They came to the end of the hallway and all their guns and ammunition became as meaningless as the bodies carrying it. So many arms now at last met with their counterpoint. So what if the unit had positioned itself so tediously if the enemy never showed itself? The only accomplishment their grand show of force had enacted on the world was in wasting their energy. And yet simultaneously now it would be drawn to a sharp point with all senses heightened in what was certainly the moment of climax of this point-to-point retrieval mission. Surely Melissa would be behind the skin-door, and surely the mission would be over soon.

So Peter moved up to the right side, with Henry just behind and Yuna in line with him, prepared to enter first after he activated the pattern. Anya, Will and Jesús took the right side offset from the door, positioned at angles opposite Lululu, Chris, and Luther, all of whom were prepared to fire through their friendlies to hit any targets within vantage with Raethor, Dio, Alisa, Alex, and Jessica ready to follow the front sub-squad from the right after the breach. It was a suicidal maneuver for any other unit, but so long as their aim held true and the entering friendlies didn’t deviate from their pre-planned routes there would be no danger. Or at least, none beyond tolerance. So Peter tenderly and quickly traced the folds of skin as though he knew them all too intimately and the door unfolded itself.

As expected, the moment of climax had arrived, but it did not come from within the doors. There was no surprise when all the already-lacking color of this space with no windows or sunlight began to desaturate as the first tiny point of inverse light opened up from within the room and poured over the hall in a wave of absent color that drained what little was left in this place. And then as the skin spiraled out on itself there came red from within again as though it had never left. Behind her the color did not return, but within the room came pure perfect red light as though everything else had been stripped away. Taken from outside and placed inside this room whose container overflowed into itself with everything gone from the rest of the world none of them could see.

And in their center, as the spiral folded open like some flower’s petals blooming for the harvest, was a single beautiful reproductive organ. That is to say Melissa’s organs splayed out on the outside in the shape of a doll only just resembling the humanity they had once been contained within. The bright blue uniform that had once adorned their outer skin was forced inward and bloomed in verdant shades of red and nothing, its blue dye having been extracted and destroyed in creating this picturesque thing whose nature did not resemble man. The body had been female, but what did it matter now? And the body had healed them, but no more. The organs had transcended their need for flesh and at last been released to the outside of the skin for all to see.

Bullets rang out from Anya’s left and front equally, as though the lifeless flower could harm any of them, but when Anya looked down the barrel of her bone rifle whose little vessels pulsed with life and with anticipation for long-neglected use, her finger could not resist its alluring nature and the chorus that called out for it to squeeze only just slightly. Melissa’s bright gray uniform found itself splayed with holes, and her intestines and spleen found themselves bleeding gray blood as though their color, too, had been extracted and worn outside instead of within.

Anya’s bullet pierced right between Melissa’s black and white eyes and left one small dripping hole that would not refill itself again as Anya’s rifle would. Though now it was empty and would need to be recharged, there was more than one on her back prepared to fire should only she draw them, even if it wouldn’t be necessary. Melissa’s head flew back and then rocked forward as though a strong gust of wind had struck it, and in a way this was right, it just carried more rocks than normal and at higher speed. But her body resisted the impact and did not fall.

And though it was clear that Melissa was already dead when they opened the door, color began to restore itself as they entered in all spots save one. Within the pile of organs only just resembling humanity there was a peculiar spot that Anya only just caught a brief glimpse of before it was engulfed in fire. Though she was behind him, she could see Peter’s eyes grow wide through her mind’s eye, and did not need to question that it was his flamer that had engulfed the body with excuses and platitudes of danger and avoiding contamination. But Anya could see in the moments before his finger tightened that a realization had dawned on his face. There was no smile. Not even a flicker in his eyes, but she could tell. Why else would he destroy the body?

And when its orange glow finally faded there was no trace of Melissa left: only a pile of ashes scattering itself around the room as fourteen soldiers poured into the place they had once occupied. In the same moment color returned to the world, but only 90%. There was something missing, something off about the room they had entered, as though the entire plane of the world had been set askew. And they all felt it, but the first words out of their collective mouths came from Will, who despite being called “bootshiner” at last questioned the authority of this place they had so carefully come to defend.

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“This is Central Command? That’s it?”

He wasn’t wrong, it was an empty room. A hundred foot square with empty walls and no content save for the smoldering ashes of a corpse and fourteen bodies at their center.

Peter smiled a wry smile, but said nothing. Raethor spoke instead,

“Central Command exists to be assumed compromised.”

“What?!” Alissa screamed in a valley-girl accent.

“You couldn’t tell?” Dio gloated. “If there was anything here we’d have been given orders or brought here for punishment.”

“Instead our superiors have been silent.” Peter added.

Raethor smirked. It would seem he had been granted wise soldiers.

“But if there’s no one here, who’s been giving us orders?” Jessica asked, confused and pleading for security. Had her life been a lie?

“I have.” Raethor affirmed. What kind of question was that? Was her life a lie? Her superior officer was standing right there in front of her.

“Nothing’s changed, I’m still your beloved Commander.” He emphasized the last two words, putting his hands behind his head and doing a spin of his hips. It was kind of revolting.

“Who’s been giving you orders?” Will asked.

Raethor did not respond. This was one of the great privileges of leadership. If a subordinate asked a question you didn’t want to answer… you didn’t have to.

Alex looked his sister in the eyes in this passing moment of silence, interrupting it to chide her as Dio had Jessica. “Did you not remember the hair dye?” Anya knew it was something of an inside joke between them, that Raethor had made them shave their heads and then Lululu had come onto the base with bright pink hair that went to her ankles, but more pointedly, that no other commander would ever allow such a thing. Even if it meant forcing them to dye their hair black or remain permanently bald, the natural or unnaturalness of their hair wasn’t relevant against the military's perception of what was natural. Consequently, the fact Raethor had allowed them to keep their flamboyant hair implied there was no or minimal risk of a higher-up seeing them, and thus also that there was no superior command stationed on this base.

Or they could just look at Raethor, Anya thought. It didn’t take a rocket-surgeon to understand his spandex leotard wasn’t up to the military dress code.

But beyond these questions and the continual distractions they posed themselves as a counterweight against the grim reality of this new situation: Melisssa was dead. Not only that, she had been skinned and butchered like some animal. Worse than that, Anya wasn’t even sure her flesh had been eaten, only that her organs and clothes had been turned inside-out. Her corpse had been desecrated and the enemy didn’t even have the decency to eat her. It had been a deliberate act of waste intended to drive one point home.

Fear.

“Though we can consume you all, there is no need. You are not strong enough to resist. Everything you are will fall and falter. We will destroy you and everything you stand for without hope of resistance.” Anya could practically hear the words on the beasts’ many lips. “You will not survive, and we will enjoy your terror as you’re gutted one by one.” But there were no words as such helpfully written on the ground, and there was no message for them to read stating the purpose of the attack, its goals, and what would happen next. There was only the corpse, and even it had been destroyed.

“Why did you burn Melissa’s body?” She demanded of Peter.

“The necrites may have corrupted her.” He answered plainly.

“That’s a bad excuse, she was clearly dead! We shot her fifteen times in the preceding second!”

“And as I said, that may not have been enough.”

“You could have waited long enough to find out!”

“And risk our deaths?”

“He’s right.” Dio chimed in. “You should have shot the hallucinations as well.” Lululu nodded as if to affirm her own weakness in not taking the first shot. There was no need to take risks when it came to magical abominations. Even if you stood to gain information on their anatomy and the exact line of damage it would take to kill them, overkill held no meaning if you had an inexhaustible supply of ammunition as they did. Peter’s nutrient tank had been barely tapped, and would certainly be filled back up again by the time Melissa’s ashes stopped smoldering— and likely long before that.

“Fine.” Anya conceded. “But what about the organ?”

“The what?” Lululu asked loudly.

“She’s seeing things.” Jesús said. “Female hysteria. First David and now this? Next she’ll see a mountain of erect cocks where the enemy’s rifles…”

“Shut up, Jesús, they don’t even have rifles.” Luther demanded. He shot Luther a dirty look like “You shut up, ******.” But his tongue did indeed shut itself up in its wet hole of teeth.

Anya glanced warmly at Luther, who said nothing, only meeting her gaze for a brief moment as if to say, “Go on. No one’s stopping you.”