Niklas tried to pull himself to his feet, but his former casual strength betrayed him. He fell back down. His inflamed face bled, bloody stripes raked his back, and his knee throbbed treacherously. He had never wished so badly for sweet unconsciousness’ merciful fingers to wrap him in her embrace. He slumped, deadbeat, and finished. His swollen eyes itched from his tears.

I’m a pathetic child, he realized. That only added an internal sting to his wounds.

As bad as he hurt, it paled compared to the sickening reality of his broken mask. The zealots had stolen his valor. A drone's face was his soul; without it, he would be forced to endure Stigki’s endless torment Pit when he died. Beyond that, he was a criminal now. A banished outcast.

“Why?” Niklas whispered, his voice coarse and rough. Anger finally seeped through the pain, fear, and solitude. Why had Mother Gyva ignored his plea? Had he not been her faithful servant his whole life? Was she really so offended that he had obeyed her holy daughter? Why did she allow him to be in a position where he was caught between two commandments? The choice to disobey a mother or to look upon and speak to her?

Fueled by his anger, he managed to pull himself to his feet. His world spun, and he almost fell back down, so he leaned against the tree for support.

“Why?” he cried, this time looking at the sky through the hole through the city. He hoped Mother Gyva was listening. “I have always been faithful to you. Will you abandon me now?”

He received no reply. Of course he didn’t. Gyva didn’t care about him. Nobody did. The Clan hated him as a child, and they hated him now. They used to mock him, telling him that he wasn’t a true son of Stigki. Stigki didn’t bear Pink skins. Maybe they were right. Maybe the Relrin god was his true creator.

No. Niklas recoiled in horror as the weight of his blasphemous thought fully sunk in

That was a stupid idea. The Relrin God murdered their mothers. He was worse than Stigki himself.

He remembered the priests telling them stories of valorous men who faced life's trials and remained faithful. In the stories, Gyva always rewarded them for their diligence. Niklas had always wanted to be like them.

If God wanted him faceless, he would bear it. He would gladly go if she saw fit to condemn him to pit.

Whether he was faithful or not, the clan had rejected him. He groaned and clung to the tree more tightly.

He was a good drone! They needed him!

Niklas shook his head. Who was he kidding? The only person who would notice his absence was Edgar.

Edgar! Niklas had to try to get back to him.

Looking around, Niklas found a stick, which he converted into a makeshift crutch, and snatched his dirtied jacket.

A wave of pain rippled across his back. Grunting yet again, he pressed on, pushing past the discomfort.

He started heading to one of the nearest lift stations. He quickly calculated which one the zealots would have taken to get back up and started in the opposite direction.

Niklas knew his efforts were futile. He knew what would happen, but he had to try.

The trip shouldn’t have taken as long as it did. Limping at an agonizing pace past giant trees through the city's underbelly, Niklas considered the severity of his wounds. He could hardly put any weight on his right knee. One eye had swollen shut, and his back throbbed in hot pain.

Niklas paced himself from tree to tree, taking a break and trying not to collapse when he had a trunk to lean on. He would never take a healthy body for granted. Just the day before, he was sprinting and clearing obstacles. Now, it took everything just to stay upright.

Tree after tree, break after break, the cold of his blood slicked back set in.

A lift station eventually came into view, and Niklas’ stomach knotted as he considered what it would take to gain admittance to the city above.

Five Drones manned this station.

“Please,” Niklas grunted. “I need to go up one last time.”

“Oi, are you alright?” one of the station guards called.

“What happened?” the other asked.

“I uh...fell.” It wasn’t a lie.

One guard hurried over to Niklas but stopped when he saw the mark under his eye. “Faceless,” The lift guard hissed as he drew a drone’s blade. Its chrome sheen gave it a mirror-like reflection. “Get out of here!”

“Please,” Niklas begged, “I need to see my brother. He’s an Architect. He can fix this.”

“Leave now or be executed,” the sentry threatened. Behind him, one of them produced a rifle and racked the slide.

“Please.”

A guard closer to the lift picked up a rock and hurled it at Niklas. “Get out of here, Pink,” he shouted as it skidded past Niklas’ feet. The sentry had thrown it hard with no reservation.

Stones. A wave of dread flushed through Niklas as he turned and hobbled away as fast as he could. He stabbed his crutch into the ground and hopped up to it on his good leg as frantically as possible. It was slow, desperate, and awkward progress. Not stones!

A stone smacked into the tree before him, and he cried out in panic.

“Mother killer,” they barked.

Niklas’ mind flashed to a time before the clan had conscripted him into the clan’s drone army, back when the clan was little more than lost and hollow outcasts. Before, they had a sense of purpose or direction. Several older boys had thrown stones at him. “Mother killer!” they had accused him. He remembered his cries, then Edgar’s snarl, and then the boys' screams.

Rocks pelted down on Niklas as the guards hurled stones at him, driving him out of their presence.

Niklas hobbled, hopped, and shuffled as quickly as he could. Stones. He made draggingly slow progress and escaped with several new lumps and bruises.

Once the lift station was out of sight, Niklas stole away from the road and slumped down in the overgrowth to examine his new wounds.

He prodded bruises and touched cuts, wincing as he did so. He tried his best to assess the damage. He didn’t have the appropriate supplies to treat the wounds. He was bleeding too much. He needed to wash his cuts. He flinched as he touched the biggest bruise on his forearm.

Niklas hated stones. He could almost smell the burning flesh from Edgar’s hands when Edgar came to save him as the boys threw stones at him as a child. That was when Edgar caught the attention of the priests. It was his first step on his path to becoming a reaper.

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Niklas’ mind raced as he tried to rest. He clenched his inflamed jaw as he failed to push the pain of his raw body out of his mind.

He couldn’t get to Edgar. What would he do? Should he wait for him here? Or find some gang of faceless to join until Edger found him? Niklas had heard of the lawlessness of the faceless. They often killed each other over the meager possessions they could salvage from the garbage. Niklas gripped his reaper's blade concealed in his pocket and hugged his jacket. How long could he last? He was not in fighting shape.

The more he allowed his thoughts to wander, the more his hopes fell. No, there was nothing he could do. There was nothing for him here. Nothing but the echoed voices of those who surrounded him throughout his life.

Pink skin, Mother killer. That’s what he would always be to them. A Relrin, and now, faceless.

But not to Edgar. Edgar was his brother, and he would come for him again. Edgar would brand the mark of the faceless under his own eye if that’s what he had to do to take care of Niklas.

Niklas smiled through the pain. Yes, he just needed to survive until Edgar found him, and the first thing to do was to mend his cuts.

Niklas fashioned a new, sturdier crutch and set off to find water.

The wounded faceless heard flowing water before too long. Rushing to find it, he discovered that the stream flowed from a drainage pipe coming out of the city above. It was murky and filthy, entirely unusable for cleaning his wounds. There would be plenty of water outlets like this, but the clan pumped any good water up into the city, so Niklas pressed on toward the city's outskirts. Several streams in Pit Forest fed into the Rulkite River. If only he could find one of them.

He progressed slowly. He continued his method of shuffling from tree to tree to try and catch his breath.

After two hours, he broke the city’s limits on the west side.

He had no rations, no water, no shelter, so he wandered aimlessly until he hurt too much to move. He watched the afternoon sun disappear behind billowy clouds, and primal fear struck his resolve. He was exposed to the sharp winter elements and was in grave danger.

He could take shelter under the city, but he would find no food or clean water. He forced his way on. He continued his crippled pace for many hours when large flakes of snow began to drift down.

Niklas looked frantically for shelter, a fallen tree, a rocky alcove, anything. But he didn’t see any promising options. He pulled off his wet, bloodstained shirt as the wind picked up. The shirt didn’t do anything to keep him warm. He looked at his jacket in concern. He was lightheaded and still bleeding. Getting the jacket wet would surely mean death in the coming storm.

The wind started to howl, and the snow came down in smaller, much faster flakes that felt like frozen blades on his skin. Niklas’ breath came out in uncontrollable, ragged gasps as he shivered. He had no fire starters, no blanket. He had to keep moving to keep himself warm. He had to avoid growing stiff. Surrendering to his instant need, he threw his jacket on. He arched his back and hissed as he irritated his wounds by pulling it tight around himself. He took labored steps as the storm matured into a blizzard. It didn’t take long for fatigue’s draining effect to take hold of him.

Niklas jerked awake as he collapsed. The cold, hard ground came as an unpleasant surprise.

“Gyva,” he panicked, “help me...”

Uncontrollable shakes seized his body as the wind picked up even harder.

“Mother...Why?” A wave of emotion coursed through his body as he blinked tears into his eyes, and a lump swelled in his throat. So this is how he would die? Alone on the cold wilderness floor. No valor. No battle.

Niklas lay his head in his arms, surrendering himself to the elements, nothing but the howling wind to lull him to sleep.

“Get up!”

Niklas stirred.

“Get up, you coy fool!”

Were those arms around him?

“You gotta help me if you want to live.”

Niklas opened his eyes. A man was struggling to pull him up. A scarf covered the stranger’s face, and snow dusted his clothes.

Niklas groaned as he stood, borrowing strength from the stranger.

The man threw Niklas’ arm over his shoulders and supported him as he led the way through the white landscape.

Niklas slumped again, and the man cursed. He felt the man heft him and throw him over his shoulders.

“Stay with me, man!” he grunted.

Niklas felt himself drift back to sleep.

Niklas woke up to the warm glow of a fire. A dry blanket covered him. The man watched him from across the fire. His eyes didn’t reflect hostility or trust. He just watched. He casually held Niklas’ reaper's blade while watching him. His face had a rugged beard, but Niklas could see a faceless mark under his savior’s eye. So the man would rob him? Niklas was too tired to care. He slumped back to sleep.

Vidder couldn’t believe his eyes. That drone was Niklas Loga, and he jumped! Running from zealots was stupid enough, but jumping from the third level would likely be fatal even for Niklas.

Vidder cursed under his breath. What was Niklas doing here? He should have been out in the training pit. What madness could have brought him to the third level now of all times?

He couldn’t afford to be seen as reckless or even interested, so he made his way to the lift. “Down to level one,” He commanded the liftman, who saluted his directive. Vidder’s third mark black officers mask merited authority.

The lift hummed as it descended two levels, resting on the first floor. The floor was less busy than usual as most detachments were cycling to the training pit, but plenty of Drones and low-mark chiefs were still moving about. Vidder approached a couple of drones.

“You, did a drone fall through the light shaft?” he demanded.

Seeing his third mark officer’s mask, they snapped to attention. “yes sir,” they reported, “He landed on the bridge and jumped down to the under level. He must have been desperate. Three zealots were chasing him.”

Vidder smiled at the report, where the fall from the first level would kill most men. Niklas would likely survive, provided the zealots didn’t ruin everything.

“And the Zealots?”

“Followed him, sir. To the under level.”

Vidder growled and waved the drones on, dismissing them to go about their business.

Waiting by the lift, Vidder’s mind raced. What if Niklas had died? What if the coy zealots executed him? Father would be so angry. They had invested so much in that drone. Niklas wasn’t necessarily under Vidder’s care, but the zealots had unknowingly been interfering with Father’s plans. Niklas would be the third one Father lost to them.

Vidder patiently waited almost an hour before the bell rang in the lift station, and the lift groaned to life.

Three zealots’ heads appeared coming out of the floor as the platform lifted them to the first level. They laughed about “the look on his face.’” Surely, they were talking about Niklas.

The lift came to a stop, and the zealots stepped out.

“Master Zealot,” Vidder called to their leader, who regarded him oddly. “May I ask your name?”

The chief zealot became defensive as he eyed the officer. “Who’s asking?”

“A friend with valuable information, that is, if you are who I think you are.”

The master zealot relaxed slightly. “From an officer, this catches my interest. My name is Master Brynjar. What is your message?”

Vidder smiled. “My message is that you will pay for what you just did to that drone.”

Master Brynjar recoiled as if struck in surprise. “Are you threatening me, soldier?” he snapped.

“Oh, you have nothing to fear from me,” Vidder promised. “You have those much more powerful to fear.”

“Who?” Master Brynjar spat defensively. He didn’t like the conversation.

Vidder could hardly blame him. “Do you know who that drone was? What did you do to him?”

“He’s just a drone. No one will care.”

“Are you sure? Maybe you should find out who the drones are before you play your little games with them.”

“Who was he?” Master Brynjar demanded.

“I guess you’ll never know,” Vidder shrugged and stepped to pass the trio.

“We are not done talking.” Master Brynjar barked as he grabbed Vidder by the arm. His other hand came to rest on his blade.

Vidder smiled. Oh, how the promise of violence enthralled his desires. A tickle in the back of his throat and a buzz in his spine urged him to attack. Butchering all three zealots where they stood would be too easy, but he had to curb his passions. There were too many witnesses here.

“Master Brynjar, do you really want to do something here?” Vidder asked. “Do you want to directly act in defiance against the elders in front of all of these drones? From what I understand, the Mothers are just about ready to hand the head platform off to us. Perhaps this will hasten their decision?”

Master Brynjar let go of Vidder’s arm. “What’s your name?”

“You don’t need it.” Vidder sighed. “you won’t hear of me again.” He pushed past into the lift. “Down.”

“Who are you?” Master Brynjar snapped.

Vidder chuckled at the zealot’s frustration as he descended to the forest floor below.

Vidder stopped on the forest floor and pulled off his mask. Free from the obstructing helmet, he sniffed the air. He smiled. He could smell Niklas.

“Sir?” the liftman at the bottom questioned.

Ignoring the sentry’s confusion, he started off tracing Niklas’ scent. It led him several hundred yards away to a tree that ran through a light shaft. There were traces of blood everywhere, but there was no body. At least Niklas wasn’t dead...yet.

Vidder touched a leaf with blood on it. His fingers came back wet and sticky. He held his fingers to his nose, his eyes rolling back with ecstasy as he inhaled the sweet scent. He began to grow restless as his appetite grew wet. He couldn’t resist. He stuck his fingers in his mouth and sucked the blood off.

Yes, it was Niklas, all right.

Should he go after him? No. He had to report to Father first. Father would know what to do. Father always knew what to do.

He forced himself to pull away from the bloody scene and started away when something caught his eye: pieces of a drone’s mask lay shattered on the ground.

So, the zealots had made him faceless. Niklas wouldn’t be able to return to the city. Vidder sniffed the air, Niklas’ scent led eastward. He could try to track him, but this would make Father angry at the zealots. Vidder smiled at the thought. He saw no need to clean their mess before it matured.

No, he would tell Father first. Vidder scooped down to gather the biggest pieces of the mask; they could come in handy later.