"I will kill all of you monsters! " Arne screamed, his voice raw and feral. He stood on the other side of the invisible wall, his fists clenched and trembling with rage. His words carried across the battlefield, but the weight of the chaos rendered them hollow.
The stone figure loomed above Bjorn, its heavy frame casting a shadow over his battered body. Its motionless stance was unnerving, like a predator savoring its dominance before the final strike. Bjorn's chest heaved, his lungs fighting for air as his mind screamed for action.
"I need to get up," he thought, desperation clawing at him. "I can't die here. Not like this. "
His body, however, betrayed him. Blood bubbled in his throat, spilling over his lips in a wet cough that splattered crimson across his face and chest. He stared up at the stone figure, his vision blurring as memories of Lars on his deathbed crept into his thoughts. The old man, frozen in his final moments, unable to speak or move—was this the same fate awaiting him?
"Arrrgg," Bjorn groaned, his voice breaking under the strain of his injuries.
Nearby, Anna's sobs filled the air. "I don't want this," she wept, her voice barely audible over the chaos. "We only wanted to live in peace. "
Olaf sat lifeless in the center of it all, his wife and children clutching at his unmoving body. Arvid, once the steadfast protector of the group, now stood guard only over his own family, his spear gripped tightly but his focus narrowed to those dearest to him.
The tension reached a breaking point as a deafening BAM! shattered the air. A monstrous creature tore over the hill where Ugle had disappeared.
It was the same nightmare that had attacked Bjorn before—a towering, grotesque figure of shifting limbs and void-like eyes. It barreled toward Arne with reckless abandon, its twisted form screeching and twisting as it moved.
The invisible wall stopped it dead in its tracks. The creature collided with the barrier in a violent crash, its limbs flailing and contorting in unnatural ways.
Kicking and screeching, the monster's voice changed. It spoke in hauntingly familiar tones, mimicking voices that cut through the group's fragile sanity.
"Arne, my dear, please help me," it begged, using Elin's voice with unsettling precision.
Arne froze. His breath caught in his throat as the creature's hollow, endless eyes bore into him. The sound of Elin's voice—perfect, exact—was impossible to deny. "How... why? " his mind raced, unable to reconcile the horror before him. His knees buckled, and he collapsed to the ground, his hands gripping his head as though to claw the confusion from his mind.
"Please," the creature continued, its tone shifting seamlessly into Elin's voice. "Help me, Arne. "
Arne wept, tears streaming down his face as he gasped for air. "Someone... something... help me," he whispered, his voice breaking under the weight of despair.
As if in answer to his plea, the creature's head exploded with a grotesque pop, spraying blood and bone fragments across the invisible wall. The sound was sharp and wet, followed by the sickening drip of thick, dark blood running down the barrier.
A single, static needle floated where the creature's head had been. It hung suspended a few meters above the ground, unmoving and unnaturally still.
Arne's breathing grew erratic as he stared at the aftermath. The moon overhead turned a deep crimson, bathing the scene in an eerie, otherworldly glow. The battlefield was painted in viscera, the monster's brain and bone scattered across the ground like grotesque confetti.
But it wasn't just the gore that unnerved him.
The creature's body remained upright, twitching and convulsing. Its limbs spasmed as though searching for its missing head, their movements mechanical and aimless.
The lifeless corpse stood as a grotesque monument to the horror of the moment, its blood pooling at its feet and staining the snow beneath it.
From the gaping wound where the creature's head should have been, a sound emerged—a soft, frail cry. Slowly, unnaturally, a small figure wriggled upward, slick with dark blood and glistening viscera. It was a human baby.
Its tiny hands flailed, reaching blindly at the air as though searching for something—anything—to grasp onto. The cries were piercing, each wail filled with an agony that sent chills racing down Arne's spine. Yet, the child's features were anything but normal. Its eyes were two black circles, impossibly deep, darker than anything Arne could fathom. The grayish hue of its skin gave the impression of aged stone, cold and lifeless.
The baby's body was malformed, its abdomen marked with both reproductive organs, an unsettling fusion of human traits rendered grotesque. Despite its alien features, Arne couldn't deny the pull he felt toward it. There was something about the child—something cosmic, ancient, and unspoken that resonated within him, as if it were a fragment of a truth he could never fully understand.
Arne's hand trembled as he pressed it against the blood-slicked wall, his fingertips searching futilely for a way through. His mind screamed at him to stop, to recoil from the abomination before him, but his body betrayed him. He felt compelled to help, driven by a connection that defied logic or reason.
The cries grew louder, more desperate, and Arne's chest ached in response. He was on the verge of calling out when a shadow fell over the baby's disfigured form.
Two pitch-black boots stepped into view, their soles slick with the creature's blood. Slowly, Arne's eyes traveled upward, taking in the towering figure of one of the three strangers. The man stood still, his presence commanding and oppressive, as though he alone controlled the air around them. Between his fingers, he held the floating needle that had silenced the monster moments before.
The man knelt down, his movements deliberate and unnervingly calm. He removed his wide-brimmed black hat and placed it over the baby's face, covering the crying child in a shroud of darkness.
Arne couldn't breathe. The stranger's actions felt ritualistic, each gesture weighted with purpose yet entirely alien.
With his free hand, the man raised the needle, pointing it precisely at the center of the hat. He paused, as though savoring the moment, before letting the needle go.
In an instant, the needle vanished, piercing the hat in complete silence. The cries stopped abruptly, the absence of sound more deafening than the wails had been.
The man lifted the hat with the same eerie grace, revealing the baby beneath. It lay motionless now, its features twisted and malformed, as lifeless as the corpse of the monster it had emerged from.
Arne's stomach churned. He felt revulsion, but it was the man—not the creature—that horrified him most. His actions were cold, calculated, and devoid of empathy. "He's more of a monster than the thing that hunted us," Arne thought, his mind reeling.
And then, memories surged forward.
Ugle.
The name rang hollow in his mind. Who was Ugle?
Arne clutched his head as fragmented thoughts overwhelmed him. Ugle had walked with them, eaten with them, and even cried with them. But now, as the stranger loomed before him, Ugle's face began to dissolve from his memory.
Arne remembered Ugle in the forest and when it came to Ugle living with them in Altera, Arne didn't remember as if some amnesia had stuck him. Then in the forest, it didn't feel wrong, but now it was, like some kind of an insertion into their lives. Had Ugle even existed? Or had this creature, this thing, taken his place all along?
He saw flashes: Ugle's pale skin, his dark eyes, his faint smile. But those images twisted and morphed, transforming into the grotesque figure of the monster that now lay dead at the invisible wall.
"How didn't we notice? " Arne whispered to himself, his voice trembling. The monster hadn't just attacked them—it had followed them, manipulated them, preyed on their fears, and fed on their despair.
Arne collapsed backward, his body shaking uncontrollably. His gaze flicked between the stranger and the twisted corpse of the creature he had once called Ugle.
The stranger stood slowly, adjusting his hat as if nothing had happened. Then he turned his piercing gaze toward Arne.
Arne's breath was shallow as he stared at the stranger towering over him. The man's black hat, now slightly tilted, cast a shadow across his pale, angular face. His voice emerged, low and measured, but in a language Arne had never heard before. The rest of the group huddled together about ten meters behind Arne, their fear palpable. Anna clung to Elin, her trembling hands shielding her head. Arvid stood in front of his family, his grip on his mechanical spear so tight that his knuckles were white. Mikkel, still recovering from the earlier fight, ley knocked out a few meters next to Bjorn.
"Which Apostorijat sent you?" the man asked Arne, his tone laced with suspicion.
Arne flinched the unfamiliar words sounding harsh and alien to his ears, it was language he had never heard before. He tried to respond but found his throat dry, his body paralyzed by the weight of the man's presence.
"No response, huh?" Kilian muttered, tilting his head slightly as he studied the strange group.
Then he raised his hand, the floating needle returning to his fingertips, glinting faintly in the crimson moonlight.
Kilian stood over the frightened man at his feet, his gaze shifting to the rest of the group. His sharp eyes scanned their faces, noting their expressions of fear and confusion.
"And why the fuck," he thought to himself, "is this weirdo so scared of such a weak mimic?"
His attention moved to the children and elderly clustered at the back of the group. The sight made him pause, a realization dawning on him like a thunderclap.
"These people…" Kilian murmured under his breath, his chest tightening. "Survivors of Altera?"
The very notion shocked him. How had anyone managed to survive in the broken, desolate remains of that ship for so long? In these conditions, it seemed impossible.
Kilian took a step back, his mind racing. He needed answers, but more importantly, he needed to stop the chaos.
He turned sharply toward Glymps, the stone figure standing motionless beside the corpse of a bandaged man. "I believe I ordered you not to kill anyone, Glymps," Kilian barked, his voice sharp and commanding.
The stone figure's featureless face showed no response, but it began to move. Slowly, deliberately, Glymps retreated. Its massive frame folded unnaturally as it returned to the tattered bag of the fallen bandaged figure.
Kilian's lips tightened into a grim line as he watched Glymps disappear into the bag's void-like interior. A new bandaged figure emerged from the bag, its movements mechanical. It picked up the bag and walked silently back to Kilian's side, awaiting further instruction.
Bjorn's ears caught the stranger's yelling. Though the words were incomprehensible, the tone carried an unmistakable weight of authority. Bjorn's chest heaved as he fought to stay conscious, every fiber of his being straining to understand what was happening.
"He's... not here to kill us," Bjorn thought weakly, though his certainty wavered with every passing moment.
The stranger, now standing beside the bandaged figure with the bag, glanced back at the group. His gaze landed on Bjorn, then Arne, and finally Mikkel. His expression remained inscrutable, but something about his posture seemed less threatening—almost contemplative.