The sound of five soldiers' footsteps echoed through the dark night. You could hear the chirping of crickets, small rodents scurrying among the rubble, and, from time to time, the scrape of stones dragged by the squad's steady march.
They moved in single file, leaving enough room for each member to maneuver. Their coordination was flawless, ensuring there were no blind spots in the castle's darkness.
With flashlights mounted on their rifles, whenever one weapon shifted away from a spot, another immediately covered it to keep the area illuminated.
No one spoke. The leader communicated orders through hand signals whenever necessary.
They kept moving forward, pushing deeper into the darkness, which seemed ready to swallow them whole if they strayed too far from one another.
Suddenly, the sergeant halted and raised a clenched fist, signaling us to stop.
I was at the rear of the formation. I froze without making a sound, and I felt my heart begin to pound as I realized why the sergeant had stopped.
"The crickets and the rodents… they've gone completely silent." I thought.
Now the only sounds in the castle were those made by the soldiers. And that was the problem.
"We're not alone."
The year I'd spent in the Special Affairs Division was what made me understand that.
I had fought undead, beastmen, and ghosts. But the times I truly feared for my life were when we were ambushed by vampires, and this felt far too similar.
The sergeant signaled for us to gather around him.
He was going to prepare a magical ritual to determine exactly what kind of creature we were dealing with, now that we were presumably inside its territory.
He took out the magic stones supplied by the Technomancers and arranged them carefully until a pentagram formed on the ground.
Then what I assumed was magic began to seep from the center of the formation.
Smoke rose to the height of a person, revealing its color.
"Red smoke… vampires."
For the first time since the mission began, the sergeant spoke aloud while relaying information through the voice box that connected us to headquarters.
"Quadriga Squad reporting. The area has tested positive for Creature 006. Presumed nest. We are currently inside its territory. Requesting armored reinforcements to secure extraction without incident."
The only response that came back through the voice box was static.
At that moment, another member of the squad, Albert broke the silence without shifting from his position.
"Sergeant, the flashlights seem to be malfunctioning."
Normally they allowed us to see beyond a hundred meters. Now they barely illuminated ten.
"One of the vampires must be able to interfere with magical equipment. Form star formation. Our job here is done, we're getting the hell out."
We broke the circle and quickly formed a five-pointed star. We had advanced roughly five hundred meters into the castle; if we kept pace, we would be out of this nightmare in minutes.
As we headed for the exit, I couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right.
"This is too strange. If they're vampires, why haven't they attacked yet? They even waited for us to finish the ritual. It's almost as if… they're playing with us."
The more I thought about it, the worse it felt. This wasn't how those monsters behaved.
Then a grotesque sound cut through my thoughts.
"Kiiiiii, kiiiiii, kiiiiii."
The noise echoed throughout the castle, similar to bats, but far more monstrous, almost warped.
Every hair on my body stood on end. At the same time, I heard something being hurled through the air. It happened so fast I didn't even have time to turn toward it.
I looked around at the squad for a reaction, and my eyes widened.
In the darkness, there were no longer five lights. Only four.
My gaze swept across the formation until it found the sergeant.
His body lay motionless on the floor. Where his head should have been, there was nothing, only the stone beneath him, cracked from the force of impact.
I should have felt anger. I had known him for decades. We had shared joy and hardship. We had survived war together. But now he was nothing more than a headless corpse on the floor.
I wanted to be angry. I couldn't.
All I felt was a fear that came out of nowhere.
A veteran of the most horrific biological war in recent history, yet at the sight of my brother-in-arms slaughtered, I ran for the exit.
The formation shattered.
The squad was nothing more than headless chickens scattering in panic.
The others were just as terrified.
They ran frantically. Albert dropped his weapon to move faster.
"I'm falling behind, are these bastards going to leave me here?!"
Anguish and rage surged through the mind of the last man in formation.
"No, no, no.I won't die like this. You're not leaving me behind. You won't. You won't. You won't."
He raised his weapon and fired a burst into Albert until he fell.
Albert screamed in pain. Fear twisted into desperation and disbelief as he looked at his former friend.
When he saw him, a chill ran down his spine. The man's eyes were stretched wide, and blood streamed from where his lower lip should have been.
I kept running. By now I should have reached the exit, but damn it, I was still inside the castle, somehow even deeper than before.
"I have to hide. I can't let them catch me. I don't want to be devoured. I don't want to. I don't want to!"
The soldier wandered until he reached a corridor lined with pillars. He had no idea how much time had passed.
At last, exhaustion overcame him and he collapsed.
As he rested, a familiar voice pulled him from his haze.
"Hey. You survived. That's good. Come here."
He recognized the voice of another squad member and approached slowly. When he finally made out the scene, he stared.
His companion was rummaging through another soldier's stomach, sobbing as his knife carved a path for his hand to pull out and eat pieces of intestine.
Meanwhile, the man being devoured gently stroked his companion's head.
"It's okay… it's okay… everything's fine. Everything's going to be fine."
He watched until he couldn't stay silent.
"What are you doing?"
he asked calmly, unable to process what he was seeing.
The man being eaten spoke.
"I have a plan. If the vampires see you eating me, they'll think you're vampires too, and they'll leave us alone."
The other man's eyes lit up at the brilliant idea. He stepped closer and began slicing strips of flesh with his combat knife, eating them.
"But what if the vampires don't believe we're one of them?" he asked between bites.
"Don't worry. I've thought of that too."
Despite his open abdomen and missing pieces of flesh, he spoke as though it were nothing.
"You just have to remove your eyes. Then all the vampires will disappear."
He didn't like that idea.
"What? No. I like my eyes. My wife always says they're beautiful."
"I… I'll do it for both of us, if you don't want to."
Sobbing, the man agreed.
"Let me help. It'll be hard to do alone."
"Thank you."
He drove the knife into the corners of his companion's eyes, struggling until he tore them free.
"Here. Take your eyes."
"I'm glad. Now we're all safe."
"Yeah… but I can't remember… what were we running from?"
"I don't know. Why were we here?"
"Hey, you seem to know everything, do you remember what we were doing?"
No answer came from the man being eaten.
"Why aren't you saying anything?"
A hand touched his shoulder.
"Because he's dead."
He turned slowly. It was the same companion whose eyes he had just removed.
"He's dead because I killed him. And I ate him."
Clarity struck. The weight of what he had done crashed over him.
"HE'S DEAD BECAUSE I KILLED HIM AND ATE HIM. GODDESS, FORGIVE ME, FORGIVE ME!"
He screamed and smashed his head against the floor again and again.
"FORGIVE ME! FORGIVE ME! FORGIVE ME!"
After a dozen blows, blood spilled from his skull and he fell still.
Only one person remained.
He looked at the man with the open stomach and realized the truth—he had been dead the entire time.
"Who were we talking to all this time?"
Heavy footsteps entered the room.
The soldier grabbed his weapon and aimed toward the sound, but the light was too dim to reveal what stood there.
Then the creature stepped forward.
In the faint glow, he saw the horror that had destroyed the entire squad.
"One… three… five…"
He refused to keep counting the eyes shining in the dark. They weren't even arranged in any pattern, just scattered across its body in random sizes and shapes.
The creature was far larger than him, with an elongated, monstrous jaw lined with teeth stretched into a grotesque smile.
Hands trembling, he drew his sidearm, pressed it to his temple, and pulled the trigger.
The shot ended his life instantly.
The monster lingered for a moment, studying the corpses, then turned and left.