Foster was with us suddenly. The dumbass tried to escape a few days ago. Didn't get far. They caught him twenty miles from base, dehydrated, sunburnt, and begging for water. Now, instead of the standard four-year service contract, he had an extra two years tacked on.
That was the price of trying to bail.
Dan and I were paired up for the mission. Gino got the privilege of dragging Foster along. The guy had been pathetically depressed since they brought him back, moping around like a kicked dog.
Gino, being Gino, tried to cheer him up.
"Look at it this way, bro," he said, grinning as he patted Foster's shoulder. "At least you get to kill some Gobbers."
Foster groaned. "I guess so." He pulled at the chainmail we'd been issued for this mission, scowling. "But why the fuck are we wearing this medieval bullshit?"
Dan sighed, checked his rifle, then flicked Foster's chainmail.
"Because they use bladed weapons, dipshit. Try using your brain for once."
Foster shot him a glare but didn't argue.
Dan ignored him and reached into his pouch, pulling out a pinch of chewing tobacco. He stuffed it into his mouth and started chewing with a satisfied grunt.
Gino wrinkled his nose. "Shit, how do you enjoy stuff like that?"
Dan shrugged. "Dunno. Just do."
Foster snorted. "Ever heard of smoking? Like a normal human being?"
Dan didn't even look at him. "Foster, shut the fuck up."
We were moving through ruins east of Sector 12, rolling in a Humvee with a mounted turret. The wreckage of an old-world town stretched around us, crumbling buildings, cracked roads, and the occasional rusted-out vehicle stripped for parts.
Dan patted my shoulder. "Stop here."
I eased the Humvee to a halt.
Gino climbed up onto the turret, sweeping his aim toward the ruins ahead.
"Stay here, keep the engine hot," Dan ordered. "Foster, you're with me."
Foster glanced at me, then up at Gino, then back at Dan.
"Just the two of us?"
"Yes."
Dan stepped out of the vehicle, extending his tower shield in one hand and drawing his electric baton in the other. The baton extended with a sharp snap, crackling with energy — a spear built for stabbing and shocking.
Foster sighed, shouldered his rifle, and busted open the nearest door.
Dan moved in first, shield up, clearing the room with quick, precise sweeps. I slid over into the passenger seat, flipping my rifle up to cover them from the outside.
Silence.
Then Dan's voice crackled through the radio.
"Clear here. No Gobbers."
Foster walked out and sprayed a large X on the wall, a mark for the cleanup crew.
Dan crouched down, running his fingers through the dirt. He frowned.
"No tracks. No signs of movement. Nothing."
Then we heard it.
Gunfire.
East of our position.
Explosions followed a few seconds later, deep, concussive thuds, sending distant plumes of smoke into the air. Then came the roar of gunships, whizzing by overhead.
Foster whistled. "Guess the next unit found something."
Even though humanity had been backed into city-states, we didn't lose everything.
Standard operating procedure?
Bomb the absolute shit out of anything that looks like a problem.
If a horde got too big, we didn't bother sending in infantry first. We firebombed, shelled, and napalmed it into nothing. If anything survived, then the boots on the ground moved in to finish the job.
Made life easier.
Most of the time.
"Clearing ruins is easy when you've got overwhelming firepower," I muttered.
Dan chuckled. "Yeah. Which makes you wonder—how the fuck did humanity ever lose the first time?"
Good question.
A century had passed since humanity regained its footing, and here we were—retaking land, pushing the monsters back, erasing them from history.
But how did we lose it in the first place?
What happened back then?
I never thought much about it.
Didn't really care.
Like every other grunt here, I just wanted to get my shit done, survive my contract, and retire inside the city as a 'veteran.'
I wasn't an idealist. I wasn't an optimist. I wasn't some moral philosopher thinking about the ethics of racial cleansing.
I was a guy trying to make it through four years without dying.
The air changed.
Thicker. Heavy.
The sharp, distinct scent of napalm drifted in from the east was a burning chemical stench that clung to your nostrils and wouldn't let go.
"Shit," Gino muttered, still on the turret. "They're really lighting it up out there."
We loaded back into the Humvee and rolled toward our next objective, moving through the ruins in slow, deliberate sweeps.
Nothing so far.
Just empty streets and blackened husks of buildings.
But the fact that there were no Goblins here?
That bothered me more than finding them.
After an hour, we reached the next checkpoint, an old gas station, partially collapsed, long stripped of anything useful.
We checked inside.
No bodies. No tracks. No signs of Goblins.
Which was wrong.
Dan frowned. "They were supposed to be here."
Foster kicked over a piece of burnt rubble. "Think they ran?"
"Gobbers don't just run." Gino slid down from the turret, spitting on the ground. "They fight, they ambush, they dig in. They don't just disappear."
And yet, here we were.
The ruins were empty.
The napalm runs had been thorough, sure—but there should still be something.
Scorch marks.
Charred corpses.
Weapons left behind.
Something.
But there was nothing.
Just the ruins.
And the creeping, nagging feeling that we weren't alone.
Dan shifted uneasily. "I don't like this."
Neither did I.
I took another look around, scanning the rooftops, the alleyways, the broken streets.
Still nothing.
But I felt it.
That familiar itch at the back of my neck.
Like we were being watched.
Like something was waiting.
Then, from somewhere in the distance—
Clicking sounds.
Low. Guttural. Inhuman.
My grip on my rifle tightened.
Gino heard it too. He slowly reached for his radio.
"Command, this is Reclamation Team Bravo. We've got… something. No bodies, no tracks, but we're not alone out here. Requesting confirmation on any new enemy sightings."
Static.
Then—
"Standby."
Which was the last thing I wanted to hear.
Because standby meant they didn't know either.
And if Command didn't know what was out here?
That meant we were already fucked.
The clicking noises came again.
Soft. Distant. But moving.
Gino and I exchanged a look. Dan had already raised his rifle, eyes scanning the wreckage. Foster shifted nervously, his fingers tightening around the grip of his gun.
We weren't alone.
And whatever was out there knew we were here.
We had cleared Goblin nests before. It was messy, brutal work, but it was predictable. Gobs were dumb, animalistic. They either fought or ran.
But this?
This was different.
No bodies. No signs of panic or retreat. No discarded weapons, no scorch-marked corpses, nothing.
Just an empty battlefield.
And the clicking noises.
They weren't random. They weren't echoes of the wind playing tricks on us.
They had a pattern.
A rhythm.
Like… communication.
Dan heard it too. "That ain't Goblin behavior."
Foster swallowed. "So what the fuck is it, then?"
Silence.
We didn't know.
And that was a problem.
Gino's radio crackled to life.
"Reclamation Team Bravo, confirm your last report. You're saying there are no bodies?"
"Affirmative," Gino said, voice tense. "No bodies, no remains. The entire warband we were tracking is just… gone."
A pause.
Then HQ came back.
"...Standby for further orders."
Dan muttered a curse under his breath.
Standby.
Meaning they had no idea either.
Which meant we were officially off script.
Then, suddenly, movement.
A shadow flickered through the ruins, darting between buildings too fast.
Dan caught it first. "Contact, left side—two o'clock!"
We swung our rifles toward the movement, eyes scanning the darkness.
Nothing.
Foster cursed under his breath. "I don't like this, man."
Neither did I.
The clicking sounds had stopped.
Which was somehow worse.
Then, just as Gino turned back to his radio—
Something moved.
Not a Goblin.
Something taller.
Something faster.
Something smart.
From the shadows of a collapsed building, a pair of black, glistening eyes locked onto me.
I barely had time to register the shape—lanky limbs, elongated fingers, pale, stretched skin—before it lunged.
Straight at me.
Instinct took over.
I fired.
The gun roared in my hands, the muzzle flash illuminating the dimness for half a second—just enough to see the thing's mouth.
Teeth.
Jagged, uneven, too many of them.
The bullets hit—but it didn't stop.
It twisted mid-air, avoiding the worst of the burst, landing low on all fours.
A hiss, guttural and wet.
Then more movement in the ruins around us.
We weren't dealing with one.
We were surrounded.
Dan reacted fast, raising his shield and stepping in front of Foster just as another figure burst from the rubble.
Gino swung the turret around, opening fire with a thunderous burst of rounds ripping through stone and metal.
But these things were fast.
They didn't charge head-on like Goblins. They moved sideways, weaving between cover, staying low.
They were hunting us.
Gino yelled into the radio.
"CONTACT! MULTIPLE HOSTILES—THESE AREN'T GOBS! REQUEST IMMEDIATE SUPPORT—"
Static.
Then HQ's voice, sharp and urgent.
"Fallback to defensive positions—do not engage directly. Repeat, do not engage. We are redirecting aerial support to your location."
Dan gritted his teeth. "Great. We just have to survive until they get here."
Foster swore. "That's fucking comforting."
Another shadow lunged from the rubble.
I turned and fired again, my shots tracking it mid-movement. The bullets hit—this time, it dropped, twitching, bleeding out in the dust.
But for every one we killed?
More were coming.
"Hold the line!" Dan barked, raising his shield as another creature lunged. The impact slammed into him hard, knocking him back, but the shield held.
Gino let loose another burst from the turret, tearing through the ruins, forcing some of them back.
Foster?
Foster was panicking. His hands shook as he fired, rounds going wild.
"Shit—shit—shit!"
Dan grabbed him by the collar and yanked him behind cover.
"FOCUS YOU RETARD!"
We were outnumbered.
The ruins erupted into chaos.
The air filled with gunfire, muzzle flashes flickering like lightning in the dark. Shadows moved fast between the wreckage, too fast. They darted, crawled, slithered between rubble, coming at us from angles we couldn't cover.
Gino kept firing the turret, laying down suppressive fire, but even the heavy rounds couldn't track them all. Dan braced against the impact of another creature, slamming into his tower shield with enough force to dent the metal. Foster fired wildly, missing more shots than he landed.
And me?
I was moving fast, aiming, trying to kill the fuckers before they reached us.
But they kept coming.
More than I could count.
And we were running out of time.
"WHERE THE FUCK IS OUR AIR SUPPORT?" Gino shouted into the radio, his voice strained.
HQ responded, voice tense but cold.
"Two minutes out. Hold your position."
Two minutes?
We didn't have two minutes. Sure we're armored up, but with the enemy's number we'll be pinned down.
One of the creatures broke cover, sprinting low. I raised my rifle, tracked its movement, and fired a controlled burst.
The bullets tore through its chest. It stumbled, falling to its knees, twitching. Should've been dead.
But then…
It moved.
Jolted upright, like a puppet with its strings yanked.
The thing looked at me, head snapping up unnaturally fast. It should have been bleeding out. It should have been dying.
Instead, it smiled.
A grotesque, too-wide grin.
Then it charged again.
"WHAT THE FUCK?" I yelled, switching to full-auto.
Dan pivoted, slamming the butt of his baton into another creature's head, cracking its skull open. But even as it dropped, another lunged from the side, climbing onto his shield.
"THESE THINGS AREN'T NORMAL!" he shouted, poking the creature with his baton, sending a thousand volts to its brain.
No shit these fuckers weren't normal.
Another one pounced at me, limbs outstretched. I barely had time to react before Dan intercepted, slamming it to the ground with a bash of his shield.
It screeched, a sound that made my eardrums burn, then twisted unnaturally, its bones cracking as it tried to right itself.
Dan stomped on its head. Hard.
A sickening crunch.
It finally stopped moving.
For now.
We pulled back, using the Humvee as our last defensive line. Gino kept firing, but the turret was overheating. Foster was out of ammo, resorting to his baton and fists.
I slammed another mag into my rifle, heart pounding.
The creatures were everywhere now.
The clicking sounds had turned into screeches.
Then as if God finally answered us.
A roaring noise from above.
Gunships.
Finally.
The first missiles streaked down, slamming into the ruins with thunderous explosions. Fire bloomed across the battlefield, lighting up the night in a wall of flames and shrapnel.
Then came the heavy guns.
Rotary cannons tore through the ruins, ripping into anything that moved. The creatures screeched as their bodies were shredded, torn apart, disintegrated under relentless gunfire.
One moment, we were fighting for our lives.
The next?
It was over.
God bless the pilots.
Smoke choked the air. The ruins were reduced to rubble. The only sound left was the distant hum of gunships circling above.
I let out a shaky breath. My hands were still gripping my rifle, tight enough that my fingers ached.
Foster collapsed against the Humvee, breathing hard. "Holy fuck."
Dan wiped blood off his shield. "That was not a standard Gobber nest."
No one argued.
Because we all knew, this was something else.
Something we hadn't seen before.
And something that HQ didn't warn us about.
Gino spat onto the ground. "They knew."
I looked at him. "What?"
He gestured at the ruins, at the smoking remains of whatever we just fought.
"They fucking knew," he repeated. "HQ. The brass. They sent us in here as bait."
Foster paled. "No. They wouldn't—"
"Wake the fuck up," Dan muttered. "They didn't send us reinforcements. They sent a goddamn bombing run."
And that?
That meant they never intended for us to win this fight.
Just to confirm what was here.
And if we died in the process?
Well.
That was just part of the mission.
I looked down at one of the corpse piles, at the thing I had killed.
At the thing that should've died the first time.
This wasn't just another Goblin purge.
This was a test.
A trap.
For us.
And HQ?
They just got their answers.
Didn't take long for a recovery unit to arrive.
They moved in with precision, fully geared, fully armored, not a single hint of exhaustion in their movements. They weren't like us. We were expendable grunts, sent in blind to see what happened. These guys?
They were here for the cleanup.
They picked through the ruins like vultures, securing corpse samples, analyzing the damage, tagging biological remains for transport.
And me?
I was still pissed.
I was leaning against the Humvee when I spotted movement.
A corpse, half-buried under rubble, its chest rising just barely.
It wasn't dead.
The fucking thing was still breathing.
Something inside me snapped.
I walked over, lifted my boot, and with all the rage I had left, I stomped down on its skull.
A sickening crunch echoed through the air as its head collapsed under my boot, bones and brain matter splattering across the dirt.
Only then did I feel satisfied.
Then someone had the balls to tell me to stop.
"HEY—" one of the recovery guys snapped. "We needed that one alive."
I turned to him, still pissed off, and let out a slow breath.
Then, calmly and politely, I said, "Fuck off."
The guy stiffened. I could see the anger in his stance, the way his hands twitched like he wanted to grab me, but he didn't.
Because he knew.
He knew what we had just been through.
And he knew that if he started shit right now, I'd break his jaw without hesitation.
So instead, he just huffed and muttered something under his breath before walking off.
I didn't care.
I was done with this place.
I climbed back into the Humvee, rubbing a hand down my face.
Dan sat next to me, cleaning the blood off his baton. Gino was in the back, reloading his mags with slow, methodical movements. Foster was just staring at the floor, silent for once.
For a brief second, we all just sat there.
Then the radio crackled.
"Bravo Team, new orders. Move to the next sector for clearing. ETA twenty minutes."
I stared at the radio.
Then at the burning ruins around us.
Then back at the radio.
"…Are you fucking serious?" I muttered.
No response.
Of course not.
Dan sighed. "Guess we're not getting a break."
I exhaled slowly, trying to shove the frustration deep down where it wouldn't boil over.
Then I did what I always did.
I got into the driver's seat.
Started the engine.
And drove us toward the next shitshow.