Chapter III: Deeper into the forest

Anna has been walking for six hours straight ahead, the woods have become dense and the sounds have died, no birds, no life, the tress themselves seemed from another world, dried branches that seemed to reassemble tentacles and hands trying to engulf the light of day. She arrived to a little cottage hidden beneath leaves and fallen branches, inside a single bed and a table next to it held a letter written in a red color with the feather of a crow who had been nailed to the wall of the cottage. Malcolm’s singed his farewell with a “Don’t look for me, they will find me. If they see you they will tore you asunder”.

The light suddenly faded with the coming of a thick mist from the deeper parts of the woods, with haste Anna locked the door, conveniently the windows had a locking too with some leaves and twigs; whatever was roaming out there couldn’t see her, heavy steps and the loudest shriek came from outside just before the walls of the cottage jolted, a six-finger punch on the side marked the metal plates and petrified Anna, the world went mute for her as she hid under the bed. After hours of stagnant silence, the cottage started opening and Anna saw the door opening with dread, she took the backpack and held the flask with both hands towards the exit, when the door was completely opened she could see footsteps outside with no mist around, there was light again.

“It has to be Malcolm”, she thought while following the tracks and at the distance she could see the figure of a hooded man running while some kind of monsters ran after him, as the ambient was filled with footsteps and humanoid figures in the mist holding staffs walking at a slow pace. Now she could see Malcolm, covered in a worn grey tunic with writings painted in the black blood of his pursuers, on his knees holding the head of one of those monsters of his, described on the logs and pages Anna recovered from past months. She held gaze to the ritual held by her lover, his chest covered in dirt and healed wounds after days of weeks away, he took a bag filled with the logs he wrote, hard-covered in brown leather and ask, using blood of his hunters as ink.

As Malcolm in his knees stood his chanting filled the forest with echoes, Anna hid behind a fallen tree looking around him to find a route to get him out but the figures in the mist were too close. A blackened hole tore open the air in front of Malcolm as the chants grew louder, the soil shaking, the air creating a violet haze distorting the light around him pushing the mist back, the books lifted in mid are formed a encircling motion around him as the blackness left small beams of purple light form a ritual circle in the rift.

His pursuers emerged from the mist in a violent change to strike him down, the chant became an infamous scream that stunned the beasts, in their confusion fought each other tearing limbs and heads apart. Anna finally saw what his writings described, merged pieces of flesh, sawn together held by some unholy pact that filled the air with cold and draw the warmth out of life in each heartbeat, hulking creatures, pale gray and shaped like weapons against the living.

The hole in the air went down on Malcolm, devouring him and his books whole. The creatures were torn asunder with a purple flash that tore them asunder, in the flash half of the pack perished and the rest were blind but our beloved Anna was in shock, Malcolm was no more and the howling horror’s hunger sensed her scent; all left was a book and no trace of her husband.

The creatures surrounded her silently as she wept away in the middle of confusion hoping for the nightmare to end, a howler stood in front of her as she held the last tome written at home by Malcolm. The hissing of drowning lungs was all that could be heard as the horrors tasted her fear. Suddenly a light came from between the trees, the wind sang to the rain of bullets tearing apart the howlers as Anna was covered in their blood, shaking in shock, unable to understand the moment she dismays, the image was a human shaped shadow, yellow lights came from where there should be eyes and a black tunic with the same symbol as in the folders who held a halberd with glowing edges. Behind the figure there were two other figures that looked as soldiers with black helms holding heavy caliber guns that could tore hundred years old oaks on their shoulders, cutting through the other humanoid figures in the darkened mist. Anna held the book and crawled away from the carnage until she reached the cottage again, the branches and the burning scent of the flesh torn from the howlers and now their masters appear from the thick mist surrounding the executioners in the woods.

The tall humanoid was the largest of the three, its appendages looked to thin to be human but the swiftness of the moves done with the halberd where almost hypnotic, the howlers felt slashed as their masters took shape from the mist, they looked like men whose skin was stitched to their necrotic flesh with long black nails that reassembled knives welded to a claw. Four of them came into shape surrounding the halberdier as he kneeled lowering his head. “Reapers at the bishop!”, one of the soldiers shouted while holding the rifle with one hand and the bayonet with the other impaling one of the acolytes, the other held his rifle two-handed and took the reapers standing next to the kneeling halberdier with a rapid fire, ammunition didn’t feel into the ground and all Anna could do is to think about the note she read as she took the flare gun.

The halberdier stood and with his weapon in his shoulders walked towards Anna as the soldiers shouted back and forth with rifle in shoulder and bayonet in hands making a rain of fire and steel that left the howlers and reapers unable to touch the walking figure. Anna was looking the incoming sight of the halberdier whose eyes had gone blue as the color of the blades of the three strangers but she couldn’t see the incoming howler running from the side. “Hurry the fuck’up Dasmert!” one of the soldiers shouted as he sprinted towards Anna firing to the howler, while the halberdier drove the weapon into the ground and with a hand he took the last remaining reaper by the throat decapitating him out of sheer pressure. As the cottage was taken away by the hail of bullets from the shouting soldier Anna was still alive embracing the book with both hands terrified at the carnage and the cold gaze of Dasmert, the six foot thin humanoid had a modulated artificial voice “Howlers and Reapers found and pacified, retrieve the human female, our sacred machine requests her safety. She holds a tome from a Voidgazer we failed to terminate”. One of the soldiers approached to Anna, “Miss, are you injured?” she gave but a terrified word - “Terminate?”- as the lights inside the helmet reached for her. “My name is William, we were sent here to look for your husband in these woods, we know the current situation but you don’t know the real depth of what is happening here. You will come with us””. Anna shocked could only respond with - “How do you know my name? Why do you know about the book and my husband and whatever the fuck is happening I want out, you are not kidnapping me into this fucking…”- before she could finish the sentence the other soldier sedated her quickly - “Deimos, get the books and I’ll carry the lady.”.