Shadow Slave

Six people vanished. There were still no traces. It seemed that the killer - whoever or whatever the killer was - did not care if the person was alone or in a group. The mutual responsibility system was not working. Everyone was scared.

The next day, seven people vanished. Four of them were experienced Awakened, some of the best soldiers Verne had. The other three were scientists. On the same day, two more mundanes succumbed to the Spell. One of them died and was eliminated, the other was still struggling somewhere out there, in the First Nightmare. Perhaps that person would become a Sleeper soon.

A day after that, twelve people vanished. No clues were found, and fear continued to spread through the facility like a plague. It had yet to transform into panic, but the residents of LO49 were starting to grow restless, trapped in the suffocating atmosphere of dread, exhaustion, and doubt.

Sunny really wanted to sleep.

Then, the day that the Ariadne could have arrived came. People were uplifted a little by the excitement, but Sunny did not share in their enthusiasm. He expected the rescue to reach them no sooner than after another week. A lot of things could happen in a week.

... The Ariadne did not arrive, but a horde of Nightmare Creatures appeared instead, descending from the mountains. It seemed that things were not going well up north, considering that such a large swarm of abominations had been allowed to assemble and travel freely. What was the army even doing?

Isolated at the edge of the world, they had no way of knowing.

The battle was long and fierce, but ended in a decisive victory. The tired soldiers retreated back into the fortress without even bothering to burn the corpses. They would be covered by the snow soon, anyway.

Everyone felt the growing fatigue.

The mundane person who had been making their way through the First Nightmare woke up as a Sleeper.

...The next day, that Sleeper disappeared, along with fourteen more people.

The Scavenger Gate released a new wave of abominations. There were just a handful of them, so Sunny slaughtered the Nightmare Creatures himself before anyone else had time to arrive.

On his way back, he noticed that many of the carcasses laying under a thin veil of fresh snow seemed to be missing large chunks of flesh.

Sunny was too tired to care.

nothing preventing me from sleeping. In fact, it is detrimental to remain

now able to enter

His mind was... clear.

evening, Sunny was standing on the southern wall of the fortress, looking at the undulating black ocean. The cold waves rustled as they washed over the stone expanse of the beach, carrying pieces of ice. The wind was howling, and the full moon shone in the dark sky, surrounded by

there,

him. Dorn looked as tired

turned and looked at

I have an idea. Can

nodded silently. Dorn hesitated for a few

By now, we have explored every millimeter of this facility. We have searched the coastal plain extensively, too. You probably swept it all countless times. And yet, we did not find even a single drop

seems that we have searched everywhere, but actually, there is one place where we did not look. Since the bodies are not anywhere else, they had to be in that place...

on the lip of the

continued to sway, indifferent to his

for a while,

is my thinking, too. So, I'll be keeping a close

was sitting on a couch with a glassy look in his eyes. The young man seemed to be on

disdainful reproach. Then, it slapped him across the

his feet and looked

Who?! What...

on the wall, a pale

following

nodded, lingered for a few

continued staring at the

the bodies by throwing them into the water, someone would have noticed something. Dozens of people vanished already.

of