hours. Maybe longer. Time here moved like syrup laced with ash. The trench stretched endlessly in either direction, sometimes splitting into side paths filled with forgotten skeletons or rusted prayer wheels still turning in the wind. Once, they passed a dying tank—half-submerged, painted with glowing scripture. Its turret had been replaced with a confessional booth. A corpse was slumped inside.
Aaron stopped to stare.
"Don't linger," hissed a short, sharp voice.
A new figure stepped into view, wrapped in layers of black-and-gold linen, with stained gloves and a beaded censer swinging from one hand. Her gas mask was more ornate than the others, framed in brass, lenses tinted crimson.
"You must be the Saint," she said flatly.
Aaron straightened. "I guess I'm… working on that."
She stepped closer, eyes unreadable behind the glass. "I'm Sister Trenaxa. Archivist-Surgeon to this procession. Your arrival has disrupted our march schema and relic-balance. I was not informed we would be dragging a living prophecy into the Wound."
"Well, sorry to intrude," Aaron muttered, gripping the rifle tighter.
Trenaxa studied him for a moment longer, then leaned in close. Her voice dropped. "Whatever you were before, you are something else now. Your presence radiates. We passed two shrines this morning and both began to bleed wax."
Aaron blinked. "That's not comforting."
"Good." She turned away. "Comfort is heresy."
That night, they stopped in a shelled-out bunker built into the trench wall. Inside, relics hung like icons—twisted metal pieces of saints long dead. A fire crackled. Soot coated the walls. Someone brewed black tea that smelled like old leather and holy water.
Aaron sat near the back, arms wrapped around his knees, staring at the flames.
A young soldier approached. Bare-faced, maybe eighteen, with a scar shaped like a cross across his cheek.
"Is it true?" the boy asked. "Did you fall from the sky in a pillar of fire?"
Aaron hesitated. "Not… exactly. I was, uh… lifted. In a… a great explosion. There was light."
The boy nodded solemnly. "I knew it. I dreamed of your coming. In the dream, you were made of brass and smoke."
"Close enough."
The boy handed him a strip of dried meat. "You'll need strength. The Wound draws closer."
"Right. Thanks."
He took it, bit into it, and nearly gagged. It tasted like smoked dirt and something unspeakable. But he ate it anyway.
That night, Aaron dreamed.
Not of his old life, or the explosion, or the forums.
He dreamed in miniatures.
He saw himself, tiny and painted, standing on a battlefield board he'd built in his garage—trenches made of foam, debris sculpted from bits of old sprues. Opposing him were faceless Swine warriors, their tusks glistening, their flags stitched from skin.
A voice whispered from the dream table:
You know their movements. You read their patterns. You argued them into existence. Use it.
Aaron snapped awake.
The trench was quiet. Fog crept over the edges. Somewhere, artillery boomed. In the distance, a pig-like shriek echoed across the land.
The Swine were coming.