“The spider drives fear into my heart like nothing else in this world, for he does not belong here. I know not how I know this, but I do. His tortured speech garners no pity from my soul. I know better than to put my trust in something so vile!”

from the journals of Preston Willis, explorer.

I’d never seen a warzone, but I didn’t need to to know that the Weeping Hills had become one in our absence. The desperate and terrified screams rang out like off key musical notes sounding out through the air as Death slammed his skeletal hands against the strings of a rotten old harpsichord. Our weapons were in our hands as we came out of the trees and gazed out upon the mayhem.

The Bloodless!

There were countless of them—swarming across the village like wasps attacking invaders that had ventured into their nest. A group of Seekers were doing their best to hold them off at the edge of town, but more of them were spilling into the town square behind them, their lifeless eyes seeing everything and nothing at once as they clawed and fought their way toward the players, scrambling over each other with no regard.

Wilhelm had emerged from his hut and was swinging his mallet wildly into the fray. A head snapped back and the Bloodless (once a player—but now?) hit the ground and stopped moving. Teeth snapped at the pale man but he moved quickly and beat the thing away with a backhand. They seemed to move like a singular organism, a wave of screaming flesh intent on only one thing—destruction.

My group was stunned. For a second, no one moved, and I knew why. We were all searching the horde for a familiar face, someone we once knew. But I didn’t see her. Rey, as far as I could tell, was not among them. I should have been relieved, but I wasn’t. A thick cloud of depression wrapped its tentacles around me and squeezed. All it meant was she was farther away from me than I thought.

“They need our help,” I said as I started off toward the town, axe in hand and ready for battle.

A Seeker cried out as one of the Bloodless sank its teeth into her neck. Blood fountained in a jelly-like spurt like a cluster of vessels beneath the skin had all burst at once. Three more Bloodless leapt onto her and attacked. I heard a gunshot fire, in vain, and watched as the Seeker stopped moving. Seconds later, she began to reappear at the lamppost.

What happens when we kill them? I thought as I drove my axe into the back of one of the frantic howling once-men.

MASSIVE!

236

The thing whirled to face me, but I was ready with my next strike. It was true, found a deadly spot where the neck met the torso, and caused blood to spray like a burst pipe—but as I stared into the cold, lifeless, black eyes of the thing that had once been a player, just like me, I was gripped by a sense of dread like I’d never known.

What am I looking at!? I thought as my heart began to race and that horrible tingling panic sensation crashed through my limbs.

They weren’t the eyes of a person. Not the eyes of an NPC. They were barely even eyes at all. More like a void, a portal into a shared blackness that stretched like threads of dark matter between the Bloodless, controlling them, sucking their life’s essence away from them to be fed to a hungry God lurking behind the curtain of reality.

The thing fell as it died, but the feeling stayed with me, even as I sidestepped another attacker and let my Blunderbuss howl. Slugs chattered across its face, and I followed up the riposte with a heavy attack and two more to finish it off. My Rally meter bloomed as I danced my dance of death through the unholy swarm, cutting a swath of destruction through the bodies of once-players that seemed intent on nothing but pure destruction.

“Don’t let them bite you!” Jacob shouted again, repeating his original warning.

Contagious. That was his hypothesis. Like zombie movies. Like the plague that had swept through the Weeping Hills before our arrival. And when I glanced over at the dead Seeker who’d just respawned at the lamppost, I was sure Jacob was correct.

The girl Seeker I’d seen go down was standing there, clutching her Butcher’s Blade and staring down at the ground like she was experiencing a vision that none of us were privy to. I moved like a whirlwind through the Bloodless, lashing out with fully Rally and hacking them down as I focused on her, watched as whatever it was that had a grip on them began to take her too. The life fell from her eyes, but her body stood strong. A shudder shook her as though a current had run through her body. She twitched, her jaw snapped open and hung, and I half expected a torrent of vomit to spill forth. Instead, she glanced up, spun, and dashed away from town at top speed.

What the Hell is this!?

Teeth snapped beside me and I heard Fujiko shout.

“Rand!”

Ducking a Mortician’s Blade, I rolled through the legs of a Bloodless and slashed behind me, cutting it deeply across the stomach. Fujiko was fighting off three of them, and losing badly. Two held Bloodletters that they swung wildly, almost oblivious of the fact that they were holding swords, and the second had some kind of serrated knife that it was stabbing out with wildly. Her enormous hammer was simply too slow to keep up with their onslaught.

I Shadowstepped forward and used my new ability, Crippling Blow, on the first one’s exposed back.

MASSIVE!

355

Holy shit! My mind blown, I took the thing down with one more hit and fired my Blunderbuss into one of the remaining two, not as a riposte, but in an attempt to get its attention.

45

The extra Viletaint was starting to actually come in handy. The possessed player spun and flailed wildly. My axe handle met its chin with a Blunted Strike that froze it in place for 2 seconds—2 seconds was all I needed. I hacked it down as Fujiko managed to recover and heard the satisfying sound of metal on bone as she cracked the last one’s skull and pounded it into the ground.

“Fuck!” she roared in both shock and victory as she drew back her weapon. She grinned a devilish grin of a warrior at me, and I managed to force my lips into a smile, but when I spun around to face the rest of the horde, my legs almost collapsed out from under me.

A nightmare raced toward me. A horror I’d never even conceived of that hit me like a tranquilizer. Pain flared in my chest as the Mortician’s Scalpel found its mark, carving my flesh like it would that of a corpse, begging for my blood that spewed forth like a vomiting beast with a belly full of flesh and tissue.

-75

My attacker’s howl was like old metal dragged across stone, but I was frozen, as though entombed in ice as I stared at the face of the Bloodless before me. Rey’s face.

The scalpel found my neck—

-67

And my shoulder—

-66

Somewhere, in my rational, working mind, I knew I was dying. I knew what I should have been doing—defending myself, riposting, blocking with my axe, dodging, downing Soothing Syrup—but my rational mind wasn’t in control any longer as I stared at the face of my best friend, my only true friend, as she fought frantically to kill me.

“Rand! Snap out of it!” Fujiko cried out. As her hammer met Rey’s check and snapped her head to the side, a burst of rage snapped me out of my stupor.

“No!” I shouted before I even had a chance to realize what I was saying. My lips were someone else’s; not Rand’s—Clay’s.

“What are you talking about!?” she hollered, pummeling Rey again with her massive metal sledge.

That’s my friend! That’s what my soul was thinking as I watched her legs collapse out from underneath her as Fujiko slammed the ground with Shatter. The shockwave caused Rey’s body to ripple as it tore a path through the swarm, sending bodies cascading into bodies, causing them to tumble over each other in a mess of flailing limbs, gnashing teeth and weapons that cut through the air.

Fujiko screamed, and I looked up as five Bloodless leapt onto her from behind. Their anger was terrifying. They snapped like animals with a feverish bloodlust, and I watched in horror as her legs went weak and she fell to her knees. I had to do something, but with Shadowstep on cooldown, there was no way for me to reach her.

Sweet, hot, scalding Wyvern’s Breath burned through the air, enveloping the Bloodless and Fujiko at the same time. She cried out in pain, but the Bloodless panicked, scrambling away from her like rats abandoning a sinking ship. Jacob shouted, lunging into battle as he fired a Mortal Arrow that cut down one of the crazed, insane Seekers and sent it plunging into death. Dashing forward, I swung Boucher’s axe, hacking away at the flaming, screaming bodies that couldn’t figure out whether they should run or attack, so began some combination of both.

Back and forth. Back and forth. In and out. They swung, retreated, swung again, then ran. Finally, the flames finished all but one of them off, but my axe took care of it. The sounds of the battle were fading behind me, and with a heart full of pain, I turned back to where Rey had fallen, but she was back on her feet and charging me with a face filled by the voice, twisted on its surface with rage and unbridled hatred, but devoid of any humanity, consciousness or intent. It was as though her body had become a vessel for something else. But if that was true—where was Rey?

The glint from the steel of her blade was unmistakable, reflecting the flames that still crackled across the ground. She was aiming it at me. There was time for a riposted, and I knew it was what I should have done. But I simply couldn’t. The sight of her had me frozen.

“Rey…” I wanted to cry out, but my voice would not respond. My lips moved, creating a slight whisper that was taken away by the wind, barely even audible to me. All I could do was watch as the tip of her scalpel as it cut through the air toward me. I had 170 health left, but her strikes were quick and damaging. Two or three more and I’d be done for.

“Rand!” Jacob shouted as her blade found its mark. My side flared with hot pain as my guts were pierced and blood poured out onto my boots.

-76

94 left…

One of my knees went weak and I fell into a kneeling position. I looked up and saw teeth—hideous teeth dripping with angry spit and, if Jacob was right, contagious too. Her bite was aimed at my neck, and I knew I had to do something. I told my arm to raise up, block the attack with my shovel-axe, fend her off like she was any other creature I’d encountered since arriving in this tortured world, but it just wouldn’t listen. The muscles tensed up but that was about it.

Well, I guess we’ll find out if Jacob’s theory is correct, I thought as I felt myself overcome with sadness and shame.

Rey’s jaw began to close.

“Nooooo!” Something slammed into Rey—someone. I looked up.

Jacob!

Rey snarled and spat as they landed in a heap. “Help!” Jacob shouted as he fought to keep her down. “Get her!”

It was like a splash of ice water aimed straight into my eyes. My stupor retreated, allowing me control of my body once again.

It’s not her! That’s what I told myself as I leapt to Jacob’s aid as Rey’s ferocious teeth gnashed at him like a hungry animal. I fired my Blunderbuss, slapping her in the chin with my slugs, and felt a pain in my heart like she must have felt as the shot hit her.

“Rand, help!” Jacob cried out. I raised my axe to swing, but it was just too late. Rey’s teeth found their mark and embedded themselves in his shoulder. Tearing through the cloth of his shirt, they pierced his flesh and Jacob cried out in pain. It was like watching myself act as I drove the axe into the face of my friend, half expecting the blow to cleave her head in half.

Thankfully, it didn’t. Still, the result was horrifying and I felt the urge to vomit swell where my throat met my chest. Blood sprayed back against me as Rey’s screams of agony assaulted my ears. Her teeth released Jacob, who stumbled backwards and tripped over himself several times before toppling over backwards.

Rey’s health plummeted to only a sliver, and I looked down at her, unable to get a grip on what I was feeling as I brought my axe down for the killing blow.

It has to be done, I told myself. You have no choice!

My body fought against me, fueled still by something deep inside me, the part of me that knew that somewhere inside this screaming vessel of madness was my friend, the best friend I had in the entire world, the one person I was sure would never betray me. But I held firm and brought my blade down.

You have to, I told myself as the strike found its mark and Rey’s scream tore through me. I’m sorry, Rey.