“That’s it?” Jayson Coley asked, staring out the train’s circular window into the forest beyond. A squat building had just appeared through the canopy of trees, ahead and above them on their path through the forest.

“What the hell was that?” Jeremiah asked, rushing forward. The shocked and terrified look on his face would have been hilarious to Argus Wade if it wasn’t for what had just happened. “What the hell was that?”

Abigail drove out of the city and north on the highway, thoroughly exhausted from the day’s ordeal but not yet able to relax. Haatim sat in the passenger seat, a blank expression on his face as he tried to process everything that was happening to him.

“Stupid head!”  It was the cleverest thing Traq could think of to say, but his harsh words were greatly diminished by the giant grin on his face. He wasn’t mad, he rarely got mad at his friend, but Everett wasn’t playing fair.

Abigail rushed out after the demon, sprinting with long, even strides. The woman she was chasing was fast, and the demon inside of her was pushing the nurse’s body to peak capacity, which made it difficult to keep up.

Geid was a smaller planet than Wade was expecting. That wasn’t to say it was small, but compared to Axis it was barely a dot. Wade touched his ship—the Hummingbird—down just outside one of the larger cities, Averton.

Haatim lay on the hospital bed, gasping in agony as heat ripped through his stomach. It seemed like hours had passed since the doctor had injected him, but he rationally knew it had only been minutes. It felt like his insides were being turned into mush.

The revolver thundered in the courtyard below. Argus Wade could taste bile in his throat. It tasted like jealousy.

Richard rubbed absently at the stubble on his jaw, staring out the windshield at the gathered traffic. Seeing none of it.    His mind was on autopilot stuck replaying one event nearly thirty years ago over and over again.