Akeldama | lrh

six - blood moon

"It is so much easier not to feel, not to let the world touch me."

-Sylvia Plath

•••

The air is filled with smoke, sour when Hovercraft Pc47 touches down in the rural Arizona deserts. All is quiet. When General Matthew Pauling steps out of the front doors, the ground is seething in black sludge.

There's a pungent odor in the air. The man reaches a hand up to lift his mask to his mouth, gesturing for the rest of his crew to follow him out of the vehicle. The group starts forward, trying to locate he wreckage of the military base that has been there since 2050.

They don't get that far.

"General Pauling?" One of the men asks, confusion in his voice, and Matthew turns to face him. He soon realizes that it's himself that the young soldier is staring at in fear, and when he reaches up to take the mask off so he can speak, he catches a tuft of hair falling from his scalp.

Frowning, Matthew runs a hand through his hair, only for it to come straight out in his fist. Looking around, all of his team is experiencing the same thing. Their hair is falling out, bit by bit.

"What the-" He starts to say, but can't get the words out. His voice is too weak. His arms suddenly feel heavy, slow and feeble. What is happening?

His bones feel like jelly. His muscles wax.

Matthew's brain is shutting down. He can feel it. He doesn't know why, or how, but as the rest of his crew hits the ground he begins to realize what the reason might be.

"Radiation." He whispers, before his knees buckle underneath him and he's sucked into darkness.

***

This time, when I wake up to screaming, it's real.

At first my brain doesn't really process the magnitude of the situation. All I hear is vocal agony, and Xavier isn't in the tent. Then the blood splatters up the outside of our shelter and I come to my senses.

I shoot to my feet, suddenly wide awake and bursting out through the opening of the tent. It's the middle of the night. A horribly sour, metallic smell hits my nose immediately, and everything is in absolute chaos.

Giant black shadows slash and growl around me, attacking pretty much everything. The only thing lighting camp is the smoldering fires from a few ours before. Looking down, I see one of the construction guys from earlier today, laying face down while a massive dark shape gnaws on his insides from a torn hole in his back. There is blood everywhere. Everywhere. Bile rises in my throat.

The monster stops chewing on the man's remains and looks up at me with burst red pupils. It's a dog. A horribly mutated, massive dog, but a dog. It's bloody lips pull back in a growl, and it lunges at me.

I barley have time to throw myself out of the way before a loud ZING rings in my ears, and the dog's head is severed from it's body. It's blackish green blood splatters my shirt, burning at my skin. A dagger sticks straight up in the ground, quivering. I whip my head to the side, and see Luke screaming at me, but I can't really make out the words.

"GET TO THE CIRCLE!" He yells, throwing another knife at three dogs coming at him at the same time. All of them hit the ground within milliseconds after their heads do. Luke is bloody, a long slash on the side of his face and torso, but he's fighting like nothing is wrong.