I'm half asleep outside the tent, baby peaceful inside of it, when I see the leering red eyes of a second elk.

Its hooves grind against the earth as it readies to charge, and I'm thinking that if it's not careful it's going to trample over the tent, over a baby.

And my body is glowing like a green star. Pulsing with energy. I've never felt like this. I'm sick and yet I'm the healthiest I've ever been.

Rage swells inside me, and it mixes with the poisons I'm breathing, and together they become a new, terrible concoction. This elk is already dead. Undead. It had its shot at life, and it fucking failed. So if it thinks it's killing a baby now -- that it's going to stop another life short, just 'cause it lost the game of life, then it's got another thing coming.

The elk has only made it half-way from the trees to the tent, when it explodes.

Strings of rotting burning meat fall around me like confetti.

My body itself steams and simmers, my hands numb, the glow of my skin dimming as if water's been thrown on a fire.

I collapse onto the ground, chest heaving as I pant, barely noticing the pain of my cracked sternum.

Somehow, I'd projected a beam of toxins -- of more than that, of concentrated radiation or something -- at the animal. And unlike me, the elk couldn't handle it.

Boom.

My hands are becoming black. No, not just my hands, my skin. It's gone from yellow to brown, to... grey. A darkening grey. And it's flaking. As I run a hand down my arm, tiny flakes of black skin float away like dandruff.

What the fuck is happening to me?

And I sort of know, but not really. The baby. The little girl in the tent. Whatever she was emitting into the forest, whatever she was doing, I've been absorbing it. Like drinking water straight from the source.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

That's all well and good, and maybe the kid will be safe to take back to base, thanks to me. But... I'm not sure how much more my body can handle.

I'm tired. Spent. That feeling like you've fucked for an hour straight and then rolled over onto the other side of the bed, and you want to just sleep for a week.

The ground is hard beneath my head and I should grab a blanket to soften it, but... I don't have the energy.

I just wanna sleep.

Another day and another night before we're back. Before we're out of the tree line near where Elena had dropped me off.

Wearily, I force myself up the hill. Somewhere to my side is the cairn I'd passed a long while ago, but I don't stop to find it. I push my burning thighs until I get us to the top.

No sign of Elena.

No sign of anyone.

If they were monitoring me, they didn't do a great job. Either that or they just didn't want to pick me up.

"Looks like we've got a bit more walking ahead of us," I say with a faux-joviality to the baby. She's asleep; tied around my chest now, held in a makeshift carrier created from tent-poles and torn up fabrics.

"Jesus holy fuck Mary," says Carlos. An understatement, I think.

He's the first to see me, as I stagger towards the camp.

For his part, he runs out and looks like he's going to help. But then he freezes, looking between me and the baby.

"What... What happened to you?" he asks, his face pale.

And I remember something about my skin. Black and translucent enough to see the veins pumping away behind it. And in places, its peeling off me like plaster from a damp wall.

"The bag," I mumble. "Get it off me."

He takes a long look at the baby, drinking her in. Then, "Right. Sure. Sorry." He unclips it from my chest and slips the straps off my shoulders.

He winces as he puts it on. Looks at me and I can see he wants to say: how the fuck did you carry this all that way? And a baby?!

But he says nothing, embarrassed.

Doubt he ever thought he'd see me again.

"Is it a..." he starts. Runs a hand through that slick hair. "A Storm?"

"She." My voice is ragged and it hurts to speak, like every word I'm gulping down broken glass. "Not an it. A she."

More agents pour out of the tents. Military personnel, too.

Someone takes the baby from me, and even in my half-dead -- maybe more than half -- state, I'm reluctant to let them. But the truth is, I just don't have the energy to stop them.

I think I see Elena, before I pass out.

But I don't see Susie anywhere.

The last thing I hear before the blackness takes me is the wind carrying a whisper.

If you let them take her, she'll die.

Too late, I think.

Too late.