I steep back out of the room, Mantis takes a moment to study my face. Before turning his back to me.

  “It's time then, Get back on the train.” I have a feeling that wherever they take me it wont matter.

  The train screeched to a halt as we stumbled out.

  And then I saw it,

  The Maw.

  I stumbled falling forward, eyes wide.

  Limbs conjoined,

  skin peeling, fusing,

  My heart lurched. As bones chattered.

  “What you think, Bug, quite the sight isn't she.”

  Whatever I had before I had lost it, my breath it's hollow, I want to stand and fight to say something. But my body wasn't mine at that moment. I watched them turn and wander away. I watched them there's nothing. The world's gone rabid, the world's empty. Many bodies falling in line falling together, the wall a human wall. The ribs cracked as they were pulled open. hooked into their lungs, and I watched them. I watched them slump down as the branches clawed their way out from the stomach climbing up writhing fusing to the mass.

  I struggled to get on my feet. My mind doesn't seem to agree with me, but survival has taken over. As I back away I turn to look at Spider.

  I looked into their eyes, I've met them before, not now, not like this… not them. But the eyes I remember people looking at me like that. There waiting, I need to pick sides, they need me to agree with them, convince them and myself that this is the right thing. But they don't need convincing.

  And they never did.

  It's time to accept your purpose.

  You need to let me out.

  I need you to do your job now little one.

  Your hunger will never be satiated,

  It’s how you got yourself here.

  Don't give up now.

  Do something with your worthless humanity.

  It's time to get out of here,

  go back home.

  “Have you figured it out yet? Really quite simple what we do isn't it, the wall will fall soon and we'll finally be able to get out of here.” It was then I turned my attention to the others, they were carving into the wall, into the body’s, there's plants. under it all, just leaves, twigs, brush, berries.

  “She's getting tired, the cold is finally starting to get to her again. We almost made it through last year. That's why the woods are so active nowadays she's desperate to keep us cadged here. Look at her, practically a wild beast now.”

  “I don't understand the Shrouded, are they coming here to the wall?”

  Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

  “Yep, the Shrouded are the ones she controls. The Mycoforms on the other hand… well.” He just smiles. I think back to what I know about prions, I’m sure I know something but my mind refuses to do anything but stare into the mass in front of me.

  “Now then let's see what those stripes of yours have earned you.” He grabs me and shoves me forward towards the others before wandering away to get back on the train. One of the others offers me an axe and points me to one of the earlier layers. I lift the axe to strike what I believe to be wood but what I hit was porcelain,

  chalk, like what I drew on the sidewalk with as a child.

  I raised the axe again, this time hitting something harder, something that didn't shatter or splintered but fractured.

  Not once,

  Not twice,

  I continued to land blow after blow.

  Perspective swap to Juno

  I can't believe this, how long has he been… I should have seen the signs he's been so irrational recently…

  I've been so irrational recently.

  Oh Bug, I’m so sorry…

  My head falls into my hands.

  I can't believe how fast this has all gone to shit.

  Someone has to know something.

  My hands start to quiver again as I collect my things.

  This can’t be all there is.

  Perspective swap to Bug

  The whistle from the train bellowed as it prepared to leave and some of the others set down their tools and began to load themselves back onto the train. Spider came back out to gather me up as well.

  “Now, now there's no need to look at me like that. You did good little Bug.

  shame,

  we're not done yet, hungry?

  No?” he laughs a deranged awful noise.

  “You know I knew someone with a mask very, very, similar to that little ensemble you have on.

  I wonder what happened to him, nothing good I hope.

  He didn’t really ‘approve’ of anything I did.

  A real pain in the ass that one.

  You know when I first saw you wearing that thing I thought about putting a knife through your throat and throwing you out the train then maybe that damn mask will stop looking at me like that.

  He looked at me the same way you know.

  But I'm sure you didn't care who it belonged to, honestly with how many new recruits we got there all wearing old masks by now.

  You'll fit in just fine with the others. I'm sure you'll enjoy the festivities, I would try to eat something while we're there though.”

  The train came to a stop back at the depot.

  But this time Spider walks me to the other door.

  The second the door opened,

  I saw the snow and ash danced as they filled the room,

  Only thickening the air more as the smell begins to hit me,

  Sweet, tangy notes of soft meat.

  Slowly giving way to something harsher,

  bitter, sharper,

  like plastic, popcorn, wheat, even.

  But there's something more familiar in it,

  A cough escapes me.

  Irritating, biting, at the back of my throat as my eyes begin to tear and my air gets caught in my throat. Something much less appealing now,

  ammonia,

  acidic,

  sulfurous,

  metallic.

  And it hits me.

  I back out of the room as the cold brushes against my neck.

  Fear enraptures what's left of my soul.

  The others just watch me. Their faces show no emotion shrouded by their masks, as they walk by life continues for them, this means nothing to them.

  A life means nothing to them. This is what they're doing with the others.

  I turned around and began to run.

  I ran back to the woman, no one even passed me a second glance.

  The ash followed me here, falling where saints kneel.

  Corrupting the ground, killing whatever was holy in this place,

  I looked for her.

  But only her words lingered,

  ‘the only thing that's out of place here. Living among the dead.’

  The living…

  And the dead…

  I have it…

  We all do, don't we?

  How could they, they started this didn't they?

  Did she know, was she one of them?

  They aren't feeding us meat, they know what it is. They wouldn't. They couldn't. The smoke, the birds, the pollen I… I Still, This is what they've resorted to?