GREEN [complete]

CHAPTER 01: Sekam

Oil cast false rainbows over the marshlands, broken only by the shocking white of fish bellies that jut up between straw cattails. Ahl skirted the edge of the deepwater, shimmering filth staining below his knees. Near the center of the deepwater, the rot-out carcass of a black bear sprawled over a log. There were no insects left to clean the bones clean, and the stink of decay drifted over the surface of the water.

"The sickness spreads." Ahl's voice was a low hum in the back of his throat, and it reverberated through the barrel of his great chest.

Sekam tightened her fingers in the scraggly ruff of his shoulder hump. "We push west," she said.

It wouldn't be long before they reached the coastal region where the carcasses of the forest would give way to the carcasses of steel and brick of the old world. Sekam did not want to travel those lands, but they were running out of options even faster than they were running out of time.

Ahl swung his head around to observe her, nearly striking her with one of his massive horns. His eyes were filled with stars, their depths as infinite as the reaches of the universe. "The end will come for us all," he said. "Do you wish yourself a swift death or a slow one?"

If they remained in the toxic waters of the marshlands, their deaths would surely be quick. Sekam already felt the damp pressure deep in her chest, airborne parasites wriggling around in the soft tissues of her lungs. "Pain is endless. Suffering is endless. We push west."

A rumble filled his middle that sounded like thunder rolling over the high mountains; Sekam knew it to be laughter. Humankind amused the ancient one. The moose god had been alive long enough to see civilizations rise and fall and rise anew, the hope of humanity was a frivolous thing to him. "Very well, we continue west."

He trudged forward, and Sekam hunched low to his back, pressing her face into his course hair. He smelled of soil and pine, and when Sekam closed her eyes ... she could almost forget she was dancing on the forked tongues of the demons who broke the world.

Over the false rainbows echoed a mechanical crnch-crnch-riiiiiiiiip! of a guts collector, and a scream that belonged to someone still very much alive. Sekam's ears flicked toward the source of the noise, quivering in anticipation of the next scream that would surely follow.

"This is none of our concern," Ahl said. He plodded along the same path they'd been following with no intent to change course.

The scream came again. Sekam leapt from Ahl's back, splashing into the thigh-deep putrid water. Blossoms of electric green rose around her feet as she ran, contaminating the water with hungry spores. They latched into her legs with stinging barbs. If she were human, the spores would be her death sentence.

"Sekam ..."

She pushed out of the water, starting up one of the gentle hills that littered the marshlands. The green that coated her legs glowed in the omnipresent overcast, sending dashes of light out from her as she ran. She crested the hill, yanking her submachine gun from over her shoulder as she launched herself down the other side.

At the bottom, the guts collector trundled toward a defenseless human. The human scrambled backward, clutching at the the soft earth. The guts collector took a heavy step forward, a spinning blade whirring from one of its arm extensions. It was nearly the size of Ahl, an abomination of steal and synthetic tissues, its massive belly filled with the bodies of the things it stole from the marshlands.

Sekam fired a round into the control unit fixed to its back. The bullets pinged off the metal, barely leaving a dent. The human's head whipped toward her, wide eyes bright through the glum. The guts collector turned with it, its protection protocols overriding standard operating commands. Its torso rotated independently of its body, and a short-range scanner flickered in the center of its chest.