Ilse stopped in front of the foul-smelling hole and exhaled sharply.

  “I’m not going inside,” she said, slowly shaking her head, eyes glued to the round black opening.

  Luke shrugged.

  “Your problem.” Then he waved a hand. “You should run. The orcs will definitely come back.”

  I nodded.

  “Yes.” I pointed toward the direction the platoon was approaching from. “There’s a big group coming from there.”

  Luke’s head snapped toward me.

  “How far?” he asked, then squinted into the distance. “Are you sure? I can’t see anything…”

  “About four hundred meters,” I said with a small shrug.

  At their questioning looks, I added, “From near the house you can see farther.”

  As if I’d seen them from near the house.

  I’d seen them through Lili, of course—but what I said was technically true. One could indeed see farther from that spot.

  For some reason, that made me feel better. I didn't want to tell them about Lili, but saying something outright false would have felt… so very wrong.

  “Did you see—do they have dogs with them?” Luke asked.

  Dogs… Those were not dogs, but...

  I nodded slowly. Yes. There were beasts with them. I understood why he called them dogs; they had an unsettling mix of canine and bear-like traits, giving them a silhouette that felt both familiar and wrong in subtle ways.

  The orcs called them skavags—a shortened form of skaverags, “red scavengers” in Orcish. They looked more like hyenas than dogs, with a hunched, almost skulking posture. Their forelegs were longer and more powerful than their hind legs, ending in long, protruding claws.

  Their bodies were covered in coarse fur, mostly brown or dark brown, with a dark red taint around the neck and creeping up over the head, as if perpetually smeared with fresh blood. They had rounded foreheads, thick blunt muzzles, and massive jaws capable of bone-crushing force.

  Skavags were specific to Mephisto’s orcs, far more common on Adrai, the other continent. My orcs didn’t use them.

  They had giant wolves, and wolves and skavags hated each other. They were natural enemies, much like cats and dogs, but exponentially worse.

  Luke paled.

  “Uh…” he muttered. “Those damn vicious dogs. We really don’t want to meet them.”

  I raised a brow. He must have seen something unsettling. Or maybe just seeing them was enough.

  He snapped toward Annie. “Go, Annie. Go!”

  “But they’ll find us easily in this mousetrap!” Ilse said, shaking her head in desperation.

  Luke didn’t waver.

  “The dogs hate oil,” he said. “They never go near the pipeline. And we’re not staying here anyway. We go through it.”

  “Wait,” I said. “You want to go through the pipeline?”

  Luke huffed.

  “What do you think I’ve been talking about this whole time? Didn’t you say there are humans in that direction?” He pointed east.

  Annie was already inside the pipeline. She wore a mask and carried a flashlight, moving steadily ahead. She didn’t even need to crouch.

  She glanced back at us.

  “No. No, no, no,” Ilse said, shaking her head as Luke offered her a mask. “I’m not going in there!”

  Luke shrugged. He offered me a mask as well, then set the remaining one aside and turned toward the opening.

  He paused and looked back at us.

  “I’ve explored several hundred meters already. There’s air inside. You can feel a draft, so there must be an opening farther down. I’ve got a cutter and spare batteries if I need to widen something… or make a new exit.” He tapped his backpack.

  Then he turned and hurried after Annie.

  I tilted my head, surprised by his certainty. I wasn’t convinced his tools could cut through iron that thick. Then I shrugged. He had already made this opening, so he probably knew what he was talking about.

  I looked at Annie again. The girl stood calmly inside the narrow tube, light in hand, waiting.

  “Wait for me. I’m coming too,” I said.

  I took the mask, crouched, and entered the pipeline.

  The stench hit me immediately. So much for the mask... However, I still kept it.

  “Oh no!” Ilse exclaimed, looking at me in alarm.

  She glanced back toward the house as if hoping to spot Sean and Nora, but they were already gone.

  With trembling hands, she picked up the mask, then stared at the dark tube again.

  “No… no… no…”

  She put the mask on anyway and started after me.

  “They’ll come and get us,” she mumbled repeatedly, like a mantra.

  “Then hurry up and make less noise,” Luke snapped from deeper inside the pipe.

  “I can’t see where I step…” Ilse protested, stopping.

  Luke halted, then turned back with a sigh.

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  “I can’t wait for you two,” he said, shaking his head. He handed me a flashlight.

  “Stay close, and keep your mask on, even if it gets sticky.”

  He turned and hurried farther inside the pipe toward Annie.

  I maneuvered with some difficulty to get behind Ilse and gave her a gentle push.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  She was breathing hard, legs trembling, but she started to move.

  “This is such a bad idea,” she mumbled—yet she didn’t stop.

  The stench was almost unbearable, the grime sticky and clinging. Every time I brushed the walls, I regretted it; more filth smeared across my fingers. The ground was slick and strangely uneven.

  As darkness swallowed us, it almost seemed to press against the flashlight’s beam, as if trying to devour the light itself.

  I wasn’t even sure the mask filtered anything—the smell was still overwhelming—but maybe Luke was right and it would be far worse without it.

  Ilse was moving too slowly to keep up. With every step, Luke’s halo of light ahead grew more distant.

  I turned my head to look back—and promptly rammed my horns into the top of the pipe. My head snapped sideways and back.

  Damn. I nearly gave myself a twisted neck.

  I rubbed the side of my neck and snorted in irritation when I realized I’d smeared grime onto my skin.

  Distracted, I bumped straight into Ilse—who had suddenly stopped.

  “No, no, no!” she said. “I won’t go any further!”

  “Ilse, we’ve barely gone fifty meters,” I said. “Keep going.”

  “They’ll see the light and follow us!”

  “The pipe isn’t straight,” I snapped. “Look ahead—Luke’s light is already disappearing. Move faster and they won’t see us.”

  I kept nudging her forward, step by reluctant step, while she muttered almost nonstop under her breath. Even for me, the pipeline was becoming unbearable. The oily walls felt oppressive, as if they were pressing inward. My lungs burned. Nausea rose sharp and insistent, and I had to swallow hard to keep from gagging.

  Somewhere around two hundred meters in, Ilse broke.

  She spun toward me, voice cracking. “Out. I want out! I can’t see the exit anymore—I can’t see—”

  “Ilse, it’s fine,” I said quickly.

  “Out!” she screamed. “I want out!”

  “Ilse,” I said, forcing my voice steady, “that little girl is ahead of us. She’s gone so far we can’t even see her light anymore.”

  She wasn’t listening.

  She grabbed at me, then clawed for the flashlight.

  “Give it to me! Give it to me—aaaah!”

  In the struggle, she might have seen something.

  I saw it in her eyes, a flicker of shock that hadn’t been there before.

  Maybe grime hanging where it shouldn’t have been, maybe a shape that didn’t belong above my head.

  My horns.

  That would explain why her panic suddenly spiked.

  Oh well. I let her take it. I didn’t really need the light anyway.

  She shoved past me, stumbled, then scrambled forward on all fours. She glanced back once, but didn’t turn the light toward me.

  A few steps later she stopped, curled in on herself, and began to cry.

  “Ilse—” I said softly and reached for her shoulder.

  She shrieked.

  Then she bolted.

  She crawled as fast as she could, slamming into the walls, then into the ceiling with a dull crack. She fell to her knees, pushed herself up, and kept going on all fours.

  I winced each time the flashlight struck the ground. At this rate, she was going to smash it.

  The beam was already growing weaker, its lens smeared almost opaque with grime.

  I sighed.

  What was I doing?

  I closed my eyes and tried to take a deep breath... which was a mistake.

  A wave of nauseating hydrocarbons flooded my lungs.

  I shadowmelded instantly.

  Relief washed over my nose and throat.

  Better.

  Still trapped inside the pipe—shadowmeld required continuous space—but infinitely better than breathing that filth.

  So why was I even here?

  I was here to understand what was happening on Earth. To assess the situation. To find out whether I could bring my boys back.

  Clinging to these people, chasing after a panicking woman, trying to save someone who clearly didn’t want to be saved by me.

  None of that was actually required.

  I told myself that.

  And with that thought, I let Ilse go.

  I turned toward the other end of the pipeline, where Luke and Annie were moving steadily forward.

  Somewhere above us, rain had begun to fall — a faint, distant drumming echoing through the metal tube.

  Maybe later I would bore a small hole through the pipe to draw in fresh air.

  Until then, I would remain shadowmelded.

  It was… tolerable.

  Yet even after making that decision, I couldn’t fully abandon Ilse.

  As she neared the edge of my domain, I slowed and then stopped.

  I could reach Luke and the girl within seconds if I needed to. They weren’t in danger — not immediately.

  So I waited and I let Lili watch Ilse. I was curious whether she escaped, or whether she ran into the orcs. I was curious to see how it would end.

  The orcs had already reached the house some time ago when Ilse finally approached the exit — still banging the pipe with the flashlight.

  She had crawled the entire last stretch on all fours. But when pale daylight appeared ahead, she pushed herself upright.

  The skavags had heard her long before.

  At least ten orcs waited around the opening, accompanied by several of the beasts.

  Ilse didn’t even look.

  She stepped out.

  One of the orcs caught her by the throat with a single hand. She kicked and clawed, tried to twist free.

  It didn’t matter.

  “Boss,” the orc said casually, “what do I do with this rat?”

  The boss stepped forward.

  He was large. Broad. Two tusk-like canines protruded from his lower jaw, and a metal ring pierced his nose.

  He gave Ilse a brief, dismissive glance.

  “They shot at our men,” he said.

  “Kill her. Let the skavags eat her.”

  And in that exact moment, inhuman screams echoed from the other side of the pipeline.

  From Luke’s and Annie's side. As if they were the ones about to be torn apart.

  While Lili was doing everything she could to keep Ilse alive.