The body fell next to him in a sprawl of limbs, dead before it hit the ground. Lucien McBain felt the impact shiver up from his feet through the network of his bones to grip his heart.

He’d long since given up struggling, it never made any difference, it was always the same. There were always three of them, back to back—McBain and two others—facing outward to form a triangle. Eyes wide and staring into the featureless grey void that surrounded them, frozen in place.

There were always three. He was always the last one standing. Over and over the pattern repeated.

There was never anything else here, wherever here was. No structure, no walls, no horizon. Just the void. And the three of them. And the light.

Heavy, viscous, the light moved like a predator, beautiful and terrible as the primeval tiger programmed into the hindbrain of what we were when humankind was new—weak and small and helpless in the night.

This time, from what he could see of their uniforms in his peripheral vision, the other two were grunts from C company. It had started with troops from his own command, men and women he’d fought alongside for years. They’d been the first to go. He thought that might been a long time ago but he wasn’t sure.

Somewhere far above him, filtered though air or rock or maybe time, he couldn’t tell, McBain could distantly hear the familiar sounds of conventional warfare. Explosions and screams, the punctuated roar of mortar fire, the staccato bursts of automatic weapons.

But here there was only the light.

Only two of them left.

The light stalked slowly around what remained of their little triangle, hungry, searching.

A thick pulse, agonizingly bright. The press of it against his skin was obscene. Blinded, he tasted ozone and honey, the suffocating scent of blood and rich, deep soil. The remaining soldier beside him collapsed to the floor, dead in an instant.

McBain trembled uncontrollably as the light moved onward. There were always only three. He was always the last one. The light came around again.

This time surely it would steal his breath, stop his heart.

Never chosen. Not yet.

How much longer how much longer...