I glance between them, pushing myself and the oversized cat to move. I didn’t know where to go but the minute the Hexers charge, we’re dead. Well I’m sure Mr. Tiger here can fend for itself. Actually is it a ‘he’ or ‘she’? Aaah don’t have time for this.

Keeping down the untouched streets, I could hear them growling and gasping not too far behind us. I notice as they stumble forward with a sort of clumsy grace that lets them stay in our sights; they are avoiding the crystal pillars that had come with the Miasma. If maybe we go somewhere where the pillars are at their peak…?

Is it just me or ar there more of 'em?

Agreement. The tiger beside me growls a little, trying to steer us down a narrow street that was filled with cafés and takeaway shops, pushing me just a little.

As we emerge from the street, it open up into a construction site. I feel really uneasy as we walk through the unmade building. Why aren't they attacking?

I then realise something. We were being herded towards something. Why? And where?

Steel beams and pipes jutted out from bare frames like skeletal remains, plastic flapping slightly as they hung from the naked higher floors and beams as makeshift walls. The floors were a mix of concrete slabs and rubble mixed in with red dirt.

Look above.

The tiger hits my thoughts like a train and I suddenly feel the world turning sideways as the tiger knocks me to the side in time for a Hexer to come down from a higher, unmade floor. I landed on the side of a truck in time to see the damn thing staring at me.

Well, I think it’s staring. It was far more along in the transition into whatever Hexers eventually become. Its entire top half of the head no longer looked human. It was so alien, shiny and black that it did resembled a head but it was clear of any features or hair, save for a strange smooth like dome that you would swear was a giant helmet with a visor. Except that the bottom jaw was still human, the skin peeling around the embed biker helmet that was now its face. The rest of its body has become elongated and streamline, the black shiny crystal-like skin taking over its nape and its back. Actually the only thing that seemed to remain remotely human-like was the skin over the throat and over the front of the ribcage, the bones sticking out under the thinly stretched pale skin. But that skin was peeling as well. It was creepy, disgusting and I really want to get out of here.

“Sm….eh…eh,” the thing gasps in a thin raspy voice like it’s never been used in years. It points a long stick-like finger in my direction and I feel my blood reversing in my veins. “Deh…leh…sssh-ssh…Sme….Mu-uh-uh-sss-ssst….Dre….Eh…”

I don’t think I wanna even try piecing that weird ass gurgling together. I shift, earning it to step forward, its limbs were strange and long as it slightly crouches, its arms practically scraping the ground. It almost reminds me of an insect. This is really creeping me out.

The tiger, steps between us, crouching down, its shoulder blades pulled tightly together.

Run.

What?

Get away.

I stare at the tiger’s back. I…I don’t understand why he’s going out of his way to defend me. Running away, leaving me behind to make its escape would be the more logical answer when dealing with survival. I’m nothing.

Disagreement. Dreamer is…

The combination of colours and sounds mixing in with raw pure emotion flood me to the extent that I couldn’t even begin to even to comprehend what the tiger was try to say.

Go away!

With that, the tiger opens its jaw, roaring out, taking a swipe at the helmet Hexer who took a skip back and shrieks back at the tiger; both of us cringing at the noise.

Go away!

The tiger’s emotion form an almost physical force that pushes me along the wall, making me take a staggering step back. I look at the tiger, unsure what to do but…my feet move again, taking me down another tiny space full of construction but too narrow for more than one person to squeeze through at a time.

I couldn’t stop myself or turn around. I was going somewhere and I don’t understand the pull of it either. It was a small nudge outside the Fence but now it was turning into a stronger pulse, egging me on, dogging me until I find out where it’s coming from.

Squeezing over, under and through pipes, machinery and half-made buildings, I breathe hard, my limbs shaky as I look up above at the tall skyscrapers and oblisks of black crystal, trying to find some direction. The tower pointing to the clear azure sky now not too far away. I was being pulled towards the tower. Dawning on that realisation, I hear the screeching and shrieking behind me and whip my head back to see a number of them clambering after me. Including the helmet one who was far more poised and graceful than its stumbling deformed comrades. I turn back to my front, moving as fast as I could while they were still stuck back there.

I move further along until I hit a wide open slab of flat concrete area that I felt was far too exposed for my liking but it was the only space between me and the city and the park and most of all the tower. As I step forward, I see that it was in fact a roof and that the city was quite a distance far below. But I couldn’t turn back, I had to walk along the edge to see if there wa a ladder or something that I could climb down.

The helmet Hexer was the first one through and as it steps out onto the roof, its feet click on the ground, stoping just at the edge of the roof and I stop, watching it slap the ground with its hands. At first nothing happened but then the solid ground below my feet began to shift and tremble. I look back at it, my jaw almost unhinged as I swear it was grinning back at me. The rumble of concrete cracking and starting to crumble made me scamper for the far side that was attached to a steep hill.

But I never made it more than two steps.

The ground beneath my feet fell away and I along with it. The rush of dust and rubble crashing beneath and all around me made me feel shut inside a tunnel of white noise. I land on something on my side first rather awkwardly as I realise that I was caught in some plastic which pulls taunt against my weight for a moment, halting me for a split second but ripped and fell away, wrapping around me and joined in my continual descent.

Finally, I hit something hard. Landing on my back, making my back arch and my breath lost as my lungs condense in my ribcage, paralysing me with shock. I…didn’t feel any pain. I was beyond pain. My breath was ragged, winded, my mind clouding with the fear of not breathing. I couldn’t move, it took everything to try filling my paralysed lungs.

I watch as the damn helmet landing on its feet gracefully, taking in what it’s done and how it’s caught me with the wind literally knocked out of me. You know, just once I would like to catch a break and it slipped and broke its neck or something.

It slowly walks towards me, taking its time as it knows I can’t go anywhere. It even drags its stick fingers along the plaster boards, leaving a cutting trail, Freddy Krueger style. Oh wonderful. I grit my teeth, trying to will myself to at least attempt moving, but my body doesn’t like me. Well I wouldn’t either considering what I’ve put it through in the last 30 hours.

As it came closer to me, I hear something come crashing in from above and I have never been so relieved to see a giant glowing man-eating tiger in all my life. As it lands, it leaps towards the thing and crashes into it and both tumble to the ground. As they hiss and skriek, claws and talons and teeth biting into each other, I see the blade buried under some rubble not too far away from me. I turn onto my stomach and force myself to wriggle my way towards it.

My fingers touch the handle as I hear Mr Tiger crash and skid along the ground, landing just away from me in a daze. The helmet then lets out another shriek that I swear was making my ears bleed as it charges for me, leaping forward as I twist around, the blade now in my hands. The helmeted Hexer lands on me, impaling itself on the blade but not before its teeth sink into my shoulder.

I bite back a scream of pain and instead channel the last of my energy into pushing the blade deeper into its gut and pull up, tearing into its ribcage.

If I was going to die, then I am damn well dragging this bastard to hell with me, kicking and screaming.

As its weight was digging the handle into my gut, the tiger go to its senses and swiped the Hexer away pushing it into a far wall while biting into it, ripping the ribcage apart from the slash that I had made in the torso.

I feel like I’m in some sort of dream. My eyes and mind unable to focus on anything anymore except for one thing; I was bitten by a Hexer. The thought didn’t disturb me as much as I thought it would.

My breathing seemed to have calmed down as I struggle to pull my body up. Well at least that damn Hexer saved me a trip down.

I go to sit up but something slams into my brain with enough force to stun me for a few moments. Pressing a hand to my head, I look around and saw for the first time that this building wasn’t completely concrete. Thick black veins climbed along the floor, twisting through the walls and ceilings like veins choking the life out of the steel frames, getting thicker the further I look in. Squeezing my eyes tighter, I could just see that there was a passage way that led to a ramp, down to what I could only imagine to be an underground parking lot. We were in a building for parking, I realise.

With a hand on my shoulder that was now ripped open (again). I reach for the blade to steady myself as I try to stand and somehow manage to get onto my feet that felt like jelly. I was barely standing but there was no mistaking it. Down there was a Keystone.

Mr Tiger limps towards me, slowly. The thoughts it was trying to give to me were all disjointed like trying tune into a radio channel but only getting static. I reach for its head and pet him/her. “Thanks for that.”

I take a shaky step forward, almost unconsciously, towards what was below.

Don –St-F-. Dark- White-A cut-off scream-Dark-Cold.

I didn’t have to step far as my feet land on a slippery smooth surface and I fall down, sliding down the ramp into the darkness and I came face to face for the first time, a Keystone. It was described to me before. Cody never took it seriously, claiming it to be bullshit as no one who got close enough came back sane. But this…this…

It was…

A black mass of jagged crystal grew from the ground, reaching the far corners almost like a tree with the very centre dripping with what looked like oil, oozed onto the ground and globs creeped along the walls. The great wall of crystal spines stretched far and inked out almost everting. It all came from the ground. No. Not the ground. Just faintly, I could see something lying under the giant black mass; a small hand that resembled a child's.

Keystones were once human. This was once a child.