Chapter 26
MAUG
It starts with a sound I almost don’t notice.
High. Thin. Just under the threshold of hearing—like pressure shifting through stone, or wind crawling sideways through canyon cracks. At first, I dismiss it. Purgonis tectonics always groan after heavy rain. The crust breathes, splits, resettles. That’s normal.
But this? This doesn’t shift.
It pulses.
Steady. Subtle. Like breath drawn through invisible lungs.
And it’s not coming from the rocks.
It’s coming from everywhere.
I press my palm to the canyon wall. Feel nothing. No tremor, no strain. But the sound still lingers. Not a sound, exactly—a frequency. Something just under the skin of silence. My ears twitch, adjusting instinctively. There’s no known register for it, no natural cycle.
It's wrong.
I rise from my crouch, stretch to full height. The sky’s starting to bleed with dust-light, the kind that rolls in before a sandstorm. I’ve seen enough to know a full bloom is coming—red air, sharp winds, and grit so thick it burns the nose. But this noise? This thing?
It doesn’t come with the wind.
It breathes beneath it.
I narrow my eyes toward the edge of the basin.
Movement.
Someone walking—slow, barefoot, deliberate. Clothes half-wrapped, not suited for a storm. No helmet, no mask. Just skin and vulnerability and... humming.
The human is humming.
A girl. One of the younger ones. I think her name is Hara or Halen—she’s usually with Ciampa during water detail. But now she’s alone. Smile slack, steps loose, like a puppet with invisible strings.
I don’t intervene.
But I follow.
From a distance.
She climbs the ridge on the west side of camp, the path that leads into the badlands. It’s a death march, that trail—too exposed, too dry. The sand up there moves like it’s alive, churning under even light footsteps. But she walks it like she’s being called. No hesitation. No pause.
Just that steady hum. No tune, no rhythm. Just noise.
She reaches the top and sits, legs crossed, back straight, eyes fixed into the oncoming storm. The sky is roiling now, thick with sand and static.
And she just waits.
No covering.
No protection.
Nothing.
I wait too, crouched in the shadows beneath a jutting rock.
One hour.
Then two.
And then the wind comes.
A shriek that strips the ridge clean, peeling back the topsoil like flesh. I shield my eyes, dig my claws into the stone, brace myself.
When it passes… she’s gone.
No body. No blood. Just sand. Miles and miles of it, shifting like a breathing thing.
She let it take her.
I back away, heart pounding in my throat, each step slow, deliberate. My claws twitch. My fur rises along my shoulders. This isn’t war. It isn’t chaos. It’s quiet. Too quiet.
The kind of quiet predators make before they pounce.
I don’t return to camp.
Not yet.
I go to the cave instead—the one Jill and I used. The fire pit’s cold now, stones still blackened with the memory of heat. Her scent still lingers here. On the blankets. In the air. It’s grounding. Stabilizing.
I sit.
Try to make sense of what I saw. What I felt.
That girl didn’t die from fear. She chose it. Walked into it. Smiling.
And the others? They didn’t even ask where she went.
They didn’t look for her.
Didn’t notice.
They’re infected. All of them. And it’s not the kind of infection that makes you sweat or seize or scream.
It’s the kind that hollows.
I check my own senses. Run diagnostics from the symbiote embedded in my neural link. Pulse is steady. No fog behind the eyes. No sluggishness. No emotional flattening.
I’m still me.
But Jill…
She went back.
She’s surrounded by it.
She knows, I can smell it on her fear—but she hasn’t said anything outright. She’s being careful. Too careful.
She’s trying to help them.
But they’re already gone.
I can smell the fungus growing in them now—thick, metallic, sweet. Like rot and nectar. It rides on their breath. Seeps from their pores. It’s everywhere.
It isn’t just in their water.
It is them now.
I grab a sharp stone from the fire pit and walk outside. Find a clean surface on the boulder near the entrance to the ridge. Smooth and wide enough to hold a mark.
I press the edge of the stone into it and carve the symbol slow.
Deep.
Precise.
An old Odex rune. Rare. Sacred. It means: “Song that kills.”
No one here will understand it.
Not Ciampa. Not Darwin. Not the humans stripped of their own will.
But maybe she will.
Maybe Jill will see it.
Maybe she’ll remember what I told her under the stars, when we lay tangled and she called me hers.
And maybe she’ll get out.