Without warning, Killian lodges his fist into Lucas’s cheekbone. A red patch develops over a thick and growing welt on Lucas’s face. Vash watches as Lucas uses it as an excuse to tackle Killian to the ground. Soon, both faces turn into a bloody mess.
“Don’t forget, we have three children of our own,” Killian growls. “They need us now.”
“I can’t take this anymore,” Vash thinks.
In the distance is an old train platform. “They’re waiting with Ruby,” he says.
He cannot dismiss the urge to leave his pack for good. With no visible future in front of him, he turns away from the marble towers. He does his best to block out the memory of what once existed. That means forgetting the impossible.
Silently, he holds onto a wish: Rae must be somewhere else now. Perhaps not dead entirely. If true, her resurrection would be a miracle.
Miracles don’t come true on this planet. Expectations don’t hold up. An alpha does not weather through storms by holding onto childish wishes.
They all saw what happened to her. After she said goodbye, an elaborately designed submergence tank filled with a strange luminescent liquid and bio-mechanic tubes swallowed her. They watched in horror as Rae stepped inside.
Everything happened so fast. Tubes coiled around her naked body. They pried open her cavities and kept her in a cruel stasis.
And then, it was over. The tank lowered into the ground.
That’s when she disappeared.
When the floor closed, they realized there was no way out. They all bore witness to terrible beings, Ruby included. Tall and emaciated beasts clung to the dark. Their mouths were full of sharp teeth.
Who did they see down there? Were they some ancient gatekeepers? Monsters? A forgotten race of betas? Whatever the beasts were, they led them away from Rae’s absence.
The underground shafts closed behind them. The beings disappeared.
It was an illusion.
Every time Vash thinks about it, his stomach churns. His heart flashes with grief. He can’t blame the pack for their bickering, nor for the silence on the beings they encountered. When you can’t explain an experience, it’s easier to keep your mouth shut about it.
They looked for another way in. Using the last bit of energy they had left, they tried every path. After the day turned to night, they each realized there was nothing they could do. They lost all the mystery they uncovered underneath the marble towers.
To Vash, the underground realm they discovered was a tomb. Nothing more, nothing less. It need not be explored. It needs to be forgotten.
“Where is Ruby?” Lucas asks.
“The sands of Dagon. If all goes according to plan, she’ll be waiting with a boat,” Vash mutters. Dead set on reclaiming the only real connection she ever had, she took the alpha’s children and headed for the shoreline.
They walk. For some time, Vash listens to the wind howling in the east. Their footsteps echo across a field of ruin. Depression hits him hard again.
“I still feel her,” Lucas says.
“She was a fucking angel,” Killian says.
“Ruby’s waiting for us,” Vash replies.
Vash walks away, his body disappearing into the dark night. Head down, he watches his feet carry him to an old subway platform. Everything feels surreal, like the end of a strange hallucinatory nightmare. He wonders if he’s actually walking.
The platform is just like it used to be, except there is no sign of life. The sounds of the world are no louder than a pin drop. The calm before the storm. Soon, the strongest tribes will compete against surviving armies. A new world will begin. Just like the last time and the time before that.
They walk through an abandoned subway car, collecting all the cash chips and weapons they can find. Anything that can help them survive, they pocket.
Guns. Blades. A packet of cigarettes. An old photograph of someone’s loved one. This planet is a sphere of memories, mere reflections that pull them into underground realms of the mind.
The past is one of those realms that’s just too hard to escape.
These alphas were the world’s most powerful slave traders. Little by little, they built an army. The Ouroboros. Its leaders were Killian, Lucas, Vash, and his brother Cassian. At their height, they believed they would be the alphas to shape the planet. Well, they did just that. Vash never expected victory to come with real gain, but he sure as hell didn’t expect to lose the person who changed him the most.