Origins

I was ecstatic, though I hid my feelings

“So you’re really staying?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

She turned to me, her eyes fierce. “This is my mission too, Alex. Don’t try to stop me. You guys need me.”

She held my gaze. There was no faltering in it.

“It’s decided, then,” Samuel said.

Makara pressed the accelerator, and we rolled forward, toward the entrance of the Great Blight.

* * *

Makara slowed the Recon as we approached the opening of the Great Blight. The opening was a giant archway of fungus, where the hard rock of the ground was replaced with the pale, sickly pink of the xenofungus. As the vehicle transferred from the hard surface to the soft one, the ride became eerily smooth. The fungus sloped upward. On our either side were tall, organic walls, twisted and dripping with slime. The tunnel cast pinkish shadows on the vehicle, on its inside, even on my skin.

This must have been what the Wanderer referred to as the Gates of Hell.

Now that we were in, I wanted back out. The puffy fungus extended up a hill, its multicolored hues blinding to the eye. Twisted columns rose from the ground, spreading in a series of hanging tubes that all dripped slime. The slime collected at the bases of the columns, forming pools and icky streams. Clouds of insects swarmed above the pools.

A couple minutes into the Great Blight, I could feel the hostility of the landscape. I used to think we weren’t coming back. Now, I knew. Something dark was behind all this. It went beyond the xenovirus and Ragnarok. But that’s why we were here. We had to figure out why this was happening and how to stop it.

Finally, we made it to the top of the incline. It was hard not to get depressed at the sight. In all directions was something that could only be described as a xenofungal forest. There were thousands upon thousands of trees, alien to behold, spreading in all directions. The trees’ foliage was afire with blinding orange, shining from the feeble rays of sun that found their way through the red-clouded sky. The trees were so thick that it seemed impossible that we should ever get through them. They extended all the way to the far horizon, and there was no telling where they ended. That is, if they ended. Some of the trees were tall — maybe a hundred feet high — and the biggest ones had offshoots of their own that connected to other trees in a spidery labyrinth. I thought of the creatures that had attacked us, and how many would be lurking in the shadows within.

In that forest we would be reduced to a crawl. The Recon’s speed would be no advantage. It was a good thing the Recon had a compass, or we would surely get lost in that maze.

We paused on the hill. No one said anything for a long time. I seriously wondered whether Makara was going to turn back. It never seemed more hopeless.

Only she didn’t do that. We were in this to the bitter end.

“Kind of makes you wish we could fly, huh?”

She drove down the hill toward the forest.

* * *

When we entered the first line of trees, the entire sky was nearly blocked out. Makara turned on the headlights, revealing a web of trees and branches. Soon, the strange life-forms became so thick that it was less like a forest and more like a cave. We didn’t find anything living other than the plants — at least, not yet. It seemed as if something sinister was hiding, waiting to jump out around every bend.

At points, the slime dripped and splattered onto the windshield. The washer fluid and wipers could only get so much off. The rest stuck in a thin film that, while not impossible to see out of, made the windshield a bit blurry.

We continued for an hour like this. Nobody spoke. The landscape darkened, became more twisted, more terrifying.

Through the windshield, a small circle of natural light materialized in the distance, like the exit of a cave.

“I think that’s the way out,” Makara said.

I checked the compass to make sure we hadn’t got turned around. We were still heading east. The circle of light grew in size. It was definitely a way out of this horrible place. I watched as the Recon’s headlights illumined the thick, gnarled tree trunks embedded in the xenofungus, their roots like tentacles, as if they were absorbing some energy or essence from it.

We emerged from the forest and everyone heaved a sigh of relief. We had entered the Great Blight’s equivalent of a meadow — a wide, open space carpeted by the pink and purple xenofungus, flanked on all sides by the grotesque trees. The clearing was only a temporary escape from the xenoforest, but all the same, it was good to see the sky again, even if it was the same menacing red it had always been.

In the center of the meadow, Makara pulled to a stop. It was midday, and we had probably gotten ten miles closer to our goal.

Her head fell on the steering wheel, and she closed her eyes. “I can’t go through that again.”

“Makara,” Samuel said. “We need you here. We can’t just sit out here in the open.”

I saw something moving among the trees. It was just one at first, then another, and another…

“Guys…” I said.

Everyone looked toward the south, where I was pointing. There were dozens of crawlers appearing from the trees in all directions. Some were big, some small — but all of them had those creepy white orbs for eyes. Their wails and screeches pierced the air, sending chills down my spine.

“Go!” Samuel said.

The Recon’s engine roared. The monsters charged. Even as we slogged through the fungus, it seemed to not affect the speed of those things.

Lisa forced her way toward the turret.

“Go with her,” Samuel said to me and Anna. “Give her cover and bring down as many as you can.”

By the time Anna and I got to Lisa, the monsters were maybe fifty feet away.

We were near the eastern edge of the forest. Closer, I saw that a narrow trail led through the xenofungal growth, flanked on both sides by the blighted trees.

If we could get on that trail, there would be no need to go back into the xenoforest.

Before I could even go back into the Recon to tell Makara, the vehicle started heading that way. She had seen it. As we entered the trail, the creatures fell in behind us.

Lisa aimed the turret behind us. The monsters filled the trail, tumbling over each other in a mad attempt to get to us. It was like a tsunami.

Lisa fired at the teeming mass, and couldn’t have missed any to save her life, there were so many. The creatures screamed as the powerful bullets entered them. She waved the gun back and forth, doing whatever she could to stop the wave. But there were so many that it had almost no effect. The ones that died were only buried as the rest stampeded over them.

The trail weaved back and forth. Anna tumbled, falling toward the side. I grabbed her by the waist, pulling her back into me.

“This is doing no good,” I said. “We need to get back inside. We’ll get thrown off if we stay up here any longer.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something pink flying through the air. I turned to see a long-limbed creature falling from a tree above.

“Look out!”

The monster crashed on top of the cargo bay, making a dent in the roof. It turned and snarled. It had long arms and legs and was ripped from head to toe with muscle. Its shape resembled a gorilla, but who knows what it had been before? It had no hair, and sickly pink skin coated in slime, just like the rest of them. The way those white orbs burned into me was paralyzing.

A metallic ring filled the air as Anna drew her katana. I took out my Beretta, aiming for the head. I fired,