The sky was black, as always. The rain, as usual, poured without stopping. It often rained on Nostramo, but without thunder or lightning, only furious torrents of water.
On Nostramo, the rain was like that. It was not a natural phenomenon. It was the wastewater that the aristocrats dumped from the Upper Hive.
Among the multi-tiered spires, countless heaters waited patiently.
They had no consciousness, but their program was set. All their lives, they waited for these rains, waited until they turned into condensed steam. In the last moments of its life, this rain, in another form, would slowly rise again.
It would pass through ancient machines, being quietly transported through rumbling pipes, and eventually become heating for the aristocrats, so that they, dressed only in human skin, could gracefully dance in their magnificent palaces without losing their decorum.
This was the best description of Nostramo's ecosystem: all benefits went to the aristocrats, while the people of the Underhive were left only to be burned by acid rain, to choke on the stench, and eventually turn into rotting corpses in the gutters.
Kariel sat on the huge gargoyle just as before. He was in a cloak, and the acid rain could not harm him. Although the smell was still acrid, it was tolerable.
He looked down, and the sight of the chaos reigning there evoked a cold smirk on his pale face.
As he had expected, the Haunter had made the mistake that every novice hunter makes: he had focused on the enemies before him, forgetting about those still lurking in the shadows.
Carelessness is enemy number one.
Hunters can come and go in the dark, but that does not mean the darkness accepts them. In fact, the darkness can turn into a monster itself at any moment and devour their flesh.
Kariel stood up, and his cloak swayed slightly in the wind. He did not intend to intervene, but only watched coldly.
As he had said, this was a hunt that belonged only to the Haunter.
However…
He shook his head with a cold smirk, and a frigid blue light flared in his eyes for a moment.
...
Run.
The Haunter darted between the dark, damp walls. He used his hands and feet, climbing from one roof to another, jumping across tiles slippery from the rain.
Sometimes, anxious, frightened cries came from beneath his feet. Но mostly he was met with bullets.
Sometimes he fell into a pile of trash or a dirty puddle, and then, having climbed out, continued to run.
He did not stop for a second.
But it did not help. The pursuers had been chasing him for half the night already. And, by all appearances, they had no intention of stopping.
They relentlessly pursued him on some kind of fast two-wheeled machines. The Haunter did not know their name, nor did he want to know. He had more important things to do.
In the shroud of rain, the shooting did not cease.
Bullets whistled past, several times flying a centimeter from his head.
Coarse shouts came from the streets, mixing with the roar of engines. Passing through the curtain of rain, they no longer sounded like human voices.
The Haunter did not understand.
He did not understand why they were so persistent, why they were so mad, and how they managed, constantly under the influence of drugs, to maintain such sharp vision.
But…
The Haunter thought that Kariel had been right.
He really should have been quieter.
He had killed that woman, but many more needed to be killed. Kariel said the entire gang needed to be cleared out. Therefore, he had left that room and begun to kill in that sinister three-story building.
Everything went smoothly; no one noticed him. He was like a breeze passing through the corridor and carrying away the warmth of life. But he forgot one thing.
He forgot to close the window.
The downpour gushed inside, the wind flung the window open, and it hit the wall with a crash. The floor gradually became wet from the acid rain, which, mixed with blood, seeped under the carpet and then through the floor, dripping onto someone's head.
From that moment on, everything went wrong.
When alarms and screams pierced the night silence, the Haunter realized that something was about to happen. His premonitions were always correct. He immediately decided to leave, but it was already too late.
He was noticed after all.
At first, there were only a few scattered pursuers. After a few minutes, there were more than thirty.
After half an hour, this number exceeded a hundred. And now, in the Haunter's opinion, at least four gangs were chasing him.
They didn't even know what had happened, but they enjoyed applying violence.
It was an acquired right, the opposite of oppression, the end of suffering.
They joyfully joined in, racing through the night for the flesh of a stranger, shouting excitedly and killing any innocents they came across along the way.
For no reason at all.
It was like a carnival, but he was not a participant, only a prize, so he began to run.
Every person learns to walk and then to run, and he was no exception. He had long ago learned to run, without any teachers.
Only in the past, his superhuman endurance had not allowed him to feel fatigue from running.
Now the Haunter felt it.
His breathing became heavy, his heart beat so fast that it was difficult for him to maintain his balance while moving.
His hearing also began to weaken; only a monotonous noise remained. Rain poured from the sky, soaking his clothes and leaving winding streaks on his pale skin.
Many of them even flowed down the corners of his eyes and dripped from his chin. To an ordinary person, they would have caused stinging pain, but to the Haunter, they were only warm.
But he did not want this. He did not want them to warm him.
While running, the Haunter involuntarily let out a low growl.
It was born in his throat, but it was unfamiliar to him. In the first second, he even mistakenly thought that some monster was growling at him from the darkness.
In the next second, he realized it was his own voice.
—And then came the pain.
It surged from his back, a hellish pain, so strong that he almost could not resist, could not breathe, could not maintain clarity of thought.
He could no longer maintain his balance; his hands flailed in the rain, and he fell heavily onto the asphalt roof.
"I am bleeding," the Haunter thought with agony.
He could not ignore this cruel fact: blood in a sense was equal to life. He valued it, but was powerless to hold onto it.
In the fog of his consciousness, the Haunter suddenly heard their voices.
"Farewell, farewell, farewell. Foolish child, we are leaving you; the darkness will embrace you. Greet it."
"No. Do not leave. I beg you."
The Haunter let out an indistinct growl from his throat again.
It was not the first time a bullet had hit him.
Long ago, when the Haunter still lived in the mine and fed on rats, he was shot by the mine owner with a cheap shotgun.
A few seconds after the bullet pierced his flesh, bringing pain, the Haunter, who at that time did not even know how to speak, understood that he was being shot at.
He didn't even have to think; this knowledge suddenly arose in his mind. And after it—even more cold words: the type of weapon, the caliber of the bullet, what needs to be done after a wound…
This time it was the same.
He lay on the cold roof, and several unfamiliar terms surfaced in his mind. One of them was extremely necessary to him now, but the Haunter paid them no attention. He just wanted to stand up and continue running.
This was his biggest mistake of the night.
"I must leave."
"I must… leave the darkness."
His thoughts were in disarray, so when he felt a strong, flesh-tearing tension and pain in his back, the Haunter suddenly woke up.
And understood one thing.
The thing that had pierced his back was not a bullet.
"Caught you!"
"No. No. I cannot…"
The Haunter opened his eyes wide and let out a shrill roar. Pain clouded his vision with a bloody shroud, and, what was worse, something was pulling him down.
What was below?
He did not know.
The ground? Or trash cans in a dirty alley? Or, perhaps, a hundred armed gang members waiting for him with impatience?
He had no time for thought. He began to fall. The Haunter fell heavily to the ground, but quickly jumped up and, clutching with hands and feet, climbed the wall again, trying to escape in a panic.
"You won't get away!" someone shouted gloatingly. "Try this, you bastard!"
In the next moment, a sharp roar of an engine rang out, and he was pulled down again.
With a roar, the Haunter was torn from the wall. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed three of those same two-wheeled apparatuses on which he had been pursued. A black cable stretched from his back to the front of these machines.
It was from them that this pulling force emanated.
"Kill him!"
In the dark alley, someone was shouting furiously, "Skin him, hang him up, and let him bleed out!"
"I need his head, I need his head!"
"Shoot him! Shoot his legs! Let's see if he can still run!"
"Better yet, roast him; I want meat!"
"I must leave."
"I must… leave here, leave the darkness."
In the chaos of thoughts in his head, only these two revolved. The Haunter waved his arms with a roar, trying to drive away these monsters. But in vain; his hands slid through the air, sharp nails dug into the wall, not touching anyone's flesh.
"He's still moving!" someone shouted.
"Then give him hell!"
Sharp pain, and his consciousness plunged into darkness.
The Haunter watched its onset with total despair.