"Don't leave anyone alive!" The voice boomed across the ruins, followed by the familiar crack of electric gunfire and the rumble of explosions.
This was nothing new in the East of Mendea. What was new was me being stupid enough to be here.
Oh my God, this was so stupid of me to pass through the East just to see Maureen. So stupid, Ernesto. You're an idiot. But beating myself up wasn't going to save me now. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and thoughts weren't bulletproof.
I pressed myself against the crumbling wall as heavy footsteps pounded closer. Mendea had never been the same after World War Six, but the East was especially screwed. The government called it a "containment zone," but everyone knew it was really just a killing field where they dumped problems they didn't want to deal with.
I tried to back away along the wall of what looked like an old church, but the rotted door gave way behind me. Great. Just great.
I crashed through in a tangle of limbs and splintered wood, landing hard on the stone floor inside. Pain shot through my shoulder where I'd hit the ground.
"Yeah, this is really hurting," I muttered, tasting blood.
That's when I saw the bodies. My stomach lurched. They were scattered across the floor like discarded dolls—men, women, even a kid who couldn't have been much younger than me. The smell hit me next, sweet and rotten, and I had to press my hand over my mouth to keep from puking.
Get out. Get out now.
But then I heard voices getting closer outside. The East was Herabib territory, home to the terrorists who'd been fighting the government for three years now. From the sound of those explosions, the military had finally decided to clean house. And unlucky Ernesto Mela was caught right in the middle of their little war.
The footsteps were getting louder. Multiple sets, moving with the kind of coordination that meant soldiers. Or worse.
What are you going to do, Ernesto? I asked myself, then remembered the old survival trick Dad taught me before the bombs took him during World War Five. Play dead.
Electric guns were standard issue now. A man could die without a single visible wound, just fried from the inside out. Perfect for my situation, I could fake it if I had to.
I found a clear spot among the corpses and dropped flat, forcing my breathing to slow. The stone floor was cold against my cheek, and I could feel something sticky under my palm. I didn't want to know what it was.
Don't think about the smell. Don't think about what you're lying next to. Just survive.
Footsteps entered the church. My eyes were cracked open just enough to catch shadows moving in my peripheral vision, but I couldn't make out faces. Three of them, maybe four. They moved differently than soldiers—less rigid, more nervous.
"Ramaphosa is awakening soon," one voice said.
The speaker was older, with the kind of authority that came from years of giving orders. But there was something else in his tone—desperation, maybe even fear.
"We need to do this fast before—" Another voice started, younger and shakier.
"Quiet." The older voice cut him off sharp. "What matters now is that we survive. The cup is too heavy for us to carry much longer. Let's deposit it in a dead body."
Wait a minute. My blood went cold. These aren't soldiers.
"Are you sure about this?" A third voice, female. "The ritual texts were clear—once we transfer the essence, there's no taking it back until—"
"Would you rather carry it yourself until the government guns us down? Look around you, we're running out of time and options."
What the hell are they talking about?
I'd heard rumors about cradlewalkers in the outer zones—people who still believed in the old gods, who thought they could channel divine power. Most folks figured if there were any gods up there, they'd checked out around World War Three. What were these idiots doing messing with religious crap in the middle of a war zone? But I sure as hell wasn't blowing my cover to ask.
Footsteps approached my position. I forced my slightly open eye not to blink, not to track the movement. Every muscle in my body screamed to run, but I held perfectly still.
Not now, Ernesto. Don't you dare move now.
"This one's different," the authoritative voice said, right above me now. "Blue hair. He's not from the East."
Of course. My damn hair always gave me away. I'd been trying to dye it black for years, but the color always fought back, like it had a mind of its own. In a world where most people had brown or black hair, my electric blue might as well have been a neon sign reading "NOT FROM AROUND HERE."
"Central Mendea, by the look of him," the woman said. "What was a school boy doing in Herabib territory?"
"Perfect," the older voice said, and I could hear the smile in it. "Pour the cup into this body. He's unique, we'll easily identify him when Ramaphosa awakens."
Pour the cup into—what the hell?
Before I could process what that meant, hands lifted my head. Something cool pressed against my lips—metal, ornate, with strange engravings I could feel against my skin. The metal was old, ancient even, and it hummed with a vibration that made my teeth ache.
Then drops of liquid fire poured down my throat. I wanted to scream, to fight, to do anything except lie there and take it. But the liquid was already burning through my chest, spreading through my veins like molten gold. It felt like someone had replaced my blood with electricity and my bones with lightning rods.
Don't move. Don't scream. Play dead or be dead. The pain was unlike anything I'd ever felt. It wasn't just physical, it was like something was rewriting me from the inside out, changing the fundamental code of what I was. My heart hammered against my ribs, and I could feel sweat beading on my forehead despite the burning cold of the liquid.
"It's done," the younger voice said. "The vessel has accepted the essence. What should we do now?"
"The government forces will want to burn the bodies," the older voice replied. "We need to bury this one. Deep enough that they won't find it, shallow enough that we can retrieve it later."
Bury who? Me?