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Void

[ Amazon base, A month from now, Trying to save someone ]


A change of scenery was kind of nice after the storm on the island and the weeks of clean up that had followed. It was hotter at the Amazon base, more muggy, but all their plumbing was working, and they had access to so many more types of fruit. It was only a temporary stay. She was part of a rotating group of specialists and muscle, a few from many different bases, that filled the gap in particular fields until they found permanent fixtures within their own ranks. Riley had come along as well, there to help mentor the Life hunters on the latest in Golem research and development. Ren had also been selected from the a number of eager Sun hunter volunteers. There to guard the base, the hunters inside.

A blessing and a curse, the latter was. They had been...better. Not perfect, but she doubted that day would ever come. Neither was able to change, neither able to accept the other 100%. But they were happy, she thought. Certainly happier now than they had been. She certainly couldn't complain about having someone there to share her bed at night.

Which was when the unthinkable had happened.

The peace of the surrounding jungle was shattered by the sudden and loud blaring of an alarm that had the Moon hunter jerking up and out of bed in a matter of seconds. She took moment to drag one of Ren's shirts over her head, barking orders at him as she did so, and the two of them left the room at a hurried pace, Haddy checking her phone as they half ran down the hall.

No message yet from the leads on site telling them what was happening. Cursing under her breath, Haddy stuffed the phone down her front of her bra, then summoned her weapon as they hit the front doors.

What was wrong became immediately obvious. It looked like the jungle had come to life. In the most literal sense of the word. Vines were snaking their way across the training field, twisting and turning around anything in their wake. Up along the side of the cafeteria, in through the windows in a shower of broken glass. Among them, giant thorns the size of thick daggers and strange, growing buds.

A hand on Ren's arm, she watched as one of the buds split, then opened in a wealth of color painted across thick petals. The flower was bigger across than she was tall, and the fragrance, even at a distance, was sweet and alluring. The spurs that shot from within the center, embedding themselves in the side of one of the buildings, not quite so pretty.

"We have to move." It wasn't safe out in the open, they needed to get somewhere more secure, somewhere with thick walls and not a lot of windows. They had to get to the Lab. "Come on!"

The sprint through the yard was a hectic one, and Ren narrowly avoided being grabbed by the writhing vines, but they made it to lab building, down the stairs to the basement, before they heard the first crack of breaking glass from the few windows in the rooms to either side of them. She'd drag Ren down the hall, a clear destination in mind, only to stop dead in her tracks when she heard a familiar scream from a room they'd just passed. "Riley?!"

Now it was Ren trying to grab Haddy's arm as she turned on her heel to sprint back the way they'd come. Into the golem research lab, around a long tendril that was digging through the drop down ceiling, spreading faster. She reached the Life hunter in time to push her away from one of those giant, colorful blossoms as it opened, and there was time enough to see the woman stumble out of harms way before pain shot through the center of her chest.

She fell to her side as darkness began to eat at the edges of her vision, and then she was in Ren's arms, his voice (it sounded so far away) frantic in her ears. She couldn't move, could only lie there as everything went numb, the world sinking into darkness. All she could manage was a soft, cracking, "I'm sorry."