Chapter 759: A treacherous journey.
"Ghosts!" a man screamed, pointing a trembling finger into the yellow fog.
"They aren’t ghosts, you idiot! It’s just gas!" Moon yelled back. Her voice was sharp, but her own heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
The shapes didn’t listen. They began to circle the army, their translucent bodies flickering in the heat. These were the Sulfur Sirens_ creatures born from toxic fumes, volcanic waste and whatever mutated beast the fumes had engulfed and turned into air. They looked thin, glowing, and very, very hungry.
Moon quickly pulled out her scarf and tied it tightly over her mouth and nose. Her eyes darted around the blinding white desert. "Cover yourselves! Do not breathe in the air if it has a shape." she warned, her voice muffled by the fabric. She had not come across these things, but she had heard stories. Back then, she had been sold as a sex slave, so she had bigger problems than gossip from the outside world.
But it was too late for many of the men. The Sulfur Sirens moved faster than the wind. They didn’t bite or scratch; they simply drifted into the open mouths and noses of the gasping soldiers. The moment a Siren entered a man, his eyes went black.
The chaos was instant and terrifying. Men and women knelt on the ground and started shoveling salt into their mouths with two hands, as if it could fill their hollow stomachs. It cut their tongues, made them cry and dried them up from the inside. But they didn’t stop!
It was like a viral salt eating competition.
Moon watched her army fall apart in minutes. "Forget them! If you want to live, run East!" she shrieked into the rug and scarf over her mouth and nose. She didn’t wait to see who followed, she bolted across the white, cracked earth, her boots crunching loudly on the salt.
It was only after they finally left the salt lands and reached the rocky outskirts that Moon stopped to breathe. She turned around and felt a pit in her stomach. It had been at least three hours, and almost half of her pyrokinetic army was gone_ either dead or lost in the salt flats.
"Damn it! Damn it all!" Moon cursed, kicking a rock.
Garrison Holt, stepped up beside her. He looked at the path ahead_ a narrow, jagged trail_ and pointed forward. "Are we really going that way? Even the air looks like it’s boiling."
Moon glared at him. "We can’t go back to the salt Flats, Garrison. Do you want to eat salt too? She pointed to the only other route_ roads that were almost completely covered with bubbling, glowing lava. "Use your brain for once," She snapped. "We have to go forward, following the safest route. I don’t understand what you’re so afraid of anyway. You’re the ’Fire King,’ remember? Your men are pyrokinetics! A little lava shouldn’t make you shake like a leaf. I am the one that should be worried because I am all human and I have to be carried."
Garrison’s face hardened. He didn’t like being called a coward. He turned to the remaining soldiers, who were huddling together, covered in dust and sweat. "Move out! We continue forward, following the lava path!"
The pyrokinetics rumbled in dissatisfaction. They weren’t just tired; they were broken. They had just watched their friends kill themselves in a salt flats, and now their leader was telling them to walk into a volcanic oven.
"Is he serious?" one soldier whispered. "Half our friends are dead and he’s acting like we’re going on a picnic."
"I wish we could just turn back," Vex muttered, looking longingly at the horizon which was covered by grey clouds.
But the fear of turning back was stronger than the fear of the road. There was nowhere to go. Hesitantly, they followed as the group entered a series of dark, echoing tunnels. Moon claimed these were another shortcut. "There are passages inside," she promised. "Even if there’s lava below, the bridges are high and safe." She had been there before, in her last life. Not now, in the third year of the apocalypse.
But she had heard that stone bridges had been built by survivors down there in the second year. When the pyrokinetics reached the bridge, they paused. The stones were cracked, and the heat rising from below was enough to singe their eyebrows. Some of the supports looked like they were held together by luck and old moss.
"Cowards!" Moon yelled. She was fed up with their hesitation. She climbed off Garrison’s back_ where she had been hitching a ride_ and marched to the edge of the bridge "Fine! I’ll go first. If a ’weak girl’ like me can do it, you big men better follow."
Her heart was pounding so hard she thought it might break her ribs, but she hid it well. She tapped the stone with her boot, took a deep breath, and began to cross. Every time the bridge made a suspicious sound, she felt like her soul was leaving her body, but she made it to the other side safely.
"See?" she screamed cheerfully, her voice echoing. "It’s perfectly safe!"
The tunnel replied by rumbling. Deep, low, and angry.
The men on the bridge froze. The Fire King, wanting to show his strength, stepped onto the bridge. "Cross now," he growled to his men, "unless you want to find out if my fire hurts more than the lava below."
The army began to cross in a hurried scramble. But the rumbling didn’t stop. Below them, the river of lava began to move in a strange, rhythmic way. The molten rock started to shift and stack, rising up like a waking beast.
Before their eyes, the lava formed into massive, glowing mutant beasts: lava behemoths. They were fat, faceless monsters made of liquid fire.
"This can’t be good!" Moon screamed from the safe side. "RUN NOW!"
The behemoths started to spit liquid lava, sending splashes of it flying upward like rain. In the panic, the scramble to escape turned into a nightmare. As it turned out, being a pyrokinetic did not mean being immune to lava completely. Moon had lied!
"Help me!" a soldier cried as he lost his footing and slid into the glowing river below. Others were hit by flying lava and slammed against tunnel walls before sliding into the lava lake, unconscious.
Screams echoed through the tunnel.
Moon didn’t stay to help. She dashed out of the exit and into the open air. She stood there, panting, her face covered in soot. One by one, more soldiers stumbled out, their clothes smoking and their eyes full of horror.
She looked at the group that remained. Her army was now almost just a handful of traumatized men. Garrison had survived, which was a relief.
"Well," Moon whispered to herself, wiping a smudge of ash from her forehead. "I wanted to arrive with a bang. At this rate, I’ll be lucky if I arrive with enough people to burn Sunshine alive."