Kira grabbed the radio and updated Chief as we moved into the town.

  My knuckles were bone-white on the steering wheel as my eyes scanned the carnage for any sign of our people. The absolute lack of sound was a physical weight, pressing in on us from all sides. As we neared the town square, I focused inward, on the cool, humming energy that was now a permanent part of me.

  Equip.

  The thought was all it took. A rush of cold energy washed over my body as my armor materialized over my tactical gear without a sound. The dark green scales of the chest piece and greaves fused seamlessly with the black fabric, impossibly light, moving with me as if they were a part of my own skin. It was a grim, practiced motion now, as natural as chambering a round.

  I finally saw them. Two Valen PD cruisers, parked haphazardly in the middle of the street, their emergency lights still pulsing in a silent, desperate rhythm. Red. Blue. Red. Blue. The strobing beams painted the blood-soaked street in a macabre, festive glow.

  They were parked in front of a large, two-story brick building—the town hall. The heavy oak front doors were shut tight, but a smaller side door, a single panel of dark wood, was slightly ajar. It swung slowly back and forth in a breeze I couldn’t feel, a dark, ominous invitation into the shadows within.

  Movement drew my eyes as I watched someone step around the Police car, a large half sword in hand. He knelt by the police vehicle studying something on the ground. His black armor glinting in the sun.

  “Contact” Kira said over the radio as I slammed the vehicle to a stop in front of the man. I leapt out with my swords already in hand.

  “Who are you?” I commanded.

  As Logan joined me Axe in hand, armor already adorned. Jamie jogged up and to my other side Sword and shield in front of him.

  “Easy friends” the man stood arms held in front of him, sword vanishing into his inventory.

  “I am a hunting guide who lived nearby. I am hunting some beast that destroyed my home” his jaw set as he tried to stuff some emotion down.

  “I managed to kill a couple of them on my way here and got this sword and armor.” He gestured to his outfit “and was told I killed an invading monster”

  “What did they look like” I asked as I unsummoned my swords. The others followed my lead.

  “There was this weird fish looking thing on legs but I think there might be something else. The fish had serrated teeth but whatever caused this used a sharp edged weapon.” He pointed to the bodies around the building.

  “Okay, thank you. You any good with that sword?” I asked the man.

  “I make do” he gave me a forced smile. “Names Jace Winters”

  “Elias” I reached a hand to Jace who took it.

  We fell into a loose diamond formation, a practiced, lethal dance. Logan took point, his sheer size a walking barricade. I took his six, Jamie and Jace flanking us, Kira and Theo were protected in the center. I wanted Theo to stay behind but he wouldn’t hear any of it.

  Other teams followed suit as we prepared to enter the Town hall. An idea suddenly came to mind and I rushed to the Police Vehicle pulling out my Police vest and AR-15 for Theo.

  “Ever use one of these before” I asked as he strapped the vest on.

  “At the range a few times with Mikey” Theo said smiling as I handed him the weapon.

  “I don’t know what we will find in there but you stick close to me no matter what” I met Theo’s eyes as the smile fell away, he just nodded and readied the weapon.

  We moved through the swinging door into the oppressive darkness of the town hall. The air was thick with the coppery tang of blood, so heavy it was almost gagging. The floor was slick with it. We found the first two officers in the main hallway, or what was left of them. They were in pieces, their limbs severed with the same clean, incisive precision we’d seen outside.

  “Jamie,” I said, my voice a low, hard command. “Log them. Get what you can back to the truck.”

  He nodded, his face pale but his jaw set. He began the grim work, dragging the remains back toward the entrance, his movements efficient and respectful another team moving to assist.

  Theo looked at the carnage, turning white as a ghost.

  “What did this?” Theo gagged.

  “Monsters” Logan replied as he continued looking forward for any threats. We pushed forward, clearing the building room by room. More bodies. More of our own people, cut down by an enemy they seemed to have never saw coming.

  We rounded the corner and there he was. Lying on the floor, at the end of a long hallway, slumped against a heavy, locked wooden door. The first signs of battle all around him. Brass casings littered the floor like fallen leaves. The casings crunched under foot as I subconsciously moved forward. The world dissolved around me into a single focal point.

  My mind tried to process it like a crime scene.

  The victim lying against the door. A friend lying against the door. Last line of defense against an unknown enemy. He was alone… scared. Clean surgical cuts removing the victim’s limbs with precision. Mikey… my friend… was torn apart, piece by piece. Victim… was smiling in death. Why do you look so content Mikey.

  My mind fractured, my heart broke. Mana swirled through my body.

  This was where he’d made his last stand. He was missing all four limbs, the cuts impossibly clean. His torso and head were untouched, save for a constellation of small, piercing cuts across his chest and a single, deep stab wound that had punched clean through his Kevlar vest.

  “NO” Theo screamed pushing pass us to Mikey’s body, his little brother’s body. Theo pulled Mikey into his chest, sobbing.

  My heart seized, the cold mask I wore through countless tragedies, cracked.

  Mikey, my partner on the barricade, my friend. Broken, yet he still had a satisfied look on his face that was so out of place.

  The sight of him, of the good man, torn to pieces, broke something inside me. A hot, white surge of adrenaline flooded my system. The world snapped into painfully sharp focus, and time seemed to slow, the dust motes dancing in the strobing emergency lights becoming individual, crystalline points. A notification I didn’t read flashed and disappeared.

  Flow State Activated.

  I felt a tear stream down my cheek then out of the corner of my eye, I saw it. A shimmer. A distortion in the air, like a heat haze on a summer road. My body moved on pure instinct. I lashed out, my Jian a blur of silver. The blade met something with a high-pitched shriek of scraping chitin, and a monster materialized out of thin air.

  It was a nightmare of polished black chitin and skeletal limbs, an unholy fusion of insect and blade. It stood eight feet tall, its body a segmented horror of dark, overlapping plates marked with eerie, bone-white patterns. Two enormous, scythe-like arms, serrated and lethally sharp, were held ready. Its head was a triangular horror, dominated by huge, multifaceted eyes that glowed with a cold, alien intelligence. One of its bladed forelimbs dropped to the floor, severed at the joint, and it let out a piercing, chittering scream that vibrated in my bones.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  It lunged from the wall. I didn’t think. I just moved, my second blade coming up in a vicious arc that sliced clean through its neck. The head, still screaming, tumbled to the floor but the body continued to swing at me with it’s remaining arm blade.

  I ducked the blade and spun, bringing my sword up through its chest causing its organs to drop out in a black oily mess.

  The body finally dropped to the ground in a heap, a blue screen appeared for me.

  Abyssal Horror killed – 50 XP.

  My breaths came in ragged heaves as the adrenaline roared, the entire building began to tremble. A deep, guttural sound came from the very foundations. It was followed by a sound I was coming to know all too well: the dry, rasping scrape of claws on tile, on walls, from every direction at once.

  “We have to go,” Kira said, her voice tight.

  Theo lifted Mikey’s body into his arms and held it tightly to his chest, fresh blood dripped down his body but Theo didn’t seem to notice.

  We were turning to leave when a faint sound stopped us cold. A cry. A child’s cry, muffled, from behind the door. The door Mikey had died protecting.

  “Logan,” I said numbly.

  He didn’t need to be told twice. He kicked the door open with superhuman strength. The door crashed into the wall. Luckily no one was standing behind it. Huddled in the corner, a group of a dozen people, a mix of adults and wide-eyed children, flinched back from the sudden intrusion.

  Another unearthly shriek, closer this time, rattled down the hallway.

  “MOVE!” I roared, my voice a raw command that cut through their paralysis. “Logan, you and I hold the line and do a fighting retreat. Kira Jamie, escort everyone out and into the vehicles.”

  They moved to follow the command as Logan and I stepped into the hallway where the sound was coming from.

  Jace stepped to my other side and I had forgotten he was with us for a moment.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Getting revenge.” His jaw set and he held his half sword with both hands as he stared down the hall, his eyes burned.

  I didn’t have time to argue as the sound of claws on tiles sounded in front of me. Except there was nothing there.

  Holes began to appear on the walls as paint chips flew off and paintings crashed to the ground as something raced towards us but I couldn’t see what it was.

  I looked at Logan who was equally surprised and Jace who looked ready to fight whatever was in the hallway. My anger soared at the creatures that had killed Mikey and I prepared to fight whatever invisible enemy stood before us.

  Logan suddenly darted forward slamming the door in place and placing a long row bench against it.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING” Jace and I shouted at the same time.

  “We are not fighting an invisible enemy in a confined space. You will get your revenge but only after we have a plan. No use getting killed in a place like this” Logan had a uncharacteristically serious look on his face.

  His words made sense but my anger… my grief, demanded blood.

  I was about to argue when something slammed into the hallway door. A sound of multiple monsters chittering on the other side of the door. Slices began to appear in the wooden door as the monsters began chopping their way to us.

  Logan threw a few more benches on the pile and turned to run after Kira and the others.

  “Let’s go” he said as he passed. I turned to follow but saw Jace was still standing with his sword in hand facing the barricaded door.

  “Come on” I called to Jace but he just stood there.

  “You go. I will have my revenge.” Jace bit off every word with such anger it left me stunned.

  “You will die”

  “I don’t care.”

  My mind reeled. He was suicidal. What happened to this man. My mind racked for ideas on how to convince him.

  “What if I can promise you complete revenge. A chance at the source of these monsters?”

  “You know where these monsters come from.” He finally turned from the door to face me.

  “I do and if you come with me I promise you will come with me to close it.” Jace looked me in the eyes for a moment, the silence filled with the chittering and chopping of the monsters.

  “Fine” he nodded and we took off after everyone else.

  We hit the main floor where Kira was waiting. She looked relieved to see us and fell in beside us.

  “Where is everyone else?” I asked as she joined.

  “Jamie got them out. I came back to make sure you didn’t do anything stupid again.” Kira replied simply.

  “Fair enough”

  She hesitated, her mouth opening and closing for a minute before she quietly spoke, “I’m sorry about Mikey.”

  “Me too.” I willed my face to stone and focused on moving forward. The strobing red and blue lights from outside lanced through the grimy windows, painting the blood-slicked hallway in frantic, nightmarish flashes. As we moved, the hairs on my arms prickled. A cold premonition of death, a primal instinct my cop brain had never been able to quantify, washed over me. The air grew heavy, thick with a pressure that had nothing to do with the smell of blood.

  Then I saw it again. A subtle distortion in the air right next to Kira, a ripple in reality as she ran next to me.

  My body moved on pure instinct again. I grabbed her, yanking her back with all my strength just as the shimmer solidified for a fraction of a second. A thin line of blood welled on her cheek where something impossibly sharp had sliced the air she’d occupied a moment before. My blade whipped out, a blur of silver, and I punched it forward into the invisible horror.

  The steel met something with a high-pitched shriek of scraping chitin, and the monster materialized out of thin air, impaled on my sword. It was another one of the black-shelled nightmares, its multifaceted red eyes burning with hate as it let out a piercing, chittering scream that vibrated in my bones.

  That scream was answered by a dozen more from outside.

  “It’s an ambush,” I snarled, yanking my blade free as the creature collapsed. “They were waiting!”

  We burst out of the town hall into the disorienting strobes of the emergency lights. The street was a hunting ground. A swarm of the insectoid nightmares unfolded from the shadows, their movements jerky and unnervingly fast.

  “You two!” I roared at the most able-bodied of the adult survivors, pointing to the idling cruisers Mikey’s team had driven. “Get in those cars! They’re running, go!”

  They stared for a half-second before scrambling to obey, a new, desperate hope on their faces. The rest of the civilians piled into the back of the rest of the waiting cruisers. I saw Theo gently place Mikey’s body in the truck bed before turning with his AR. His eyes were red as tears flowed freely. He held the gun to his shoulder and began unloading into the flickering images of the Abyssal Horrors as they began turning invisible.

  “Kira, with me!” I shouted. We broke from the group, becoming the focal point of the attack. I met the first creature’s charge, my gladius deflecting its bladed arm with a shower of sparks. In the same motion, my Jian sliced through the unarmored joint of its leg, hobbling it. Before it could recover, a bolt of red energy from Kira’s staff slammed into its chest, staggering it. I finished it with a clean thrust through its cluster of red eyes, pulling the sword down through its neck into its chest cavity.

  Something purple fell out of the chest and I scooped it up, quickly storing it in my inventory.

  Two more Abyssal Horrors lunged at me with their blades poised to strike. I threw my Jian tethering it with mana, the blade sailed true slamming into the chest cavity of the right Horror. I yanked the Mana thread and the monster slammed into the one beside it, entangling the live monster with the dead. I yanked the sword out of the chest cavity with a swift pull of mana and the blade sailed into my hand before I plunged the gladius into the chest of the still struggling Horror.

  I watched as Kira launched another red missile at an Abyssal Horror that just turned invisible.

  The monster reappeared missing it’s head but its body charged the stunned Kira.

  I launched my tethered Gladius over my shoulder at the monster, pulling the rope of mana downwards causing the blade to slice the monster in half before I recalled the mana. The blade slammed back into my hand as another screen appeared and disappeared:

  Mana Tether Proficiency increase.

  I felt the drag on my Mana but I continued cleaving and stabbing any monster that came into attack range. Soon the monsters around me disappeared and nothing moved.

  I wind stepped to the last couple of Monsters fighting Jamie. Logan’s mound of hacked corpses were piled high as I raced past. I landed behind the Abyssal Horror Jamie was currently fighting and cleaved the rear legs off of the beast. It let out a chittering scream and as Jamie was about to land the finishing blow a AR – 15 Round pierced under its sword arm deep into the chest cavity. The monster fell to the ground dead.

  I glanced to the Police vehicles expecting to see one of the officers standing with the weapon in their hand.

  What I didn’t expect was a long red haired firefighter holding the weapon with a wild smile on her face.

  “I HIT IT,” She screamed in shock.

  Was…was that a fluke.

  I stared in stunned disbelief as she looked to the side reading something invisible in front of her.

  Another chittering screech brought my attention back to the fight and I watched as Jamie took down the last of the creatures near the Police vehicles. “Everyone in!” I yelled, Theo stood over one of the corpses still pulling the trigger of his long empty weapon.

  I grabbed him by the shoulder and he just looked into my eyes. His eyes were wide, fearful, tears no longer streamed from them but I could see he was shell shocked.

  “Come on Theo,” I said softly as I took the weapon from his hands. He let me guide him to the police vehicle and he stepped into the back willingly as Jace entered the other side.

  I slid into the driver’s seat as Kira jumped in beside me. The engine was already rumbling, the key fob in my pocket all it needed. I slammed the car into drive, the tires squealing on the blood-slick asphalt as we fishtailed onto the main road, the other vehicles right behind us.

  In the rearview mirror, I saw more of the creatures pouring out of the town hall, their dark forms silhouetted against the strobing taillights of the retreating police vehicles. Their forms shimmering in and out as they activated their invisibility.

  We sped out of Oakhaven, leaving the town and its dead to the encroaching darkness. The silence in the car was heavy, filled only with the sound of our own ragged breathing. We had survived. But as the image of Mikey’s last stand burned behind my eyes, I knew we were far from safe.