PLANET AGAFRA - TOLLINDO CITY

The siren had stopped wailing a while ago. 

Risking a peek back over her shoulder, Hyejin couldn’t see any signs of the red glow of the dimension gate anymore. Did they close it?

It was too early to relax. Even if the gate was closed, the street was still crawling with trigbies. The situation was still far from being under control. The further Hyejin ventured the more scarce other people were; just one or two, like herself, slowly creeping their way toward the promise of safety. 

Everyone seemed to quietly agree that grouping up was more dangerous than risking it alone, only nodding to each other in passing. She didn’t like being alone out there, but she had already seen the way trigbies hunted groups first-hand.

Hyejin gritted her teeth when a sharp pain shot through her side as she crouched low to the ground behind an abandoned car. The tell-tale red smears on the leather seats indicated what happened to the driver. Its windows were all either cracked or shattered and the engine was still running with the handbrake on.

Most of the population had opted for running on foot since the initial crowd was too dense to drive through. Every so often, a vehicle would travel past now that it was clearer, followed by a swarm of monsters. 

Hyejin wasn’t sure if they were transporting survivors or supplies, but she did notice that the creatures were more interested in the vehicles than the pedestrians. Perhaps larger targets were more interesting to the trigbies?

She peeked under the abandoned car and started counting silently in her head. 

Four. That was more monsters than she could take on alone. To get the most accurate shot in the soft palate, she needed to be right in front of them. The laser shots could get through the shell exterior, but it took more work to kill them that way. The other trigbies would have easily torn her apart by the time she took just one of them down at that distance.

She had already killed three on her own, but they had all been solo hunters. By now she must have snuck around at least twelve others.

Moving had been easy earlier, but the stabbing pain in her side was getting worse the longer she dragged on. The purple toxic stain was making her sluggish as it spread through her body. Her limbs felt heavy and so very tired.

Movement in the corner of her vision made her turn back again, aiming the gun with wide eyes.

A young woman held her hands up, quietly locking eyes with Hyejin. She was squatting close to the ground as well, a short distance away. 

As far as Hyejin could tell, the woman didn’t have weapons except for a scuffed, prosthetic right arm. Her dark skin and hair were powdered with dust and dirt. She looked worn out. 

The woman pointed to herself, then to Hyejin before displaying a mana gauge on her right forearm in neon pink - 10%. No wonder she looked exhausted, she’d nearly run out of mana.

Hyejin bit her lip and flicked a quick glance at the dashboard of the stationary vehicle. Its mana gauge was still at 90%. She gave the woman a terse nod but didn’t shift her aim as she sat up. This planet was crawling with people who lacked morals; Hyejin didn’t know how to tell who was and wasn’t trustworthy.

The stranger crawled over quickly and quietly until she was hiding behind the vehicle as well. She mouthed the words ‘thank you’ to Hyejin before she reached into the car and opened a hatch under the dashboard. A handful of short cables fell out with a soft ‘plop’ making both of the women flinch and pause.

Hyejin’s ears strained hard, searching for any changes in the monster chittering. All she could hear was the wetness of their chewing if it could be called that. Hyejin tried not to think too hard about what, or rather who, they were chewing on. As grotesque as it was, it was a relief that they were occupied. She ducked down to check under the car again to make sure.

All four were still in view. She gave the woman a quick thumbs up. The woman nodded back and quickly connected a charging cable to her forearm.

“Off-worlder?” The woman whispered so quietly that Hyejin almost missed the question.

Hyejin nodded in response.

Takatakataka.

They both froze again. Hyejin swallowed hard, risking a peek under the car again.

One, two, three— She sat upright and pressed her back to the car. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears and she gave the other woman an unspoken warning with her eyes.

The woman frowned and nodded her head toward the trigbies.

Hyejin shook her head quickly and watched the woman’s face contorted with fear. The mana gauge on her arm was only at 11%. When a prosthetic runs out of mana it practically becomes dead weight. She wouldn’t even be able to twitch her fingers if her arm was drained completely.

Skrrr.

It was a soft noise, but it was close. Way too close. Neither of the women was game enough to move. The car suddenly shifted and Hyejin looked up to see a trigby pressing down on it with one of its long legs. She prayed to Earth for what felt like the millionth time as she slowly aimed the gun. 

Its gnarled teeth were closed tight. The next weakest point was the joints between the legs and the main body. The downside to that was that each of these creatures had six legs. Losing one was simply an inconvenience, not to mention that Hyejin had no training with firearms. She wasn’t even sure she could hit such a small target.

Go away, go away, go away. Hyejin’s hands shook the longer she kept her aim.

“Welcome to the border worlds!”

Hyejin’s head whipped fast enough to see a flash of an electric arc shoot out from the woman’s hand. It didn’t hit the creature, it hit the car chassis; the chassis that Hyejin still had her back pressed to.

Electricity travelled through her whole body with a sting. All of her muscles tensed at the same time and sent her to the ground in a heap.

The trigby had the same response, going rigid above her before collapsing.

Hyejin was still reeling from the shock when the woman snatched her gun and clambered into the car. She sped away, taking the other three trigby with her.

A squeal was all Hyejin was capable of as the huge monster collapsed on top of her. It was hard, but surprisingly lighter than she had expected. The close-up view of the glistening wet teeth was far more of a concern. 

Black, beady eyes seemed to stare into her soul as the creature rose on shaky legs, orienting itself awkwardly.

Hyejin tried to roll out from under the trigby, only to be stopped by a leg that landed just next to her face. The monster screeched, spraying venomous saliva as she shielded her face with the open flap of her jacket.

She only had a split second to move again. The trigby bore down and Hyejin brought both her knees up to her chest. She grabbed the monster’s leg near her head to use as an anchor and kicked hard with both legs.

Feet met exoskeleton. With a wet crunch, the trigby’s body flew a short distance away, leaving its severed leg in Hyejin’s hands. The Trigby skidded on the asphalt when it couldn’t get its footing, grinding the underside of its shell off to expose soft flesh underneath.

Hyejin lifted the hem of her pants to check the glowing blue mana gauge on her left leg first - 15%. That kick had spent at least 3% of her leftover mana. She checked her left arm under her sleeve as well - 70%.

The trigby screeched and collected itself again, forcing Hyejin back to the issue at hand: fight or run? If she ran full speed, there was no guarantee she would make it before her mana ran out. If she fought, she would have to hope she was faster at punching than it was at biting. The odds for both options were less than amazing.

Struggling back to her feet, Hyejin clutched at her injured side. With the venom working its way through her system, she might not be able to do either soon. Her legs felt like jelly and her whole body shook uncontrollably with the fear that this really might be the end. 

“Dad, please help me!” she begged as she tried desperately to dissuade a full panic attack from overtaking her. Hyejin slowly backed up, holding a hand to her chest, the tightness growing stronger the more she thought about it.

SKREEEEEEE!

She looked around quickly, trying to find something she could use to her advantage. There was a cafe with an outdoor setting nearby; better than nothing.

Hyejin gave herself a short mana boost, running to the edge of the street. With only one prosthetic leg, speed had more limitations. The flesh and blood limb couldn’t match the same power, and pushing too far would likely result in a broken bone.

TAKTAKTAKTAKTAK!

Picking up one of the chairs, Hyejin instantly spun on her heel, swinging as hard as she could with both hands. Another sickening crunch and the trigby was knocked sideways, stumbling on the side with the missing leg and a metal cafe chair embedded in its head. The attack wasn’t strong enough to send the monster flying like the kick had; not enough mana force.

Hyejin backed away from the monster, picking up another chair and holding it close to her chest while she watched the trigby stumble. The creature looked half dead already, but it still seemed determined to get up.

The creature lunged at her again, screeching. 

She swung the new chair, but the trigby anticipated it and backed away in time for Hyejin to miss it entirely. The momentum carried her too far around and the monster was on her within seconds. 

Hyejin only just had enough time to use her left arm to block the toothy bite that crushed into the fibres of her prosthetic. Blue glowing liquid leaked from the punctures and Hyejin was thrown around like a ragdoll while her arm was stuck in the trigby’s teeth. 

A tearing pressure at the connection point terrified her more than she already was. Her prosthetic wasn’t made of metal; it was an expensive, lighter skeleton with a skin-like material to disguise it as a real limb. That also meant that it was not weight-bearing or resilient to extreme amounts of stress, for example: trigby jaws.

Hyejin kicked upward hard, planting her prosthetic foot into the soft exposed flesh of the trigby’s underbelly. The trigby flipped over with the force of the kick, but it hadn’t let go of her arm yet; a moment later she realised her foot was also stuck in its stomach. It landed hard on its back, Hyejin still embedded in its belly. The metal chair buried in its head pierced through its body on impact, missing Hyejin by a fraction of a hair.

It was still.

Using the deadly chair as a prop to hold herself upright, Hyejin’s trembling body sank to her knees. She let out silent, breathy scream after silent, breathy scream. Tears flowed freely and blurred the world away in a flood of emotion.

She couldn’t think anymore. Somehow, she had made it through the fight, but her body was shutting down. She could feel the pins and needles spreading through the deepest parts of her abdomen.

“Hyejin!”

She thought she could hear someone calling her.

“Hyejin!” 

Heavy eyelids blinked away the tears enough to see a truck speeding toward her.

“Hyejin!”

It was Atticus. He was leaning over the side of the truck, waving to her. He wasn’t alone.

A trail of trigbies was gaining on the truck. The vehicle couldn’t slow down, or they would be swarmed in less than a second. Still, they seemed to be coming right for her. 

BOOM!

Trigby chunks scattered in the sky behind them. One of the ballistas was mounted to the back of the truck with Echo operating it. The taller stranger was at the wheel, but there was no sign of Dion.

Atticus reached out over the side with an open hand. “Grab on!”

A saint. Hyejin scrambled to the edge of the trigby corpse and held out her hand. With a swift movement, Atticus grasped her hand as they zoomed past and swung her up into the truck bed.

She didn’t feel the least bit ashamed of melting into a puddle as soon as she hit the solid surface.

BOOM!

Hyejin was about to ask about Dion when a bundle in a leather jacket caught her attention in the corner. She recognised the purple stain that was spreading through his body and the tiredness in his eyes. He looked like he was barely conscious. 

“Are you okay?” Atticus asked, though his attention was on shooting trigbies alongside Echo’s ballista.

“We need to get to the shelter in the next five minutes or we’re both dead!” her hoarse voice shouted over gunfire.

The engine revved and she felt the sky overhead spinning faster as the truck picked up speed.