Seeking Strays - Chapter 87 - Fog and Decay (Patreon)

AN: Okay, I’ve figured out what I want to do. We’ll shelve the rust overlap for now. I do want to come back to it and give it another shake at some point when I have a better idea of what I’m going to do with it. You guys seemed to like the vibe and aesthetic, who’s is a relief. 

Now, instead of heading into an Overlap at the end of chapter —, Reyna instead walks into the mysterious fog that rolled across the place and into the diner. Something's off, but she isn’t quite sure what it is. I’ll go back and retcon the end of that chapter to for. 

I always hate when I have to go back chapters and change something. I think this is the first time I’ve ever outright deleted chapters. I’ll try and catch back up when I can.

— — —

”Hello?” I called out into the diner. The lights were off, making it even harder to pry through the dense fog that covered absolutely everything. Not that the darkness had much of an effect on me, but the fog definitely did. “Is anyone there?”

I pressed forward with my ears perked up alertly. My foot kicked something, and I jolted backward. A coffee cup rolled across the tile, clattering until it hit the base of a booth. It left a trail of spilled coffee across the diner floor.

A voice came from just behind me, making me flinch back toward it before I realized what was happening. “They’re all gone. Didn’t you hear? You missed the rapture.”

Calm down, calm down. The lack of visibility was just getting to me. Darkness and tight spaces… I hated it. I hated it so much. Every instinct screamed to just leave and come back. Something was obviously going wrong, though. I wouldn’t be a very good Harbor Agent if I just up and left.

My ears flicked as I heard a few more whispers, though they faded like an ebbing tide. “Can you light this place up, Vigil?”

”You mean project a beam of light?” The fluffy plushie asked back. 

“Yeah.” The silver wolf plushie left my pocket, and gently floated right next to my head. After a moment, his eyes flickered and a soft white beam lit up the diner around me. As a bonus, he was completely hands off, too. “Stay close.”

”Affirmative.” He hovered right over my shoulder, turning as I did to face deeper into the diner.

With his light flickering over the place, I could actually make things out through the heavy fog. For instance, the coffee cup wasn’t the only thing dropped on the floor. The entire tray had been dropped at some point as if the waitress had been grabbed by something right in the middle of bringing food out to a customer.

Something fluttered off to the side, and my claws ripped out before I even consciously realized what was happening. Rend slammed down into a table, pinning a white insect to the surface by its thorax. I hadn’t seen it since it’d been sitting absolutely still, but the light must’ve startled it. 

The insect wiggled around the claw punching through its body for a moment before going still entirely. My nanites slipped back into my body, and I moved closer to check out the bug. “Fog Crawler?”

++ 1 Vitae Absorbed ++

The notification popping into my vision gave me pause. Did I really just get a Vitae? From simply skewering an insect? Hmm… maybe I should volunteer to go out into the Mire and exterminate a swarm of these things if I got the chance. 

”This unit is unfamiliar with the term.” Vigil hovered closer to the bug. The white light shining off of him flickered red, and swept past the insect.

”They’re a Mire bug. More of a pest than a threat, really.” What was something like that doing in the city? They hated radiance more than anything, so even being near Silverport’s pylon should’ve been driving it insane. “I should’ve brought a weapon.” 

“Ask, and you shall receive, Operator.” Vigil’s light flicked to the side. “There’s a handgun behind the counter.”

”You have x-ray vision or something?” I slid over the diner counter. With Vigil’s help, I located a safe right below the cash register. It was one of those digital ones that popped open as soon as Vigil got close.

It was just a simple handgun, probably bought off the blackmarket based on the filled off serial numbers. And the fact this place was a gang hideout. Still, it was better than nothing. No extra mag, so I had just seven bullets. I pulled back the receiver to ensure there was a bullet in the chamber, and pressed forward.

I took a breath to try and catch someone’s scent, but the fog was messing with me. All I could smell was… blood. Not much of it, but there was blood coming from somewhere back behind the diner. I slunk along through the place to a door leading into the back warehouse that I saw a few of the Revenant goons use. 

There was a short hall leading back, similarly full of fog. If I didn’t already suspect the fog was supernatural, that all but confirmed it. Normal fog didn’t act like this. At least, not inside of a building. 

The short hall opened into a warehouse at the back. Racks of crates lined the walls, and two semis were backed into the place with their backs opened up. Crates and barrels laid scattered all over the floor, casting deep shadows thanks to Vigil’s flashlight. 

“Ah, someone’s still here?” A woman leaned over an opened wooden creation, digging around inside of it. She froze as the light flashed past her. She turned back toward me as the flashlight flickered across her heavy white jacket. 

“What a seriously nice jacket. I wish I had one of those.” A voice laughed as if it was some inside joke I didn’t get. I roughly scratched at my head to try and get the whispers to go away.

A red halo sparked behind the woman’s head. It kinda looked like my psions, except it was a poisoned type of red that seemed to pollute the very air around it. Seeing a halo should’ve eased my nerves somewhat. There was a certain look to the woman’s red-glowing eyes that made my fur stand on end. 

“Guardian—?” I asked hesitantly. She wasn’t someone I recognized, but I also didn’t know every Guardian in the city. “You have any idea what’s happening?”

”Hehe… hehahaha!” The Guardian broke out into a crazed kind of laughter. One of her hands shot up to cup her face as she laughed. Her nails pressed into her skin, dragging out trails of red that made her jacket flutter. She had a crowbar clutched in her other, its end trailing red. I didn’t have to even catch the scent to tell it was blood. “Try again?”

”Anarch, then.” A growl bubbled up in my chest as I lifted the pistol up to point at her. Almost all Awoken became Guardians, but not all of them. Not everyone wanted the guise of heroics to drape across their shoulders like a veil. 

“Got it in one… c’mon, put away the peashooter and let’s be friends.” The woman licked her lips. She twirled the crowbar around and leaned it on her shoulder, causing her jacket to shake. “I don’t have any more friends. They all run away in the end.”

“Where’d the others that were here go?” Vigil’s light flicked around the place, but there wasn’t even a hint that someone else was here. Aside from the blood dripping off her crowbars, this place was abandoned. There should’ve been a whole gang somewhere back here.

“They—“ She cut herself off with a sharp hiss. The Anarch wrapped her arms tightly around herself. Her knees buckled and she leaned heavily against the wooden crate as her halo flickered. “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts…”

She broke off into agonized whispers as her face contorted. I lowered the pistol ever so slightly. “If you’re in pain, I can get you help.”

”Pain? Pain? Pain?” She looked up at me in confusion. Her eyes were glazed over, though, like she was seeing something that wasn’t really there. “Why—? Mother? Can she really help me, Mother?”

“Mother?” I asked back. There was no one else here… was she corrupted? Corrupting? My guard raised by several more notches as the fog all around us started to stir. 

“What a loon. Can you even imagine talking to yourself like that?” A spectral voice snickered, showing absolutely zero empathy.

”Shut up,” I growled back at it. “Look, lady—“

“Why does it hurt, Mother?! Why are you punishing me?” Her jacket shivered as she ripped at her own body—shivered? 

Her nails dug into the white mass, ripping a chunk off to reveal a gory mass of red beneath. The flake she managed to pry free instantly dove back into place. Tears poured freely from her eyes, mixing with the trails of blood across her face. Her face abruptly twisted into terrified agony as if she’d woken up from a dream into a nightmare. 

“I’m a good girl, aren’t I? Please, Mother, stop hurting me.” The tears abruptly faded, and her eyes locked onto me once more. She pushed herself to her feet with a broken grin on her face. “Hehe… hehahahaHAHA!”

”Stay back,” I called out in warning as she took a step toward me.

She tripped, slamming into a wooden crate. The crate shattered, causing several ripples to flow through her ‘jacket’. Bags of white stuff scattered across the ground. Bags that she immediately dashed for and ripped open. She ravenously snorted the stuff down.

“Ahhhhh…” The pain faded from her face, and her whole body relaxed. Even the writhing white flowing across her body settled. It was only a moment though, before she started to dig into the bags with even more fervor. 

“It… it’s not too late to surrender.” I watched the woman who was high out of her mind. Her eyes were even more dilated than when I first saw her, and the drug was caked into the cuts along her face. “I’m a Harbor agent, I can get you some help.” 

”If I kill you… will Mother stop hurting me?” The woman asked brokenly as she staggered back to her feet. Her eyes were almost totally empty outside of a feral bloodlust. Her jaw worked like she wanted to say something else. Instead, she broke into a sprint—

Bang!

The moment she charged at me, a single shot slammed into her forehead. The woman’s legs slipped, and she collapsed to the ground in a heap. More bags tore open, spilling white powder all over the warehouse. The ‘jacket’ that’d covered her splintered into a swarm of Fog Crawlers, scattering into the air.

The sharp scent of blood instantly filled the air as her horrifying body was revealed. Her skin was gone, revealing the muscle and flesh underneath. Every part of her body was covered in tiny bite marks. Despite the horrific state, blood wasn’t pouring out between her muscle fibers like it should’ve been.

Pyre, how could such a thing happen? I slashed at a trio of Fog Crawlers that came for me instead, bisecting their bodies with Rend. Three more notifications popped up. Killing her… killing her was a mercy. I couldn’t even imagine the agony such an existence would bring. 

Her halo pulsed lightly, though didn’t flicker out like I expected it to. With the ‘jacket’ gone, an endless fog poured out of her like a tide. In an instant, her body was totally covered up and the warehouse was drowned out. It got so dense that even Vigil’s light couldn’t pierce through it.

“Shit.” I moved forward to put another six shots into the back of her head. By the time I got to where I dropped the woman, her body was gone. 

“Can you kill me?” Her voice echoed from all around me like she was the very fog itself. There was an almost child-like begging to it. “Please kill me?”

My ears arched totally upright to listen for even a hint of noise. Footsteps rushed at me from behind, and I flicked around. Two shots rang out. The bullets left swirling trials through the fog, momentarily clearing a path to the back wall of the warehouse.

Four shots left. Something touched my tail, and I flicked to the side to fire another two shots. They hit nothing but air. Pain erupted along my tail as a Fog Crawler started to chomp on the silver strands. A flick of Rend ended its life before it could really dig in.

++ 1 Vitae Absorbed ++

“Gotcha!” The instant that the Biosystem’s message distracted me, an impact slammed into my hands. The pistol was knocked out of my grip entirely by her crowbar. A sharp pain shot up my nerves. “Hehehehahaha!”

Rend snapped out a beat later to chase her, catching only a few Fog Crawlers. The broken bodies of insects fell to the ground around me. The Anarch, however, was nowhere in sight. 

“Come out, and I’ll end your miserable existence!” I suppressed a grunt of pain, and snapped my thumb back into socket. So that’s how she was going to play it… if she was even really in control of herself I lowered my stance, and waited for her to come once more.