Primal Gambit

Chapter 71: Rebuttal

Ridley peeled his eyes open through the dried tears and blood and mud and pain. The rebreathing unit that connected his mouth to a pouch on his waist had run dry, his breaths thin and wispy – probably the reason he returned to the living at all. Lack of oxygen to the brain. It was imperative that he found another, yet his first thoughts were of Valerie.

He wanted to believe it was all a nightmare but the rank stench of the valley of death told him otherwise. His eyes winced, a wave of curiosity washing over him. There was no thunder anymore: no sheets of sog soaking blood into The Yard, no roaring and no laughing and no agonized screaming. Whatever battle that had ensued once he fell unconscious had long ended. Only the dense smoke remained.

Cracks of thunder in the distance belonged either to the rolling storm or the great beast Fossil, who searched for a fresh burial ground to camouflage herself in. The early morning sun brought with it pollutant rays that burned away the darkness. Ridley could finally see, though the horrors he would soon be exposed to were better left in the shadows.

The last thing he remembered before giving in was the mutant crawling closer by the moment, demonic growl and clicking claws inching nearer. He stared down the muzzle of the ferocious beta, flesh hanging by veins from her serrated tusks. It had just eviscerated one of the only friends he had left, moving on to take his life next. Lying in the back of the van, Ridley felt as though he relived the past. There was no explanation as to why she did not impale him as soon as he blacked out.

Perhaps she felt his pain, his emptiness. Maybe she had experienced loss before and recognized the sadness coursing through him – draining from him the ability to fight back. There was the possibility that it resounded within the beta: that from his loss she felt compelled to back down, to whisk away into the night, into The Yard.

He lifted himself up as best he could. Legs weak from having collapsed on them during the battle, Ridley struggled to maintain his footing. He knew why they really could have given at any moment: his mind had become dislodged from his actions as soon as he watched his love taken away from him. Waves of nausea had yet to expel from him, his entire body rigid and foreign.

The odor in the valley was unprecedented. Rotting corpses belonging to both men and beast released an acrid smell as flies fed off the dead decay. There was only one other putrid stench lain about the area as powerfully: sulfur. Scarab and his men had fired off nearly all their remaining rounds to stave off the onslaught descending upon them; as such burnt gunpowder wafted immediately into Ridley's olfactory. Once he found the strength in his legs again he stepped from the remains of the vehicle to see the aftermath – to see The Yard slowly consuming what was left.

He looked down at first, kneeling by the body of what was once his spotter in Siberia. Renault's face was unrecognizable, strips of cheek and tendons torn and dangling. Some of his teeth were missing, his hair clumped together by dried sweat and blood. Doerrman had inspected the dead before, and having become used to the brutality he quickly realized the single thing he was unable to handle: the knowledge that this was a man he once knew. Therefore, when his eyes locked against the vacant depths of the fallen man's retina – a new wave of discomfort washed over him.

There was a heavy feeling of regret for having to take the oxygen pack from his old spotter. With two fingers, he closed Renault's stiff eyelids before standing up and surveying the rest of the desolate land. Repugnant green vapors billowed from the massive pit that the great legend had embedded herself in for however long. He was in the one place the eye did not see, the weight of death bogged down against his shoulders. It was one of the countless valleys hidden by mass media that had taken over the reports of the war. No matter the country – no matter the tour, the fields were the same: robbed of life and robbed of worth.