It was cold. It always was.
Mariana walked. She had been walking a long time. The crunch of snow beneath her boots, the howling wind in her ears. Snow fell thick and steady, dancing softly, blanketing the ground, covering her tracks almost as quickly as she laid them. A figure walked beside her. He always did.
A mirror of herself, though almost a foot taller and a good deal skinnier. The same red hair they'd inherited from their mother, the same green eyes; though his face was buried beneath a hood and scarf. The quiet, they got from their father. At least, she thought they did. She couldn't remember a thing about him.
She found herself here more and more lately.
A soft smile crossed her lips as the storm gave way, revealing their old home, just as she remembered it. But the memory was fading, fading faster than she wanted. Their home had been a narrow townhouse on a busy street, but it felt cut off. What used to be a busy street was now more akin to a farmer's field, the house standing alone, highlighting how awkward its towering height and narrow width truly was.
They climbed the porch. Their boots clunked and scraped across the wood. She could hear music from inside; the same melancholy tune that had followed her her whole life, and clung to her like a bad smell. She blinked, turning her head. The garden was still alive. Still blooming.
That was what finally snapped her out of it. Oh...
"I can't stay."
Mariana looked back at her brother, standing at the stairs. Then down at her feet. "I know."
"It was nice to see you again, Mari."
She swallowed. "Can't we just stay here...? Just a little while longer?"
Gregor's face was unreadable. "It happens soon."
"I know..." Her voice trembled. "I miss you."
He smiled.
Mariana turned and rested her hand on the doorknob, savouring the moment. She took a deep breath, dreading what came next.
"Hurry up, it's fucking freezing, you know?" Gregor teased.
She laughed, swallowing down the bitterness rising in her throat. "It's pathetic, isn't it?"
"What are you going to do, Mari? Stand in the doorway the rest of your life?"
A smile tugged at her lips. That doesn't sound so bad... should it?
The door flung open.
Snow turned to rain. A downpour. Time fractured. Her breath hitched. Her pupils dilated. Then came the glare of headlights. The deafening cacophony of metal on metal. Screaming. Red.
Mariana woke with a start, drenched in sweat. Her alarm was screaming music at her as she flailed blindly for it. After a few clumsy swipes, her hand finally found the off button. The noise died, and the world slowly came into focus.
Her eyes drifted across the room the stack of unfinished homework on her desk, the old band posters and half-finished projects on the walls, the laundry crumpled in chaotic heaps across the floor. She let herself fall back into bed, eyes tracing the slow spin of the ceiling fan above. The air brushed her face tingly, cold, a small mercy against the sweat. Somewhere beside her, the radio droned on.
"...Authorities are still investigating the recent string of violent incidents in and around the Culver City area. At least three bodies were recovered overnight, with investigators declining to release names pending identification. Residents have reported strange noises and sightings near abandoned properties, though officials stress there is no confirmed link to Fiend activity at this time."
Dad's been staying late a lot lately... The thought intruded. I wonder...
"In a brief statement this morning, a representative from the F.I.B. urged caution: 'We're asking all citizens to remain indoors after curfew, avoid travelling alone, and report any and all suspicious behaviour to your local precinct or Bureau field office. Even minor details can save lives.'
It's currently 5:42 PM, and you're listening to KZLA. Your source for news, traffic, and classic hits. Up next: an hour of retro rock to get you through the gridlock. Stay safe, Los Angeles."
Mariana's eyes snapped to the radio. It's fucking six!?
"Shit, shit!"
She launched out of bed, still in her school uniform, now damp and stuck to her skin. She sprinted to the closet, tearing through it in a panic.
Black. Black. More black. Is this too much black?
Do I care?
She yanked on a faded Plastic Saints tee, cracked logo across the chest, sleeves cut off, and threw her jacket on over it.
She paused at the mirror to assess the damage.
Long red hair, dishevelled, sticking out like she'd slept in a wind tunnel. Bags under her eyes. Most of her clothes were wrinkled or ripped. Her jacket was heavy and burn-scarred. I should really stop using it in the garage...
Mariana sighed and tied her hair into a messy ponytail. She rubbed at the bags under her eyes and gave up. No sense putting makeup on a pig.
Dropping to the floor, she reached under her bed frame and slid out a small wooden box from one of her many hiding spots. Inside: a set of keys she'd forged the first time her adoptive parents locked her out of the garage, a burner phone her dad had given her during her first grounding, and a concert ticket.
A ticket her mom had been very sure she'd confiscated.
She opened her window with practiced ease, lifting the screen just enough to slip out onto the shingled roof. Inside, she could still hear the low murmur of the TV; one of those dramatized soap operas her mom clung to while waiting by the door, praying her husband would come home.
Mariana held her breath as she eased the window shut behind her. The frame clicked softly. She crouched low, scuttling like a cat across the roof.
From there, it was a short drop onto the fence, and a not-so-graceful hop down into the alley. Her boots hit the pavement with a thud. She glanced back once, half-expecting to see her mom staring from the window, then bolted toward the bus stop two blocks away.
She tucked the ticket into her jacket pocket, keeping her hand over it like it might vanish if she let go.
By the time the bus pulled up, her nerves were rattling in her chest. She flashed the driver her student pass and headed to the back, not bothering to make eye contact. The doors wheezed shut behind her, and the bus lurched into motion with a groan.
Only a few other passengers dotted the interior. A woman in an oversized hoodie scrolled aimlessly through her phone. Up front, a heavyset man slouched against the window, passed out or pretending to be. Near the middle, an older homeless man had stretched himself across three seats, wrapped in a patchwork of blankets and torn shopping bags. His bare feet stuck out, swollen, blackened at the tips.
Mariana took a seat near the rear door and pressed her forehead to the window.
The city rolled by.
Buildings stood like broken teeth, graffiti clinging to them like scars. Some still had their windows boarded up. Others were missing entire walls, exposed rebar and sagging beams jutting out like shattered ribs. They were remnants of the Uprising: too useless to fix, too expensive to tear down, so they were left to rot until someone important got hurt, or moved in nearby.
She passed an old auto shop with half-collapsed insides filled with trash. Faded warnings still clung to the facade: "NO ENTRY," "CURFEW 6 PM," "MONITORED BY F.I.B." The logos had been defaced with crude mockeries, white skulls in inquisitor coats, slogans like "Feds Eat Flesh" and "Fuck the Inquisition."
A public park had become a sprawling homeless encampment—tents and cardboard villages stretching from end to end. Smoke rose from a barrel fire. A woman cradled a child, shielding its face from the bus's harsh lights. A dog barked. Somewhere, someone screamed.
Mariana looked away.
The bus groaned to a stop. No one got on.
Her mind drifted to the news. To her dad. He had been gone a lot lately...
Culver City had always been bad, but lately it felt worse. When it wasn't gangs, it was Fiends and usually both. The numbers only ever rose. A "good" day now was a record high, only a year ago. And nobody seemed to be doing anything about it. If they were trying, it wasn't enough.
Except for Dad. Maybe...
She shifted in her seat, fingers brushing the edge of the ticket in her pocket. The ride had dulled her nerves, but now they returned. Stronger. Coiling.
She leaned her head against the window, watching the world blur. Thoughts circled like vultures.
Maybe this is a bad idea.
Maybe I should just go home. Go back to sleep.
Mom and Dad shouldn't have to worry about this too...
Her stop came into view.
She exhaled a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
Too late now.
The engine roared as the bus departed, leaving Blacklight just a few blocks behind. She'd seen it before, but tonight felt different. The nerves crawling over her skin. The cool air in her hair. The sun taking its last breaths before slipping beneath the horizon, letting the venue's lights shine all the brighter. Crumbling brick, artful graffiti, decades-old posters peeling and fading, her history. Or at least, the history she wanted to write herself.
Mariana spotted a few other latecomers stumbling toward the club, too heavy on the pre-game, nearly missing the main event. As she crossed the street, her pace quickened with her heartbeat. She could hear the music, or at least, feel it. The bass pulsing through the pavement, thrumming into the night.
Ticket clutched in her hand, she picked up speed. The music grew louder with each step, joined by the chaos outside, smoking, shouting, laughing. Punks in black jostled against each other, barely kept in line by sharply dressed bouncers. A block ahead, the traffic lights shifted.
She stepped forward and nearly walked into traffic.
"Fuck!" Mariana hissed, recoiling as cars blared past. Her eyes flicked between the taunting red light, the near-miss, and Blacklight's glowing doors, now just out of reach. That's when she heard it. The crackle of a radio.
Two men lingered near the building's edge, dressed in civilian clothes. One wore a faded army green overcoat, the other a clean, oversized sweater. Their boots matched, too polished, too perfect.
They always forget the boots.
They caught her staring. One gave her a look she couldn't read. She turned away, but kept them in her peripheral vision. Cops? She strained to catch their voices over the noise.
Static.
"Copy that," Overcoat muttered, taking a final drag from his cigarette and stamping it out.
"It's gonna be a mess," Sweater said. "Always is with this fuckin' guy."
"Quiet."
Static.
The two exchanged a nod and moved toward the alley, vanishing into the shadows.
Mariana blinked. Weird...
Something moved in the apartment window overhead. The light went out, but a silhouette lingered just beyond the glass.
The light changed again, but she didn't move. "What's going on...?" she murmured.
The crowd surged around her, flooding into the crosswalk. She followed, slower now, every step heavier. A group cut ahead of her, but she didn't argue. Her eyes were fixed on the road.
Moments ago, it had been alive with cars. Now, it was empty. Still.
Why hasn't anyone noticed?
"Next in line!"
"Something's..." she muttered, half-aware.
"Ma'am?"
A tap on the shoulder. "Yo, you're next!"
"Quit holding up the fuckin' line!" someone grumbled behind her. "She high?"
"Not right..." Mariana whispered, staring at the staff member motioning her forward. Her stomach coiled.
Just as someone tried to step around her, she moved. Through the metal detector. Handed over her ticket. The woman snatched it, tore off the stub, and stamped her forearm without a word.
"Next!"
The interior was like stepping into the punk hall of fame. Dark, grimy, and loud. Toxic green hair. Memorabilia from all the greats: The Misfits, The Clash, the Sex Pistols, Ramones. Bent guitars and trashed drum sets hung like war trophies. Ripped banners flanked the stage, the opener, Rotmilk, bore a bloated cow skull, ruptured and vomiting bile, its eye sockets stitched shut with barbed wire. The support act, Velvet Guillotine, displayed their undead mascot: a corset-wrapped noblewoman mid-curtsy, holding a monk's severed head before a jagged saw blade guillotine, all rendered in bleeding imperial violet.
Above them all, hung just below the lights, loomed the black-and-white sigil of Plastic Saints: TV-Head; a cloaked figure with a cracked television for a face, a split halo hovering above his screen. Four arms stretched in ritual asymmetry: two clasped in a pyramid over his chest, one pointing to the sky, the other accusing the earth. Beneath him, the tour slogan: No Martyrs Left to Canonize.
Mariana smiled. As above, so below.
The crowd was a dense, writhing mass. Dancing, shouting, barely balanced. A pit had formed near the stage, chaos synchronized with the heavy, angelic choruses of Velvet Guillotine. Strobe lights sliced the room into fragments, each blink a still-frame slideshow of snarling faces, flailing limbs, boots in the air.
Mariana sighed in relief and let her shoulders relax. It's probably nothing, she told herself as she inched toward the pit. Just nerves making me paranoid... more paranoid than usual, anyway.
She laughed as she pushed through the crowd, tripping on its ebb and flow, catching herself on shoulders and the sleeves of leather jackets. Eventually, she reached the edge of the pit. It churned with punks of every kind, bouncing off one another with no goal, no winners or losers, only momentum and impact.
Just as she was about to dive in, the final note ripped out and hung in the air. The pit slowed like marionettes without strings. Then the note died.
The crowd erupted: cheers, curses, slurs, animalistic shouts.
The singer grabbed the mic and lifted it high. "Give it up for Rotmilk!"
Another wave of cheers tore through the room. Mariana screamed along, even if she barely knew Velvet Guillotine, let alone Rotmilk.
The singer laughed wickedly as she prowled the stage. Her white hair clung to sweat-slick skin, and her smeared makeup bled down her cheeks like she was crying ink. "And show some love for the Undead!" She gestured to her band. The drummer went wild, the guitarist screamed a piercing note into the dark, lights flashing wildly as the crowd surged.
She giggled. "The best Thralls a girl could ask for!" She playfully stroked the guitarist's zombie mask.
"Lucky guy!" a boy near Mariana yelled, only to get socked in the shoulder by a friend with a shit-eating grin.
The singer lowered her voice, the bassist and guitarist backing her with a deep, vibrating riff. "Now, as great as you've all been... I know the truth."
Half the crowd booed. Half cheered.
"Oh, I know, I know! You don't have to say it! Always the bridesmaid, never the bride!" She flung one arm over her forehead in mock despair, a damsel in an over-the-top stage play.
A chorus of sarcastic "Aww's" rippled through the pit, just shy of laughter.
"Get the fuck off the stage, bitch!" someone yelled.
Even the singer laughed.
She paced to centre stage, arms spread like a preacher, eyes wide behind smeared black makeup. The bassist's distortion hummed behind her like a warning.
"But tonight," she purred, slowly dragging a finger across her throat, "tonight, you slimy fucks get a taste of sainthood."
The crowd howled.
She leaned into the mic with a devil's grin. "Give it up for your headliner! Your saviours, your sinners, Plastic Saints!"
The lights exploded to life.
Not stage lights.
Floodlights.
Blinding, sterile white poured in from every entrance as the doors slammed open—not a band, but a flood of armoured men in black.
"On the ground, now!"
"Cops!?"
"Inq's!?"
"Hands on your head!"
"What the fuck are Inq's doing here!?"
"Don't fucking move!"
"Hey! Don't touch me! Fuck!"
A hundred voices screamed a hundred things, colliding into incomprehensible frenzy.
Then, a loudspeaker sliced through the noise.
"This is the Fiend Investigation Bureau," a cold, commanding voice declared. "This establishment is under investigation for Fiend activity and has been ordered to be liquidated. All civilians will place their hands behind their heads and get down on their knees. Slowly. Key word, slowly."
There was something in his voice that made Mariana's skin crawl—a perverse pleasure laced beneath the authority, savouring each syllable like wine.
"You are being detained in place. You are not free to leave. Do not attempt to flee. Any civilian who fails to comply will be considered an active threat... and neutralized. Immediately."
Her heart slammed against her ribs as her eyes scanned the chaos. Floodlights, shouting Operators. Then she saw him.
A tall, thin man at the heart of it all. His black overcoat billowed as his squad swept past, rifles raised. Once finished speaking, he handed the loudspeaker to an Operator beside him.
Then came his face.
Thin, dark hair. Sunken, watchful eyes. Gaunt features, like a pestilence given form. A jagged scar split the right side of his face, twisting his expression into a permanent, gnarled sneer.
A door slammed open somewhere behind her.
"Hey, hey, HEY! What the fuck is this!?" a voice shouted.
A tall, well-dressed man stormed forward, adjusting his tie. The moment he got close, a dozen red dots painted his chest. He froze.
"We had a deal, Bishop!"
"Yes, yes," Bishop said coolly, the scar curling around his lip into a crooked smile. "And I'm sure you're aware of the risk incurred when making deals with devils."
He stepped forward.
"I have a new deal for you. Come quietly, and we can discuss your future contributions to the Bureau in a more appropriate setting."
"You have nothing! You have no evidence!" His voice was frantic.
"I'm afraid we're beyond evidence now, Mr. Martin." Bishop's voice went clinical. "But since you brought it up... allow me to put those concerns to rest."
In one smooth motion, Bishop drew a pistol from beneath his coat, raised it, and fired.
The shot cracked through the air.
For a moment, silence. The sound echoed in Mariana's ears, louder than the screams, louder than the shouting. A few civilians panicked and bolted, only to be shoved down by Operators.
The crowd froze, stiff as corpses.
Operators moved through them methodically, dragging people into groups, forcing them to their knees.
By the stage, staff whispered among themselves. Two Operators noticed and began pushing through the crowd toward them. The band had vanished. Their instruments lay abandoned.
Mariana turned back to the standoff.
The whole venue held its breath.
Mr. Martin was still standing. Staring at Bishop.
Bishop stared back. His pistol still smoking.
Then a flattened bullet slipped from the smoking hole in Martin's suit and hit the floor with a soft metallic clink.
Bishop's smile widened. "Gotcha."
Mariana felt the blood drain from her face as Martin's eyes darkened. A mass of flesh erupted from his lower back, red and pulsing, scaled and muscular; unfurling like a parasite. The air shimmered around it, from heat or something worse. She swallowed hard, frozen in place.
Then a scream and the sickening sound of rending flesh and cracking bone.
She turned just in time to see an Operator split from shoulder to hip, his organs spilling onto the concrete.
Gunfire thundered.
The nearest staffer convulsed. His arm split open into glossy, whip-like tendrils that shot forward, impaling the closest Operator through the chest. The second Operator didn't even scream. Another Fiend crashed into him like a freight train, claws punching through Kevlar like tissue.
The crowd exploded.
Paralysis gave way to chaos, screams, shoving, and gunfire. Civilians surged for the exits.
Mariana dropped to the floor as Operators fired into the air, then into the crowd. Red dots flickered across walls, backs, and faces. People collapsed. Some were caught in the crossfire. Others too slow.
Tendrils lashed out, wrapping around legs, waists, and throats. Fiends hoisted civilians into the air like meat shields. Screaming. Writhing.
One Operator fell in front of her, blood bubbling from the seams of his visor. Mariana crawled to him and wrenched his rifle free. It was heavy, but she knew how to use it. She racked the charging handle, braced the weapon on his corpse, and tried to find a shot.
Three Fiends. Six hostages. No clear mark.
A dozen Operators opened fire in synchronized bursts. Muzzle flashes stuttered across Troy's body, his face twisting, limbs jerking as bullets tore through him. But he moved anyway, staggering forward. One tail curled around a downed Operator and crushed him like a toy.
Bishop raised his Hilt. Black tendrils slithered from his coat sleeve, slamming into the wall as he slid sideways, dodging a lashing tail by inches. It pulverized the tile behind him.
"Cut him off!" Bishop shouted.
Another tail swept through the line. Two Operators went down, one screaming, the other silent.
Troy's eyes locked onto Bishop. Blood poured from his mouth.
Bishop snapped his Hilt forward. A dozen slick appendages erupted.
"Stand down!" someone shouted. "Don't shoot!"
A hostage was seized midair and then went limp. Another dropped like a stone. The Fiends didn't flinch. They grabbed more.
Mariana barely had time to scream before a cold arm wrapped around her waist and yanked her off the ground. She kicked, struggled, and twisted, but the tendril tightened, wringing the air from her lungs.
"What are you doing!?" she heard Bishop scream. "Fire your weapons! Don't let them escape!"
"Hold your fire!" a larger Operator bellowed, standing in front of the firing line, waving his arms in a ceasefire signal.
Mariana clawed at the floor, nails tearing free, skin peeling. She tried to cling to a body but only dragged it with her. Then she was lifted high, facing a wall of Operators. Martin lay in a spreading pool of blood as black tendrils writhed through him like worms in a rotting apple.
She kept struggling as the Fiends dragged her down a side hall. She wrenched at the arm gripping her. Bit down. Hard.
It was like trying to bite through brick.
She didn't see the blow coming. Barely felt it, either.
The world went black.
Just my fucking luck.