The park just out the window of Cutter’s Crabhouse was called Victor Steinbrueck Park, and it was once a staple of Seattle culture. Due to its proximity to Pike’s Place Market and its breathtaking view of Elliott Bay, it used to be a lively scene where hundreds of people gathered, listening to local musicians and smoking joints (or crack, depending on the quality of people that day). Kids ran around as parents drank coffee and avoided their spouses, and tourists took pictures of the bay from the panoramic railing. It was a symbol of vibrant Seattle culture—now, it was full of stalks that had waited around like vultures for the other stalk to die or break through.

I immediately rushed past as they flew at me, and without thinking, I jumped off the park railing, completely forgetting—or simply not caring—that the park was built on top of a two-story parking garage, so I plunged two stories onto the asphalt below.

Before you think that aether made me stupid, let’s make something clear: being high on Zerka—the “red” aether—isn’t like smoking PCP and thinking you can fly. It’s like smoking PCP and knowing that you can box rhinos and lift trucks, so much of what I do is a lot more sane than it sounds. That said, there was a thin line between what you could do and what would actually kill you—and I just rode that line like a fucking champ.

I hit the ground like a superhero making a grand entrance and promptly stood and ran, chased closely by the stalks that made me jump, to begin with. They dove at me, screeching as they plunged, trying to snatch me with their talons. I ran away at high speed, feeling that purple aether tugging at me, telling me to use it. I did, and my stomach dropped as I sped up, weaving between panicked Humvee drivers who honked at me. I immediately slowed down, fearing I’d smash into one at fifty and explode, so I slowed. Luckily, the stalks started diving at gunners on the humvees, allowing me time to escape and rush to the pier.

2

Seattle’s pier (known as Waterfront Park or Pier Zero, depending on which side of 2024 people were from) was once a famous tourist destination, sporting a 175-foot multi-colored, turning wheel called the Seattle Great Wheel that tourists used to flock to. Couples would get into a glass box on the wheel and take pictures and make out as it turned, bringing them high above the city so they could get a good view of the areas that were now in a state of absolute carnage. Then, they’d get seafood and hit the aquarium or take a tourist cruise around the harbor before hitting Pike’s Place.

Now, the Great Wheel was replaced by an orange construction crane hanging over the maw-infested water, harnesses dangling from its arm like a sick amusement park ride. The seafood restaurants were now logistical buildings or demolished, and the water wasn’t even visible due to a fifty-foot wall the military built, lined with Browning M2 machine guns firing rapidly, releasing the loud yet satisfying chink-chink-chink-chink they’re known for as stalks swooped and screeched and howled overhead.

Contrary to what you may expect, there weren’t any Sickles running around with super speed, shooting stalks in slow motion, or throwing cannonballs like baseballs at rifters. Sickles and officers ran around in pairs of two, with Sickles operating turrets—using their eyes to target rifter cores—and the officer standing around emotionally abusing them to keep them focused.

It’s logical to assume that it should be the other way around, with Sickles in control. For that reason, much of what follows will feel unbelievable, leading to the perception that this memoir is nothing but pro-Sickle propaganda designed to make Breathers out to be evil Nazi fascist communists that kick puppies and traffic little children. But that’s not true, so let’s cover the absolute bare minimum you need to know to understand our situation.

Sickles were forced into military service in the first few weeks of the Rapture, as our ability to see rifter cores was the only thing standing between Earth and annihilation. We rebelled shortly after, but we didn’t understand how aether worked, let alone our powers, so we were weak, and by the time we wised up, the government passed the Sickle Rights Act of 2025, labeling Sickles as another species and forcing us into military service, where the military watched our every move.

The next year, the Rapturian denominations of the Christian and Muslim faiths convinced millions to become Sickles for religious reasons, and enough people did so secretly to infiltrate the government. It started the Sickle Authority Movement (SAM) to infiltrate governments and institutions from within. It was successful in some states, leading to a minor civil war, which the Breathers won due to sheer numbers and weaponry. It resulted in the Sickle Sedition Act of 2025, which made any pro-Sickle support or language a minor felony for citizens, and made even attempts to organize Sickles for rebellion an executable crime. As of this writing, all Breathers are now subject to regular Lep C checks, and having or eating rifter meat without proper authorization is an executable offense—even if it’s for religious purposes.

Due to ever-deepening oppression, the year before this story starts—2026—the Sickles staged what they refer to as The Great Reminder, but the government refers to as October 3rd. It was a nationwide boycott where Sickles refused to fight in the military during a major riftbreak.

8 million Breathers died—1/10th of the surviving US population.

In response, the government didn’t give Sickles rights. They labeled the October 3rd leaders terrorists and passed the October 3rd Prevention Act, which made failure to report to duty an executable crime and required Sickles to wear earbuds that recorded their every word and sentence, in addition to implanted trackers that captured their every movement. They also made the most of AI imaging and speech analysis to log relationships between Sickles and social patterns.

Collectively, these systems ensured that Sickles kept using their eyes to fight and wouldn’t rise up again. The laws were practical. They were rational. And they worked. So while some people are evil and history’s proven that Sickles have serious potential to fight back, if you think everyone in the military’s evil by default or that Sickles could’ve just risen up whenever they wanted—you have no fucking clue what you're talking about.

So, push aside any biases that you have as someone with rights and protections from the government and read. Learn our history. Meet the people and hear their reasoning. See the desperation that the government actively hides from you—and then draw your conclusions. Because the events that follow will seem almost comically evil—but will slowly yet pervasively make sense until the logic is screaming at you like an infected tooth.

Just remember: I didn’t say it was right or reasonable—I said it made sense. Those are two different things.

3

I rushed past a group of running soldiers, grabbed a railing, and rushed up a steel staircase to the top of the wall.

“Oh, thank God!” an officer yelled. “Someone that can actually hit something!”

I saluted. “Reporting in.”

The officer grabbed a Sickle by her hair and threw her off a turret, nearly pushing her off the wall. My heart quickened when I saw it, and that red Zerka following in my veins made me want to grab his hair and throw him fifty feet into the maw-infested bay below us.

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

“Here.” The officer tossed me a piece of jerky like I was a dog. “It’s Zeta, so it’ll last.”

“Thanks,” I said. I would normally be stoked. Zetas were two classes down from Deltas and were between the size of a house cat and a large dog. It wasn’t large but far stronger than what we normally ate. More importantly, it was usually the minimum to get me actually high. But at that moment, I didn’t even feel the burn from eating it. I was cranked.

“You good for tracing?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Then load up.”

I nodded and switched the ammo belt from normal 50-caliber shells to incendiary tips, allowing people to see the area I hit on the infrared screens on every turret. “Ready.”

The officer touched his receiver. “Sickle 1706 is in position. Trace is online. Await trace instructions!”

I grabbed the Browning M2 turret and surveyed the position. The scene wasn’t just terrifying—it was nightmare fuel. The water was nearly boiling from the maws feeding on each other, and seeing the aether signatures made the bay light up with various colors like a Christmas tree through my eyes. Thousands of shark-sized maws that made anglerfish look kissable jutted around, swimming alongside eels with centipede legs. Drones flew over the water, dumping poison into the bay, and explosives hit the water like mortars, creating D-day-style geysers. Worst of all, even five miles out, I could see the Beta colossus. It looked like a tulip, with a massive head and 400-foot neck that stretched deep underwater, connected to a colossal body that was amorphous, like an octopus stuffed into a bathtub. It wasn’t moving. It was deathly still, only breathing to keep an orange, 492-foot Supramax bulk carrier in place in a slight whirlpool. It was a true nightmare creature—and we all knew it would attack soon.

Suddenly, I heard the distinctive chop-chop-chop of a helicopter from my far left. It was strange for an aircraft to be moving toward the Beta colossus, right through rifter territory—and I could see the stalks taking notice.

Those idiots! I thought as my world ground to a halt. The stalks slowed to absurd speeds, and their bodies started multiplying, creating those reverse-after images out of the “Dust”—dopples as I now call them—giving me a glimpse into the “future,” showing me that the stalks were going to attack it.

I gripped the machine gun and turned to the first stalk that was moving toward the helicopter. It looked like a blue jay with a red mohawk and a twenty-foot wingspan, zeroed in on the core in its throat, aimed at its dopple to lead it—and waited for the signal.

The officer gave it—in ultra slow motion.

“Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiire.”

I complied, pulling the trigger. The gun kicked as it released a 50-caliber jacket 200 feet over the water, a red, ghostly line tracing it like a laser pointer, hitting it in the throat and instantly dropping it into the water.

The officer let out a five-second protracted whistle and said, “Leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet’s gooooooooooooooooooo!”

I could barely understand his words because they were moving so slowly. Before he even finished, I had dropped another two stalks, only slowed by the sheer restrictions of natural physics. I was high—

—as fuck. I could only imagine how crazed and deranged and lost I must’ve looked, jaw clenched, cheeks rippling from the recoil, pupils the size of pinpricks… pumping out rounds at speeds that must’ve looked random despite squeezing the trigger each time.

The officer laughed this slow, aggravating laugh as I killed every stalk that even looked at the helicopter wrong, making them drop like a waterfall into Elliott Bay. I was death. Invincible. A god.

—Until another Cela-type (speed type like the one in Cutters) suddenly veered off course and shot at the helicopter—fast.

How fast was hard to conceptualize because the other stalks were moving at the speed molasses moved down walls, and who knows how fast they were moving. All I knew was that this thing was moving like a normal person riding a bike. So, like, a hundred miles an hour? Two? The shit was unnatural, so much so that my brain slowed even further… which worked, but it was painful.

Really painful.

I got an instant headache, making me internally scream Why now? because this thing was about to sink this copter (or so I thought), and I lost my concentration. But the Sena worked. It cranked until that bird was moving at walking speed, allowing me to zero in on its core—which was in its head—on its dopple, leading it by what felt like 300 feet—and pulled the trigger.

A red streak flew out of the Browning, moving in a solid red laser as it reached the stalk. The bullet actually hit it in the head—

—but it was two inches too high to hit the core. Yet the hollow-point tracer burned hot, and it lit up like a star on the phone-sized infrared screen on every single turret could now see it like a star. It was traced—and Sickles and breathers alike knew where the core was.

4

The stalk didn’t like taking a 50-caliber bullet to its skull, so it promptly turned in rage, ignoring the helicopter and flying toward shore at the speed of a jet. Now it was moving at us, and damn, was it fast.

I tried to say “Traced,” but it’d take at least six seconds in my current state. So I just lifted my thumb and released the Sena for a moment—and that’s when all the information that I processed in that state of heightened perception crashed into my head all at once, scrambling my thoughts as Hephaestus cracked my head open with his godly hammer.

Rewrite.

I didn’t know what it was called back then, but I was vaguely aware of how painful it was to catch up with the world. That said, I had never had enough to push things as far as I did that day, and the amount I used fighting the stalks was far more intense than in the crab house.

I immediately grabbed my head as the officer screamed, “Blue Delta successfully traced!” which sounded more grating than hearing a car crash with a hangover. Then came the bullets, all those fucking bullets. Twelve Brownings immediately turned to this fast son of a bitch and started laying on the trigger, blasting at it randomly, each bullet ripping through my brain.

“Get some!” the officer yelled.

I was in severe pain from the sensations but looked up to check on the helicopter and found it was still flying en route to the cargo ship above the Beta. And all I could think was, Wow. They’ll actually be able to evacuate the cargo ship’s crew. Nice.

The officer abruptly touched his earbud and his face distorted. “What do you mean? No. We need him here.”

By virtue of adrenaline and primal instinct, my headache lessened so I could hear the conversation my officer was having.

“I don’t care if he’s insubordinate! People are dyin’ down here, and he’s fucking shit up…. Of course he is! It’s a warzo—did you just call me an idiot? Yeah, that’s what I just said! How many? I don’t know. Fifteen? Six—stop calling me an idiot! I’m reporting this to…. What do you mean it’s Thompson’s orders? What the hell does Thompson want…. You best not be fucking with me, Slade. I’m reporting this…. You think I’m joking, but I’m not…. Yeah. Alright. I’ll patch him through. Yeah, I said I would.”

The officer took his finger off his receiver and said, “Fuck,” before kicking me in the ribs and tapping his earbud.

I let go of the turret and took a deep breath, trying to calm my raging headache. Then I cupped my hand over my left ear and pressed the button.

Where the hell are you? Slade asked.

I was confused when I heard him. He said what he’d normally say, but he didn’t sound like a raging asshole. He sounded… panicked. Distant yet aggressive, like a cornered animal. That was the sound of someone who just had their ass chewed out and was on the chopping block. Looking back now, I can clearly see that his order wasn’t his own, and I can remember hearing that Colonel Thompson—the base commander—was involved. But right then? I had a raging headache and could only think about how much of an asshole he was.

“I’m at…” I said, gripping my head. “Pier 55 providing trace support.”

Why didn’t you contact me?

“I reported to my station. This is—“

Don’t back-talk me. How long have you been there?

I wanted to lie, but every word I said was recorded and timestamped. “Fifteen minutes?”

Fifteen minutes… I see. So you killed that stalk, didn’t you?

I swallowed at the sharpness in his voice. “Which stal—“

The one in Cutters.

“The door was locked, and it broke in after you denied my—“

Then you should’ve jumped out the fucking window!

“What’s your problem? I killed a Delta with a pistol. Do you think I would’ve fought that thing if I didn’t have to—”

Report to the Brig at O seven hundred hours. I’m charging you with a violation of Article 86 and insubordination. We’ll let a court-martial decide if you didn’t have a choice. Slade said, leaving me to stare into dead space. Tomorrow, I was going on trial.