"Keep up," Kyggit commanded, his gun waving in the black veil of night. A small, red dot at the end emitting a feeble amount of light was all that was visible. Three red dots were following him, bobbing up and down as their carriers marched. "Don't fall behind - particularly here."
The three voices confirmed, "Yes, sir!" One was female, two male. Through the crinkle and crunch of leaves underfoot, the sound of feet slapping against the dank mud of Jurana was all that reached Kyggit's ears; his eyes returned to the path ahead, his trusty natural night vision guiding him. For whatever reason, their equipment wasn't operating properly and they were forced to abandon it. A chilled breeze whisked up the loose leaves on the ground and tore them from their homes; the wind rustled the trees - or what were nearby - and their branches, their ends dancing up and down like the hands of a puppeteer. The empyreal stars above broke through the barricade the trees had fashioned, their light blessing the soldiers' eyes as they wandered around like a paranoid sentry on watch. The night patrols were the worst on Jurana, particularly this area: nobody volunteered, ever, and for good reasons, too. Unfathomable stories graced the Rebels and Loyalists alike with a sound sleep. Jurana had been sized by the Rebels, leaving just Dalaria at this point, yet there was still something that the populace was afraid of, something that kept them stirring in their beds and staying up for 'just five more minutes', something that invoked a perennial feeling of paranoia in even the bravest of souls, something that even scaremongering tactics in psychological warfare failed to rival... They were on watch for something else, something so nebulously indescribable that even men in tanks were afraid to seek out during sunlight hours... And, even though the others didn't, Kyggit knew this well.
"I hate Nakt Qendro," grumbled a man at the back. "I don't want to do this."
"What's so bad about Nakt Qendro?" the female inquired from the middle of the convoy; she was third in the line. It was her first time on a Nakt Qendro - she'd been here only a few days.
"I-It's..." the man stuttered in response, though he was unable to formulate a proper and cohesive reply for a few seconds. His mind raced, encapsulated by the possibilities of how both the conversation and patrol could go. 'Nakt Qendro' was Dalarian for 'Night Patrol' and was aptly named 'Death Toll' for the dire results it could bring to unwary and inept soldiers. "I've heard the tales... I've heard the stories..." A spine ran the length of his back, exploding into an icy sensation of worry and despair momentarily. He let out a light sigh as his eyes traced the field to their right. Regular bumpy silhouettes of lanes of growing crops made for a satisfying pattern across the field, some stacks of something piled up at the end of the field to compliment the generic look.
"Tales?"
"Y-yeah." A lump was swallowed in his throat like an apple down a straw: it was immensely uncomfortable. The man looked up to the sky for a few moments.
The black-navy canvas was painted with a thin, whisky streak that was the galaxy's edge, the void mottled with glistening and twinkling stars with million-year-old light only just reaching Jurana. Wisps of clouds crept along the blackness in fastidious stealth, eager to escape the embrace of the night. The soldier could only reciprocate the feeling back at them - he was trapped. "I-I... I don't want t-to be here..." His grip around his rifle fastened with an almighty squeeze, his thumb caressing the grooves in the handle and his index finger itching restlessly above the trigger. His other hand gently rubbed the gun's grip up and down, each stroke tighter than the last.
Kyggit spat on the floor. "Don't be such a poorah, Gynschi." The Corporal's words were cold and quick bullets, digging sharply into the man's heart and injecting sense and ration back into him. Kyggit was no man for the Nakt Qendro - nobody was, not even General Calvagh. There was a reason Gynschi why was chilled to the very bone, quaking in his boots at so much as the distant thought of-
Krrrunch.
"Stop." Kyggit jutted out a clenched fist to his side, rifle dangling in the other hand. His fist was lowered and moved to his rifle, clasping the grip carefully, a red laser firing out from the red dot at the end of his rifle. All sound stopped, silence slyly sliding in. The strained breaths were palpable in the stone-dead air. "Something's here."
A ghostly hiss, almost like the whisper of a child, weaved through the air and into their ears. A myriad of sensations, all invoked by fright, ran up and down their backs.
"No... No, no, no..." Gynschi mumbled, a hand slapping against his temple. "No, no, no..!" His heart began to beat faster. Each stroke shallower than the last, his skin becoming drenched in perspiration and panic, the brisk night air blanketing his body and holding him fast. His finger hugged the trigger. He looked around, desperate to find it, dreading the consequences of otherwise. Nothing there... Nothing here... Nothing over there...
The whispers continued, now compounding into a louder, polyphonic choir. Two, maybe three sources were hissing at them.
"What is it..?" the female asked. She was on edge
"It's one of them..." the Corporal whispered in a hushed, yet fearful tone. "Lights!" The group flicked on a flashlight attached to their rifles, though nothing came from them. The woman hit hers before the other explained quietly to her that it was UV. Kyggit's knees had locked and fingers tensed, his neck strained and vision narrowed to a squint. Each passing second was a second wasted - time was fleeting and it was not waiting for passengers. "Skey..!"
The second in the line, the other male, clapped his hand cautiously on Kyggit's shoulder. "Sir..?" he anxiously murmured. Kyggit's body shook visibly under the potential outcomes of the scenario. So many things could go wrong at this point... So many things, all of which were beyond Kyggit's imagination, and he despaired all of them. Everything now hinged on establishing a visual; just the merely ability to see it would kindle the smallest spark of hope - that spark of hope, however big it would be, would have to be succinct to keep them alive. At this stage, it all mattered about who could watch the other. It could see them perfectly, its eyes analysing them tactfully from a distance whilst it prowled in a circle around them. The lives of the 'courageous' quaternion rested entirely in Kyggit's hands, whether the others spotted it first or not.
The Corporal slowly cranked his head back to face the second man and looked at him in the eye; his own were wide in fear, stricken by abject terror and distress. They glistened like the dots above. As he spoke, his voice was opulently soaked in utter melancholy.
"Tharakos save us."
From within the blackened abyss, from whence things akin to the cloudspawn came, came two bleak harbingers of doom:
Two.
Red.
Eyes.
"YAAAAHHH!" screamed Gynschi at the top of his lungs, his instincts taking over completely. His gun fell to the floor in an immense clatter that pierced the silence; his perennial screech echoed as the beast charged.
Its hind legs sprang out, extending to their fullest length. The beast was propelled towards Kyggit, who snapped his head back to face the hellspawn; he brought his rifle up and fired blindly, a stray bolt of plasma streaking through the air and obliterating a tree leaf. The light whizzed over the creature, deterring it for a moment. It was enough to lessen the impact of the pounce to a mere shove, but the second man had no time to process Kyggit falling to the floor.
"Have mercy, have mercy!" he implored despairingly. He threw his boot upwards into the beast's chest, despite not being able to see it at all, save for the devilish eyes it donned; they locked onto the man, a whiny yelp being let out as its ribs were beaten. The female, in the meantime, had lined up a shot at the eyes and fired, but it was too late.
The creature had already descended upon him, another on her, Kyggit still on the floor.
"AAARGH!" she shrieked as the beast began to maul her indiscriminately. She stood no chance anymore - her gun was out of reach and she was under the body of a predator as black as Satan and as fiendish as night. Its claws worked elegantly through her face and chest, rapidly burrowing into her body and the edible contents within. She had been butchered in a matter of seconds.
The man flailed violently as he attempted to dodge the demon's attacks, his head swinging side-to-side. A talon scathed his cheekbone, drawing blood instantly. With each sway, it flicked out onto the jet black grass, never to be heard from again.
"Tharakos, Jurana, Killmarr!" he panted with each breath. He clapped his hands onto the side of the beast's chest, but it was too little too late. "SA-" The demon had found the man's mouth and cheeks hand began to rip into them, tearing flesh and bone away with each scoop of its furred paw.
The final man had not escaped jaws of death. Inebriated with panic, he had called on the radio to the camp in a desperate attempt to flee his pursuer. He daren't look back - nobody in their right mind would.
"Base, Private Gynschi Hrona! We've been hit, we've been hit!" With each word he sobbed, his throat become more and more clogged with mucus and tears.
"Who, Gynschi, who?" the operator cried back, sensing his desperation.
"Corporal Tine Kyggit, male! Private Seny Q'enka, male! Private Gynschi Hrona, male! Co-"
He was cut off. The radio fell down to the ground unceremoniously, the device crashing heavily against the mud and dirt. Gynschi wailed as he fell with the radio, his back sliced wide open. The creature had caught up to him insanely fast. The demon began to leif slather its clawed paws in Gynschi's blood, even whilst he was alive and gagging. He coughed and hacked, a weak and feeble arm outstretched towards the radio.
"Gynschi?" the operator yelled. "Gynschi!"
The only sounds now to grace the fields of Jurana at night were those of the Vhaiken hungrily devouring its well-earned feast.
There was a reason that the Nakt Qendro was dubbed the 'Death Toll' - nobody, nobody but three had survived the Death Toll, but they paid the price anyway - only psychologically.
You didn't have to be there to pay the price for stepping on Larka's lawn and knocking on his door.
