Of course they all woke up hungover the next morning. Sora's was the worst. With officially having become part of the 3rd company's 6th platoon, things had slowed down for a short time, as the members of the 5th squad were waiting for their first mission.

  The 6th platoon was led by Lieutenant William Byrd, a man in his early twenties with short, light brown hair. He appeared to be unremarkable but he had made it to the rank of lieutenant in a short amount of time and opinions of him were generally positive. He was known as a cautious man averse to taking risks. One morning, Lieutenant Byrd gathered the 6th Platoon in one of the lecture halls to brief them on their mission.

  “Over the last month the Dreamstate scouting of our Dreamers has revealed that the presence of Coffin-Dwellers around the area designated as “Graveyard” has significantly dropped”, he explained while pointing at parts of the Nether map drawn on the massive blackboard.

  “A recent scouting advance into the Nether, undertaken by the 1st squad has confirmed these conditions to still be valid”, he went on with his explanation. “This is an unprecedented occurrence and finally gives us the opportunity to explore the structure at the center of the Graveyard area that we refer to as “The Cathedral”. It is the last part of the Graveyard area that has eluded our exploration efforts thus far. Success in this mission would mean that the Expedition Corps could shift its full attention to the less explored regions of the Nether. The Expedition Corps has been averse to a large-scale operation in order to gain access to the cathedral structure, but with the recent drop in hostile activity it has been decided that the 6th Platoon is sufficient to undertake this mission. The 1st squad will set up a return camp near the entrance edge to secure our exit route. I will lead the 3rd, the 4th, and the 5th squad in an advance to the center of the Graveyard in order to explore the interior of the cathedral building. The 2nd squad will serve as back up for the 1st squad while they set up the return camp. The operation commences in an hour. Good luck to all of us.”

  *

  It was the first time that the members of the 5th squad set foot into the Nether. Sora had seen it in her Dreamstate and during portal training, as had Janusz. Yuri had only gotten a tiny glance of it, when Janusz accidentally opened the portal back in the classroom at the Internal Security's headquarters.

  Yuri stepped through the portal and found himself in a windswept, stony, red wasteland. It was far colder here than it had been on the other side of the portal. The ground was all uneven rock, covered in fine red dust, piling up at points into small dunes. The ceaselessly blowing wind carried the lighter dust through the air and limited vision significantly. Yuri responded by placing a bandanna over his nose and mouth to avoid breathing in any more of it. It was hard to make out his comrades around him, their red uniforms and helmets blended with the environment and turned them into walking silhouettes.

  Yuri turned around and saw that the portal he came through had opened up in a steep red mountain side that reached up further than he could make out. It gave him the impression of just having stepped out of a cave. On the other side he could still see the short, green grass of the 2nd Outpost, as the last of his comrades were stepping through. Then the portal vanished and everything left in front of him was solid rock.

  “It goes all around the Nether”, Lieutenant Byrd said to him. “One infinite mountainous wall.”

  The 1st squad had gone ahead and was scouting the surrounding area in order to set up the base camp that would ensure their safe return. The 2nd squad tagged along with it. There was nothing worse than being stranded in the Nether without a Seer to get you back out again. It was the first time outside of training that they were fully armed. Yuri, Sora and Liz were carrying their standard M4 Carbines, Janusz had his M16 Marksman variant and Bob was lugging his M60 machine gun around which he so frequently complained about.

  “We got lucky that we did not have to try multiple times with our entry portal. The location it spits us out at can be anywhere at the edge of the Nether”, Lieutenant Byrd addressed the rest of the platoon.

  “I recognize these landmarks, the portal brought us out not too far away from the Graveyard area. We will have to head north-west from here.”

  Lieutenant Byrd led them from the plateau that stretched out from the rock wall for about a hundred meters and down a mountainous area onward further into the Nether. Although mountainous and rocky, for the most part the descent wasn't that steep. Alternating between walking and climbing, Yuri guessed they had descended maybe around 500 meters before the rocks gave way to similarly red colored earth, hills and more and bigger dunes of dust and red sand. A desert-like wasteland but without any sun.

  No one had ever seen the sky of the Nether, the dust in the air would not allow it. The Nether was bright regardless. However, all that dust blocked some of the light and made everything appear more gloomy than it did back at the Outposts of Nowhere.

  Eventually they discovered the first non natural object since having left the 2nd Outpost, the twisted remains of a waist high fence made of black, iron bars. Here Lieutenant Byrd made them stop for a moment.

  “We have reached the outer edge of the Graveyard. Usually the area onward from here is crawling with Coffin-Dwellers but the reports of their absence have brought us here in the first place. The 3rd squad will move out from here to scout ahead and check if the situation has remained the same. You can not see it through all that dust but the cathedral structure is not much further, just about 200 meters.”

  While they were waiting for the scout report, Yuri was approached by Sora.

  “Isn't it strange?” she wondered, “This fence, I mean and this supposed cathedral building. It's like it was man-made. We have studied the known inhabitants of the Nether by now and I have seen some in Dreamstate, the Coffin-Dwellers are by far the most humanoid among them but even they would not build something like that.”

  “Finding an answer to this question is one of the things we hope to discover by gaining access to the building“, Lieutenant Byrd answered in Yuri's stead. “I just got the report from the 3rd squad's Dreamer, the area is clear”, he continued and then called out to the other squads: “We're moving out!”

  They swung themselves over the remains of the fence and set foot into the Graveyard area. Why it was called that became apparent very soon, because it seemed to actually be something like it. They found shallow earth mounds, as well as crude wooden planks planted in the red soil that might have been intended to serve as makeshift headstones. Here and there they found open and closed coffins of black color lying around.

  “Has the Expedition Corps ever tried digging up some of these earth mounts?” Janusz inquired, who now had gotten an answer as to where the coffin he accidentally brought in through his portal had originated. Even though it was strange that this specific coffin had been so far away from the Graveyard area, where it must have been leaning against the mountain wall that was the edge of the Nether.

  “No”, Lieutenant Byrd replied. “We did not have the opportunity.”

  “Then shouldn't we do that right now?” Janusz pressed further.

  “Negative. Reaching the cathedral building takes priority, we don't know how long it will take before we get a similar chance again.”

  “Right”, Janusz admitted. Now they had made it close enough to actually make out the cathedral, even through all the dust. Surprisingly it was built out of gray stone. Yuri hadn't seen anything resembling that color anywhere on his current trip through the Nether. It was a big building that suggested at least two entrances, it also had a small steeple with a white, wooden roof. No cross on top though. Unlike the twisted fence they had climbed over, the cathedral was no ruin. Sure it was old but the dark shingled roof was intact and even more surprisingly, all of the windows as well. They were rows of high and narrow plain glass windows, not stained glass as often was the case with churches. The layout of the building had been constructed in the shape of a cross, the short extensions left and right just after the entrance were enough to barely give it that appearance.

  They reached the main entrance, a large, winged door made of dark wood. Yuri had not seen any trees in the Nether so far and he wondered where the wood had come from. The door was not locked and Lieutenant Byrd pushed one of the heavy wings open. He entered with the 3rd squad and not long after had a Dreamer relay the message that it was safe to enter. The 5th squad, with Liz in front, stepped through the doorway as well. Inside it was colder, even though they were finally out of the wind. The first thing Yuri noticed was that there were no pews, the second thing was the white marble statue at the far end of the room. As he walked further in, another abnormality became apparent. All the walls were covered in high bookshelves made of dark wood. They were all filled with books in dark red bindings. The stone floor of the cathedral building would have been a shiny black, were it not covered in a thin layer of dust. This was normal gray dust however and not the rust red dust from outside. It had lain undisturbed until their footsteps left trails in it as they kept moving further in.

  “This looks almost more like a library than a church”, Liz commented. Yuri was thinking something similar, the entire building reminded him a lot of the library at the 5th Outpost. An unidentifiable but eerie feeling arose within him upon making that connection in his mind. Attempting to shake the feeling, Yuri hurried over to Lieutenant Byrd in front of the marble statue. The statue proved to be an even greater abnormality. A section of the cathedral floor had been left intentionally uncovered by the ubiquitous shiny black stone. Instead at the base of the statue the natural, rust red rock of the Nether poked through. But about half a meter from the ground the Nether rock had slowly morphed into the white marble of the statue. It was about three meters high and depicted a bespectacled man in his late twenties or early thirties.

  “Who is that supposed to be?” Yuri asked.

  “I don't know. I don't recognize him and there is no name engraved anywhere but it's definitely not Sotiris Nephus”, Lieutenant Byrd answered after having circled the statue.

  “So this wasn't an attempted foothold of the Church of the Divine Harvest?”

  “Extremely unlikely”, Lieutenant Byrd replied, “The war broke out soon after the Church's plan to establish footholds in the Nether had been announced. Once the Church pivoted to taking over the Outposts of Nowhere they had no manpower and resources to spare for their earlier intended project.” Lieutenant Byrd looked up to the unremarkable face of the statue. “This is very strange indeed.”

  “Maybe the Coffin-Dwellers worship him?”, wondered Sora, who had walked over to them with Janusz following on her heels.

  “The doors were unlocked but it does not look like they have been in here at all. Remember the Coffin-Dweller we encountered back at the Internal Security's headquarters? It trashed the entire room,” Janusz reminded her.

  “But that one was wounded, we don't know if that was normal behavior”, Sora brought forth.

  “We really don't know anything do we?” Janusz sighed.

  “It's getting weirder”, Bob let them know. He had been investigating the bookshelves. “Not only are all of these books empty, they are all identical. No title, same red binding and same length. All blank pages”, he said, flipping through two of the books. Members of the 4th squad, that Lieutenant Byrd had sent up the narrow staircase of the steeple, were coming back down again.

  “It's empty”, their sergeant reported. “I left Hoyt up there as a lookout.”

  Lieutenant Byrd nodded in response and started inspecting a smaller, winged door behind the marble statue. It was unlocked as well. Lieutenant Byrd pulled out a Polaroid camera from his backpack and took pictures of the marble statue, the bookshelves and the rest of the cathedral interior.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  “This whole operation just brought us more questions than answers. We have taken our look around and there is no crypt or basement. I guess it's time to leave”, he concluded. “Private Lee, grab one of those empty books and we are good to go”, Lieutenant Byrd ordered Bob. Bob stored away one of the two books he was holding and returned the other to the bookshelf he had taken it from. Suddenly the expression on Lieutenant Byrd's face froze and then became very serious.

  “We've got a situation, Hoyt just telepathically informed me that he has spotted hordes of Coffin-Dwellers crawling out of the ground all over the Graveyard. They are heading here from all directions, we are surrounded!”, he called out to them all.

  “Now we don't have to dig up those earth mounds to figure out what's in there. At least one answer”, Janusz murmured.

  “Barricade the doors, we are short an MG if we are to defend all four sides of the building. Private Lee, hurry and create us another M60”, Lieutenant Byrd ordered. Bob immediately sat down on the dust floor and narrowed his eyes in concentration. An M60 light machine gun clattered into existence out of nowhere.

  “Set up one MG each at a window on both long sides of the building. Place another in the steeple and the last one behind the statue, aiming towards the main entrance!” Lieutenant Byrd further commanded. “Private Wronski, as a marksman your place is in the steeple as well”, he ordered Janusz. Janusz shared a look with his squad mates, unslung his M16 and then hurried up the staircase.

  “The Marksmen in the 3rd and 4th squad will back up the MG positions at the windows.” They managed to topple some of the bookshelves and blocked the doors with them. Lieutenant Byrd had one of the members of the 3rd squad grab the spare M60 that Bob had created and send him up the narrow stairs of the steeple. Meanwhile the other M60 gunners had smashed the high, narrow windows at the long sides of the cathedral and set up their light machine guns.

  Liz, Yuri and Sora had joined Bob's position at the eastern side of the building, aiming and waiting. The visibility was bad, the Graveyard area outside obscured by ceaseless gusts of dust. Yuri was impressed how Hoyt had managed to see anything at all but maybe the visibility from the steeple was much better. Then he saw them as well. Shambling silhouettes, many dozens of them. Hammerheaded Coffin-Dwellers, slowly stumbling forward.

  “Fire at will!” Lieutenant Byrd commanded from the MG position behind the marble statue. The first shots could be heard from the steeple, the staccato of the M60 and the barking M16s. Then the sound of gunfire erupted all around. It was the first time Yuri was firing at a living being. The shark-like Coffin-Dwellers did not seem to care much about the bullets tearing through their flesh, spraying pink blood in the air. The M60s were ripping them apart yet they kept moving forward without hesitation. By now the ground outside was littered with the dead and dying monstrosities. They had come as close as 50 meters, then suddenly all at once, they broke into a sprint.

  Panic was rising up in Yuri, there were still so many of them left. The M4 was bucking against his shoulder as he kept the trigger pressed down. Their ammunition was starting to run out and some of the Coffin-Dwellers had reached the front door trying to break it down.

  “Private Dolya!” Lieutenant Byrd shouted at him. “Get up on the steeple and draw them some ammunition!” Yuri looked questioningly at Liz.

  “I've got this!” she shouted over the cacophony of gunfire. “I already copied Bob's Creator ability, I will support our position with ammunition.”

  That was all Yuri needed to hear and he sprinted up the narrow iron staircase to the steeple, every footstep letting ring out a metallic sound for every step climbed. It was a great position, open in all directions like a little watchtower. A solid wooden rail, that ran once around the top, served as cover. Only the corners were blocked by long and narrow pillars of white wood that were holding up the pointed roof above. Visibility was indeed better up here but it did not offer any desirable picture. A huge crowd of Coffin-Dwellers had made it to the front door and the rest closed in from all sides. There were still more than a hundred left.

  The impromptu M60 gunner had done a great job of keeping them away from the back door but he was indeed almost out of ammunition.

  “Good to see you still in one piece Yuri!” Janusz addressed him, while firing into the crowd with his M16. With him now up here it had gotten very crammed and there was barely enough space for the four of them and their weapons. Yuri unslung the drawing pad from his back and knelt down, marker in hand. He drew as fast as he could, eventually pulling two ammunition boxes with belts for the M60 from the pages. With trembling hands and pounding head he helped the MG gunner to feed a new belt into the weapon. Then he drew two M16 magazines for each Janusz and Hoyt. Hoyt, a young man with short blonde hair, thanked Yuri when he was handed the full magazines. The MG gunner opened fire again next to Yuri's head and the sound drowned out everything. More Coffin-Dwellers fell near the backdoor, joining the ever growing trail of dead bodies.

  “I will check back down!” Yuri shouted, unable to hear his own words as he hurried down the stairs again. The Coffin-Dwellers had made it up to three meters close to the windows and the front door was about to fall. Yuri rejoined his old position with Liz, Bob and Sora. Screaming and hissing Coffin-Dwellers were reaching out their four-fingered claws towards the windows, skulls and bodies exploding under the endless hail of bullets, dyeing the walls in pink and red. Members of the Expedition Corps dropped grenades out of the splintered windows and the Coffin-Dwellers beneath were torn to shreds by the shrapnel. The space created this way did not last for long.

  Then the door broke down. The bookshelves the platoon had used as barricades were hindering their progress but the Coffin-Dwellers, half pushing them away, half scrambling over them, finally made it in. Lieutenant Byrd, behind the M60 that had been aimed at the door from the beginning, opened fire and turned the doorway into a kill zone. Sora and Yuri were turning frantically from the windows to the door and back again, always trying to estimate where they were needed most. Claws grabbed onto the window frame and giant, vertical, needle-toothed jaws heaved themselves in front of Yuri. Yuri fired the M4 into the open maw, hot blood sprayed over his hands and he realized he had been screaming all the while. Suddenly everything was over.

  Three meters the Coffin-Dwellers had made it into the building, the doorway was cluttered with a bloody mess of tangled bodies. Outside, shallow walls of dead Coffin-Dwellers ringed the building close to the windows. None of them had run, they had continued dying until none were left. Miraculously the Expedition Corps had lost no one, not even injuries were sustained. The fortified position had saved them all. Letting out a long sigh, Yuri slid down with his back to the wall. He wiped the sweat from his brow and only now realized again how cold it actually was. For a while he just stared as his blood covered hands.

  “We made it”, Lieutenant Byrd announced hoarsely. Someone was sobbing in a corner but most of the platoon was dazed and almost unresponsive. “I know we are all tired as hell and we definitely deserve a rest but we need to get out of here asap”, Lieutenant Byrd stated. “Gather up all leftover gear and ammunition.”

  Bob helped Liz back on her feet and Yuri started to pick up leftover ammunition. The floor was littered with empty cartridges. He caught Sora's eye, tears had carved trails down her dust covered cheeks. She forced a smile and gave him a thumbs up. The Expedition Corps left through the backdoor that had been defended so well by the M60 gunner in the steeple.

  *

  The amount of death outside was staggering, close to two hundred Coffin-Dwellers littered the ground. It was the worst at the front door. Lieutenant Byrd had sent scouts ahead, they reported the area to be clear. Nevertheless they picked up speed while heading back to the south-west, they were all eager to get out of the Nether and its hellish, red environment. For a long time nobody spoke.

  “I just don't understand that statue we saw in the cathedral”, Sora finally broke the silence. “It depicted a human not a monster.”

  “From time to time we stumble upon these anomalies like the cathedral, ancient ruins and stranger things. There is likely more to be found in the yet unexplored parts of the Nether. We have no knowledge of anything that happened here before the first Church organized missions into the Nether. It's possible that the Church of the Divine Harvest had more information that they kept secret before the Expedition Corps took over their duty of exploring the Nether”, Lieutenant Byrd answered her.

  “Maybe it was no cathedral but a mission, a place set up to try and communicate with Nether creatures”, Yuri wondered. Lieutenant Byrd was doubtful.

  “Communication with the Nether creatures is impossible, we know that because the Expedition Corps tried often enough. There is also the question of what's up with all those empty books.”

  “Anyway, to me it felt like a place of worship”, Liz said.

  “Worshiping what or whom? That guy with the glasses? He looked way too normal, nothing sacred about him, plus he is human. Why would they ever worship a human?” Bob made his thoughts known.

  “We will check in the records if we have encountered something like that statue before. But for that we first have to get back, so less talking and more walking”, Lieutenant Byrd ordered.

  So they marched on through the dust choked wind, steadily south-west. Finally they reached the return camp that the 1st squad had set up near the Nether boundary. The 2nd squad with the blond Painter was around as well, patrolling the area close by. To Yuri it felt like an eternity had passed since they had moved out in the morning, he was surprised to realize the whole operation had only taken about five hours.

  Slow and carefully he sat down to lean against one of the large rocks. He was exhausted but more than that right now he was thirsty. He reached for his flask and noticed that his hands were still shaking. He made sure to keep the flask out of the wind so no dust was blown inside. Then he drank. The cold water felt heavenly in his raw throat, Yuri thought he might have torn something in there when he had screamed during the fight in the cathedral. He also hoped the water would help with the headache he had been carrying around since he drew the ammunition in the steeple. He was doubtful but he hoped nevertheless. Hope was a good thing, wasn't it? But thinking about the concept of hope always brought with it its opposite, despair.

  “That was something, eh?” Janusz grunted as he sat down beside him. “Fuck, my legs hurt”, he complained, massaging them with his hands.

  “I thought I was going to die”, Yuri admitted. “There was this one Coffin-Dweller right in front of me but all I could see of it was this damn, open maw with more teeth than I could count. I fired right into it. I still have this thing’s blood on me, look!” he said, holding up his trembling hands for Janusz to see.

  “It was so close. Right in front of my face.” But that is not even the worst of it, a realization exploded in his head. Sora could have died, Janusz, Liz and Bob. I can't let any one of them die. Not a single one. I have to keep them safe.

  “It's over now”, Janusz reassured him.

  “Over? No, it has just begun.” Then Yuri did not say anymore until they had stepped back through the portal that the 1st squad's Seer had set up.

  *

  They came out again on the green lawn and between the spread-out square, gray buildings of the Expedition Corps grounds, Yuri never thought he could feel so happy upon seeing a landscape that wasn't red.

  “That turned out to be one hell of a first mission”, Lieutenant Byrd addressed his platoon once they all made it back to the 2nd Outpost. “You all did an amazing job in keeping our precious asses alive. We got back with more questions than answers but with the cathedral explored, the Expedition Corps can now focus its strength in penetrating deeper in yet unknown regions of the Nether. Slowly but surely we will uncover any secrets it holds. With comrades as great as you, it's only a question of time. Now get your rest, you damn well deserve it. Dismissed!”

  It was only early in the evening. Returning to the barracks Yuri spoke very little with his squad mates who seemed to be in a similar pensive mood. He was worried that he would find no sleep tonight, the thoughts of You can't let them die swirled endlessly through his mind but as soon as his head touched the pillow, he was gone. He dreamed of nothing. Sometimes exhaustion could be a blessing.

  *