I turn down an alleyway, my feet nearly sliding out from under me on the wet stones, but I grip the ladder rung just in time. The metal bars are as slick as melting ice, making the contraption almost too slippery to climb. But it’s only a story up, and I’ve fallen from greater heights before, so I propel myself up the rusted scaffolding anyway.
I keep low once I’m on the roof, blinking away the rain that pelts me in the eyes so that I might scan the other buildings for signs of danger. The ghouls rarely make their way up here. They’re fueled by hunger alone, and they lost most of their basic functions during the final days of their human lives. But the noctis, however,canclimb. And more importantly, so can humans. The kind of humans who prefer an aerial view so that they can ambush other fellow survivors. The kind who are desperate for meat, no matter what kind of creature it comes from. The kind who have all but lost their humanity.
One sweep of the surrounding rooftops is reassurance enough that I’m alone. On a dreary day like this one, I’m not surprised. Nonetheless, I swing Sable over my shoulder, ready in case I need her—one can never be too safe—and continue my trek.
From here, the path to the other trap is a lot more direct. Some of the buildings have connecting terraces, while others I’ve fashioned with makeshift bridges of fallen beams and boards, allowing me to cross the many corridors that I otherwise would have to weave in and out of.
It takes barely more than a hop, skip, and a jump to make my way to the building I’m searching for, the one that overlooks the hub of what had once been a bustling market. From my vantage point, I crouch even lower and fall silent.
Thankfully, the torrential downpour has slowed to a drizzle. My clothes might be soaked through, my fingers sodden to the bone where they rest on Sable’s trigger, but at least the familiar sounds of Gravenburg are becoming more discernable.
And what I find makes my skin pinprick.
The truth is the city is never in absolute silence, not even after it’s complete demise. It’s as if the screams of the fallen have imbued the cobblestone streets, and they chase after you wherever you go, pleading for mercy, begging for justice. The dead don’t sleep peacefully here, not in a place that has seen more death than a crypt. The ghouls are always hunting here. Always scavenging. Always making a ruckus. The noctis, too, don’t care about being stealthy once they find something to devour.
Each monster moves about the city with their distinct noises. And today, I can tell it’s not the noctis who are on the streets below me.
Slowly, I raise Sable’s aim over the ledge and quietly pull myself up to peek over. Not all the way. Not so far that I could be spotted, but enough that just my eyesight can skim over the edge of the roof I’m leaning over.
At the base of one of the many heaping piles of refuse and debris, stands a grey, emaciated creature. Its spine is so sharp, it looks like it might puncture through the thing’s hunched back, its skin so thin and so pale that it’s nearly translucent where it’s stretched over its naked body. The ghoul looks more like a sickly birch tree in winter than the former husk of a human, all spindly branches rattling in the wind and ready to snap.
The sounds coming from it fuel my nightmares. Sounds that remind me of Hulbeck, of the worst day of my life. It’s never one cohesive memory that pulses through me. Just flashes of images. Bursts of sound. None of it is ever in the right order—not that I can even remember what order that is anymore. Was I already beneath the floorboards when the noctis tore through our home? Were my hands already covered in my mother’s blood by the time I found Agnes’ lifeless corpse where she took her final stand outside my home? Sometimes when I recall running through the carnage days later with my eyes shut, I can hear the agonizing screams of my murdered neighbors, and other times only the silence of death. Sometimes it’s my father’s head among those stabbed on pikes along the beach, while other times I see none.
The one thing I know for certain is that all of them are dead now. Every single person who lived in Hulbeck with me.
Well, everyone except me and one other.
In memory of my family, my friends, and my neighbors alike, my finger twitches on Sable’s trigger.
The ghoul before me could be one of them. We’re a bit far south of Hulbeck, but if anyone had been left alive to turn, they could’ve made it to Gravenburg in the decade that’s passed. Or perhaps the ghoul below me was one who swept through the town in the following days, and among the sloshing contents of its belly might’ve once been Agnes’ face, my mother’s intestines.
Making matters worse, the damned thing is eating my catch.
I steady my breath and take aim. All it will take is the slightest tap of pressure and my bolt will fly. From this distance, the ghoul’s rotten brain has a very high chance of exploding out the back of its skull, not a mess that I’m going to be particularly thrilled about cleaning off my trap later but considering this foul creature has probably already tainted the meat of whatever vermin was caught down there anyway, I have nothing to lose. This way I get the satisfaction of reaping sweet revenge, I help rid the realm of one more monster, and I get to use the ghoul’s corpse as a bartering chip when I head to the compound later.
It’s a win-win-win situation, as far as I can tell.
My finger flexes against the curve of metal. The bowstring tenses where it’s pulled taut, a loaded bolt just waiting to be launched.
But just as I’m about to make the kill, something hulking blocks my sights.
I peer around Sable to find a man, as tall as a carriage, standing behind the clueless ghoul. His broad shoulders block my shot, and I might be inclined to thank him for saving me one of my limited supplies of bolts if his proximity hadn’t gone so alarmingly unnoticed.
No mere man could sneak up on a ghoul like that, completely undetected.
Which leads me to the only conclusion I can make: he is no mere man.
He is one of the deadly noctis. And I am in grave danger.
3
DON’T MAKE A SOUND
The noctis throws his head back, casting his long, greasy blond hair out of his face as he snatches the ghoul from behind. He sinks his fangs into the creature’s throat before it’s even had time to register what’s going on and shriek out in protest.
Part of me wants to celebrate. Another ghoul taken off the streets and making this realm safer for humans again.
But part of me knows that ghoul’s blood only serves to make this noctis more powerful, and for every ghoul he puts out of its misery, how many humans does he kill to satiate his appetite? How many more ghouls does he create whenever he inadvertently forgets to drain a body of its life completely?
