Castles of casualties line gutters, no higher than to the top of a combat boot, yellow lights in reflections of the puddles of a cobblestone cityway at night.
Roderick wakes up with a start from his strange dream, without realizing he's already cocked his gun and aimed before he'd fully woken up. He was fully conscious by the time he shoots his first victim with the rifle.
A victim would be a bad term, because that implies what just died is something that had actually existed. There's your first, the voice in him speaks up, the same from the dream, and it won't be the last Benefactor to snuggle up to you. He looks at the thing, a paperthin twist of green, luminous metal, mounting to a cumbersome glass, amorphous orb of rainbow, implying a head. A final cap of green metal spikes out on top of this glass... amazing how Roderick is entranced by just the very beauty of the pile of debris in his bed. A succubus. He'd been a lucky one.
Good job Roderick, just keep your head on straight. I'll look out for you. The dream voice reassured him. He meditates on this newfound comfort as he pours himself some coffee. No need to hurry.
Outside the tent set up in a corner of the cliffmaze, as the sun begins to rise early morning, are a few more tents and a makeshift fence that close a large rusty metal cylinder into the corner. Three times his height and secured with ropes and wheels , the Weapon was the most unsuspecting piece of wartime trash. He sipped his coffee as he looked around for his campmates.
One more was still alive Don't panic Roderick and he calmly watches the man die... a Benefactor isnourishing the poor trooper, stuffing food in the man's delighted face as his abdomen is splitting, as the victim engorges on all the Nectar the creature has to offer. It Don't get close, don't let it feed you doesn't notice Roderick as he lethargically loads his gun. The nectar is expanding inside his fellow officer, glasslike seed oozing out of all his pores.
The trooper, between mouthfulls from the spoutlike Benefactor's Nectar, smiles At the contraction of the muscles, even the ears and eyes ooze. "Come mffff on, Roderkkkhhh the froodsss grfffeat, mffff!" Rapid fire from the rifle, and he shatters yet another Benefactor (this one shaped more like a woman, and while still luminous green, has a spoutlike fixture as a head) then takes out the poor soldier, the hardened Nectar shattering like clay.
Amazing how he could take this all so calmly, he thought of thinking Forget Weapon, you're safe, leave now. Leave"SHUT UP!!! YOU'RE NOT ME!!!", he finally tears a handsized fleshy creature half out of his back, feeling a strange shock when thin hairlike members are pulled out from between his own spinal disks. "SHIT, DIE, MY GOD MY GOD, GET OFF!!!", the rest of his round of ammo spilling into the small creature.
He'd come so close to falling for their tricks. The Benefactors... even in war they'll speak so kindly into your ear. He struts over to the giant... bucket, the best word for it, back to his common overconfident gusto. Roderick grabs a rope and tips it over.
Roderick's head tilts when he sees what is inside.
...
"So you're Weapon."
"If you say that I am.", the threadbare fool meekly puts.
"Come with me."
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