“Lieutenant Abner, General Cannizzaro, welcome to Sicily, gentlemen.”

  A man approached the crowd that was getting off the buses, which had stopped in what used to be the square in front of the largest theater in Italy—now destroyed for at least a decade and repurposed as an open area of Base Florio. The place was crowded and lively, far more than Borromini had ever been, creating a much more chaotic and rough atmosphere. In the distance, shouts and laughter in Sicilian dialect could be heard.

  The man himself, who looked just over thirty, had a strong accent, although he tried to suppress it in order to speak English as fluently as possible.

  “It’s an immense pleasure, General Russo,” General Cannizzaro replied, shaking the man’s hand.

  “We thank you again for deciding to host us,” Abner added, shaking the man’s hand as well.

  “Not at all, Lieutenant,” Russo replied. “After all, we Sicilians are the most welcoming people in Italy…”

  He leaned slightly toward the lieutenant, bringing the palm of his right hand to the side of his mouth as if he were about to reveal something important and secret.

  “…except for the people from Catania,” he whispered, suddenly bursting into laughter, though not too loudly, while giving a marked ironic smile.

  Only General Cannizzaro laughed along, clearly understanding the subtle jab. Abner, on the other hand, forced an awkward smile, not getting the joke and simply watching the two men in silence.

  “Jokes aside,” Russo added, turning serious again, “I’m glad you’re here, gentlemen. I’m truly sorry for what happened to your bases… and especially for the loss of almost all your personnel, Lieutenant Abner. Here, you’re all at home. Always will be.”

  The lieutenant, who could perfectly understand the man’s language thanks to a translator implanted in his skull and connected to his electronic vocal cords, deeply appreciated his words. He offered his hand again, which Russo immediately shook.

  “Thank you, General.”

  “At the moment I’m extremely busy with several projects. We’re trying to develop new ways of communicating with the other Fortresses”—the semi-official name for the various types of military bases—“and we may have found one. For today, you’re free to rest. You’ll be escorted to your quarters. As for your Oberhaupt personnel, we’ve reserved rooms for them alongside the others. I’ll leave you in the hands of Lieutenant La Rosa.”

  He pointed toward a man who was running toward them from afar.

  “Good evening, gentlemen… good evening, General.”

  “Perfect!” General Russo said, clapping his hands once before clasping them together in midair. “Then I’ll see you later, gentlemen. Ah— the mess hall has stayed open just for you. Once you’ve settled in, feel free to head there. It’s the building over there.”

  He pointed slightly to the right behind the two men, indicating a dark, rusted metal building beyond the buses.

  “You’ll be guided there anyway, just to help you get familiar with the base. Enjoy your dinner, gentlemen, and have a good night.”

  The general finally left, walking quickly—almost running—toward the command rooms of the base, the pleased expression on his face taking a while to fade.

  “Well then, gentlemen. Follow me,” Lieutenant La Rosa said almost immediately, calling together Abner, Cannizzaro, and the others before leading them toward the living quarters.

  “General, I didn’t understand the joke earlier…” Abner said to Cannizzaro, clearly confused.

  “Let’s say I’ll explain it to you tomorrow, Lieutenant,” the man replied with a tired smile, amused by Abner’s lack of cultural context.

  ***

  A little later, Victor headed to the base’s cafeteria. The place was large but suffocating. He walked down a short flight of stairs dimly lit by side lamps and found himself inside a huge hall. The walls were worn down, and moss and mold dripped from the upper edges. In several spots, the paint had peeled away, revealing the gray concrete underneath and creating a sharp contrast with the remaining white coating.

  Directly ahead stood the food counter, from which a strong and unpleasant smell drifted through the room—a mix of rusty water pipes, humidity, and faint hints of mold.

  Very few people had decided to eat that evening. Most were exhausted from the trip. The silence of the hall was broken only by a faint murmur coming from the handful of soldiers who were quietly eating.

  The place was almost entirely empty. Orange ceiling lights illuminated the hall, barely adding to the heavy warmth already hanging in the air.

  Out of roughly seven thousand seats, only about thirty were occupied. Most of those sat at large square tables meant for ten people, yet only one or two seats at each table were taken.

  Victor soon noticed Duncan sitting alone at a table near the far-left side of the hall, quite distant from the entrance. He headed in his direction, though not before stopping at the counter to grab something to eat.

  As he walked, he glanced at the trays of the other soldiers. Most had rice lightly covered in tomato sauce, with a thin sprinkle of grated cheese on top, accompanied by a slice of slightly stale sandwich bread, water, and a few portions of fruit or vegetables.

  What caught Victor’s attention the most were the warm and surprisingly pleasant smells of the meals. It was the first time he had seen rice that wasn’t sticky, although the sauce had a sharp smell that vaguely reminded him of ketchup.

  In the end, he only took rice and water. He was starving, but at the same time he was too tired to feel like eating much.

  “Just rice for you too?” Duncan asked as Victor approached. He moved slightly to make room for him, accidentally hitting the metal leg of the chair with his foot. The chair scraped loudly across the shiny white-tiled floor, producing a faint echo.

  “And here I was thinking Italian bases served pizza,” Victor said sarcastically as he sat down.

  “Oh, they do!” Duncan replied.

  “And how do you know that? Do you speak Italian?”

  “Or maybe they speak English too?” Duncan said smugly, chewing his rice while speaking, which made understanding him slightly difficult.

  Victor didn’t reply. He simply forced a small smile and looked down at his meal.

  “So… how are things going with Skylar?” Duncan asked after a moment, grinning mischievously. He narrowed his eyes and lightly pointed his fork at Victor.

  “Pretty good,” Victor replied with a mouthful of rice before swallowing it with a sip of water. “She’s really nice. I get along with her well… as a friend.”

  That answer clearly disappointed Duncan. He stared at Victor in disbelief, his expression shifting into exaggerated disappointment.

  “A friend…” he repeated.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Victor responded with a small approving hum.

  “Let me get this straight,” Duncan continued. “You’ve been talking to her for two months, and the best thing you can say is that she’s a good friend?”

  “Correct,” Victor answered calmly, sounding almost uninterested in the topic.

  “Bro… are you gay or something?” Duncan blurted out instinctively after a short pause.

  Victor burst into a brief but intense laugh, keeping his mouth closed so he wouldn’t spit food everywhere.

  “Trust me,” he said, “I’m probably a lot more straight than you.”

  “Doesn’t look like it,” Duncan replied. “I would’ve made a move within the first week. You’re taking way too long.”

  “Oh yeah, I can totally see your massive harem,” Victor shot back sarcastically.

  “Go choke on your rice,” Duncan muttered.

  “Anyway,” Victor continued, “I think you should get to know a person slowly. With patience. Not just… ‘whatever happens, happens.’”

  Right as he said that, the girl appeared behind him carrying a tray with rice on it.

  She greeted Duncan with a faint smile but almost completely ignored Victor, giving him only a short, cold “hi.”

  Victor tried to pretend not to notice.

  Toria sat down next to Duncan. Duncan quickly glanced at Victor with a confused look, widening his eyes as if silently asking, What’s wrong with her?

  Victor pretended not to see it, though the doubt was clearly written on his face.

  “So… everything okay?” Duncan asked awkwardly.

  “Yeah. I’m fine,” Toria replied coldly.

  Her tone only made things more uncomfortable. The two boys kept glancing at each other.

  “You know staring at each other harder isn’t going to magically give you answers,” Toria said, glancing at them from the corner of her eye.

  The way she was chewing—slow, aggressive, with her mouth slightly open—and the bored, irritated look in her eyes made it obvious something was wrong.

  Her left elbow rested on the table, her shoulder slightly raised as if her body was tense. Her right forearm lay flat on the table, her hand clenched tightly into a fist.

  She was eating quickly, almost frantically, as if she wanted to finish and leave as soon as possible.

  “Toria… what’s wrong?” Victor asked, genuinely concerned.

  She responded only with an aggressive glare before ignoring him and continuing to eat.

  “Tori, what’s gotten into you?” Duncan asked. “Answer us, will you?”

  In response, she slammed a small fist against the table.

  “Hey?!”

  “Listen,” she snapped. “You’re both pissing me off, okay? I just want to eat. I’m not mad at either of you, but you need to shut up.”

  She didn’t yell, but her voice was raised enough to make the tension obvious.

  Victor froze in shock.

  Duncan, on the other hand, looked at her with clear irritation—almost disgust.

  Toria suddenly stood up, her metal utensils clattering loudly against the tray as she grabbed it, clearly ready to leave.

  “When you calm down, you can talk about it,” Duncan said coldly. “Pull yourself together.”

  His tone was even colder than hers. Victor had rarely seen him like that.

  “Dunc, come on. That’s not necessary.”

  “No, Vic,” Duncan replied while already walking away. “A mature person talks about their problems instead of snapping at others. I don’t like being around people who act like that.”

  He glanced at Toria.

  “And you… try growing up. You’re not ten years old.”

  Then he left.

  He placed his tray down near the exit—almost throwing it—making a loud clatter.

  Only Toria and Victor remained at the table.

  Toria stared silently at her plate, her face hidden behind her hair.

  Victor had already finished eating. Feeling awkward, he started to leave as well.

  He hadn’t planned on saying anything.

  But just as he picked up his tray, he glanced at her and forced a small, encouraging smile.

  “If you’re hurting,” he said softly, “then I’m hurting too. So… whenever you want to talk, about anything, I’m here.”

  He didn’t expect a reply.

  As soon as he finished speaking, he walked away.

  Behind him, barely audible, Toria whispered:

  “Sorry.”

  ***

  From that evening, five days passed.

  It was July 1st, a scorching, radiant day. The sky was a deep blue, completely cloudless. It was barely seven in the morning, and Victor and his companions—except for Nikita and Hansen—were having breakfast in the mess hall: a bitter freeze-dried cappuccino with watery foam full of bubbles and a packaged croissant that was empty, dry, and hard to bite.

  This time, the mess hall was lively and crowded, filled with voices and noise.

  “Vic, how’s Toria doing?” Raiko asked, biting into his croissant with some initial difficulty, even though it had been soaked in the drink.

  “I don’t know. We haven’t spoken in days,” Victor replied. He had been slowly turning the croissant around in the lukewarm cup for at least five minutes, looking deeply thoughtful and tired while holding his head with his left hand.

  “I didn’t sleep well last night either… my head’s spinning.”

  “I’m still pissed,” Duncan said, his voice carrying that same cold, irritated tone. “It annoys me that someone can still act like that at twenty-four.”

  “You’re nobody to judge how other people react,” Raiko replied.

  “Exactly,” David added.

  “Well, she’s nobody to treat other people like shit either,” Duncan shot back.

  ***

  Hansen stepped out of his room, which—like all the others—opened onto a dark gray corridor. The metal walls were lined with pipes running along both the ceiling and the upper parts of the walls. At that moment the hallway was lit by sunlight filtering through slightly opaque windows, stained with dried mud, warming the air inside.

  Hansen was neatly dressed in his striped black tank top. He wore a relaxed, satisfied expression, stretching his lips into a broad smile as he took a deep breath and exhaled just as strongly. It was the unmistakable sign of a good night’s sleep.

  As soon as Hansen turned left to head toward the mess hall, he ran into Nikita, who stood motionless beneath the doorway of his room, right next to Hansen’s. He stared at Hansen with absolute coldness, an unsettling gaze made even more disturbing by his pale blue eyes—eyes that resembled those of a ruthless killer, or worse, a dormant beast.

  Hansen straightened his posture, briefly scraping the soles of his boots against the polished floor, which was patterned with white and black dots over a navy-blue surface, and looked back at him.

  “What are you staring at, Obukhov?” Hansen asked, clearly annoyed, returning the stare with equal hostility.

  “Relax, Oltmann,” Nikita replied. “I’m not doing anything.”

  “Then look somewhere else,” Hansen answered. “You’re creepy.”

  At that exact moment, a regular soldier walked past Hansen. He looked as if he were making a routine patrol through the corridor.

  “Good morning, Sergeant Oltmann,” he said formally.

  “Morning,” Hansen replied.

  “Is everything alright?”

  Hansen cast one last glance at Nikita, who hadn’t changed his expression in the slightest.

  “No. Everything’s fine.”

  “Understood, Sergeant,” the soldier said before continuing toward the end of the corridor, marked by two large gray doors that led to the staircase.

  A few seconds later Hansen started heading toward the mess hall, ignoring Nikita’s persistent stare.

  “Ahggr…”

  A dull thud echoed through the corridor.

  Seeing the soldier suddenly collapse to the floor, Hansen immediately ran toward him. The young man—who couldn’t have been more than twenty—had fallen face-first onto the stairs leading down to the lower level, rolling until he slammed into the wall.

  Hansen, followed shortly after by Nikita, found him lying in a twisted position, face down, his head turned toward the wall. His body convulsed in violent spasms as he continued to produce guttural sounds—“ahggr”—as if he were suffocating.

  “Hey! What’s wrong with you?!” Hansen shouted, rushing down the stairs with Nikita.

  Immediately the two men tried to lift him by his right arm, intending to throw him over their shoulders and carry him to the infirmary.

  “Easy! I need you to push yourself up a bit—lifting you alone would be difficult. On three!”

  Hansen began counting.

  “1…”

  He tightened his grip on the soldier’s arm as much as he could. But something immediately felt wrong. Beneath the skin he could feel the muscles shifting—almost falling apart—like pulling apart pieces of cooked chicken from the bone. His fingers slowly sank deeper and deeper, as if they were penetrating the flesh.

  “2…”

  Thinking it was just a poor grip, Hansen grabbed the soldier under the armpit as well. But there he felt the same strange slickness. It wasn’t sweat. Not at all. It was thick, soft—disturbingly soft.

  Nikita, who was holding the soldier by the shoulder and torso, felt the same thing. It was as if the body was tearing apart under his hands, as if his grip was slipping the harder he held, the torso growing lighter by the second.

  “3!”

  SPLAT.

  A sharp, wet sound.

  Hansen and Nikita lost their balance and fell backward.

  Hansen barely noticed the pain. Terror seized him as he stared at the soldier’s arm—now detached and still clutched in his hand. It was slowly dissolving, bubbling, the flesh crackling into a grotesque semi-liquid mass.

  Hansen was so horrified that all he could do was stare as the arm melted rapidly, strings of semi-liquid flesh dripping down onto his hand and forearm.

  The smell seemed to come straight from hell—so strong it felt like it was burning through his nostrils.

  Hansen first looked at Nikita, whose hands were smeared with the same viscous sludge scraped from the soldier’s shoulder and chest. It was now slowly seeping through the fabric of his clothes.

  Then Hansen looked at his own hands, slick and gelatinous.

  Finally he looked at the soldier.

  The body was slowly disintegrating before their eyes—splitting apart, bursting open in places, releasing streams of blood, liquefied flesh, and viscera.

  “Uom… uom…”

  The soldier rose to his feet, trembling like a leaf while clutching the one arm he had left.

  The sound of his heartbeat was perfectly audible to the two men—each thud sending sprays of blood from his chest and mouth.

  For a moment Hansen felt as though his own heart had stopped, as if he had died even before death could reach him.

  The “soldier” turned toward them.

  But he had no eyes left to see them—only thick streams of dark red blood pouring from the empty sockets.

  He had no mouth left to warn them to run either. The upper part of his jaw had torn away from the rest of his skull, leaving a grotesque cavity between the lower jaw and the skeletal eye sockets.

  It was almost like a warning.

  One last one.

  Before the last trace of his humanity vanished.