by Wolfe Locke
Seraph moved away from his command station and over toward the command node Zoldos was assigned to. He watched Zoldos’ arms move faster and faster as more and more of the over-head map was updated, filled with green to match the miasma on the surface as it spread and consumed. It was a regret Seraph had in putting Zoldos to work in this place. Seraph had always enjoyed watching the man's knife work, and unfortunately for him, the quickness of his hands extended to his work in command node, which was exactly what Seraph needed.
By the way Zoldos held himself, the tone of his voice, and how he phrased those words, Seraph knew he needed to brace himself for bad news. He had a self-enforced policy that his subordinates could never see him react poorly or complain about bad news. But today might be different. There was news he had been fearing all day, and even something as strong as him had things he feared.
“It's the team, Seraph,” said Zoldos, his head unmoving, centered and focused on his tasks of keeping the command center updated on all the incoming information, the blur of his arms in motion never stopping.
Seraph’s heart stopped. He knew what that meant. No one ever stopped him during a crisis to give him good news, only ever poor outcomes and bad news.
"What about the team, Zoldos?" Seraph asked, his tone icy and yet devoid of any of the emotions currently raging inside him.
“They’re gone,” came the reply as Zoldos pointed to the guild roster on his command node. Seraph’s eyes scanned the screen, and highlighted in gray, marking the deceased, were three new ones to join hundreds of others. New names: Elle, John, and Ken. Their time of death stamped next to their names, mere seconds between each.
"They’re gone." Simple words, but he knew everything that it entailed. The team he had sent to scout the final floor of the dungeon had been completely wiped out. Whatever killed them had been monstrous enough to overwhelm three of his elites with enough speed and violence of action to prevent even one of them from escaping. He looked at the list again. Elle had died last. Maybe she had at least tried to escape the monster that came for them.
He clenched his jaw in anger. More friends lost, more comrades lost, and all for nothing. They knew nothing more about the final floor. Nothing except death waited for them there. Death waited just through the doorway marked Locum Malificar.
“They will be remembered,” was all Seraph said as he turned away and headed back to his command desk. There was disappointment evident on the faces of the few subordinates that had overheard the exchange and his underwhelming response, wondering between themselves how he could care so little. Never knowing, and never guessing that Seraph's instinct and response was the urge to kill and massacre until his anger faded. To fill the empty space with tides of blood. Underwhelming kept his people safe from him.
“Wait, Seraph, it wasn’t just the team,” started Zoldos. “We’ve lost contact with most of the forward elements on the surface. The teams on the outskirts are reporting the miasma is moving again, faster than they’ve ever seen it. The government is pulling out of D.C. They’re all heading here, Seraph. They mean to take the dungeon from us. This is it. It's over.”
That the government was pulling out of D.C. and thought they could actually take control of the dungeon was laughable. That was a confrontation Seraph was looking forward to. He alone could kill the entire lot of them. It didn’t matter if they numbered in the thousands or tens of thousands, Seraph was on a level they would never reach. Communication was heavily restricted with the surface, and few knew what he was truly capable of. No one outside of his guild had lived to see what he could accomplish.
As for the rest of the world, Seraph mentally dismissed the news. He had largely given up on them; the green mist would soon come for them all, and only those strong enough to resist would remain.
“Seraph, there's more. I think you’re going to want to suit up and head out after this,” continued Zoldos as he turned around and looked Seraph in the eye.
"Alright, man. Hit me with the bad news," Seraph said as his wings bowed, bracing himself as he slumped against his chair.
Hazy green light filtered into the office, shining through the glass, and through the miasma that hung heavy just past the front doors. Though the change in light may have marked the passage of time, no one knew for certain, as the sun could not be seen. Inside of the school remained mostly dark, save the main office.
Curled up against the wall, the marks of dried tears marking his face through dust and grime, Seraph slept. And not the easy sleep of exhaustion, but the troubled sleep of the damned.
The filtered green light didn’t wake him, and neither did the movement of bodies around him as his companions each woke up and moved about. Nor did the first kick wake him as it barely registered in his foggy mind, while the second kick jolted his senses into groggy awareness.
By the time the third kick came around he was fully awake, catching the kick and trapping the leg with a hold as he prepared to break the limb. He glared in furious anger over being disturbed, and he was more furious at whoever dared to attack him. Seraph’s body becoming filled with power as wrath fueled his heart of darkness ability boosting his strength far beyond that of a man.
“Good. You’re awake,” Paul said, looking down at him, his eyes heavy with judgment and posture equally telling, and his face uncomfortable with strain as he tried to pull his leg loose, pretending to not feel any pain as his leg began to fracture.
Seraph relaxed a bit upon seeing it was his father, his adrenalin subsiding and with it the majority of his anger. Though still noticeably angry, as his wrath abated so too did his strength. He relaxed his hold on the limb before freeing it all together, but the glaring continued as he looked away to wipe the dust from his face and erase the evidence that he had been crying.
If Paul noticed the tears he didn’t say anything; instead, he was focusing on the hard look Seraph seemed intent on giving him. Paul spoke, his voice sharp and accusing, “I don’t know why you’ve got that look on your face, kiddo. If anyone should be upset it's me and Erin. You were on guard, and you went to sleep without waking your relief. If you were that tired, you could have woken me up. I would have taken over—it wasn’t a big deal—but falling asleep on guard is a big deal. I know you never served, but I can tell you, that’s a hard no. You can’t do that; lives depend on it. Literal lives.”
Seraph looked away from Paul. The edge in his father’s eyes was uncomfortable for him, grating on his nerves, and the logic behind it was not something he could easily argue away because it was true. He had fallen asleep. But he had fallen asleep in a designated safe zone. Whatever the danger outside, it didn't matter as the dungeon had always honored safe zones.
No, forget it. He looked back at Paul and matched the look. Whatever his father might think, there was far more at stake than his pride and sense of duty as a father—or whatever this was—and though Seraph kept reminding him, Paul kept forgetting that Seraph had lived decades longer than him already. Even if his body was still that of a teen.
As Seraph looked into Paul’s eyes, he knew the truth of things. The truth he had been ignoring. A truth he could feel deep in his bones. Whatever bond of teamwork and companionship between them had once existed, it was now severed—if it had ever even truly existed.
He knew the half-truth of the lie of his resurrection was already unraveling. Not because of its lack of believability, but because of the over familiarity the others had toward him. He was young in body only, having already outlived both of them in the other timeline, and though his current hands and body were unscathed and unbloodied, his past self had waded through rivers of blood and survived not just one battle, but an innumerable number of battles over the decades.
As Paul’s glare bore into him, his face contorted in anger as he impatiently waited for a response from Seraph.
Pathetic, he thought as he decided to say nothing, shifting his eyes to the remaining member of their party, Erin, and in her gaze, she held the same edge as his father. Her eyes were
darting back and forth between him and Paul, searching for his father's approval. Within those eyes was a familiarity that hinted of more between them than just the shared trauma of their current experience.
“When did they have time for that?” mused Seraph.
Seraph shook his head in disgust, his face heavy with judgment of the two as they barely concealed their recent pairing.
“Hey!” interrupted Paul. “Look at me. Don’t look at her for an out! Look at me. I’m the one that's your dad." It was clear to Paul that Seraph knew his secret, that something had happened between him and Erin, and the look of judgment on the boy’s face infuriated him.
Erin reached out a calming hand toward Paul and finished the thought. "It’s because one of us is missing, Luca. We can’t find Alexander, and you were the last one awake. The last one to see him. We’re just worried from when we woke up and went to find him.”
Ah! thought Seraph, his face without emotion and showing no response to what they were saying. That explains it. That explains all of it. They're suspicious of me. They must think I’ve done something to him or let something happen to him. Not completely a huge leap to make certainly, and it was true. He had in a sense disposed of Alexander by sending him to the next phase of the tutorial, but they didn’t need to know all of that.
“Yeah, he left on his own," explained Seraph. "I was the last one to see him. He waited until you were all asleep and all but jumped me as I was searching through the nurses’ room back there for anything we might use. I was able to keep the medicine and the helmet I found, but he took the tokens from the room and left us behind.”
Paul and Erin looked at each other for a moment. The story sounded plausible enough to not question it too heavily. It was enough for Paul, and Seraph noted his father didn’t look like he had anything further he wanted to say.
It was Erin who first broke the awkward silence that had fallen between them all. “So, he just what? Grabbed them and took off?” she asked.
“Well, no, not really,” replied Seraph. “First, he checked to see if I had found anything he wished to steal and take with him, and then he took the tokens I'd found and moved on. Important distinction. He tried to rob me first.”
Her gaze grew more suspicious, and Seraph decided not to press further with his story. Meanwhile, Paul went to the nurses’ room to see if the story checked out as Seraph had described it.
“Maybe you're right. I see his footprints going into that room alongside yours. There are two boxes on the bed. I’m guessing that's where you found the tokens and the helmet you were talking about. Did you find anything else?” he asked.
“I did. When I was in the principal's office, I came across this report.” Seraph said as he quickly stood up, and Erin recoiled from him as he reached into the interior of his overcoat, touching the guild mark as he did to reactivate the glamour placed upon the report. Instead of pulling out the leather book, he pulled out the far bulkier grime-covered binder and placed it on the counter for them to view.
Erin reached out to grab it, as Paul stood behind her and peered over her shoulder to read it. “This is just blank papers,” they both said in unison, clearly annoyed by what they thought was Seraph playing games with them. It was not lost on Seraph that suddenly Erin and his father were a team working together, nor was the way they seemed to be gravitating toward each other. He would need to do something about that. Women could be a distraction, and Seraph did not need his father distracted.
“It didn’t use to be” Seraph said as another lie easily flowed from his lips. “When I came across the report, I promise you that it wasn’t blank paper. It was written by somebody named Timothy Reverend, in a version of the future that has yet to come to pass. He was the principal of this school, and his job was to study the green haze outside. He referred to it as a miasma, but also as ‘Wormwood’. When I was done reading it, the words on the pages disappeared.”
Erin looked at him suspiciously, but Paul just nodded his head, questions prepared. “Why did he need to study that? When we first got here, you called those things out in the green mist Infernals right? Wouldn’t that be dangerous for him?”
Seraph nodded. “It would absolutely be dangerous. His report read that he actually lost his hand when he reached into the miasma. He said he was forced to sever his arm, and when it fell to the ground it actually sprouted legs and walked away on its own.”
The two adults both shuddered at the thought, likely thinking of vivid images in their head of spider-like appendages on a walking, severed limb. It was not the most pleasant of thoughts.
“Well, that horrifying disclosure aside, did you learn anything else?” asked Erin.
Seraph nodded. “I did. This Reverend wrote that he had planted something called a dungeon seed within this school, in hopes, I'm guessing, to get the school under the influence of the dungeon and maybe try to connect this place to the main dungeon hub to evacuate the students.”
“Was he successful?” asked Paul. “Did it work?”
Seraph could only shake his head for now before answering. “I don’t think so. I have no memory of his success, and this is the first I've heard of planting a dungeon seed. I've my guesses about what that means, but I'm pretty sure we need to find it. What's more, I don't think we're alone here.
"What do you mean, alone here?” Paul questioned. “Do you mean we're not alone here, as in there are more monsters like those we saw back in the gymnasium?"
“I wouldn’t rule out more monsters, not even for a second, but that’s not what I meant,” replied Seraph. “What I mean is the people who were left behind, I think are still here. What I read heavily implied that when the green miasma spread this far, the kids who were still going to the school sheltered here. The principal was their caretaker, and their families abandoned them.”
“What? That doesn’t make any sense, Luca,” interjected Erin. “Why would their parents just abandon them? Did things really get that bad?”
Seraph shook his head and ignored the continual, casual use of his real name. Instead, he looked at Paul. “What I read said the kids weren't abandoned by their parents for safety reasons. What I read said the kids were abandoned by their parents because they were handicapped or their parents just didn't have enough resources to keep them alive. The principal—this Reverend—had been their caretaker.”
Paul clenched his jaw and ground his teeth at this revelation, his fists clenched in anger, and his body showing signs of irritation. As a parent of a handicapped child who until very recently hadn't been able to walk, he had zero sympathy toward those who would abandon their children. But whatever angry thoughts he had he kept to himself, his body language said more than enough. In that contradiction of behaviors, Seraph found confusion.
“Alright. So, what are we supposed to do about it? Shouldn’t we just try to find more of those tokens and move on?” asked Erin.
“We look for them,” Seraph replied with cool indifference. “If they were left behind, they might still be here, and if we can, we save them.”
Seraph didn’t truly think that the students who had been left behind were still alive, but he did expect to likely find their bodies. It would take nothing effort-wise to take care of the bodies and put them to rest—a venture that he was positive his father and Erin would support. A venture that would let him further explore without the hindrance of his companions second guessing his motives, while also allowing him the presence of allies to minimize his personal risk. What he needed to do was find the dungeon seed.
“If you’re so interested in risking your life, you can go first,” said Erin mockingly as she motioned toward the door.
“I agree with Erin,” Paul added quickly. “We should just look for these tokens and be gone. I don’t think it's safe here anymore, in this graveyard—or whatever it is.”
Seraph looked at one and then the other, a brief look of surprise on both of their faces as he pushed past them. He didn’t have time for this, and whatever
internal debate Seraph may have been having about whom to kill and not kill, this woman had condemned herself. She wasn’t going to be leaving this place; she had become a liability.
As he opened the door to step out into the hall, hands shot out and pinned him to the wall. His father’s hands. Seraph, with a cool look of indifference in his eyes, looked into his father’s face, contorted, red, and ugly with anger yelling, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Seraph didn’t respond. Scum like this didn’t deserve an answer. As he jerked his body to get free, his father applied even more pressure to keep him in place, the veins in his arms starting to bulge as he strained his muscles. “I’m still your dad. You can’t just do whatever it is you want to do. I won’t allow it. No son of mine is going to act this way.”
Rage flooded through Seraph’s veins as once again his physical prowess was multiplied by the power of his dark heart ability. As the power flooded his body, so too did his awareness. He grew in stature and in build. Seeing the changes, Paul recoiled in fear and withdrew his hands from his son’s body as elsewhere a glow of white light began to build up as Erin tried to back Paul up.
Thinking the matter settled, Seraph turned to leave, only to see his father spring forward in an attempt to tackle him to the floor. For Seraph it was a confirmation of how little they valued his opinion. His father may have served in the military, but what was a few years in the Army versus a lifetime of combat in the dungeon. Seraph’s hand coiled into a fist, and he threw a vicious hook that connected with his father’s jaw, sending the man sprawling unconscious to the floor of the office. If Paul had still been a regular human, the punch would have killed him instantly, severing his brain from his spinal cord and rupturing all of his internal organs from the impact as the kinetic energy dispersed throughout his body. Instead, the man would sleep it off, and in a few short hours, his body would finish repairing the damage, and he would wake up.