Screaming.

That was the biggest difference: back at the Somas camp there was no screaming. Without the feeling of despair radiating out from the Gate, perhaps nobody would have known it opened. The people of Somas were in the middle of a hostile desert while in Alkkes people filled the streets at nearly every hour of daylight.

People crashed into him and perhaps a stampede would soon start on the narrower streets. With quick, agile movements he hoisted himself up the side of a building, using the support beams and the top of an adjacent fence to reach the edge of the roof. Then he pulled himself onto the ceramic shingled rooftops and made his way in the opposite direction people seemed to be running from. This would normally have drawn a lot of unwanted attention, but now none of the hundreds running for their lives noticed.

He had to leap over gaps of buildings and Ral quickly realized why people were running. The sound of something unholy filled the streets to accompany the panicked screams and shouts of Alkkians. A flash of something unnaturally white caught his attention.

The Unseeing opened a lumpy, tooth filled mouth that had gums screaming red in color and it let out four, five voices in dissonance. It made a great leap forward and crushed a man under its weight as he sobbed. Without thinking twice, Ral grabbed a ceramic tile off the roof, unhooking it from the support that attached it to the roof and flung it as hard as he could at the monster. It whistled vertically through the air and the edge sharp enough to embed into the smooth, white head.

It reared back in pain, making more unnatural sounds from its too large mouth. Ral dropped off the roof and landed heavily on the ground and hastily grabbed the first thing he could - the wooden poles used to prop up the fabric roofs over small stalls on the streets. He ripped it from the ground, splintering it from where it was embedded on the ground.

The Unseeing moved to dodge him but in turn pushed its weight onto the man under him. Ral heard a sickening crunch and he saw blood and brain matter splatter out on the street as the man’s skull collapsed.

Swearing, Ral moved as fast as he could to strike the Unseeing with either his elbow or his new makeshift weapon. His elbow made contact and staggered the too-white beast and Ral drove the splintered end of the stick up the Unseeing’s throat. It whimpered then fell limp.

Roughly pulling the wooden pole from the creature’s head, Ral climbed the side of another building and looked towards where there was more commotion. He spotted some had taken weapons to fight back: two men brandishing swords fought off an Unseeing trying to make its way down a narrow street while others could flee. Ral decided they could fend for themselves when he heard the wail of a child about three blocks further north.

Ral jumped across more rooftops to see another crowd of men with long poles fighting a handful of Unseeing while a woman shielding a child crouched panting on the floor.

“…he turned!” one of the men shouted among the commotion. He was abruptly cut off when an Unseeing overwhelmed him and started gnawing his head off. Another man who was hanging in the back of Alkkians that were fighting, screamed, dropped his weapon and started to run away.

An Unseeing started to give chase but Ral dropped down and speared it with his wooden pole. He tensed and burst towards the middle of the fight, the sudden movement throwing back one Unseeing such that one of the armed men could kill it. With a sharp pivot that made every muscle in his leg protest, he whipped around to kick another Unseeing. The monsters outnumbered them - one rushed and tried to bite Ral, but he stumbled onto the ground to avoid the snapping red jaws and rolled to where the newly dead man had dropped his sword. Ral grasped the weapon and flung it blindly at the Unseeing, the weapon shooting straight through its throat.

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“The woman and child!” he shouted, flitting through the fighting to retrieve the sword. “Someone fucking take them away from here!”

“No, she’s not normal,” another man shouted back.

“What are you - ”

Ral glanced back at the woman. He had missed it at first but at this angle he could see that half her face bulged out, the skin peeling back to reveal too-white flesh. One of her eyes was gone and the side of her face turning warped her mouth into a twisted red leer.

This woman was… turning into Unseeing?

Ral pulled at the woman’s arm so he could take a better look and recoiled internally when he found the skin on her arm fraying like threads on well worn fabric to reveal bright white flesh underneath. Her other arm still looked normal and clutched the child protectively.

“Mama,” the child said tearfully. The woman’s normal, unturned side was facing the child so the little boy had no idea his mother was becoming a monster. He seemed more terrified of Ral and tried to hide behind his mother as Ral tugged the woman onto her feet.

“What’s happened to you?” he asked her roughly.

The half-Unseeing mouth opened and shut helplessly. Grunts and whimpers came out of the woman’s throat. The child cried out at the woman’s hip and Ral saw that she was gripping him too hard, a hand growing wickedly long, curved nails and started to dig into the boy’s head.

“Let him go, he’s your son!” Ral exclaimed, trying to drag the woman away. She twitched and her head snapped to the side and a horrible crack sounded, like a bone snapping in half. The boy screamed as her nails dug deep enough to draw blood.

He had to stop her. But he couldn’t do it right here in front of the boy. He couldn’t. But the sword was in his hand and she was going to crush the boy’s skull if he didn’t. Too-white flesh rippled across her face and threatened to close off her other eye. Ral gritted his teeth and ran the sword through the woman, straight through the heart.

The eye that still belonged to her Gaian flesh leaked tears and widened in pain and shock. It stared at Ral’s very Solute as he killed her. Her clawed hand left her son’s head and she fell half-transformed on the floor. Ral saw the boy’s face turn deathly pale, almost as pale as an Unseeing, as the Great Solven rippled from the child’s shock. He wanted to tell the boy he had to, he wanted to beg for forgiveness -

The air crashed out of him as a mess of white limbs and smooth flesh made him topple onto the ground. An oversized red mouth of an Unseeing screeched in his ear, a long red tongue and ropes of saliva pouring down his arm as he kept his arm to stop it from clamping on his head. He kicked it, hard, then twisted out of its grapple to land an elbow strike against anything he could reach. The momentum let him reach the sword still embedded in the half-turned woman and he turned again to slice the Unseeing’s head clean off.

After landing the clean blow, Ral was just in time to see another man fall victim to a monster’s horrible red jaws. Another screamed as his arm was ripped clean off his shoulder. Six, no seven more Unseeing came pouring around the corner to join the fight. The group of men who looked like they had a chance against the onslaught of monsters had suddenly thinned out, whether from death or abandonment.

Sun’s mercy he was going to die here in some side street in Alkkes.