Cody was rushing through the torrents of fire and bullets like a mad man. He didn’t distinguish between the two sides that had started this war. But why would he? They were both the same as far as he was concerned. And now that he had figured out that he could leap high into the air with the strength in his legs, he could leap up and smash through any sort of aerial machine within reach.

Even now as I was running as fast as I could along the ground, I saw him leap up to an armoured helicopter and take out those inside and getting away at the last second as it tumbles to earth, ending up as a giant fireball.

He began hopping between rooftops, increasing his distance from us, until eventually he was completely out of sight. But I knew exactly where he was going. The Fence. Even after everything, he’s heading for the goddamn Fence.

“Next street,” Anne calls beside me.

As we turned down an alley that lead to a street over, I hear an explosion with a wall of heat lapping at my back and a wave of force almost knocks me off my feet. …I’m not even going to think about how close that was. As we head down another avenue, I realise that we were back in Deadside. I look around and saw that nothing was the same.

Something like a bomb must have gone off as everything looked like ground zero of a tornado. The ground was scorched and the fires raging around us lit it up just show it was nothing but black. Gone were the living. Now only reigned by the dead. Bodies of soldiers and those who lived out here littered the ground. Some were bits and pieces and others were whole. But I couldn’t tell who was who or what was what. The smell of engine oil and god knows what else filled my nostrils as my eyes water at the smoke trying to blind me. I almost stand on a decapitated hand while slowing down to look around. It was hell. Pure hell.

I move to cover my face but the tug on muscle reawakened the pain in my shoulder that still has yet to stop bleeding. And running around the countryside isn’t exactly helping. I put my opposite arm onto my shoulder, stifling a scream behind tightly shut lips, I look over to find Anne rummaging through some of the filth.

I make my way over to her and see I moment later she was tugging on something from under a soldier’s body and was having difficulty. I kneel down beside her and help her pull it out with my injured arm. As I did, a piece of pure midnight slip from under the body and in my hand now it that fucking blade. I swear…

“You’re going to need it,” Anne said tightly. While looks at the blade, we both hear the body we just moved, groan. Anne takes a frightened step back as the solider raises a gun at us. And without a second thought, I bury the blade into his throat. The gun immediately drops form his gloved fingers. As he twitches and gurgles on his own blood, I stand in shock at what I just did.

Anne smacks into my back, “Don’t think. You don’t have time to think. Move!”

I shakily take a step back, the blade retracting from the man’s throat. He was still alive and the blood pours faster now that the hole wasn’t blocked by a blade. I severed the windpipe and the air escapes as chortled blood burst through.

“Kae!” Anne snaps at me but my mind is still too far away.

That was far, far too easy. To take someone’s life like it was…it was nothing. I don’t know the person under the mask. I don’t know his name, his age or even if he has a family-

“Kae! Move now! Crisis later!”

Man she’s snippy. I force myself to look away as the nameless solider finally stops choking on his lifeblood. I can still feel how easy the blade slid down into his throat like it was butter. I think I’m gonna be sick.

Anne must have been fed up as she grabs hold of my wrist, slimy with grot and blood and forcefully pulls me along. I look around with new eyes. Before I hadn’t really thought much of death or bodies or killing. Because I had never been the one to have been a cause of it. Cody did it so easily. But looking around, I only see people who were once like everyone else. Living everyday like it was how they were supposed to. But now…they were nothing more than meat bags lying around, no better than a dead animal on the side of the road that had been hit by a truck.

“Think of them like that,” Anne retorts at me. “You didn’t cause this, Kae. He was going to kill us and you reacted. That’s how it goes. They aren’t people anymore. Just road-kill.”

Anne is way too calm about this. I should be the one comforting her. I should be used to this.

Anne’s grip tightens on my wrist.

Looking in front of us, I see the looming wall coming closer to us. It’s still standing!? How is that possible? And where is Cody?

As we came closer to the major battlefield, I see people from the military attacking each other and those who I assume are part of Jack’s brigade attacking as well. One threw a fireball that exploded a tank from underneath and sprayed the air with dust and metal that flew off and hit a number of soldiers around it. All knocked down dead. I let out a breath as a jet from above retaliated by dropping a rocked on top of friend and foe alike and the earth erupted once again.

I watch another missile heading straight for our direction and clutch onto Anne and leap at the last second. I tumble and land on my bad side. I land with the air squeezing from my lungs as a pained hiss and my ears left ringing. The dust and muck pelts into my back as I’m left in a daze. Urrgh why is the world sideways and moving? Trying to shake the feeling, I feel a small hand touch the side of my face and realise it was Anne trying to get me back to my senses. But really I prefer lying down at the moment. Can’t I sleep for a few minutes? Not like anyone cares about one more body on the ground right? I wanna throw up my guts right now. No. No I don’t, I had skulled down three bowls of stew. I don’t want to regurgitate it all back.

My sight goes beyond the blonde mess in my face and I can’t help but be fixated on the clouds that were in the sky. Yeah sure it was night and shit and clouds are always around but…even with the fireballs and bodies flying everywhere those clouds look awfully purple to me…I blink. Oh hell.

A rumble from under the ground makes my body all jittery. It sounded like an earthquake. But I don’t remember there ever being earthquakes in this territory. Just as Anne manages to force me into a sitting position, a disgruntled roar tremors from under the ground and just as the vibrations became violent, an impossibly large body of something like a giant snake-worm thing erupts from the earth. A Wyrm. The fuck!? Is this an all-out total war tonight or what? Can’t catch a break for one second here can we? The colossal trunk that easily towers over the wall and ten times as thick, bends slightly. The off purple colour of it immediately makes you think it was slimy and just as it bends down, the tip opens like petals on a flower, all lined with rows and rows of gigantic white jagged teeth. It lets out an impossible roar before smashing itself back into the ground, hiding under the surface once again.

The fighting didn’t immediately stop between the groups but as another Wyrm makes its way to the surface, taking out several tanks and jets on the way up, all metal and bodies disappearing into that gaping abyssal mouth began to make them think twice.

“It’s hungry,” Anne watches as two more shoot up. ‘They’re all hungry.”

This is impossible. Just crazy impossible. I’m deluded. Yes. The blood loss has made me delirious. That is not a Wyrm. Those are not crystal pillars beginning pulling out of the earth. This is not happening.

A group of jets fire rockets at another Wyrm, lighting the body up like some Christmas tree before it explodes into liquid fire, cascading down to the earth in a rupture of echoing shrieking pain. And my ears were already ringing.

“We need to find Cody, now!” Anne screeches at me, trying to get me to stand.

Now that my body had experienced lying down, it was a lot harder to tell it to do otherwise. Anne even forces the damnable blade back into my hand which had flown out of it when we were shell shocked early. How we manage to stay in one piece so far was mind boggling enough as another bomb goes off a few streets behind us.

Getting to my feet, I stagger towards the Fence. It was the only place he was going to be in all this mess. We need to get out of here before the Miasma Storm starts. And it was going to be big if it’s called Wyrms here.

I zigzag towards the Fence, trying to lead Anne through the safest passage as the confusion of war has made everyone attack everyone. This sheer madness was beyond any scope of reasoning. It was almost like Hexers were let loose… My head swipes back to Anne.

She keeps her eyes forward, avoiding my questions completely. I turn down another alley and find us directly in front of the damnable thing. A thick road acted like a moat around the Fence. I have never been this close to it but…that sinking feeling you get when you look up from the bottom of a giant dam wall? This was far more terrifying. How could anyone stand living anywhere near this thing?

We head for the weakest point of this monstrosity, the gate. Even someone as thick-skulled as Cody would know to attack that point. As I manage to build up momentum, a large armoured vehicle comes sliding in front of us, crashing into the wall. I look up the street it had come from and there was Jack. Electricity pulsating from his body like he was some kind of lightning rod. Well he was a rod. A big one. A man from the crashed truck stumbles out and raises his gun in futile defence, only to be scorched alive by blue lightning.

I turn to see Jack, his hand raised and a smirk plastered on his face.

“Oddball. Fancy seeing you here. Nice night isn’t it?”

“Save. It. Where. Is. Cody.” I punctuate between clenched teeth.

“Oh. He and some of my men are headed for the gates. Should you be out here? Or are you using your sister as cover?”

My insides run cold.

“Where’s the smaller one? Did you use him to?”

I grab him by the scruff of his collar, “Keep talking.”

He grins at me, we were of almost equal height. He raises a hand, electricity sparking from it, “Careful, boy. Or I will electrocute you.”

“Let’s see who’s faster. Me? Or you?” I growl as I had pointed the blade to his stomach.

“Kae,” Anne pulls on my arm and I lower the blade and took a step back. “Let’s go. Ignore him.”

And at her insistence, I turn away from him completely all the while he's laughing at my back.