First Blood

CHAPTER 6

Camryn's POV

The next three days were hell.

Amon woke me before dawn each morning, dragging me out of my tent while the camp was still dark. The language lessons came first, two hours of Lenorian vocabulary until the words blurred together and my head pounded.

"Again," Amon would say when I mispronounced something. "You need to sound natural, not like you're reading from a textbook."

Then came combat training, which was less training and more Amon beating me into the ground repeatedly.

"Too slow," he said on the second day, after knocking me flat for what felt like the hundredth time. "Down here, slow means dead."

I spat dirt from my mouth and glared up at him. "Maybe if you actually taught me instead of just throwing me around…"

"I am teaching you." He offered his hand and pulled me up. "I'm teaching you what it feels like when something stronger than you wants you dead. Get used to it."

By the third day, I'd learned to anticipate some of his moves, to roll with the impacts instead of fighting them, but I still ended up on the ground more often than not, but at least I was getting back up faster.

"Better," Amon said, and it sounded like high praise coming from him.

There were now five of us in total, all newer arrivals. Sarah gathered us together on the evening of the second day.

"Tomorrow you deploy to the surface," she said. "This is your trial. You'll be dropped in a sector known for Class D anomaly activity. Your job is simple; you have to survive until extraction at dawn."

"What about killing anomalies?" asked a thin man named Peter. "Don't we need kills for the System?"

"Survival first," Sarah replied. "If you happen to take down an anomaly, great. But your primary objective is to make it through the night alive. Most first-timers don't."

No one spoke after that.

Now, standing in the pre-dawn darkness outside the camp, I was trying very hard not to throw up.

The deployment team was the five recruits plus two experienced hunters who would observe but not interfere unless absolutely necessary. Amon was one of them. The other was a woman named Teresa with cold eyes and a crossbow.

"Listen up," Teresa said. "We're dropping you in Sector 7, a residential area that was overrun about fifteen years ago. Class D threats are mostly feral anomalies, low-level manifestations, and occasional possession cases."

"Occasionally?" asked Claire, also a new recruit.

"Sometimes you get lucky and it's quiet. Sometimes you don't." Teresa smiled. "Stick together, stay alert, and if you see something you can't identify, run."

The path to the surface took us through tunnels that climbed steadily upward. The air grew colder the higher we went, until finally we emerged into the gray pre-dawn light.

I'd expected ruins. What I got was worse.

The buildings were intact, mostly. This had been a real neighborhood once. But now everything was wrong. Windows were too dark. Doors hung open at odd angles. And everywhere was the smell of rot and something sweet I couldn't identify.

"Welcome to hell," Peter muttered.

Teresa checked her watch. "Extraction at dawn. That gives you roughly six hours. There's a church three blocks north if you need to hole up. Otherwise, keep moving and stay quiet."

Something howled in the distance.

We all froze. The sound was like a wolf mixed with human screaming.

"Looks like they know we're here," Teresa said. "Good luck."

She and Amon faded into the shadows. Suddenly, the five of us were alone with that howling getting closer.

"Church," Claire said. "We should get to the church."

"No." David, a muscular man who'd been a firefighter. "Defensive positions are traps. We keep moving."

"Split up then," Peter suggested. "We would be harder to track."

"Splitting up is how people die in horror movies," I said. "We stick together. But David's right; we have to keep moving."

The howling came again, close enough that I could hear multiple voices.

"Move," David hissed.

We ran.

The following hours after that were a nightmare….

***

 The anomalies hunting us were fast and coordinated. We'd catch glimpses between buildings, shapes that looked almost human until they moved wrong.

By the time we reached the church, we'd lost Peter. He had lagged behind, complained about his ankle, and then suddenly he started screaming. I was too scared to even turn around and see what had attacked him. We all ran faster and left him behind.

The church was old stone. The front doors were barred, but David found a side entrance.

Inside was pitch black and smelled of mildew. Claire had a flashlight, and its beam revealed rows of wooden pews covered in dust.

"This was a mistake," I whispered. "We're trapped."

"Better than out there," David replied, but he didn't sound convinced.

That's when we heard a wet, dragging sound from deeper in the church.

The thing that emerged from behind the altar was worse than the werewolf. It had too many limbs sprouting from a central mass that pulsed with sickly black liquid. Its face was a field of eyes and mouths.

Claire screamed.

The creature's eyes focused on her at once.

Then it lunged.

David shoved Claire out of the way and took the hit. The creature's limbs wrapped around him. I just know I heard the sounds of bones breaking, heard him scream, and then silence.

"Run!" I yelled, grabbing Claire and James, the quiet older man who'd barely spoken.

We bolted, but more of those things were emerging from the shadows. How many were nesting here?

A limb wrapped around my ankle and yanked me up. I crashed face-first into a stone. Blood filled my mouth as my nose broke, but the pain was nothing compared to the terror of being dragged toward those mouths.

I clawed at the floor. My fingers found broken wood from part of a pew, and I rolled and stabbed blindly.

The creature shrieked, and its grip loosened. I scrambled backward, still clutching my weapon, and found myself backed against the altar.

“God, please help me,” I prayed in my mind while I kept stabbing the creature’s limbs.

The anomaly moved forward. I could see down their throats, faces pressed against translucent flesh.

This was it. This was how I died again. I closed my eyes when suddenly Amon appeared out of nowhere, his dagger aimed at the creature, striking it with precision, each blow targeting weak spots. The beast thrashed, but Amon was relentless.

"The eyes!" he shouted. "Go for the eyes!"

I didn't think; I just moved. My piece of wood found an eye, and I drove it deep. The creature's shriek became almost ultrasonic, and then Amon used his dagger to slice its throat.

The anomaly collapsed, and its black fluid instantly dried up. In seconds, only steaming remains were left.

I stood there shaking, covered in blood.

"You… broke… protocol," I stuttered. "I know. I'm supposed to observe, not interfere." He said, cleaning his dagger.

"Then why did you?"

He met my eyes. "Because you're not ready to die yet, Camryn. You've got questions that need answering."

Behind us, Claire was sobbing. James had made it out. David was gone. Peter was gone. Two dead out of five.

"Is it always like this?" I asked.

"No," Amon replied. "Sometimes it's worse."

And I understood now what it meant to be a Hunter.

This wasn't a game. It was brutal survival.

And I'd have to do this again and again if I wanted answers. If I wanted to finish what Camryn started.

"Welcome to the Hunter System," Amon said as we descended underground. "Now the real work begins."