CHAPTER 17: BLOOD IN THE GULLY

The mist moved first.

It rolled upward from the gully floor in a slow, deliberate swell, like breath exhaled from the earth itself. The Whisper Pulse Detector in Ethan’s hand beeped twice. It was faint at first, then faster and sharper.

Three blips, circling.

"They’re closing in," Ethan whispered.

Reid dropped into a crouch at the gully’s edge, scanning through the shifting white. "Jonas, left flank. Kara, with me. Holt, Mira, high ground, covering fire".

No one complained. No one asked questions.

The team moved with practiced precision.

Jonas slid down into the gully’s left side, his heavy boots sinking into the damp soil. Kara followed Reid down the slope opposite him, spear poised. Mira and Holt scrambled up a ridgeline, their silhouettes vanishing into the haze above.

Ethan stayed in the center, grapple launcher ready, eyes darting between the terrain and the pulsing arcs on the detector’s display.

The gully wasn’t just a dip in the earth, it was a wound.

The mud was marbled with black ichor from an older kill, and the smell of iron and rot clung to the air like a film on the tongue. Every breath tasted stale and old.

Above, the dead trees leaned inward over the gouge as if eavesdropping.

Ethan adjusted his stance, knees bent, toes feeling for purchase in the slick slope. A trickle of cold water ran under the mud and around his boots. It carried something oily, and when it touched exposed skin, it stung.

The detector ticked...

Tick... tick... tick...

It steadied at a wicked tempo that found his pulse and matched it.

"Jonas," Ethan murmured, "left blip is hunting the edge. It’s staying just outside our sightline".

"Good," Jonas said, rolling his shoulders. "Let it think it’s clever".

For a moment, there was silence, then...

GRRRR!

A low growl rippled through the mist; deep and almost metallic. Something large shifted to Ethan’s left, too fast for his eyes to follow.

Then...

DING!

~----~

[Improvisation Draw Activated!]

[Improvised Gear: Sonic Snap Charge!]

Compact concussive device. Emits a short-range sonic shockwave that disorients nearby creatures for 3 seconds. Single use.

~----~

Ethan didn’t think, he just tossed it toward the sound.

CRACK!

The charge popped loudly, the air shimmering for an instant.

The mist jerked, and the creature revealed itself.

It was leaner than last night’s tusked brutes, built for speed. Six limbs dug into the dirt, each tipped with hooked talons, and its head was split into three vertical jaws, lined with needle teeth that clicked as it hissed.

Its eyes were wrong. Not forward-facing like a predator, but set high and far apart, a panoramic gaze evolved for ambush.

The jaw plates trembled, tasting the air. Threads of clear saliva ran between the teeth and smoked where they hit the soil.

Its movement were not fully sharp though. The creature was disoriented.

Jonas needed no one’s cue to move.

He barreled into the creature like a wrecking ball, shoulder-checking it into the gully wall. The thing screeched, claws flailing, but Kara was already there, driving her spear deep into its thorax.

Black ichor sprayed, sizzling where it hit the damp soil.

"One down!" Jonas bellowed.

Ethan’s detector beeped again. The other two were moving faster now.

The downed creature twitched once, then twice, before going still.

Kara wrenched her spear free with a wet, fibrous sound, then stomped the skull until the jaw plates collapsed inward like a broken trap.

The body relaxed all at once, as if cut from strings.

"Stay tight," Reid said. "They’ll bite while you’re counting".

The detector flashed... two arcs converging from opposite directions. They exhibited pack behavior; pin and split.

Ethan lifted the screen so the others could see the sweep. Holt gave a short nod from the ridge and moved three paces right without looking away. Mira’s hands hovered, fingers spread, feeling the air the way a pianist hovers over keys before a crescendo.

Mira’s voice crackled over the comm. "Movement on your six, high and fast!"

Ethan spun.

Right in time when a blur shot from the mist above, landing almost silently on the ridge behind him. It was smaller than the first, but its body shimmered faintly; it had camouflaged scales that distorted its outline.

Before Ethan could react, Holt did...

BAM! BAM!

Holt’s rifle barked twice, the rounds punching into the creature’s shoulder and staggering it.

DING!

~----~

[Improvisation Draw Activated!]

[Improvised Gear: Adhesive Spike Net!]

High-tensile net with barbed edges. Coated in quick-set resin for rapid immobilization.

~----~

Ethan fired the net from the grapple launcher.

It unfolded midair, wrapping around the creature and pinning it against the ridge wall. It shrieked, struggling to tear free, but Holt’s third round silenced it.

"Nice stitch," Holt said flatly, already cycling his bolt.

The camouflage finally failed as the life left the creature, its outline setting into hard angles and pallid plates. The resin foamed where it met blood, hardening into amber.

Mira exhaled a breath she’d been holding.

A hush fell... think and taut, like a string stretched over a canyon.

Ethan felt it in his gums as the pressure shifted in the gully, the kind of atmospheric flinch that comes a heartbeat before lightning.

The detector stuttered, then... nothing.

"Where’s the third?" Kara asked.

Ethan shook the device as if it might cough up an answer. "It was here. It’s..."

The third blip on the detector vanished.

Ethan frowned. "Where’s..."

The ground beneath him buckled.

Soil erupted upward, and something massive burst from the earth; a burrowing variant, armored in overlapping plates of chitin, its forelimbs ending in drills instead of claws.

It lunged, aiming straight for Ethan.

He didn’t see a mouth at first, only the grinder. A conical ring of serrated plates rotated wetly, chewing the gully floor into slurry.

The sound bored into his head, low and nauseating, like a dentist’s drill scaled up to a scream.

The shockwave of its emergence hit him in the knees.

Mud splashed cold up his thighs. The thing adjusted mid-lunge with obscene agility, re-aiming by burrowing half an inch and letting momentum carry the rest.

Staring death in the face, Ethan managed to stay calm. He fired the grapple into a high branch on instinct, yanking himself upward just as the creature’s drills tore through the space where he’d been. A moment late, and he would have been mutilated if not dead.

Jonas roared, leaping onto the creature’s back, his boots skidding on the armor plates. "Find me a soft spot!" he shouted.

DING!

~----~

[Improvisation Draw Activated!]

...

The wheel spun.

...

[Improvised Gear: Thermal Bore Charge!]

Magnetic charge that burns through armor with focused thermal output. Activates 2 seconds after attachment.

~----~

Ethan grappled back down, sliding under the creature’s bulk as it thrashed. He slapped the charge onto the softer joint where its forelimb met the body, then rolled clear.

Two seconds is an eternity when the world wants to mince you.

Ethan counted them by breath; one... he gritted his teeth, the reek of oil and rot heavy in the air.

Two... the charge’s casing turned cherry bright and hissed like meat on a pan, then...

BZZZ!

Armor blistered, then peeled off like bark in fire.

"Hole!" Ethan yelled.

Jonas didn’t wait for permission. He hammered his spike down with both hands, muscles bunching like cables.

The spike sank through the wound to the hilt. The creature spasmed and churned a furrow through the mud, before collapsing sideways with a wet quake that shook dirt from the ridge.

It didn’t stop moving right away. The drills still spun, whining like a distant siren, chewing nothing. Then they slowed... then stopped.

Silence fell, broken only by the hiss of dissolving ichor.

Reid surveyed the bodies. "These weren’t just scouts. They were guarding something".

Mira pointed to the far side of the gully. "You mean that?"

A narrow tunnel yawned at the base of the slope, partially concealed by roots and loose stone. The air spilling from it was warm and foul, carrying a low, constant hum; not mechanical, but alive.

Ethan’s detector pulsed faintly. Something big was down there; multiple somethings.

Reid’s expression hardened. "We follow the tunnel".

"Mask up," Holt said softly, already tying a stained cloth over his nose and mouth. "There’s gas sitting low. See the way the mist pools and doesn’t flow? That’s weight".

Ethan crouched at the lip and watched the fog behave like a liquid; lapping, not drifting. He could taste copper and mushrooms.

The tunnel walls glistened with a thin film that caught what little light made it down here, and the film pulsed subtly with the same rhythm as the hum.

He passed the detector to Reid. "It’s not just bodies. Something’s resonating. The pulse feels... directed".

"Hive," Mira said, her voice a shade above a whisper. "Or something trying to be one".

Kara tested her spearpoint against the wall. The film dimpled and rebounded as if offended. "I hate polite walls".

Jonas crouched and pressed two fingers itno the mud near the entrance, smearing it between thumb and forefinger. "Warm," he said, grimacing. "It’s bleeding heat".

Reid looked them over, ticking through their small injuries and breaths with commander’s eyes. "We go two by two. Jonas with Kara. I’ll take point with Ethan. Holt, Mira, high cover at the mouth until we’re thirty in, then follow".

He caught Ethan’s gaze and held it. "Your tricks, save them until the tunnel forces your hand. Tight spaces eat mistakes".

Ethan nodded, but the Wheel was already itching behind his eyes, a coin begging to be flipped.

He risked a controlled pull, pushing the edge of threat with the thickening air, the hum, the knowledge of a kill zone ahead, and then, he felt the rim of the Wheel catch.

DING!

~----~

[Improvised Gear: Lumen...]

~----~