Vienna, European federation January 2035

“Yeah, those fuel bombs bought us some time. They took out their Banshees long enough for close air support to help us out. But we weren’t exactly thrilled about crossing the Danube to make a push. The brass—whether they were preparing to send reinforcements from abroad over the river first or just didn’t care—had made it clear. It was like a ‘we’ve done our part, now it’s your turn’ situation. When the Greeks, Croats, and Egyptians arrived, my company was tasked with taking the Floridsdorfer Brücke and the surrounding neighborhood on the other side.

The funny thing is, up to that point, we never really did anything offensive. Until then, all we had done was fall back.”

He orders two beers before apologizing for the earlier Corona his fiancée had ordered for me.

“You were saying earlier you went through the sewers?” I ask.

“Yeah, about that.” He says, his demeanor shifting, becoming more serious.

“The bridge was no man’s land. They couldn’t cross without everything from tank APFSDS rounds to .22 caliber police rifles hitting them. And we couldn’t cross it either, not without getting vaporized by those damn blasters—those lasers from the tripods stalking between the buildings. Thankfully, no beetles; they couldn’t even walk down most of the streets. So, the task fell to my platoon to push through the sewers. They’d been locked down by troops downstairs, and the reports said they hadn’t seen anything move in the tunnels. But that didn’t exactly motivate me to go check.

Out of all the squads in my platoon, mine was the one given the honor of opening the ball. Strike me down if my platoon commander didn’t hate me enough. I wasn’t sad when he had his arm and shoulder torn off by one of those crabs a few days later. It wasn’t enough to fuck with me—he had to put my men in danger too.

Well, there I was, standing with an MG3 machine gun from the vehicles we drove in on. No sense in leaving it behind in the parking lot. Took that German machine gun, a few hundred rounds of ammo, my rifle, and the rest of my gear. I was second in line, five of us total. The guy on my left was my machine gunner, and I was on his right.

We had absolutely no training when it came to fighting in tunnels. No night vision. All we had was our instincts and our weapons as we made our way through that sludge-filled hell.”

We moved slowly, the stench of the sewer getting worse with each step. The air was thick, damp, and claustrophobic, making it hard to breathe without feeling like I might choke. The only sounds were the squelch of our boots in the muck and the soft clinking of our gear.

I kept my rifle at the ready, my eyes scanning the darkness ahead. Then, I saw something move. Just a flicker in the shadows, but it was enough to make my heart skip. I held up a hand to signal the others to stop.

Peering around a corner, I caught sight of two of the crabs. They were hunched over, feeding on trash and waste that had been dumped in the sewer. Their monstrous, segmented bodies twisted in ways that shouldn’t have been possible, the sickly green of their shells blending with the filth around them. Their long, spindly legs clicked as they moved, tearing into the refuse with mechanical precision.

For a moment, I froze, watching them feast. But then it hit me—what I hadn’t noticed before.

They weren’t alone.

The tunnel behind was alive with them. Dozens—maybe even hundreds—of crabs. Some were resting, their claws twitching in their sleep, while others moved through the sludge in search of more food or warmth. They were scattered in clusters, some curled up in the corners, others sprawled across the cold, damp stone. The sewers had become a breeding ground, a sanctuary for these creatures, and I realized then that the temperature of the tunnels, the heat rising from the pipes, was the only thing keeping them from freezing solid.

It was a goddamn nest.

My breath caught in my throat. If we moved too quickly, they’d swarm us. And I wasn’t sure we had enough ammo to deal with all of them.

I turned to my platoon, my hand signaling for silence. I motioned toward the platoon flamethrower our lieutenant was kind enough to lend us, who was lagging behind, nervously checking his gear. His eyes locked with mine.

"Get up here," I whispered harshly, keeping my voice low but firm. Poor kid hadn’t gotten to use it yet. It was something from the cold war they had dusted off from whatever bunker it was in I don’t even know where they got the gel that was inside.

The flamethrower nodded, his face was pale and I could see it even in the dark with the red emergency lights. He made his way forward, careful not to make a sound, carrying the heavy pack that housed his weapon.

When he reached me, I pointed down the tunnel, toward the mass of crabs. “Light it up.”

He didn’t hesitate.

The hiss of the flamethrower was the only warning we got before a wall of fire surged forward, engulfing the crabs in a searing blaze. The heat hit us first, even from a distance, and I felt my skin burn under the intensity. The crabs screeched, their bodies twisting and writhing in agony as they tried to escape the flames, but the fire was relentless, chasing them into every dark corner of the tunnel.

The smell of burning flesh filled the air, making my stomach turn. But there was no time to think about it. The flames created chaos, and in the frenzy, I spun around the corner after the flamethrower retreated. I just opened fire. The noise muted the sound of their screetches and their skin blistering and popping. My other rifle men joined me and we both hip fired into the burning bodies. Some were desperately trying to fight the fire before we cut them down. I had exaggerated the amount there were early on. But even the fifty of them was more than enough to kill the six of us seven times over. Yet the three of us had killed more of them in two minutes than most soldier did in the entire war. Anyway. We advanced, quickly, through the scorched remains and the choking smoke. We bayoneted the bodies to make sure

But I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were far from done.

“How long did it take you to clear the tunnels?” I ask.

“We didn’t,” he replies, his voice flat. “The sewers were full of them. It was a miracle that someone had given the order before the city was split by the Danube to secure the tunnels, too. If not, we would have been on top of thousands of them. We had only passed through the section under the bridge.”

He pauses for a moment, his eyes distant as he recalls the memory.

“We kept men in the tunnels to secure the ‘intersections,’ while the other platoons made their way above to the supermarket we were supposed to take. It overlooked the intersection on the other side of the bridge. They ordered a massive artillery and white phosphorus strike. We waited for the phosphorus to settle before we crawled out of the basements, sewer manholes, and open tunnels.

The surviving crabs didn’t know what hit them. A hundred of us came out of nowhere. Even now, even after everything that happened right after—it’s still one of my only good memories of that damn war.”

The streets after the phosphorus strike were something out of a nightmare. The air still thick with the acrid smell of burning, the remnants of white phosphorus slowly fading into the haze. It was as if the city had been touched by fire itself, leaving everything scorched and warped. Buildings that had once stood tall were now reduced to skeletal frames, their windows shattered, walls charred and crumbling. The streets were littered with debris—twisted metal, shattered glass, and the remnants of what had once been a thriving city.

The heat from the phosphorus had scorched everything it touched. Sidewalks were cracked, as if the very ground had been burnt alive. Some of the roads still smoldered, the pavement bubbling in places, as if the earth itself was still on fire. The white residue of phosphorus clung to everything it touched, coating the streets and walls in a ghostly, almost eerie film.

It was deathly quiet, save for the occasional crackle of a building’s last breath, collapsing into ruin. The streets had been purged, but in a way, they felt hollow—like a place abandoned by life, untouched by time. The remains of crabs, their bodies still smoldering, were scattered across the street, their twisted forms now little more than blackened husks.

There was no relief in the silence. It was as if the world had held its breath, waiting for something—anything—to break the stillness. But all that remained was the stench of burning flesh, the choking ash that clung to your throat, and the oppressive weight of a place that had once been full of life, now lost to the flames of war.

It felt like a place forgotten by time. A ghost town, not because it was empty, but because it had been hollowed out from the inside, left with nothing but the scars of what had once been.

The world got its wish. Me and my squad moved cautiously down the sidewalk, our guns trained on every window, every doorway, every potential opening. The haze was thick, so thick we couldn’t see more than twenty meters ahead. The city felt swallowed up in a kind of suffocating silence, broken only by the crunch of debris beneath our boots.

Then, through the mist, I saw something move. A shape. It was subtle at first, just a blur, but then I noticed the outline—broad shoulders, too wide, too heavy to be human. My heart skipped.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I had left the machine gun back at the supermarket with another squad who was meant to hold the position while we scouted the north. All I had was my AUG.

I squeezed the trigger twice. The rounds hit, but not enough. I was just fast enough to see the creature’s blaster flare up in panic. It wasn’t aimed at me, but the flash lit up the fog, and before I knew it, the beam tore through the air above me, slamming into the third story of the apartment building I was standing under.

The blast shook me. The helmet absorbed most of the impact, saving me from a concussion, but the window sill exploded above me. Glass rained down like shards of ice, the bricks cracked and tumbled. I hit the ground hard, thrown backward by the force.

For a moment, everything was disoriented—dust, glass, the ringing in my ears. I struggled to get up, hands slick with sweat and blood, but before I could find my bearings, the distant crackle of blasters echoed through the haze.

I heard the crabs first, their shrill screams cutting through the silence as they opened fire from somewhere deeper in the fog. The rounds came close, too close. My squad moved instinctively, returning fire as the crabs’ glowing green lasers sliced through the smoke. But it was a mess—blind shots, no real targets, just hoping to hit anything.

I gritted my teeth and scrambled for cover, still feeling the heat from the blaster strike on my back. We were exposed, and the world around us was slowly being erased by fire and smoke. It felt like we were fighting ghosts in a city that was dying around us, and every second counted.

I shoved all my weight against a door and broke through it, the splintering wood giving way with a crash. The rest of my squad followed quickly, moving inside and taking cover. We settled into position, rifles up, eyes scanning every corner. But as soon as we were in, I realized we were missing someone.

"Where's Peter?" I shouted, my voice cutting through the chaos.

We scrambled into our sectors, firing blindly at the distant blaster fire, trying to keep the crabs at bay. The explosions rattled the walls, debris falling in showers as the gunfire echoed, but there was no sign of Peter. The seconds dragged on, feeling like hours.

Then, I saw him.

He was lying outside, just beyond the door, clutching his left leg. The blood was pouring from where his foot should’ve been, his screams cutting through the noise of the battle. I couldn’t make out his words, but the terror in his voice was enough to know he was fading fast. The shrill cry of his pain echoed in my head, louder than the blasters, louder than the explosions.

I was about to move downstairs, ready to order someone to grab him, when I saw it.

Something—a shadow, a blur—reached out from the mist. It was too quick, too fast to react. The thing grabbed Peter’s legs, yanking him into the haze. His screams went from frantic to desperate as he was dragged, his voice rising in pitch with each pull, until it all went silent.

In an instant, the world went eerily quiet.

Peter was gone.

His scream had stopped, as if someone had just turned the volume down on his life. The mist swallowed him up, and I was left staring at the space where he had been, not knowing what had taken him, or how it had happened. But I knew one thing: Whatever it was, it wasn’t done with us yet.

I stood there for a moment, heart hammering in my chest, before I snapped back to reality. There was no time to mourn.

The moment Peter was gone, we snapped back into survival mode. We couldn’t afford to stand still—not with the crabs out there, not with the explosions still echoing in the distance. But before we could even take a breath, we heard it.

The unmistakable whistling sound of incoming artillery. The ground beneath us trembled, the walls shuddering as if the building itself was about to collapse. It was too familiar. Too damn close.

"Get down!" I shouted, throwing myself to the floor as the first round slammed into the ground outside, shaking the entire building.

The deafening crack of the 155mm rounds detonating sent shockwaves through the walls, each impact like a punch to the gut, each one rattling our teeth and throwing dust and plaster from the ceiling. The floor beneath us seemed to move as the shockwave hit, throwing everyone off balance, sending men sprawling. I hit the floor hard, my chest pressed against the cold, cracked tiles, heart pounding, trying to keep my head in the game.

The rounds kept coming. Explosions rocked the street outside, but the impact felt like they were right on top of us. The building groaned under the pressure, the windows rattling and splintering. The air was thick with the sound of shrapnel hitting the walls and the ground outside, and the taste of dust and gunpowder burned in the back of my throat.

"Shit!" One of the men yelled, his voice barely audible over the constant roar of the artillery.

Another round hit, closer this time. I could feel the heat from the blast as the walls cracked and splintered. The shockwave blasted through the building, knocking a chunk of the ceiling loose, sending it crashing down on top of us. I dove to shield my squadmate, my hand instinctively reaching out to cover his head as debris rained down.

The air was thick with dust, and the lights flickered, barely holding on as the building swayed under the pressure. The noise was deafening—each round felt like it could level the entire block. The sounds of crumbling concrete and screeching metal made it impossible to focus.

Then, another round hit. This time, the entire floor seemed to buckle beneath us, and I had to fight to keep my balance as the building groaned and trembled. The world outside was chaos, but in here, inside the building, it felt like we were trapped in a collapsing coffin, every breath filled with the stench of dust and smoke.

"Get the hell down!" I barked again, but I didn’t know if anyone heard me anymore. Only one I could hear by now was shouting and crying for his mother.

We could feel it in our bones—the 155mm fire, our own side’s shells, were tearing through the ground outside, and we were in the crossfire. If we didn’t make it out of here soon, we’d be buried under the rubble, casualties of a war that never seemed to care who it took down. The ground shook with each impact, the sound of explosions washing over us like a wave.

Then, just as quickly as it had started, it stopped. The ringing in my ears was almost unbearable. I could feel the pressure in my head, the silence after the bombardment was deafening in its own way. The dust hung in the air, thick and choking, like the aftermath of a nightmare we couldn’t wake up from. The building around us groaned, the structure barely holding up. For a moment, it felt like everything had been paused, suspended in time. But I couldn’t afford to let it.

"Head’s up!" I shouted, my voice hoarse, still disoriented. "Check your sectors, now!"

The words barely left my mouth before I was moving. We had no time to recover, no time to think about how much of us was still standing. I damn near dragged one of the machine gunners by the collar, shoving his head towards the window. His hands were still trembling from the shock of it all, his rifle heavy in his grip.

The entire squad was dazed, too disoriented to respond, some still crouched low, their eyes wide in the haze of confusion. I forced myself to focus, adrenaline sharpening every second. The crabs were still out there. If we let them get the upper hand, if we hesitated, they’d find us in the ruins.

I didn’t even wait for them to get their bearings. "Radio!" I barked, seizing the mic before anyone could question me. "Battery 1, cease fire! You’re shelling friendly troops; cease fire!"

There was a crackle on the other end, a momentary pause that felt like an eternity. The crabs could be on us at any second.

"This is North Bridge, confirming friendly fire," the voice on the radio responded, sounding strained and distant. They were our spotters on the other side of the river a top a cathedral overlooking the action. "Adjust your fire 300 meters to the north or stop firing."

But I could already feel the weight of it. No dice. Before I could hear the rest, the ground shook again—a deafening roar, the kind that makes your bones rattle. Another artillery strike, a massive hit that tore through the street, and this time, I wasn’t the only one feeling the impact.

I didn’t see it coming—no one did. The explosion hit so close, debris flying in all directions. The whole damn building shuddered as if it was going to collapse on us, but that wasn’t the worst of it. It was the screams that came next.

I heard Daniel, one of my rifleman, cry out from the corner. I spun around to see him clutching his side, blood pouring from a deep gash. He was struggling to breathe, his eyes wide in shock, but the worst part was that his leg was pinned under a massive chunk of concrete from the ceiling.

“Ben!” I shouted, rushing over to him. The air was thick with dust, making it harder to see, but I could hear the screams of my men echoing through the haze. I didn’t dare look outside to see what the crabs were doing, not when our own artillery had torn us apart.

“Stay with me, Ben!” I shouted, trying to apply pressure to the wound on his side, but it wasn’t enough. His eyes were glazing over, the pain too much to keep him conscious.

There was a shout from the other side of the room, and I turned just in time to see Eric stagger forward, one hand clutching his chest. He was still alive, but barely. The blast had thrown him across the room, leaving a gaping hole in his body where the shrapnel had torn through. Blood was staining his uniform, and his movements were sluggish, like he was already fading.

“Medic! We need a medic!” I screamed, but I already knew it was too late for Eric. And Ben? He wasn’t much better off. The smell of burning flesh mixed with the acrid dust in the air, making it hard to breathe, but it wasn’t the smoke that burned in my chest. It was the rage. The fucking rage.

I stumbled back, my hands shaking as I grabbed the radio again, slamming the button with a force that was almost reckless. "Do you hear me, bitch? You’ve killed my men, you hear me? You’ve killed my fucking men!"

Marius laughs, but it's hollow. It's almost like he's trying to push the weight of what he’s saying away with humor, to make the pain easier to swallow. But it’s not. It never is. I can feel the eyes of a few people in our part of the bar shift toward him, but he doesn’t notice. He’s too lost in it, his eyes watering as he recalls that god-awful afternoon.

"I saw Eric puking blood," he continues, voice cracking. "The shockwave must’ve done a number on his internal organs." His words hang in the air, thick and heavy. Catherine, sitting next to him now, reaches under the table, her hand finding his. It's a simple act, but one that speaks volumes. She's trying to ground him, trying to hold on to the man she’s seen through the worst of it all.

Marius exhales sharply, shaking his head. “Threatened to kill all of them when I got back, but we couldn’t get through the artillery battery. Then the third strike hit... I didn’t remember anything after that. I still don’t know why I survived. Sure, I was bed-ridden for two months, lost an eye in the process, but... I don’t know why I made it out when none of my men did.” His voice falters, and he pauses to take a long, quiet gulp from his beer.

He seems to hesitate, then adds, almost as if to himself, “Second squad came to dig us out of the rubble. I was the only one left.”

The words drop like a stone into the room, leaving a silence behind them. It’s the kind of silence that presses on your chest, suffocating in its weight.

Marius finishes his beer with a steady hand, but there's a tremor there, one that betrays his calm facade. He takes a cigarette from his pack, lights it with a flick of his lighter, and lets the smoke curl around him. As he exhales, he stands up, his eyes still not meeting anyone else’s, his nervous smile barely visible as if he regrets ever saying any of it out loud.

Without a word, he walks out of the bar, leaving the heaviness of his story lingering in the room, like the last breath of a battle long fought. The rest of us sit there in the silence he left behind, unable to forget what he had shared but unsure of how to respond.

Catherine remains still for a moment longer, her hand resting on the table, unmoving, her gaze distant as she watches him go. Then, slowly, she turns to face the others in the room, a quiet sorrow in her eyes. No one dares to break the silence.

Outside, Marius walks aimlessly, his steps slow and measured, like he’s trying to walk through the pain, each one heavier than the last. It’s almost like he’s doing the thousand steps—an attempt to leave it behind, to wash away the blood and the rubble and the lives that slipped through his fingers. His eyes are red, streaked with the tears he tried to hold back. But they came, anyway. And now he’s outside, walking, as if the motion might somehow make sense of the chaos he’s lived through.

Catherine steps out after him, her heels clicking softly on the pavement, a sound that seems too loud for the quiet that’s settled between them. She sees him before he notices her, his shoulders slumped, his head hanging low, his entire body holding the weight of a thousand unsaid words.

She pauses, just for a moment, her heart heavy in her chest. And then, without a word, she walks toward him. Her hand reaches out first, brushing lightly against his arm. He freezes, as if the touch grounded him back to the moment, back to reality, back to the here and now.

Marius slowly turns to face her, his face a mix of exhaustion and guilt. But before either of them can speak, he pulls her close, burying his face in her shoulder. His arms wrap around her, like he’s afraid he might fall apart if he lets go.

Catherine holds him tight, her hands running over his back, smoothing away the tension, the years of violence and loss that cling to him. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to. She just stays there, her presence a silent anchor in the storm of his thoughts.