The Coming

PROLOGUE

Io was restrained of most movement as she opened her eyes. Her senses, flaring in over-drive, reached out in a desperate attempt to survey her surroundings and establish how grim her situation was. She appeared to be trapped underneath something heavy, something fleshy. For a moment she felt nauseous and disorientated. It felt like her brain registered her orientation in space differently than her beautiful, red, hunter’s eyes. It was like she was upright with her arms tied against her back, instead of being almost crushed on the cave’s floor face down while this body mass was dumped on top of her. She registered waves of pain streaming out in thick streaks from inside her.

A mixture of danger and anguish emanated out from deep within Io’s mind as she discerned a metallic taste coating her tongue. Somehow though, even this sensory input seemed to feel wrong, detached and misplaced as if it only partially belonged to her. When she turned her head to her right to take in a few much-needed breaths, she also pressed her right pointer finger on her tongue. She brushed it from left to right and then removed it in a steady, slow movement. It came out clean. There was no blood there even if her sense of taste insisted that there was blood present; blood and something else too. The acrid taste of rust mixed with sweat. There was no rust around her however. She hasn’t even been anywhere close to something metallic for weeks; still the rust registered with a vivid clarity as her nostrils and taste buds acknowledged its sharp acid iron grip. She dismissed these thoughts and cleared her mind. There were more pressing matters to attend to right know, like where she was, what was crushing her and ultimately how much time she had left to live.

Still facing to her right, Io used her right hand to brush her hair away from her face. After she looked around and assessed her surroundings, she found she was in some kind of a dim-lit cave. Her vision was not clear enough to make out many details. It was now apparent that she suffered some serious beating. She couldn’t remember what exactly happened but it wasn’t the time or the place for it right now.

Io closed her eyes and focused all her will. She let the rest of her senses to expand into her surroundings and her survival instincts worked in overdrive. She was in desperate need to know what was going on around her. She knew she was in a cave but there was no way of knowing how deep underground she was. Io focused harder. She tasted and smelled the air around her. It felt dump and had the metallic taste of minerals. She could also feel the earthy taste of dirt.

Io also realised that the air was cleaner than what it would normally be on the surface. She could still feel the toxins in it but right now they were quite diluted. There must have been a lot of soil and minerals around to absorb them from the air, which meant she was probably quite away from any surface opening. At least she was not left outdoors while unconscious. If she was left exposed to any rain or in sight of any Aspects, it would have been bad; very, very bad.

There was an eerie low pitched humming sound in the background. The cave walls allowed it to echo and resonate, arriving to Io’s ears from many different directions. Her mind strangled with an out-world feeling of imminent doom. There was another sound too, that one came in waves of liquid terror as something was torn apart slowly and methodically. Something big, meaty and wet was eaten by something else, probably even bigger, a few meters behind her.

Io opened her eyes again and looked around. There was a luminous gloom in the cave, enough to give a twelve to fifteen steps field of view. The luminescence itself was the effect the toxins had on the walls and floor as they got absorbed by the minerals of the cave. The cave appeared to be long and narrow like a corridor, at least the part that Io could see. She could just make out that there was a dead end in front of her. If she was going to get out alive she had to turn around and face the thing that made the noise.

The cave floor itself was scattered with human bones and hard body parts of small Aspects, all long dead now. Io tried to be as subtle and quiet as possible while she wobbled her torso in an attempt to free herself from the body dumped on top of her. Her progress was slow but she managed to get herself free eventually. She kept her body low down to the ground and crouched towards the dead body.

She got engulfed in sadness and sorrow. Lungs and heart stalled, then resumed. The dead body belonged to someone she knew well. The man, well-build and in his end-twenties was a constant companion to her throughout their lives.  They grew up together, hunted together and for a brief period of time slept together, although it was a while since they stopped seeing each other that way. Io had lost her interest in him as suddenly as she found herself burning with desire at the beginning of the brief time they shared. Being here now and seeing him lying dead next to her - lifeless eyes staring right at her own - she felt a great grief crawling up from her throat. I am sorry Alex, she thought and she meant it. Then the realization of who was eaten a few meters away from her hit her hard, like a sledgehammer.

Io suddenly felt a cold surge of affliction eating at her very soul. Although she had lost all sense of time, she remembered that she left "The Den" in the morning to hunt Aspects for their "dew-sacks". Alex had come along with her, her big brother Tom too.

She had no idea how they ended up in the cave but she now realised she was the last survivor of her group left alone in that chamber. Io turned around and saw Tom, getting eaten by an Aspect.