We did not run at first.
We stumbled.
The slope was loose shale and ash, and every footfall sent pebbles skittering down like warnings. The heat of the burning town rolled over us in waves, thick with the smell of scorched hair and fat. My lungs already felt raw from smoke; each breath tasted of death.
Lira carried Xeno in a fireman's carry, his arms and head dangling, blindfold dark with sweat. His weight made her stagger every third step, but she never slowed. Kael limped on her left, cradling his ruined hand against his chest, blood dripping from the ends of splintered fingers. I brought up the rear, dragging Xeno's shovel behind me like a broken wing.
No one spoke.
There was nothing to say that the fire hadn't already screamed for us.
We had gone perhaps two hundred painful metres when the sound began.
Not clicking.
Wings.
A low, leathery rustle drifted over the ridgeline, soft at first, almost tender, the way a mother might smooth a blanket. Then it multiplied, became a susurrus, then a roar of membrane and wind. The temperature dropped ten degrees in a heartbeat, as if the night itself had inhaled.
We stopped and looked back.
They rose above the burning walls like a hundred, two hundred, maybe more.
Collectors.
But they were no longer the small, faceless things that had stolen the scroll.
They had grown.
Human height now, maybe taller. Bodies elongated, plated in glossy obsidian chitin that drank the firelight. Wings unfolded from their backs, veined, translucent, edged with the same black shell, beating in perfect, terrible synchrony. And where blank stone had once been, faces had bloomed: human faces, stolen and stretched, mouths open in silent screams, eyes black and depthless.
They spoke as one, a layered chorus that slid under the skin and coiled around the heart:
"Steal the souls...steal the bodies..."
The voices were intimate, almost loving.
I knew them.
I had felt them in the warm water of the cleansing pond, in the humming stones that drank our residue and took something else with it.
They were the unborn we had fed.
Lira's knees buckled for the first time I had ever seen. Xeno's weight dragged her down until she was kneeling in the ash, his body cradled across her lap like a child.
"No," she whispered, the word cracking. "Not them. Not like this."
Kael's face was grey. "How many?"
"Too many," I answered, voice small.
They did not rush us. They descended slowly, reverently, wings cupping the air as they landed among the dead. The fire did not touch them; flames bent away as though afraid. One by one they knelt, lifted corpses with impossible gentleness, pressed stolen faces to cold cheeks, and rose again, cradling their prizes to their chests before launching skyward. The town became a silent harvest.
Xeno's body jerked in Lira's arms.
His heart began to race so violently I could see it hammering beneath his jacket. A strangled sound escaped his throat, half-moan, half-sob. His fingers clawed at his chest, nails scraping fabric. Sweat poured off him in rivers, steaming faintly in the cold. His temperature spiked again; I could feel the heat radiating from him even from a metre away.
"It's them," Lira said, voice hollow. "He's reacting to them."
Kael swallowed. "We have to move. Now."
We moved.
Lira hauled Xeno up again, grunting with the effort, and we half-ran, half-staggered down the ravine. The walls closed in, forcing us single file. My legs were jelly, lungs on fire, but fear kept me upright. Behind us the wingbeats never hurried; they were patient, certain we could not outrun what we had already given them.
We had gone perhaps another kilometre when the single shadow detached itself from the swarm.
It did not dive.
It drifted.
A lone Collector landed twenty metres ahead, wings folding with a soft sigh. The face it wore tonight had once belonged to a young woman, beautiful, now stretched too wide, lips peeled back in a permanent, loving smile. Its eyes were voids.
It spoke only to us, voice intimate, almost tender.
"I remember all of you.
Your memories tasted delicious.
I want the rest."
The words sank into my skull like warm oil.
Lira set Xeno down gently behind a chest-high boulder. He did not stir; his fever had dragged him under completely. His blindfold was soaked through, clinging to his skin like wet paper.
Kael stepped in front, good hand gripping a jagged piece of rebar he'd scavenged somewhere. I raised the shovel with both hands, arms trembling. Lira drew her sidearm, stance wide, breathing controlled.
The Collector tilted its head, wings half-unfurled, and waited.
It was toying with us.
Lira fired first, three precise shots to centre mass. The bullets struck chitin with dull thuds and ricocheted away, sparking off stone. The creature didn't flinch. It took one step forward, slow, deliberate, as though walking through water.
Kael charged with a hoarse cry, swinging the rebar in a desperate overhead arc. The Collector raised one arm, almost lazily, and caught the metal mid-swing. Bone snapped. Kael screamed as the rebar was torn from his grip and flung aside. A backhand followed, casual, almost gentle, sending him sprawling into the dirt.
I screamed and ran at it, shovel raised like a spear. The Collector turned those void eyes on me and I felt my memories flicker again, Mommy brushing my hair, Daddy's laugh, the warmth of sunlight, trying to slip away like sand. I swung anyway. The blade bit into its wing, tearing membrane. Black ichor sprayed, hissing where it touched my skin.
The creature hissed, a lover's sigh, and reached for my face.
Lira tackled it from the side, shoulder driving into its midsection. They crashed together, rolling in the dust. Her knife flashed, plunging into the soft joint beneath its arm. The Collector shrieked, wings thrashing, knocking her back. She hit the ground hard, breath exploding from her lungs.
It rose, wound already knitting, and advanced on her.
I swung again, wildly. The shovel's edge caught its knee, buckling the joint. It staggered. Kael, bleeding from the mouth, grabbed a fist-sized rock and smashed it into the creature's temple. Chitin cracked. The Collector turned, grabbed Kael by the throat, and lifted him off his feet like he weighed nothing.
Lira was up, knife gone, gun empty. She drew her combat knife from her boot and drove it upward under the creature's jaw. The blade sank deep. Black fluid gushed. The Collector dropped Kael, wings flaring for balance, and backhanded Lira across the ravine. She hit the opposite wall and slid down, dazed.
I stood between it and Xeno's unconscious body, shovel shaking in my grip.
The creature looked at me with that stolen, beautiful face and smiled wider.
"Little one," it crooned, voice layered with every person it had ever devoured. "You gave us so much already. Just a little more…"
It stepped forward.
I swung again and missed. It caught the shovel, wrenched it from my hands, and tossed it aside. Clawed fingers closed around my throat, gentle, almost tender, lifting me until my feet dangled.
The world narrowed to those void eyes.
I felt my memories peeling away in strips, sunlight, laughter, my parents' faces, unraveling like thread. Tears blurred my vision. I couldn't breathe, couldn't scream.
Then a sound, low, guttural, animal.
Xeno.
Still unconscious, but his body moved on instinct. One hand shot out, seizing the Collector's ankle. Fever-heat rolled off him in waves. His fingers dug in, nails drawing black ichor.
The creature hissed, grip loosening on my throat.
Lira was there, knife recovered, plunging it into the Collector's side again and again, each strike precise, desperate. Kael crawled forward, grabbed the fallen shovel, and brought it down across the creature's back with all his remaining strength. Metal rang on chitin.
The Collector shrieked, wings beating frantically, trying to rise. Lira wrapped her arm around its neck from behind, knife sawing at the throat. I dropped, gasping, and kicked at its knee with everything I had.
Something cracked.
It staggered.
Kael swung the shovel one final time, edge biting deep into the base of its skull. Black fluid fountained. The stolen face went slack, eyes rolling back to voids once more.
It collapsed.
We stood panting over the corpse, blood and ichor mixing in the dirt. No other Collectors came. The rest of the swarm continued their silent harvest, indifferent to the death of one.
Lira wiped her blade on her sleeve, hands shaking now that the adrenaline was ebbing. Kael slumped to his knees, cradling ribs that were almost certainly broken. I crawled to Xeno. He was still out, burning, but breathing.
"We can't stay," Lira said, voice raw. "They'll notice eventually."
She lifted Xeno again, grunting under the dead weight. We limped on, leaving the single corpse behind like an offering no one wanted.
Hours bled away.
The fire-glow faded to a dull red on the horizon. The wingbeats became memory. My legs gave out twice; each time Kael hauled me upright with his good arm, teeth gritted against his own pain.
Eventually the terrain opened into a barren plain of cracked earth and wind-sculpted stone. Dawn never came, but the darkness felt thinner here, enough to see shapes without the flicker of flames.
We collapsed beneath an overhang of red rock, hidden from the sky.
Xeno's fever raged on. His skin was furnace-hot, pulse fluttering like a trapped bird. Every few minutes his body jerked in small convulsions, as if the Collectors were still tugging at threads inside him even from miles away.
Kael sat with his back to the rock, ribs taped as best we could manage, face grey with pain and blood loss. Lira stared north, eyes red-rimmed, the grief finally breaking through her armour in silent tears she refused to acknowledge.
I curled beside Xeno, pressing a damp cloth, our last clean one, to his forehead. His blindfold was soaked through, clinging like wet paper. He didn't stir.
"We're out of options," Kael said quietly. "He needs real medicine. Real rest. We have nothing left."
Lira didn't answer for a long time.
Then, voices.
Human voices.
Carried on the cold wind from a shallow depression a few hundred metres away. Arguing, laughing, swearing, all in good-natured tones.
We crept forward, weapons ready, too exhausted to run but too afraid to ignore possible help.
Two figures stood in the lee of a half-collapsed pre-fall watchtower, bickering cheerfully over a paper map spread across a supply crate.
They were twins, maybe eighteen, dark-skinned and impossibly striking against the bleak landscape. The woman was breathtaking, tall and regal, cheekbones sharp, eyes bright even in the endless night, full lips curved in fond exasperation. Her hair was pulled into long, neat braids that fell like silk to her waist. The man was her mirror in masculine form: same height, same fierce beauty, his hair in intricate braids threaded with metal beads that caught whatever faint light existed. They wore patched but clean traveller coats over tactical gear, packs bulging with supplies that looked almost new.
"—told you the eastern route was cursed, Amie, but nooo, Mister 'I studied the old maps' had to play hero—"
"Shut up, Kai. You're the one who said 'let's take a shortcut through the bone valley,' and we almost became ghoul soup!"
"Details, sister of mine, details—"
They both froze when they saw us emerge from the darkness, hands snapping to holstered pistols in perfect twin synchrony.
Then the man, Kai, grinned, wide, warm, and utterly fearless.
"Well, well. The night just got interesting."
The woman, Amie, took us in, blood, soot, unconscious boy, broken hand, haunted eyes, and her expression softened from wariness to something almost maternal.
"You look," she said gently, "like you lost a war with the world itself."
Kael managed a cracked laugh. "Feels about right."
I stepped forward, voice trembling. "Please… he's dying. Fever. Please help."
Amie's eyes flicked to Xeno, professional calm settling over her like a cloak. She knelt, pressed fingers to his neck, frowned, then nodded once.
"Bring him into the light. Kai, med kit."
They worked with the easy rhythm of people who had done this a thousand times. Temperature scan, pulse ox, a glowing injector pressed to Xeno's neck. Clear fluid vanished into his vein.
"Custom antivenom-antipyretic," Amie explained without looking up. "Tested on every strain we've encountered. Should break the fever in minutes."
Kai handed me a canteen, real water, cold and clean. I drank until I coughed.
I wiped my mouth with the back of a trembling hand. "Have you… have you ever met two researchers? A man and a woman. They were... Their names were—"
Amie's eyes gentled. "I'm sorry, little one. We've met many, but no one by those names or descriptions."
The tiny flame of hope I'd carried guttered again, but Kai ruffled my hair softly. "We'll keep our ears open. Promise."
Lira finally spoke, voice raw from smoke and unshed tears. "Names."
"Amie," the woman said, packing her kit.
"Kai," the man added, bowing theatrically despite the blood on his sleeves. "Twin terrors of the wasteland, at your service. Doctors, researchers, and suppliers of terrible jokes."
Despite everything, the corner of my mouth twitched.
Amie looked at the distant glow of the burning town, then at Lira's face. "That fire… your people?"
Lira nodded once, jaw tight.
Kai's humour dimmed. "We saw the smoke from twenty kilometres out. Came running." He glanced at the blood on our clothes, at Xeno's still form. "Looks like we were almost too late."
Amie stood, slinging her pack. "You're welcome to travel with us. North road's clear for now. We have food, medicine, and room for four more broken souls."
Lira stared at them for a long, silent moment, grief and suspicion warring behind her eyes. Then she nodded, the smallest movement.
"We'll take the medicine," she said. "And the road."
She didn't say thank you.
She didn't need to.
As the twins helped gather our scattered gear, the wind shifted, carrying the faint, distant rustle of wings once more.
The Collectors were still out there.
But for the first time in days, we were not alone.