Hhh—hah—hh—What… what's happening… Anna? Why… why did you—God… I can't breathe. How long have I been running? Minutes? Hours? I don't even know anymore. My fingers press hard against my neck, but the blood keeps leaking through.
What happened to you, Anna? Your eyes… that smile… your mouth on my throat—God, help me. And Tommy—Tommy. Please be alright. Please don't come downstairs. Dad will come back, I promise…
Hhh—hah—blood in my throat. I can't swallow. The trees break open— a clearing? Shadows… men. Soldiers. Of course. Always out here, always marching, drills in the woods. Thank God. Thank God. My knees buckle—no, no, stay up. They'll help. Yes, they'll help—bandages, trucks, radios. They'll save me. Save Tommy.
My hand slips from my neck, hot blood spilling down my chest. I stagger forward, arm raised, waving—my voice shatters out of me like glass.
"Help—! Please—someone—help me!"
Heads turn. Masks. Rifles. They see me. They see me. Thank God… thank God…
"Please! I'm hurt!"
They see me—yes… they see… but—no… no, no, no—rifles lifting, all of them. Shouts crack across the clearing.
"Down! On the ground! Don't move!"
Why…? Why are they—? I'm hurt. I'm dying. Don't they see? They look at me like I'm the monster—like Anna—but I'm not. I'm not. I'm still me. I'm still—
"Please! Please, don't shoot!"
My hand won't stop shaking. I press the wound again, but the blood won't stop—thick, black, seeping between my fingers. The soldiers shout again.
I try to answer, to tell them I'm hurt, that I need… I need—But what comes out isn't my voice.
"Deliver me… deliver me…"
The words scrape up my throat like splinters. My lips tremble, blood spilling between my teeth. I choke, cough, try again:
"The Lord is… the Lord is…"
The sentence dies in my throat. My jaw spasms. Rifles twitch upward, muzzles fixed on me now. God, no, please—I tried to speak. But another voice pushes through mine, deeper, colder.
"Woe… woe to the inhabitants of the earth…"
The soldiers freeze. Even I freeze. I didn't mean to say that. I didn't want to. My body shudders, jerks like a puppet. My vision flares white, then black.
"Father… forgive me… I was weak…"
I try to stop it. I bite my tongue, but the infection is speaking through me. The soldiers are shouting louder now, rifles tight against their shoulders. One mutters, almost a whisper: "Christ… he's praying."
I fall to my knees. My chest is on fire. My teeth ache as if they're splintering. And the last thing I hear is my own voice, twisted and wrong:
"The horsemen ride… the horses are inside you…"
Then everything goes dark.
[ 0620 HOUR: BRAVO SECTOR – G.E.R.T. MONITORING TRUCK ]
Another day, another cleanup. I told myself that as if routine could make any of this normal, the cleanup crew are inside the Miller House. Their job was straightforward: sanitize the site, bag or burn anything the assault team left behind. My job was simpler still—watch, log, and keep them alive with whatever intel I could feed back.
"This is Unit Two. Kitchen clear."
"Unit Three, moving to basement."
The camera jolted with each step as they descended into the cellar. Their light swept across cement walls, shelves heavy with dust, then froze on something nailed crooked to the far wall.
"Hold up," one of them muttered.
I leaned closer to the feed. An old photograph—grainy, yellowed. A man in a priest's collar, smiling. His wife beside him. Their boy. Tommy. The same boy the assault team had carried out.
"Command," the cleanup leader said into comms, voice tight.
"We've got confirmation of one more resident. Adult male. Missing. Possible clergy."
I logged it, fingers stiff on the keys: One unaccounted. Male. Priest.
Denner swore. Two seats to my right, his eyes went wide. He was monitoring Echo Sector.
"Contact. Movement in the clearing. Echo Squad has eyes."
My cleanup crew froze, one of them half bent over a body bag. Their leader's voice cut sharp into my headset: "Say again, Command?"
"This is Command to Cleanup Team. Be advised—movement in Echo Sector. Could be the missing resident. Break. Continue cleanup but stay alert."
My voice came out flatter than I felt.
On Denner's screen, rifles snapped upward. Spotlights lanced through the trees. And there—staggering out of the treeline—was a man.
Barefoot. Shirt half-torn. Blood soaking his collar. One hand clamped to his throat, crimson leaking through his fingers. He moved like he'd been running for miles.
"Help…" His voice rasped, caught by every mic in range. "Please…"
For half a second, I believed he'd make it. That he was just another survivor. Then I saw his eyes, and that hope felt like a stupid luxury.
The soldier Rifles stayed leveled.
"Stay back! Hands up! On the ground!"
The man lurched forward anyway, like he hadn't even heard. His arm stretched toward the light—and the spotlight caught his face. Then he whispered something.
Not out loud. Not like normal sound. His lips barely moved, but the words bled through every open channel, layered and wrong.
"Deliver me… deliver me…"
I logged it with trembling hands.
The man swayed, blood slicking his chest. His eyes were red-shot, whites threaded with black veins. He blinked too slow, as if time around him moved differently. Then his voice broke—half static, half scripture.
"Forgive me, Father…"
His throat tore itself open with a scream—not one voice but many, a choir forcing its way out of a single body. My headset shrieked.
"Open fire! Shoot him, damn it!" Daniel's voice cracked through the radio.
The soldiers opened up. Muzzle flashes lit the clearing. Rounds ripped bark off trees, churned dirt, punched through his torso. He jerked, staggered—but did not fall.
Instead, he bent. Shoulders bulged. His clavicle cracked like gunfire. The scream deepened.
Beside me, Daniel clamped both hands to his ears. "Make it stop! Christ, make it—"
Onscreen, the man's jaw split sideways. Tendons shredded. New teeth pushed through as old ones snapped. Lips peeled into bloody ribbons. Froth bubbled at the corners. Veins swelled and crawled over his temples like worms under skin.
"Why hast Thou forsaken me?" he shrieked, doubled voice tearing the air.
The squad broke. One soldier screamed and raked bloody gouges down his own face. Another jammed a pistol under his chin and fired—helmet-cam dropping with him into the dirt.
"Christ," I muttered, too low to matter.
"The shepherd has fallen… the flock scatters…"
Onscreen, the priest lunged. Black, hooked nails opened a soldier's throat in a spray that misted across the spotlight beam. Another tried to run—but got snatched and hurled into the trees with a crack like breaking timber.
I couldn't breathe. I couldn't look away.
The priest tore open his own shirt as if his chest burned from within. His ribcage heaved unnaturally, swelling and collapsing like a second throat. One eye ruptured red; the other bulged, fever-bright.
He shrieked.
Not sound. A weapon.
The comms flooded with it, bursting every channel at once. My screens jittered with static. Sensors spiked red. The scream twisted into words:
"Behold—the angel with the key to the abyss! The chains are broken! The pit is open!"
Soldiers dropped rifles and clutched their heads. One vomited blood. Another whispered "Amen" and blew out his own temple.
In the truck, Daniel's lips moved in sync with the whisper. His eyes rolled white. His voice broke into sobs.
"Forgive me… I was weak… I was unclean…"
"Daniel, stop! Look at me!" I grabbed his wrist as his hand slid down, fumbling for his sidearm.
It wasn't his strength anymore. He wrenched free, desperation fueling him. The gun rose. Kenny lunged too late.
The shot tore through the truck, deafening. The flash lit Daniel's face for a heartbeat—blood spraying across his console, spattering my hands.
He slumped sideways, headset still crackling with whispers. His mouth hung open mid-prayer. Inside the truck, silence fell—except for our ragged breathing, and the carnage shrieking from our feeds.
Onscreen, the last soldier emptied his rifle into the priest's chest. Bullets chewed through flesh, carving holes, tearing meat—but the priest did not fall. His jaw yawned wider, lips shredded to ribbons. He clamped one blackened hand around the soldier's helmet.
The mic carried the man's last words, soft, resigned: "Amen."
Then static swallowed everything.
One voice remained. Daniel's headset, still pressed to his lifeless ear, whispering into the truck:
"The pit is open. Rise… rise from the pit…"