Death Smith - Book 1 - Chapter 1

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Heroes and hounds

Seven months ago.

August, 13 AR.

United Kingdom, London, Ealing Hospital.

The smell of fresh coffee, cleaning agents, and the lingering scent of the infirm that never seemed to dissipate was thick in the break room. Several people were sipping tea or coffee while taking notes during the morning briefing. Finally, it was time for the coordinator to assign rooms to each of the nurses.

“Thomas, room two and three. Patient two-A needs to be prepped for surgery in a few hours,” the coordinator said, her voice carrying the weight of authority and experience with it. “Rachel, room one. Maintenance will arrive in an hour to fix the toilet. Tiffany, you will assist during the rounds.”

“Lance, room four and five,” the coordinator stopped talking as she peered over the edge of the tablet, seeing the young man in the room’s corner with his eyes shut, clearly asleep. “Mr Lance… Mr Lance Turner!” The woman finally howled at the young man. A moment later, she had even thrown a pen against his chest to emphasise her point.

The young man quickly sprung to life as he opened his greyish hazel eyes while nodding. No doubt he realised he was in trouble and that this had not been the first time. With his prior experiences in such a situation, he could tell from the amused smirk on Thomas’s face that he had messed up badly. Beyond the role of ‘best friend’, Lance could always count on Thomas’s amused grin to be there when Lance was in trouble.

“As I was saying, Mr Turner, you can have room 6 for the rest of the day.” The coordinator said, changing the order so that Lance was now in charge of another room. Lance groaned, ran a hand through his dark brown hair, his tall frame slid further in his seat, as if defeated. He knew full well that today was going to be a nightmare for him because of room 6. Hearing Thomas, who was sitting next to him, giggling like a child, wasn’t helping all that much.

“And, seeing as Thomas is in such high spirits, he will be happy to assist Lance this morning in room six,” the coordinator said calmly as Thomas Walker turned paler by the minute.

* * * * *

“I still think it is weird,” Thomas commented as he watched the hound from a safe distance. The man’s blue gaze constantly monitored the large creature. The hound resembled an English mastiff. Already, Lance and Thomas had the ‘talk’ forced upon them by its owner about how big the hound was and how powerful its bite could be. Naturally, the two of them knew did not need to be told by someone to realise that this creature was a Rift-hound; A canine that had survived a Rift.

Thomas had explained to Lance that he did not want to know that this specimen weighed the same as a large man. Both Lance and Thomas had a natural respect and awe for the creature, but it unsettled Thomas the most. The fact that it had a crystal-like element embedded in the chest, like Rifter’s had, only made it more threatening and alien.

“Any further discomfort?” Lance inquired as he finished the blood pressure measurement and wrote the numbers on a piece of paper before placing his two fingers on the man’s wrist, feeling the pulse of the artery, and using his cell phone to keep track of the time.

As the patient explained what he was feeling, Lance would take notes and inquire further. Every few minutes, Lance’s eyes would drift towards the man’s right arm, or rather, the absence of a right arm. ‘What the hell could have done this to a person, let alone a Rifter?’ Lance thought. The man Lance was treating was a Rifter by the name of Daniel Wells. He, like others, had been one of the ‘lucky’ people that had survived a Rift and lived to talk about it, even taking up the profession of Rifter afterwards. Their chest now marked with a similar white crystal-like shard.

There wasn’t a country that did not have an existing Rift or have a new one pop up now and again. Most people had either observed one from a distance or had seen footage of the outside of a Rift.

Lance seemed to recall reading about the first Rifts appearing thirteen years ago, somewhere around November. Hundreds of people went missing, only to have a handful of them reappear a few weeks later, covered in wounds and having suffered untold horrors within the Rift. Some spoke of horrible desert worlds filled with poisonous monsters, while other survivors spoke of dense forested areas or freezing hellscape that had several moons in the night sky.

Although people had tried to enter it by force, the Rift would destroy both organic and inorganic material from entering it. The exception was for people or things that had already been inside of a Rift, with the unnatural energy inside forever changing those that had survived. The only thing that had prevented the world from plunging into chaos had been the emergence of these Rifters. When these Rifts had formed on Earth, it had been so life-changing, many people even referred to it as a new age and adjusted their calendar to it. Something that sparked great outrage across the modern world, with even attempts at quelling it. Nowadays, most first world countries have accepted both AD and AR.

Mr Wells had survived a Rift and worked as a Rifter for seven years before his horrible injury. Several surgeons had tried, yet in the end, they had not been able to save the arm.

“Everything appears to be in o-” Lance tried to explain before someone interrupted him.

“Have ve stopped to consider zhat it is just a scratch and zhat he might be exaggerating zhings?” The other Rifter in the room said, with a thick German accent.

Dieter Kühn, a long-time friend and guild member of Daniel, the owner of the Rift-hound, and the bane of Thomas’s existence. Today, Dieter was there to ‘graciously’ offer his limited medical expertise. The man, like Daniel, was a Rifter. He specialized in taming and training Rift-animals, although his frame hinted at a far more melee-oriented style. Dieter’s unique class could better condition animals that had survived Rifts and train them to fight alongside Rifters.

The Rift-hound, ‘little Hans’, was one of Dieter’s more recent projects and a promising candidate for the long run.

“Sorry about Dieter. The man is so used to working with animals that he forgot basic human interaction... or decency... or hygiene,” Daniel said, followed by Dieter flashing him the bird, which Daniel acknowledged by waving the stump of his right arm. “We tried our best to get rid of the bugger during the Rifts, yet he is lucky,” Daniel continued as his warm smile reassured Lance and Thomas that it was all just fun and games. Still, an observant soul might have picked up on Thomas had softly whispered ‘that there was still time’. To be fair to Thomas, Dieter had taken a liking to making the young nurse feel more uncomfortable by telling more and more gruesome stories about what his Rift-hound could do.

There were few Rifters in the world, so meeting one in person, let alone talk to one, was a remarkable feat. Had it not been for this hospital having a special room for Rifters, Lance and Thomas might have never met a Rifter in their lives. Safe for the more extravagant individuals, most Rifters looked quite normal. The exception was the white crystal fragment embedded in the centre of their chest; A Rift-shard.

Run a standard test on them and you’d see normal results beyond a relatively unknown energy radiating from their shards and infusing their cells. Still, a lower level Rifter could easily match a trained athlete. At lower levels, they would be more durable and fitter than most humans. A Rifter who specialized in close combat or physical prowess was even capable of feats of strength that bordered the realm of fiction.

It was hard not to imagine what a one-armed Rifter such as Daniel could do to a room full of civilians if the man suddenly snapped. Luckily, these types of cases were infrequent and other Rifters dealt with these incidents.

“I’ll get this data recorded and be back in a little while,” Lance commented as he grabbed his things and smiled at Daniel, doing his best not to stare at the missing arm.

* * * * *

“I am telling you, man… that dog is weird,” Thomas said for the fifteenth time in a row during lunch. Lance ignored it, lest he’d inspire another rant about how ‘us normies should be protected’ from dealing with Rifters. Lies, of course, seeing as Thomas was a big Rifter-nerd and had read hundreds upon hundreds of articles about them. The only one Lance knew that was a bigger fan of Rifters was Thomas’s younger brother.

There was just something about Dieter and his hound that unnerved Thomas. If Lance was being honest, it affected him as well. The creature was larger, stronger, and obviously more durable than most dogs, but there was something in his eyes that unsettled Lance the most. The obvious signs of intellect beyond what was normal for a dog. Still, it was amusing to see an athletically build figure like Thomas tremble whenever the hound approached him.

Lance continued with his meal, tearing off a piece of bread and dipping it into the tomato soup that tasted both bland and over-spiced at the same time. No doubt a culinary feat in its own right. ‘Who determined they could classify this as a soup?’ Lance thought, shuddering at he tried to forget the taste of it.

Switching on his headphones, he began listening to music with enough volume to drown out Thomas’s tirade. Although the two of them had been friends since childhood, Thomas could be too extroverted for Lance’s liking, hence why Lance sometimes quieted himself in his thoughts or music. Taking another spoonful of ‘Satan’s liquid ashtray’, Lance observed the crowd, seeing patients coming and going and noticing the occasional bundle of nurses and doctors mingling while going over charts, or glancing at tablets.

Next week would mark his third year of employment here. Thinking back, although the pay in healthcare was horrendous, this place had been kind to him. It wasn’t the largest of hospitals, roughly having only around four hundred beds, and not equipped for the more complex surgeries. It did still offer great care and had treated Lance fairly these last few years.

Seeing the comings and goings of patients, visitors, and professionals, it was hard not to think of this place as a beehive with lots of traffic.

Looking at his phone to check the time, he noticed a text message from his older brother asking him how he was doing. The message was in Dutch, also described as ‘the barbaric tongue’ by Thomas and some of Lance’s colleagues. He was still familiar with the language, having stayed there in his early childhood years before his parents had split up. His mother had encouraged Lance to develop his Dutch alongside his English.

His mother and Lance had moved to England to stay with her side of the family while Lance’s older brother had stayed back in the Netherlands due to him nearly graduating from the Police Academy and already in the stages of settling down with his girlfriend. Although this had happened years ago, Lance’s brother tried to maintain contact, even visiting once or twice, but sadly, the distance and the divorce had driven a wedge between the brothers. Pushing down any feelings he might have of the matter, he switched off his phone again, ignoring the message.

“Come on. Duty calls,” Lance commented before dragging Thomas away from a group of interns that he was trying to impress with scary stories about Rift-Hounds.

* * * * *

Daniel listened to the doctor go on about nerve damage, further treatment, and the option of prosthetics. He simply nodded, acknowledging that he had understood it all before leaning back in his bed, glancing at what remained of his arm.

“Prosthetics von’t do unless it is Rift material,” Dieter said before explaining how anything not made from materials found within a Rift could not pass through a Rift. So, Daniel’s prosthetic would have to be fashioned out of said material to go with him.

“It’s okay, Dieter. I am done... you know as much,” Daniel said calmly.

“Zo Hell with zhat, you von’t know unless you try.”

Daniel nodded to the doctor that he understood, while placing his left hand on Dieter’s shoulder, letting him know he appreciated the sentiment but that he had decided already.

“I should have gotten the Mage class, hmm? Less risk of losing my arm to some bloody mongrel. That and a mage can still work with one hand. I think?” Daniel commented when the doctor had left, and some time had passed.

“You’d be a horrible Magier. Probably burn your wiener off zhe first time you’d cast a fireball.”

“It would have to be a pretty big fireball to do that,” Daniel retorted quickly, with a proud expression.

Deeply laughed as well before he replied. “I zhink zhere is a reason why the critter vent for the arm rather zhan the little wiener.”

The men continued to laugh after that. Daniel even pinched a few tears out of the corner of his eyes, the Rift-hound simply wagging his tail at the playful nature of the Rifters. While the Rifters laughed, Lance and Thomas were in the room’s corner. The nurses were busy filling in the day report and double-checking what the Doctor had explained.

Thomas was about to get up and leave the room when Daniel caught Lance staring at his arm again. This time, Daniel made eye contact and motioned for Lance to come over.

“Er... Sorry. I didn’t mean to stare. Apologies,” Lance said, his face somewhat flushed.

“Yes, you did, and it is fine. Here, come take a look at this,” Daniel said as he raised the sleeve further and let Lance see the long scars flowing upward from the amputated section up to his shoulder. “A skinner did this,” Daniel commented calmly, while Dieter’s Rift-Hound growled at the mention of a skinner.

“Nasty little critters. They hunt in packs and have flexible jaws lined with smaller teeth that are designed for cutting and tearing. They bite down and then spin, literally shredding skin, flesh, and bone away as if sanding down a piece of wood,” Daniel explained.

Thomas, who had slowly crept up closer to the group to hear more war stories about the Rift, grew pale at the explanation of a skinner. It terrified Lance as well. He did his best to compare it inside his mind to a hybrid between a crocodile and a hyena of sorts. ‘And these Rifters battle these things for a living?’ Lance thought, wondering what type of person could even do such a thing. He knew that not everyone that survived a Rift wanted to become a full time Rifter. Some people were far too traumatised from their first Rift, or permanently wounded to become a proper Rifter.

“Does it take long?” Thomas asked before getting a kick against the shin from Lance. A second later, Lance gave Thomas a look as if asking him, ‘how the hell do you ask an injured person something like that’. Still, Daniel was rather calm about it all, as if he had seen injuries like this before.

“It depends on their size and maturity. A youngling could take a few minutes, while an alpha… about ten seconds. Right, Dieter?” Daniel said before asking Dieter for his take on the matter.

“Ja, seems about right,” Dieter replied, calmly weighing in as if it was a rather light-hearted topic to join.

Daniel then went on. “I used to be classed as a ranger before... you know, when I had both my hands. It is best to pick them off at a distance during the day. They have poor vision in daylight, and you can spot them from afar. They get more dangerous during night-time. That happened to me. Still, my days of wielding a bow are over.”

The four of them continued to talk for a while after that. Daniel explained what type of creatures he encountered during his last Rifts and with Dieter filling in here and there. Their explanations fascinated both Thomas and Lance, hearing about strange places that, for now, seemed too far away from reality and more akin to something out of a book.

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Author: Osirium

Copyright: 2021 OsiriumWrites

Released: 2021