I admit freely that at this point the forests were getting annoying. It was hard to tell which direction we were going, and since I’d chosen to keep walking east, sometimes I’d taken the group around trees and slopes and found myself facing in the opposite direction.

That was leading to plenty of frustration amongst the demons. Especially Markus.

“So human,” he shouted from the back of the pack. “What’s the plan?”

“My name is Algier,” I stated for the fiftieth time today. I hadn’t managed to get any sleep since our “fight” before dawn so I was in no mood to deal with Markus.

“Yes, a wonderful human name,” the haures commented. “I’m sure you are quite proud to be named after a dead city.”

“Yeah, I’m rather proud of myself.”

The worst thing about one named demons is that they are wickedly sarcastic. Though weaker demons are incredibly literal, as they grow stronger they develop a sense of the subjectivity of truth. This still doesn’t allow them to twist the truth outright but there are certain loopholes. Namely, sarcasm. So long as the sarcasm is obvious, they can say something that they don’t actually believe.

In other words, Markus was teasing me.

Markus looked like he was about to respond when he stopped abruptly. “Hold that thought.”

Spinning around, the haures pointed a finger into the forest. A few seconds later, a digresser carved a line through the foliage and leapt at Markus. With a roar, a jet of fire shot from the tip of Markus’ finger, instantly turning the digresser to ash. Humming with satisfaction, the haures brought his finger before his lips and blew out the lingering flame.

“Alright, carry on,” Markus shouted to the group.

No need to tell us. We hadn’t stopped moving and had left the haures behind. This wasn’t the first digresser that had attacked us this morning. When Markus caught up with us, he was grumbling about how ungrateful we were to have him.

Aside from Markus’ bickering and the occasional burst of flame, it was a relatively quiet morning. We hadn’t heard any of the usual clash and burst of fighting all morning, nor had we seen any signs of battle. We did, however catch a lot of digresser trails. In fact, we were following one at that moment. After some arguments, and ultimately me marching off without a care for the demons’ opinions, we’d determined that they were either old or the digressers were going east as well.

Still pissed with the haures, I glared over my shoulder and said, “The plan is to collect items. That’s what you do in the Culling.”

Markus furrowed his thin, almost non-existent brows. “But I already have items. More than enough of them, in fact. Why would I need to—” his face froze then lit up in mock realisation. “Oh. Oh! Are you telling me that the only rabdos you have is that pathetic knife?”

I didn’t get a chance to say anything as Toll answered for me. “Algier only has the one weapon.”

At that, Markus broke into raucous laughter. If he were any closer, I swear I would have stabbed him.

Between his laughter, another digresser hopped out of the foliage. Markus casually held up a finger and blasted it with fire.

During that time, Enzi sidled up to me with her hands behind her back, flashing a comforting smile. “No need to be upset,” she cooed. She rested a hand on my triceps. “If you need protection, you can always ask me.”

“Hey, hands off my human, tits!” Volce floated up from behind me and slapped Enzi’s hand away.

The enepsi let out a yelp, which sounded way too cute to be genuine, then rubbed her hand. The other thing a powerful demon could do was feign emotions. Especially enepsis, as they played with human emotions for their own benefit.

Another digresser appeared from behind. Markus aimed a finger at it, but before he had a chance to burn it, a metallic flash went by him and pierced through the digresser mid-leap, thunking hard in a tree. Once the digresser faded away, I saw a shuriken stuck in the trunk of a tree. The same one that had almost killed me when I broke away from the group yesterday.

Enzi flicked a finger. The shuriken leapt up from the ground and spun through the air, barely missing Markus. Enzi pointed a ringed finger towards it. The shuriken wobbled mid air then the hollow in its middle slipped onto Enzi’s finger. She touched a finger of her other hand to her lips and feigned sheepishness.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said to Markus. “Did I steal your points? Silly me.”

Markus cocked an eyebrow at her. “Oh, you’re such an innocent looking demon. Too bad your actions don’t match your appearance.”

I shook my head and kept walking, trailing, unfortunately, behind Toll.

Given that the balaam’s eyesight was far better than anyone else’s, the group had decided Toll should lead. The decision was made against my objections, with a three to one vote of Toll, Enzi, and Markus against me. Volce abstained, most likely just to piss me off. But since Toll was leading, they weren’t erasing any digressers. For some reason, they were only coming from behind—a fact which had me rather worried.

Without facing me, the balaam asked, “What sort of rabdos would you like?”

It was obviously bait, to get me to beg or at least ask more questions. “Preferably one that fucks with my head. I can never get enough of that.”

At that point, that claim might not have been a lie. I’d been getting screwed around by demons for an entire day now—my whole life, actually, if you consider events before the Culling. Perhaps I’d grown fond of it.

Another jet of fire from behind. Then Markus growled, “These bloody things just keep coming.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh no. Whatever will you do with all those points?”

Toll opened their mouth to answer, but I shot the balaam a cold stare. Their beak closed with a snap.

Enzi threw her shuriken again then called it back immediately so she could impale a second leaping digresser. “Actually, this is getting very concerning,” she said.

“Alright,” I said, “looks like there’s a lot around here. Let’s group up and—shit!”

Toll blurred past me with spear in hand. Heart racing, I turned and saw them stab a digresser before it even leapt. Without wasting a second, the balaam twirled their spear and stabbed at another.

“New plan,” I barked. “Markus, burn down the forest around us. We’ll make a clearing so we can better see—”

Flames roared again, drowning me out. I saw four digressers go up in smoke. Enzi had pulled out her sword and was stabbing at squiggling black serpents over and over. They were coming from the front as well now, so Toll had their work cut out.

“There are too many,” Toll shouted. “We need to run.”

“East!” I cried. “There are less in front.”

“I’d prefer you didn’t tell me what to do, human,” Markus growled back. Regardless, he was backing up, setting the forest ablaze and catching digressers in the process.

I held my knife in front of me as I waited for our ranks to close. My eyes darted left and right. By the time I caught sight of something, Toll or Enzi had already struck it down.

Enzi joined at my side and was slashing at the flank. Toll took the other flank, leaving Markus to cover the back. So there I stood in the middle, doing nothing as I shuffled forward with the group, but with plenty of time to think.

As digressers swarmed in, the ground turned black. Where the digressers went, the forest was being stripped bare. Undergrowth was rapidly disappearing, and in some parts there were so many digressers that they were chewing away at the trees, causing them to topple. Even if the digressers could be fended off there was little we could do about trees falling on us.

But what struck me as most interesting was that none of the digressers were so much as looking at me—if they could look, given their “faces” were just a black glitching mass. They were only chasing the demons.

Volce darted ahead. “Follow me! The squiggly fuckers can’t catch me so I’ll find a path for us.”

“Come on!” I shouted. “Forget the points and just go.”

At that, I took off in pursuit of the deuce. As usual, the demons followed.

We trailed after Volce as he dodged and weaved between the trees. Digressers occasionally leaped at him but none even came close to reaching him. The few times they did, there was always some incident that got in their way. Two digressers would crash into each other mid air and they’d both be erased. One leapt at the wrong time and got stuck in a tree. Another was about to catch the deuce but then a tree branch fell on it.

The demons were cutting down digressers left and right. Markus took up the tail and left a trail of fire in his wake, slowing the bulk of the digressers down. Enzi and Toll stayed in the gap between me and Markus. Each time they tried to push forwards to catch up, they’d have to cut down another digresser, slowing them immensely.

I had my knife at the ready, but still nothing charged at me. At this point I was highly disturbed. Digressers didn’t pick targets; they attacked on sight. Demon, humans, it didn’t matter. If it had a consciousness, it was a target.

Then like a damn wall had burst, a wave of digressers poured in from our left flank. Markus came to a skidding halt so as not to crash into them and flames poured out of his hand, crashing into the tide. They kept coming and coming, splitting Markus from the party.

None of us bothered to save him. Why would we? If Markus was erased it would be good for all of us in the long run. Besides, we didn’t exactly have the luxury of stopping right now to help anyone.

I hadn’t even had a chance to celebrate Markus’ split from the party when another wave came in from the right and split both Toll and Enzi. The demon’s stood their ground and whirled their weapons around frantically.

“Don’t forget about me!” Enzi shouted after me. “I’ll find you soon.”

I ripped my sight from them and kept running. Now things were bad. There was no way I could fight the digressers alone, not with my shitty knife at least. All I could do was follow Volce and trust that the idiot wouldn’t lead us into trouble.

More digressers poured in from the sides, but rather than leap at me they maintained pace and distance. Volce’s path was getting more erratic as he curved and strafed to avoid glitching black clouds at the last second. Each time he had to dodge another swarm, the deuce was letting out a string of curses that were getting more and more creative.

I’d lost track of how long we’d been running, but my breath was getting steadily more laboured. My legs ached, still fatigued from the excess of running I’d done yesterday. I’d lost my tie during the run and the wound that I’d taken from a digresser yesterday had opened up again, so blood was running down my leg. Somewhere in that mess of sharp turns and desperate crawls away from dead ends made of digressers, Volce was gone from my sight.

Again I was alone, and running. More than once I considered using Volce’s pairing but never did. I’d known instinctively that his power could only make so much of a difference, that the odds were far too heavily stacked against me. I remember thinking to myself, was this how it was always going to be, always at the mercy of forces too great for me to fight let alone comprehend?

Inevitably, I had to stop when a wall of digressers rose up suddenly in front of me. I scrambled to go the other direction, my breath rattling in my ears, only to be met with another wall. They were in every direction. I’d accepted my situation before I’d even seen them. I knew it was coming and I knew that I couldn’t outrun them forever.

I put my back to something, my instincts telling me that it would reduce the angles they could attack me from. I feebly held up my knife. My body was acting of its own accord, trying to prolong its meaningless existence for as long as possible.

A sea of writhing black nothing surrounded me. They had no eyes, but I knew every one of them was watching me. A clearing had been carved out—nothing could exist where the glitching things resided. Trees toppled and fell about them, crushing some of the digressers. None of them bothered to preserve themselves. It was questionable whether digressers had a survival instinct, but these ones weren’t even attacking. Everything was wrong. I should not have been alive in this situation.

Then the digressers parted, and from the trees and from between the walls of digressers emerged the source of the madness. A demon with long and curling horns that climbed up majestically towards the sun. Her skin was grey and flaked like dry clay. Her eyes were dark stones that glinted in the sunlight. Draped loosely over her shoulders and tattered at the hem from wear was a filthy brown robe, no more complex than a plain cloth with holes torn in it for her head and arms.

A valax, and a very powerful one at that.

I pointed my knife at her in some vague attempt at a threat. The valax didn’t notice. She strode towards me on bare feet, a gentle and not-so-comforting smile settling onto her cracked face.

As she got within range of the knife, she paid it no mind and walked straight past. I made no move either, not even bothering to stab or slash at a demon that was right there. After all, if she was the one controlling those digressers, then the moment she was gone I’d be dead next.

The valax’s hand rose up and reached for my forehead. Panting, sweating, I said the first thing that came to mind in the hopes it would prolong my life.

“Who are you? What do you want with me?”

Her hand froze just before it reached my scalp. She cocked her head to one side, then slowly her hand drew towards my heart. I remained perfectly still. If she was going to hurt me, then sudden movements would have only accelerated the process.

The valax’s hand touched my chest. Her palm rested against my heart, just where my mother’s locket hung. Then, smiling, she closed her eyes. And the digressers opened theirs. Thousands upon thousands of them, blanketing the forest and poking out from trees, all stared at me with mismatched white eyes.

To this day, I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared in my life.

As she lifted her hand from my heart, her demeanour suddenly changed. Her head whipped to the side. Every digresser did the same, staring out into the distance. The valax gritted her teeth—rows of jagged stones sharp enough to cut through steel.

A gunshot in the distance. In an instant, digressers rushed up in front of the valax and climbed up in a writhing black tower. The bullet clipped them, scattering ash across the valax’s grass green hair.

Bullet after bullet fired. The digressers lumped up thicker until they formed a solid wall. The wall stretched out and covered both of us from the endless barrage. I didn’t move, didn’t even breathe. Caught between an army of reality-eating monsters and an endless fusillade, there was nothing I could do. Dozens of shots rang out, and ash and smoke spewed where the digressers were struck.

Then I felt the ground thump near me. I looked down, and resting on the ground behind the wall was a grenade. Without thinking, I dived away and landed hard on the ground. At the same time, digressers piled onto the grenade in a thick mass. I did the only thing I could do and covered my head with my hands.

I heard a dull thud, felt the ground tremble, the air pulse. It took a few seconds of laboured breath to realise I’d survived.

Looking up, I saw black smoke rising into the cloudless sky. And the valax gnashing her teeth, her skin cracking and drying up.

The ground moved. Digressers slithered off towards the gunfire and where they slithered it was like reality was shifting with them. The bullets stopped colliding with the wall, but I could still hear fighting. The protective wall of digressers dismantled and the creatures joined their brethren. Trees toppled as the snakes chased their prey.

When the valax was the last one left, she lowered her centre of gravity and, in a rush of wind, she blurred into the fray. She took off so quickly that the air pressure knocked me flat onto the ground.

Grumbling, I raised my head and scanned the area. The valax was gone, lost somewhere amongst the toppled trees and fading black mass.

I waited on the ground, not daring to move. Slowly the gunfire faded into the distance, and the trees could no longer be heard falling. When the only sound rattling in my ears was the gasp and wheeze of my own breath, I flopped back down, closed my eyes, and let the sun beat down me.

Somehow—some-fucking-how—I’d survived.