Midlands hit like a hangover — flat and sprawling, chimneys stubbing the gray sky. Roads clogged with wrecks, factories looming silent. The air smelled of metal shavings and something burnt that had been burning so long it had stopped smelling like anything specific. Underneath it: the bleed. Faint, sweet, relentless.
The two shards hummed in her pocket. Out of sync. Like two clocks in different rooms.
“Log entry, Day 94. Entering Midlands. Purple haze visible in industrial smoke — bleed is thick here. Sloth variants expected: time-slow auras, dream entrapment, mechanical fusion. Counter: Keep moving.”
Finn walked a step behind. “Factories ran night shifts before. Now the quiet’s worse than the noise was.”
She didn’t answer. Quiet meant something was waiting in it.
—?—?—
The mill was a brick hulk, gates bent inward like something had pushed through from inside. Fog sat low across the floor, swirling slow, purple-edged. Conveyor belts sagged. Gears frozen mid-turn. The whole place felt like a held breath.
She smelled it before she saw it — apathy, thick, pressing down on the air itself.
Sloth. Close.
It oozed from behind a lathe. Blob-like, foggy, tendrils threading through the metal casing in a slow meld of flesh and rust. It pulsed once. The air got heavy.
Sable’s legs went sluggish. Not tired — slowed, like the seconds were stretching at the edges. She fired anyway. Hellfire caught the mass and it recoiled — slow. Everything slow.
Then the loop started.
Bullet chambering.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
A target — fifties, reading glasses, the kind of man who kept receipts — turning around.
Please. I have a—
Trigger pull.
She was in the mill. Conveyor belts sagging. Gears frozen.
She fired. The blob recoiled slow.
Bullet chambering.
The man turning. Glasses slightly fogged. It had been raining that day, the smell of wet pavement through the window.
Please. I have a—
Not real. She knew that. Knowing didn’t stop it from running.
Claws out. She charged, fighting the time-drag. The blob sank deeper into the lathe — mechanical fusion, tendrils threading through iron gears like roots.
Please. I have a—
Trigger pull.
A wrench hit the blob’s casing with a clang. Finn, from the doorway, arm still extended. The loop stuttered.
Sable shook it loose. Salt round chambered, fired into the core. The blob shuddered, mechanical shell cracking, the mass coming apart. Anchor chains caught it. Portal opened with a grindy wheeze. The blob went in slow, reluctant.
Residue. A shard — foggy, dull, pulsing faint. Pocketed. Three. The hum changed key.
A face flickered at the edge of the vision — earlier than the mill. Faded before she caught it clean. She let it go.
—?—?—
Finn crossed the floor. “That loop. Saw my crew again. The ones the bloom took.”
“I know.”
He was quiet a beat. “Does it get easier?”
Sable picked up the wrench and handed it back. “No.”
—?—?—
The survivor pocket was three warehouses east — union holdouts, welder masks, traps jury-rigged from factory scrap. Their leader met them at the gate.
“Hellcat. Chasing the fog or bringing it?”
“Chasing.”
Finn handled the trade — petals for a route map — while Sable checked the perimeter. When she came back he was folding the map, and his eyes moved from it to her coat pocket and back in one motion. Just once. She took the map.
—?—?—
Radio crackled at the warehouse edge. “Sluggish work, kitty. Whole set and that reset’s yours — no more loops. Clean run.”
She killed it before he finished. Lie number four.
The shards hummed. The face flickered again — closer, almost a shape. She moved toward it.