“Teeth?” That was not the first thing I was expecting her to say if I’m completely honest. Which I’m not.

“And my eyes!”

“Most people have them, yeah?” Chavez said from behind me.

“I haven’t seen this clearly in…” she trailed off, remembering. “…years.”

“Nursing home?” I asked. I felt the heads of the others snap to me, and I simply shrugged.

“Yes.” She didn’t say any more, but I could tell from her expression that she was reliving some memories.

“How do you feel?” Carter asked.

“Fine. I feel better than fine! I feel ten years younger. Twenty years younger! The years sort of blur after a while, but I haven’t felt this clear-headed in seven years.”

I shared a glance with the rest of my team, except for the tiger. I mean, I tried not to look at the tiger, honestly. I could tell that all of us humans could understand at least a little of what she must have gone through.

I went over to the body of the old man at Chavez’s feet, stooped, and repeated the same process as I had with the woman. He was lying down on his front, so I simply drove the mana through his back. The mana rippled through his back and into his core, repeating the same procedure, but with a slight difference. The mana rippled back out through his body, coursing down to his knee and toward his face. The man suddenly took a deep breath and on the exhale, most of the mana left with his breath and disappeared into the air. The next moment, he was twisting to look up at me standing over him. Carefully, he put his hands on the ground and pushed himself to the ground.

As a kid, my parents took me to visit the elderly in nursing homes. Yeah, my parents were good people. One of my earliest memories was shaking hands with a man in a wheelchair. His age was written in every line of his face, emphasized by the oxygen tube resting under his nose. But the old veteran’s grip was firm when my father directed me to shake his hand and introduce myself. His eyes were sharp as they took me in and as he told his story. As this man stood up, I could tell he was made from the same old leather as the man I’d met in my youth. I guessed he must have been a veteran or preacher. Not the soft, modern preacher who’s afraid to say anything to offend anyone and doesn’t believe one page of the shit in the Bible. This one would be fire and brimstone.

“Are you alright, sir?” I asked, holding out my hand to him. He looked at it disdainfully as he pushed himself up, hands on his knees. Veteran.

“I feel great.”

“We need to get you to a secure location,” Andy said. “We’ll move a few more blocks and find a house with an acceptable location.”

“You’re just going to leave us?” The woman said.

“We’re outside the wire as it is,” I said. The words made the man’s eyes snap to me. “And we’re still on the way out.”

“We can find a place to lay low for a while, and I can take care of the Suzy,” he said.

“I’m Irene, not Suzy,” she protested.

We moved out, albeit a bit more slowly with our newcomers. Outwardly, I kept my cool, but inside I was doing backflips. We had a way to help these people recover from the mana corruption. Judging by their cores, they had the same problem that Bragg did, and they wouldn’t be able to touch or see mana unless something changed for them. I judged them each in their eighties or nineties – after a time, old is just old – but they moved like they were twenty years younger. The man kept his eyes peeled around him, while the woman clung to his arm intently, keeping up a stream of words, barely fitting a breath between sentences.

It turned out she didn’t remember anything for the last couple of weeks. That wouldn’t be out of the ordinary, given her age and the onset of Alzheimer’s. The disease was nowhere in evidence, however, as she recounted her life’s story. No one had the heart to ask the kind, old lady, to shut the fuck up, much as we wanted to. The pure joy was infectious, even bringing a smile to Andy’s usually dour face. The old veteran didn’t seem to mind either, enduring the conversation and closeness with dignity that could have only been achieved after many, many years of practice.

We quickly found an acceptable location. The two-story house had a door that could be made relatively secure from the inside. There were no firearms in the house, but we found a shovel in the garden shed. Not one of those standard shovels, either. The head was serrated, the handle was yellow plastic over a black aluminum shaft. It looked like it was built by someone who couldn’t decide if they wanted to spend the rest of their life gardening or fighting zombies. I bet the designers never actually thought that the second option was viable.

After making sure they had water and enough food for a couple of days, I nodded to the old veteran before he closed the door.

“Enlisted or officer?” I asked before leaving. My money was on officer.

“Chaplain,” he said.

I managed to hold my tongue until I made it down the stairs and heard the door close behind me.

“No shit.”

***

Zombies are generally easy to kill, especially when you have a tiger helping. Zombie apocalypse with a tiger sidekick? Four stars. It would be five stars, but zombies are disgusting. Seriously, the smell was unbelievable. Nothing like rotting flesh sloughing onto the ground at your feet. And once you step in it, it’s impossible to get that smell off your boots. Also, I’m pretty sure that I was the sidekick.

We weren’t punching our way in a straight line through the hundred or so zombies shambling toward us. Instead, we moved in an arc toward the giant funnel rainbow of doom spiraling out of the sky. The undead that came toward us were all in various stages of decay. It was odd to see skeletons move toward us, their bodies held together only by mana, the corruption mana inhabiting the empty sockets of their eyes and connecting down to a core sitting in its chest.

It wasn’t like the core was resting on anything – there weren’t exactly organs holding it in place. The black core simply hovered in midair until the skeleton was killed, which could only be done by piercing the core, at which point the mana in the core would immediately dissipate into something like smoke, then float away on the nonexistent wind to join the mana funnel in the sky.

“Anyone else wonder what the dungeon is doing with the rest of the mana it’s getting if it’s only using corruption mana for the undead?” I asked.

“Not until you mentioned it, I wasn’t,” Chavez chimed in.

“Nope,” Andy said.

“Huh,” Carter said. “That is weird.”

The tiger didn’t say anything. I guess it was just a concern for peons.

“Let’s get in there and find out,” I said.

So saying, I cut down a zombie with my sword, splitting it from shoulder to hip, the blade passing cleanly through its core. As the black mana floated away, I flicked the dark, congealed blood from the blade. I could make out the exact location where the mana funnel touched down in the cemetery. It didn’t touch down onto a mausoleum, unlike last time. As we came closer, I finally saw that our destination was a single grave.

The grave was made of marble, a raised coffin above the ground. An angel sat at both the foot and head of the coffin, though I couldn’t tell which was which. Their wings swept back behind them, as if they were in flight, and almost connected above the center of the coffin. One angel rested with its head down, one hand covering its eyes, the other with a drawn sword, its point resting on the ground at its feet. Somehow even the curve of its back seemed to indicate intense grief. The second angel sat straight, its head tilted toward the heavens, one hand holding to its lips a trumpet. In its other hand, it held a spear, also pointed toward the sky. Its face somehow conveyed unspeakable joy, even though it wasn’t quite smiling. Overall, they were beautiful in their lifelike qualities. Which was why it was all the more terrifying to see the buildup of mana in the bodies and wings of each of them.

“Oh, that’s what it’s using the mana for,” Chavez said, even as he sent a skull spinning off into the distance like a toddler finally getting a good whack at his tee-ball stand.

So far, we had an easy time pushing through the small horde of undead. That changed the moment the mana in the angels began to move. Where before it had been highly concentrated, the mana hadn’t been moving, like it would in any living human being. That didn’t last long as the mana condensed into a core in each of their chests, and the tendrils of power spiraled out from the orbs. The mana wasn’t as clearly defined in the relationship between the different energies as it was in my core, but the difference was not significant.

I immediately closed on the angel closest to me, the one wielding the sword. I brought my sword down exactly how I’d cleaved my previous opponent with such useful effect.

The dodge was so smooth, that I missed the angel by inches, clipping only the hem of its robe. If it weren’t for the fact that its sword was pointed at the ground, the fight could have ended before it even really began. It brought the hilt up, connecting solidly with my jaw. The blow wasn’t strong enough to send me to the ground, but I took several steps back, jerking awkwardly to the side and away from the blade cutting upward and coming to rest in a guard position.

The angel stood with two hands on the hilt of its sword as it squared off with me. It didn’t try to attack me, and I quickly understood why. We were still surrounded by the undead army. Even as I glanced around, I saw dark mana flow out of the grave and back into one of the bodies I’d just cut apart. The mana began pulling the two halves back together.

“Take the spear wielder, then go for the dungeon core,” I yelled. “I’ll hold off this one!”

I didn’t look to see if my team listened to what I said. I just hopped into my fight. I trusted they would do what they could.

Two things quickly became apparent. First, I was faster than the angel. This was likely because I was Citrine rank, while the amount of mana in the stone body was closer to the level of Andy, which made the mana inside the angel less than anyone else on our team. Second, the angel was much better with a sword than I was. How that was possible, I had no idea. It’s a freaking statue animated by an entity made of energy inside a rock. That didn’t make me feel any better when the sword sliced across my ribs, down to the bone. I hissed from the pain and tried to push it away, even as blood flowed down my side. Every move by the angel was fluid grace, while mine was raw speed and power. I was the one attacking, and I couldn’t make any headway against the angel. With precise, small movements, it didn’t let a single thrust or slice past its defense.

I had to look for a new angle against this opponent. I had to use my overwhelming speed and strength to my advantage.

Even as I thought it, the angel turned back to the grave, and my own eyes were drawn to the sight of the spear-wielding angel crumbling to pieces of rock, though the spear remained where it was. Thrust through Carter’s stomach. Chavez caught her before she hit the ground, while Andy jumped over them to reach out for the dungeon core.

“No!” I yelled as the sword-wielding angel lunged for Andy. I was faster though, and my sword took the head of the animated stone figure. It immediately crumbled to pieces as well, a shining core falling to the ground at my feet.

“We need to give the core to Carter,” Andy said as I stumbled over to him. The adrenaline was already draining from me, and exhaustion set in from the bleeding wounds on my body.

“Let’s get it out then,” I said. I lifted my sword over my head, bringing the pommel down on the marble cover of the coffin. The marble cracked from the impact. I brought the sword down again, and the marble shattered under the blow, several large pieces falling into the grave, leaving a gap wide for us to see in.

The mana swirling down from the sky was blinding to my mana sight this close to the dungeon core. I blocked out the extra senses and focused on what was in front of me. A desiccated body rested inside the crypt. Really, the thing was more like a sarcophagus, but without being Egyptian. Also, there were no urns with embalmed brains. Or the bodies of dead wives. Or the body wrapped in linen. Okay, it was nothing like an Egyptian sarcophagus, other than the mummified corpse. And the arms that reached out of the marble coffin to grip me by the throat.

Andy stepped forward to help me, but I choked out “Carter.” That made him stop, then he rushed back to Chavez and they lifted Carter together.

It’s odd what thoughts pass through your mind and what small details you notice when you’re on the brink of death. I looked up to see her fighting her way through the encroaching zombies. She tossed them aside like my daughter used to throw her dolls when she was angry. The black blood from its kills only highlighted the bright orange where the color hadn’t been completely covered.

Spots began to swim in front of my eyes as I brought my hands up between the wrists of the mummy trying to crush my windpipe. The grip loosened for a heartbeat, and I managed to sneak some air. That brought with it a fresh wave of lightheadedness and pain. I brought my hands down to the chest of the mummy. My arms were several inches longer than the mummy’s, and I pushed with one last effort against the chest of the mummy, trying to push myself out of her reach. In a moment of desperate clarity, I Willed the mana in my core into my arms, giving them a fresh surge of energy and power. Despite the increased strength, the fingers around my throat held fast.

Anger cut through my fear. Anger at this new world that had given us monsters like this, taking our fears and nightmares and bringing them to life. Anger at my team for not being damn faster about saving my life. What was taking them so long? If my vision hadn’t narrowed to a point, I would have looked for salvation. Finally, anger at myself for getting into this position. Of course, the dungeon would use a corpse as a defense. That’s what It had been doing the entire time. Instead, I presented myself as a living target for the undead still obviously guarding the unopened sarcophagus.

Fucking world. Fucking friends. And fucking me. Some elite soldier I was turning out to be. Was this what was going to happen? I’d survived two tours in the Middle East, only to get two Purple Hearts. I’d applied to JSOC and broke the record for the biggest guy to ever make it through selection. I could vividly remember the night marches, timed runs, and obstacle courses. Integrated through all this were tests on land navigation, recognizing situations and reacting to those situations, and team cooperation, all while under the stress of nights with little sleep and even less food.

“I’m going to hurt you while you’re here,” one of my instructors told us at the beginning of assessment. “That’s my job. I’m going to induce pain. Nothing permanent of course, but I’m going to make you hurt. That’s what it means to join The Unit. You think you can take the punishment? Prove it. It’s mental, and you need to find the switch in your mind to endure. You will find that switch, or you won’t make it.”

I’d flipped the switch. I hadn’t unflipped it since this whole apocalypse had started. But it still wasn’t enough.

The hands around my neck went slack. Air rushed into my lungs, and the top half of my body fell into the sarcophagus. I fell face-first onto the backs of my hands, as they sank into the rotting corpse. With trembling hands, I tried to push myself up, but my arms wouldn’t support my weight. I realized that my feet wouldn’t move either, and I panicked for a moment. Had I lost functionality in my extremities? Had the mummy snapped my neck in its vice-like grip, leaving a quadriplegic?

No, that wasn’t quite right. I could still feel with my arms and legs, but they felt enormously heavy, like when I did my first twelve-mile ruck in under three hours. I took another deep breath and I almost regretted it. Despite the smell coming from the corpse, I couldn’t help but savor the refreshing oxygen that cleared my mind more. And I realized that was what my body was doing. It had shut down the oxygen supply to my extremities, leaving only what was necessary to keep my brain alive. And the brain was getting that back.

Soon enough, my limbs were rewarded with further feeling as the pins and needles started all over me, like when your foot goes to sleep because you’ve been sitting down too long. But this was for every part of my extremities. When I pushed myself up, I must have looked like a toddler first learning to walk, pulling myself up and supporting my weight by holding onto the side of the coffin. And like a toddler, I immediately couldn’t hold my weight fully and sank to the ground. Fuck it, if the zombies attacked, they would have to stoop to my level to kill me.

I looked up, my face still tingling from the fresh supply of blood, and I saw that all the zombies were down. Not ten feet from me, the tiger lay, licking her paws clean of the blood. I looked to my right to see Carter lying on the ground. She no longer had a spear sticking out of her, which seemed like a good sign. I couldn’t tell if the wound had closed though; there was just too much blood. Chavez knelt next to her, his ear hovering inches from her mouth. He wasn’t using his best sense, however. With my mana sight, I could see the changes rippling out from her mana core, a powerful rainbow of color. As the mana coursed into her and touched every part of her, the energy seemed to be absorbed by her body, as if she could hold more mana in her, down to the cellular level.

“She’ll be alright,” I choked out.

Chavez’s eyes opened to look at me. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah,” I said, and I nodded down at her body. “Mana is doing its thing.”

“Oh, right,” he said when he’d taken the moment to look.

“You might want to back off though,” I said. “I wasn’t exactly clean to touch when I ranked up.”

He looked down at her and only then seemed to realize just how close he was to her. His hand was under the back of her head, holding it up, and his face was just inches from hers. He gently set her head down on the ground and disentangled his hand from her short-cropped hair, which had come out of its ponytail during the fight. Well, that wouldn’t be a problem for much longer, if my own experience was any indication.

I looked for Andy, finding him seated on the ground close by.

“No, that’s fine,” I said loudly. “We can all just take five. No need to keep an eye out for monsters.”

“Anything stupid enough to attack us with that thing around deserves to get eaten,” Andy said, pointing at the tiger.

“But more importantly, we have to figure out how to share the loot!” Chavez said.

“The what?” I asked, looking over at him.

“Loot!” He pointed.

I followed his gaze and caught sight of the angel’s core on the ground near me, half-exposed in the crumbled remains of the angel I’d killed. The fact that I was even thinking that, told me that I was either insane, or the world had gone to hell. And what kind of a man did it make me that I hit an angel from behind and killed it? Damned if I knew.

The unusual core wasn’t the only thing sitting on the ground in the pile though. What I’d assumed would also have turned to dust, was sticking out of the pile, hilt-first.