Artyom Dereschuk - Hate the Sin

Would being the first human to look those demons in their eyes really be better then what they were going through?

As they headed deeper into the mine, Corpse Eater looked behind, at the entrance, where the sun’s rays were still visible. For a moment, he thought that he saw a shadow flicker through the light, but as he squinted, trying to get a better look, he could see nothing.

The roar of the generator coming to life resonated through the cave, echoing from its damp walls and almost making the rusty rails beneath their feet ring. Caught off guard, the boy twitched, as if electrified. Following the generator’s activation, the lights on their shoulders turned on as well, as if awakened by the noise the generator made. Dim at first, but getting brighter with each second. Corpse Eater noticed with annoyance that his eyes weren’t properly shielded by anything, and the very light that was supposed to help him see was blinding him.

It wasn’t his place to see anything, he remembered. He was just an accessory. Same as the usual. It was better to stick to your role and hope that the General knew what he was doing.

“All right, good!” He heard the General’s voice, distorted by echoes, reaching him from far in the front of their formation. “The generator’s on! We have twelve hours’ worth of fuel, so stop wasting time, or we’re going to be stuck there! Move it!”

The soldiers carried out his order, moving in small steps; the enclosed space was not allowing for much maneuverability. If they were to be attacked from either side, the boy suddenly realized, they would be minced with no chance of escape. Of course, that applied to enemies with guns. The creatures would have to charge through the tunnel first, and during that time they’d be as exposed as their troops. Looking back at the entrance, Corpse Eater could not help but shudder at the thought of one of those monsters rushing toward him along the rails, as if pretending to be a train. Unstoppable and probably just as durable. How fast would it cover those one hundred meters from the entrance to the tunnel and to him? And what would be the thing to kill him—the creature’s claws or the bullets of the soldiers behind him opening fire?

He tried not to think about it. He tried not to think about the shadows he thought he had seen outside. Those were probably birds or leaves flying by.

“Hey, can you keep your head straight? I can’t see where I’m going!” the soldier in front of him snapped at him. Mumbling an apology, the boy turned forward, though he was thinking that perhaps it would be for the best to keep his eyes on their six, just as the General had intended.

The tunnel was getting narrower and the ceiling was creeping up on them, getting lower and lower. The soldiers had no choice but to walk closer to each other, their shoulders touching, and the boy thought he could feel the air losing oxygen as fifty pairs of lungs were sucking it out to send it down the arteries to hungering, stressed out brains.

There was a pause up ahead; the soldiers stopped. There were some phrases thrown around, and then the sound of the first generator became less defined as if it went around the corner. Slowly, their procession started moving again.

There was a second pause, and the second generator became quieter as well. This time, Corpse Eater was close enough to see through the crowd that it was carefully carried down into what seemed like a branching tunnel.

When they came closer, he saw that his theory was correct. It wasn’t a branching tunnel though; it seemed more like a cave that went down at an angle of thirty degrees or so. The entrance to the cave was surrounded with effigies and totems, not unlike the ones outside, and it was no more than two meters wide and tall. Judging by the old digging marks, the cave had always been there, but the miners had worked with their tools to make it wider. Cracks and slips between the large boulders that made up the walls of the cave told the boy that, a long time ago the cave might’ve been even more spacious, but it had suffered from a cave-in.

It was not long before the last of the grunts walked into the cave, taking care not to hit his head on one of the rocks sticking out on his way in, and only Homewrecker and Corpse Eater remained in the tunnels. The cables on the floor were crawling after the grunts like snakes, following the generator they were attached to, and it was not long before they would disappear in the shadows. Homewrecker made a move to remove his lamp, no doubt intending to make a run for it while he still had such an opportunity, but Corpse Eater stopped him: “Don’t. The only way to leave this tunnel is with everyone else.”

His friend threw him a bewildered gaze, and Corpse Eater nodded toward the cave entrance: “I think we’re not alone in here.”

At the distance they were from the entrance to the cave, it was no longer possible to tell what was a shadow left by something outside and what was a trick of the mind. It could very well be that what they thought was a particularly big rock sticking out of the wall was in fact one of the demons leaning against the cold stone, trying to avoid being spotted. But Corpse Eater didn’t want to take any risks. He had already seen that the creatures preyed on small groups, and the events of the last few days made him wary of any possibility of attack—even more so than before.

Patting Homewrecker on the shoulder, Corpse Eater headed inside the cave. The cable didn’t leave him much choice anyway, tightening like a leash and bringing him closer to his masters.

The darkness inside the cave was absolute. The light from the outside had too many obstacles in its path to reach the boy’s eyes and, in contrast, his own light instantly became much brighter. Guiding his cone of light around the cave, the boy noticed that some of the rocks stood out of the generally bland grey texture, bringing a bit of jade green into the picture. Taking a closer look confirmed the boy’s suspicions; the rocks seemed to have been a part of some stone structure in the past, its polished rounded parts indicating an artificial design.

The cave didn’t go on for too long; twenty meters down or so, it suddenly expanded, became part of a larger chamber—big enough to house all of the soldiers in it, their lights flooding it completely. Corpse Eater made sure to rush into the light, toward the rest of the soldiers; for a second, he had had a gut feeling that he wouldn’t be able to leave the cave. That the darkness would pull him in, closer to the surface, and no cable would be able to anchor him to the troops.

The chamber they were in seemed to be a section of a tunnel—but one glance at the walls or the floor was enough to know that it hadn’t been made by humans. The walls were made of the same dusty green stone the boy had seen moments earlier, encrusted with bas-reliefs and magnificent columns supporting the ceiling, which was high enough to fit a three-story building under it. Letting its grandness sink in, the boy felt tiny, scared, and helpless, even though he was surrounded by no less than fifty armed people. He couldn’t even imagine the shock that the miners who had unsealed that monumental structure had felt when they first slipped in, not unlike the vermin who try to find something to eat in a kitchen at night while the owner of the house still sleeps.

The tunnel was very spacious—looking around, Corpse Eater noticed that he could see pretty much all of the soldiers, unobstructed. Gazing further, he noticed that one end the tunnel ended rather abruptly, with the cave-in cutting it off. He could only guess how far was that tunnel originally went and where it led.

On the other side, though, the tunnel didn’t end. It stretched into the distance, and their lights weren’t strong enough to light up its other end—if there was any. Looking in that direction, the boy could see only the path forward. The path into darkness and the abyss. At that moment, he was almost glad that he wasn’t the first one to go.