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The Brutal Reality
#8
“Aria was my friend,” Nox said, smirking at them both as though it didn’t matter. Even though Lih was talking to Ivan. Nox heard their quiet exchange with a channeler’s mind now patched for whispers. It was the first time the atharim addressed Lih directly since they walked into the tunnels.

Lih looked at him. He liked the bones of his face, the lean strength. His cheekbones were angled and his jaw was tight and well-shaped. He reminded Lih of the sails on his father’s boat. Relentless, driven by the wind, but never knocked down. He managed a half-smile, like it was something he was allergic to, or a movement that caused him pain. Lih could almost hear the fhup-fhup of the wind sails.

Yeah, Lih kinda liked the look on Nox’s face right now. He seemed certain he could pull this off. Lih hoped so.

For himself, he didn’t care so much. But for Ivan, he had a family, loved ones. Ivan looked strange with his head up and the land warriors on, as if staring at something invisible in front of his face.

“Then I better not talk shit about you. Not before we find fucking Pavlo and ask him, or secure his body before whoever took him got their hands out of their asses,” the pale man replied.

He grinned and said softly, this time in Russian. “Maybe only speak in national tongue from now on, eh?” Peering at the two channelers, fascinated by their abilities “or can Nox’s power translate languages?”


Light, blindingly white, loomed with little warning.

Shit, I can’t see!” Lih complained.

He took off his lenses, adjusted the low-light setting, and slipped them on, cocking his head and pouting like a covergirl in sunshades.

Then he made a soft, chuckling sound, delighted by the way the world ahead of him had resolved. In the green wash of his lenses’ view, he had depth and distance, a better perception of the rocks spacing, of what had previously been coming up blind behind the immediate dazzle of light.

And he saw.

From the very first moment, Lih had known it was a rougarou nest. A nest, of rougarous and their victims, like the one that Costa and he found at the nightclub.

But the sight was too much. He had to hold on to the wall just to stay upright. His head swam. He was pretty sure he was about to be very sick. Images were pinned to the backs of his eyes, shocking and grisly, the bodies Nox’d disintegrated with fire; his intense gaze fixed on the way ahead.

He considered what a hopeless cliche he was. Fucking pathetic, soft centered moral outrage, the squimish sensibilities of his safe, normal lifestyle recoiling from contact with ferocious actuality. But it wasn’t disgust. It wasn’t shock at what he had just seen. Nor was it, as the inspector in him would have been eager to confess with calculated sincerity, revulsion at the glee with which he had assumed his new role within the domovoi.

What Lih was experiencing was adrenaline built up from the stress and tension of what he’d done. It was that simple. He had gone face to face with the two rougarous who had been prepared to kill him and Costa, and he had killed them first, and in order to navigate a path through that uncompromising state, he’d taken a giant hit of adrenaline. Lih didn’t give a fuck about the rougarou bastards Nox burnt. It was just biochemical overload from the effort to push past normal, everyday brakes like fear and hesitation.

Whatever the case, Lih was feeling very odd. It was hard to think what to do. It was hard to clear his head. He felt like he was clenched, everything clenched. He hung back for a second, and tired to force himself to shed the tension. The feeling of being clamped as tight as a fist was almost more than he could bear.

He could feel Ivan there, hear his breathing.

“God, Ivan, did you see this before?“ Lih asked, shaking his head; his vital signs flashed excitedly. “Sorry, I went off the charts didn’t I? I’ll be okay, though.”

He glanced at Nox. He could see how fixed and intent the man’s expression was. Lih understood that they had entered, miserably, one of those non-negotiable states where even fear was no longer currency.

Nox marked the nest as “clear” on their maps, then indicated a direction next to this area before taking point and walking them down.

Following, Lih tightened his grip on the gun. It was so matter-of-fact, so... routine! The ordinariness of it made it so much more sinister. Go in there. Look around the tunnel. If you see anything, shoot them. We’ve got things to do.

Time to go.


At the intersection Nox stopped, listening.

Lih adjusted his lenses, and played back the clip. He saw the rougarou nest, framed against the white light of Nox’s magic.

Lih played it again. He played it again.

He zipped through the playback, froze on a decent frame and frowned.

He was such a fuck-tard sometimes. This was just normal shit that happened out here.

It wouldn’t surprise him if they weren’t even Russian nationals. He’d seen this kind of thing before. Migrants looking for work, trying to stay off the CCD grid. No one misses them. They were victim statistics.

Why was he taking this so hard?

He took a few deep breaths.

He accessed the maps file, and went back through the folder of images he took with the lenses. He’d shot a lot of images since they started, a lot of them. The map they’d been using had been recent, and the most local, a large scale area map. Others were older, more general, larger range, smaller scale, records of above ground scans, flood plans. They were a compilation of different surveys at different times, all recording different aspects.

But Lih hadn’t seen any intersection like this on any of his maps, not even this most detailed one.

“What is this?” he said. “Which way, then?” He knew which way, it was the way Nox led—it was the atharim’s fucking show—but he wanted to make the decision too.

He could picture them, the three of them, edging the boundaries of the tunnels, after days of only their own company, hoping to see someone, afraid that they actually might. Finding the intersection by accident one day, thrilled by its implied promise. Too scared to choose the direction.

Okay, okay, he went wherever Nox went.

Then they were moving again, following Nox down the long, steep gradient. The intersection wasn’t not he map he had been using. The map had given spots of interest, and had even shown the nest, which already Nox seemed to know was there.

But no intersection. And the omission was considerable. Ahead of them, where did it go?

The two channelers had been advancing to take positions on either side of Lih, to check and enter. Both men held the power. One had a wall of air up, the other produced arrows both of which Lih couldn’t see or feel. Reborn gods like Cruz and Aiden. He pulled back sharply. He didn’t want to touch it, this power.

Lost in thought, Lih almost pushed Nox out of the way as he followed him through, spinning him up and around like a street dancer executing a drop roll. He was turning right, his boots sliding in the wet ground. Nox tumbled backwards before he had time to register anything, surprise, alarm, anger. Lih who had been rushing forward wheeled around at the atharim, surprised, horrified.

He reached Nox, and held him up by his shoulders. 

“You okay?”

His voice was tinged with disbelief. He checked Nox for injuries; none. Coming right towards him was a…

They were both looking at the monster suddenly, rising out of their stances as it beat against an unseen barrier.

“Fucker’s still alive—“ yelled Lih, as he ran back toward Ivan. This room smelled of blood. Not nice.

There’s trouble, and it’s started for real.
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Messages In This Thread
The Brutal Reality - by Nox - 07-09-2019, 10:47 AM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Lih - 07-11-2019, 05:38 PM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Ivan Sarkozy - 07-12-2019, 10:56 PM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Nox - 07-13-2019, 04:02 PM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Lih - 07-16-2019, 01:39 AM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Ivan Sarkozy - 07-16-2019, 08:52 PM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Nox - 07-17-2019, 06:10 PM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Lih - 07-18-2019, 09:20 PM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Ivan Sarkozy - 07-20-2019, 04:50 AM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Lih - 07-20-2019, 05:58 PM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Nox - 07-20-2019, 07:48 PM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Ivan Sarkozy - 07-24-2019, 04:24 PM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Lih - 07-24-2019, 05:56 PM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Nox - 07-24-2019, 06:29 PM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Lih - 07-28-2019, 02:57 PM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Ivan Sarkozy - 08-01-2019, 05:14 AM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Nox - 08-01-2019, 10:21 AM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Lih - 08-06-2019, 07:36 PM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Nox - 08-06-2019, 08:42 PM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Ivan Sarkozy - 08-09-2019, 12:19 AM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Nox - 08-09-2019, 09:58 AM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Ivan Sarkozy - 08-13-2019, 04:44 PM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Lih - 08-16-2019, 02:56 PM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Ivan Sarkozy - 08-16-2019, 08:28 PM
RE: The Brutal Reality - by Nox - 08-19-2019, 05:18 PM

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