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The Brutal Reality
#23
Nox screamed. He was hurt. The pain from the bitten arm was immense, but it was eclipsed by his desperate desire to get clear.

Lih sat upright. He felt more bruises and pains that seemed fresh. His clothes were dirty, and there were tear stains on his blood caked face where the smoke had made his eyes run. He looked like the tragic clown in the Metropolitan operas. His face was pale with fear. He looked around and saw the oncoming monsters. “Sir!”

The atharim was frantic. “Cut it off!” he cried out as he dragged at his arm again. “Cut it off at the elbow. Hurry.”

Running at full tilt, Ivan wrenched out his flame sword, and slashed down in a single stroke.

Ivan scrambled around, his flame sword still ignited, setting fire to the remaining monsters. Nox stripped the remains of the sleeve off his truncated leg and quickly pressed the fabric against the flame-cauterized stump. Lih could hear screaming in the distance. Sometimes duty was painful and ugly. But it must be done.

“I’m sorry,” Lih told Nox. “It was the only way, I’m sure,” said Lih, not sure at all.

Nox, it seemed, had already passed in and out from shock and consciousness as Ivan dragged him up.

Ivan praised Lih. They had looked at one another, and both had known Ivan’s words to be an untruth. Lih was looking washed out and not a little taken aback by the compliment. The sight of Nox’s arm was a hard thing for someone like him to see. He pulled back a little.

Lih caught Ivan’s eye and shook his head. Ivan clearly seemed to be in control of the situation. How was he this calm? It was as if Lih had only been out of the other’s sight for a few minutes. The whole world had ended around them, but Ivan was acting like they were on routine training. He was acting like there were more important things on his mind. Like the odious syndicate threatening Ivan’s family.

Lih slowly retrieved his crossbow and looked away. He’d seen the defiant look in Ivan’s eyes. It was a particular look that he always watched for. It pained him to see. He knew if the cop’s loved ones were in danger, Ivan would do anything; he was sure of this fact, and quite reconciled to it. Now explain this. Why was all the evidence burning around them? Under the direction of detective Dorian Vega? Or --?

“No, I was a fool,” Lih said, with a light mocking laugh.

You’re a cop. What the hell did you expect, except that you were going to be used? You’re such an idiot, Lih. You’re far too rigid and principled for the domovoi.

He used to quite admire Ivan. High minded, strong, always with the right, brave turn of phrase ready to dish out of the benefit of common cops like Lih. But now he saw it for what it was. In a good way Lih had many dealings with the domovoi, and he had, most usually, found the men of the department to be upstanding, even if they found Lih’s concerns quaint. They were ordered to check here, and then exploit Nox’s prior knowledge of the tunnels so as to develop cooperation and hasten the investigation effort. Dorian, or Yun, used them. Lih didn’t like it much, and he knew none of the three of them did either. They were picking their way through the miserable aftermath of a battle, seeing small horrors everywhere they looked. Lih understood it had to be this way. They had to be burnt, and Nox’s arm cut off. Quite properly, the domovoi would take no chances whatsoever with monsters. This was CCD policy, and even if he did find himself in a topsy-turvy world where the higher ups listened to the option of a rookie, he wasn’t sure they’re not right anyway. The monsters held this place for too long.

But it made Lih feel base and soulless. Worse, he felt useless. He wondered why he’d ever come. He’d give most of all he had to help Dorian. This last year or so, he’d dreamed of setting off and investigating the mystery of Alistair Pavlo’s disappearance. Now, he wished they’d never come. What was it Costa said about the tunnels? There’s nothing left to save. His face darkened. This was no more than a death pyre.

“Lead us!” Ivan said matter-of-factly, looming into vision. The division between veterans and rookie, already eroding in Lih’s time in the tunnels, had vanished after their fight. This was simply survival.


Lih had recovered well enough to navigate, but he was battered and dazed. His sudden realization didn’t do much for his morale, nor rationality.

He nodded and ran to where Nova took point. He’d learnt to just do his job by now, but for the sake of his own conscience, he had to wonder whether this job was right. He was a total misfit, of course, a throwback to another time. There was no place for sentiment in combat. No place for a false kind of nobility either. If he was career minded, he might consider a transfer to a different unit than the domovoi. He didn’t want to get Ivan or Nox killed worthlessly. And dying along with Lih over some idiotic point of morality sounds like a death neither would be happy to choose.

“Come on!” Lih hissed. He began to crawl along the walls a few meters. It was going to be a long, arduous crawl to get them back to the surface. His left boot caught against something, a stone or a piece of debris, and made a slight sound. “This way!”  

Ivan hoisted Nox up in a shoulder lift and started to run, hauling Nox’s loose body into the darkness of the deep tunnels. Silently, Nova led them on, following along their old tracks into a darkness that was darkness no matter the time of day—dark, and the only illumination came from the burning bodies in the distance.

Underground, in the tunnels, Lih at last saw signs of life. There were insects, small animals, some lizards and gnats—gray and pale, and life was less abundant—but the darkness had not encroached enough to kill it yet. They trudged on into the darkness, clouds of gnats trailing them like confetti at some great triumph.

They trekked back into the tunnels to the north east, past the defining, warding box of the burning IA corpse. Some time later, they were met by the big intersection. He helped Nova to some water, and then made way for Ivan carrying Nox.

“Phew,” Lih said, taking a swig from his water bottle. “It would be good to get a medical team for Nox.” He paused. “Should I call an ambulance?”
Viktor Lih
Officer of CCDPD
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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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