The absence of the siren was unsettling. The giant crustaceans were still everywhere and the crisis was far from over. Screeching, weaponfire, crumbling buildings; it was all suddenly amplified in the faux silence. None of it was visible in the haze of dust, but there was nothing to stop the sounds from carrying. It wasn’t a natural disaster; it was a war zone.

Without the loudest noise to keep the beasts occupied, nothing was keeping them in the middle of the city anymore. The further Hyejin crept toward safety, the more of them she found. 

Living humans were scarce. She had spotted a few lone survivors, but large groups were unsafe. The beasts were drawn to large targets first and most humans couldn’t outrun them. Slow, steady and utterly alone. Whether she wanted to be or not, she was on her own. 

Worse yet, she could feel the pins and needles digging into her muscles as the poison moved through her circulatory system. Time wasn’t on her side. 

Anxiety welled up in her stomach, her forehead pressed against the gun. Her hands hurt from how tightly she clutched it. To get the most accurate shot in the soft palate, she needed to be right in front of a trigby. The laser shots could get through the shell exterior, but it took more work to kill them that way. If it were just one, maybe two trigbies, it might have been worth the risk. Four. That was far too many. The moment she took a shot, they would be on her.

The sound of people being ripped apart replayed over and over in her head while she sat curled up on herself, trembling like a leaf. Her heart ached for someone — anyone — to help her. Most of the local defence force was focused on the area of the outbreak. She hadn’t seen anyone, neither the militia nor the military, in what felt like forever. For all she knew, she may have been the last survivor left.

Taking a car would be faster, but she’d seen the way they chased down the military vehicles. The abandoned car she was using as shelter was proof enough. The door had been ripped off its hinges and the metal roof had been perforated thoroughly, like Swiss cheese. Red painted the interior, still dripping on the leather seats. The engine was still running. The remnants of a bus stop kept it stationary. 

Sharp pain shot through her side as she carefully peeked under the chassis to count again. Five. The trigbies were gathering too quickly.

She had already killed three along the way, but they had all been solo hunters. By now, she must have snuck around at least twelve others, but the purple toxic stain was making her sluggish and there was nothing else within reach to hide behind. 

Her limbs felt heavy and so very tired.

Something moved in the corner of her vision. Hyejin whipped around, gun aimed and poised to shoot.

A young woman held her hands up, squatting close to the ground as well, a short distance away. She didn’t appear to have weapons except for a scuffed, prosthetic right arm. Her dark skin and hair were powdered with dust and dirt. She looked just as worn out as Hyejin felt. 

The woman pointed to herself, then to Hyejin, before displaying a mana gauge on her right forearm in neon pink: 10%. No wonder she looked exhausted; she’d nearly run out of mana.

Hyejin gave the woman a terse nod but didn’t shift her aim. This planet was crawling with people who lacked morals; Hyejin didn’t know how to tell who was and wasn’t trustworthy. Maybe none of them were.

The stranger crawled over quickly and quietly until she was hiding behind the vehicle as well. She mouthed the words ‘thank you’ to Hyejin before she reached into the car and opened a hatch under the dashboard. A handful of short cables fell out with a soft ‘plop’, making both of the women flinch and pause.

Hyejin’s ears strained hard, searching for any changes in the monster's chittering. All she could hear was the wetness of their chewing, if it could be called that. Hyejin tried not to think too hard about what, or rather who, they were chewing on. As grotesque as it was, it was a relief that they were occupied. She peeked under the car again to make sure.

All five were still in view. She gave the woman a quick thumbs-up. The woman nodded back and quickly connected a charging cable to her forearm.

“Off-worlder?” The woman whispered so quietly that Hyejin almost missed the question.

Hyejin nodded in response. 

Takatakataka.

They both froze again. Hyejin swallowed hard, risking a peek under the car again.

One, two, three, four— She sat upright and pressed her back to the car. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears and she gave the other woman an unspoken warning with her eyes.

The woman frowned and nodded her head toward the trigbies.

Hyejin shook her head quickly and watched the woman’s face contort with fear. The mana gauge on her arm was only at 11%. When a ManaTech prosthetic runs out of mana, it practically becomes dead weight. She wouldn’t even be able to twitch her fingers if her arm was drained completely.

Skrrr.

It was a soft noise, but it was close. Way too close. Neither of the women moved. The car suddenly shifted and Hyejin looked up to see a trigby pressing down on it with one of its long legs. She prayed to Earth for what felt like the millionth time as she slowly aimed the gun. 

Its gnarled teeth were closed tight. The next weakest point was the joints between the legs and the main body. The downside to that was that each of these creatures had six legs. Losing one was simply an inconvenience, not to mention that Hyejin had no training with firearms. She wasn’t even sure she could hit such a small target.

Go away, go away, go away. Hyejin’s hands shook the longer she kept her aim.

“Welcome to the border worlds!”

Hyejin’s head turned fast enough to see a flash of an electric arc shoot out from the woman’s hand. It didn’t hit the creature; it hit the car chassis; the chassis that Hyejin still had her back pressed to.

Electricity travelled through her whole body with a sting. All of her muscles tensed at the same time and sent her to the ground in a heap.

The trigby had the same response, going rigid above her before collapsing on the car.

Hyejin was still reeling from the shock when the woman snatched her gun and clambered into the driver’s seat. There was nothing she could do as the vehicle pulled out from behind her and the stunned monster collapsed on top of her. It was hard, but surprisingly lighter than she had expected. She hadn’t been crushed under the weight, but the close-up view of the glistening wet teeth was a concern. 

Black, beady eyes seemed to stare into her soul as the creature rose on shaky legs, orienting itself awkwardly. 

Hyejin tried to roll out from under the trigby, only to be stopped by a leg that landed just next to her face. The monster screeched, spraying venomous saliva as she shielded her face with the open flap of her jacket.

She only had a split second to move again. The trigby bore down and Hyejin brought both her knees up to her chest. She grabbed the monster’s leg near her head to use as an anchor and kicked hard with both legs.

Feet met exoskeleton. With a wet crunch, the trigby’s body flew a short distance away, leaving its severed leg in Hyejin’s hands. The trigby skidded on the asphalt when it couldn’t get its footing, grinding the underside of its shell off to expose soft flesh underneath.

Hyejin lifted the hem of her pants to check the glowing blue mana gauge on her left leg first: 15%. That kick had spent at least 3% of her leftover mana. She checked her left arm under her sleeve as well: 70%.

The trigby screeched and collected itself again, forcing Hyejin back to the issue at hand: fight or run? If she ran full speed, there was no guarantee she would make it before her mana ran out. If she fought, she would have to hope she was faster at punching than a trigby was at biting. The odds for both options were less than amazing.

Struggling back to her feet, Hyejin clutched at her injured side. With the venom working its way through her system, she might not be able to do either soon. Her legs felt like jelly and her whole body shook uncontrollably with the fear that this really might be the end. 

“Dad!” she begged as she tried desperately to dissuade a full panic attack from overtaking her. Hyejin slowly backed up, holding a hand to her chest, the tightness growing stronger the more she thought about it. She couldn’t breathe. The world was spinning.

SKREEEEEEE!

She looked around quickly, trying to find something she could use to her advantage. There was a cafe with an outdoor setting nearby; better than nothing.

Hyejin gave herself a short mana boost, running to the edge of the street. With only one prosthetic leg, speed had more limitations. The flesh and blood limb couldn’t match the same power, and pushing too far would likely result in a broken bone.

TAKTAKTAKTAKTAK!

Picking up one of the chairs, Hyejin instantly spun on her heel, swinging as hard as she could with both hands. Another sickening crunch and the trigby was knocked sideways, stumbling on the side with the missing leg and a metal cafe chair embedded in its head. The attack wasn’t strong enough to send the monster flying like the kick had; not enough mana force.

Hyejin backed away from the monster, picking up another chair and holding it close to her chest while she watched the trigby stumble. The creature looked half dead already, but it still seemed determined to get up.

The creature lunged at her again, screeching. 

She swung the new chair, but the trigby anticipated it and backed away in time for Hyejin to miss it entirely. The momentum carried her too far around and the monster was on her within seconds. 

Hyejin only just had enough time to use her left arm to block the toothy bite that crushed into the fibres of her prosthetic. Blue glowing liquid leaked from the punctures and Hyejin was thrown around like a ragdoll while her arm was stuck in the trigby’s teeth. 

A tearing pressure at the connection point sent unfathomable pain through her body. Tearing it off was the same thing as tearing off a real one. Her prosthetic wasn’t made of metal; it was an expensive, state-of-the-art model with a lighter skeleton and skin-like material to disguise it as a real limb. That also meant that it was not weight-bearing or resilient to extreme amounts of stress, for example: trigby jaws.

Hyejin grit her teeth and kicked upward with everything she had left, planting her ManaTech foot into the soft, exposed flesh of the trigby’s underbelly. The impact was so strong that the trigby flipped in the air. It hadn’t let go of her arm yet; a moment later, she realised her foot was also stuck in its stomach. It landed hard on its back, Hyejin still embedded in its belly. The metal chair buried in its head pierced through its body on impact, missing Hyejin by a fraction of a hair.

It was still. 

Hyejin’s trembling body sank to her knee, leaning on the embedded chair to stop herself from collapsing entirely. She let out silent, breathy scream after silent, breathy scream. Tears flowed freely and blurred the world away in a flood of emotion.

She couldn’t think anymore. Somehow, she had made it through the fight, but her body was shutting down. She could feel the pins and needles spreading through the deepest parts of her abdomen. She couldn’t move her leg; there was nothing left.

“Hyejin!”

She thought she could hear someone calling her.

“Hyejin!” 

Heavy eyelids blinked away the tears enough to see a truck speeding toward her. The flash of blue hanging over the side waved a hand at her.

“Hyejin!”

Atticus. He wasn’t alone.

A trail of trigbies was gaining on the truck. The vehicle couldn’t slow down, or they would be swarmed in less than a second. Still, they seemed to be coming right for her. 

BOOM!

Trigby chunks scattered in the sky behind them. One of the ballistas was mounted to the back of the truck with Echo operating it. The tall stranger was at the wheel, but there was no sign of Dion.

Atticus reached out over the side with an open hand. “Grab on!”

A saint. Hyejin scrambled to the edge of the trigby corpse and held out her last hand. With a swift movement, Atticus grasped her wrist as they zoomed past and swung her up into the truck bed.

BOOM!

Hyejin was about to ask about Dion when a bundle in a leather jacket caught her attention in the corner. She recognised the purple stain that was spreading through his body. It was hard to tell if he was conscious.

“Are you okay?” Atticus asked, kneeling over her.

“We need to get to a doctor in the next ten minutes or we’re both dead!” her hoarse voice shouted over gunfire.

The engine revved and she felt the sky overhead spinning faster as the truck picked up speed.