The Mother Ship Hercules receded into the thin, high-altitude haze, a distant silhouette against the bleeding sun as Rudra, Riley, and their small team descended onto the plains of Mongolia. The air was sharp and empty, carrying the scent of dust and distant grasslands, the kind of emptiness that made the horizon seem infinite and almost hostile in its quiet.
Riley grumbled immediately, hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets as he stomped across the barren soil. "Bloody hell, mate," he muttered, squinting against the sun. "There's literally no one out here. Not a soul since we hit the border patrol. You tell me this is worth it?"
Rudra said nothing, boots crunching over the gravel-strewn dirt. He kept his gaze fixed on the horizon, the skeletal trees and shifting dunes stretching like a warning. The emptiness wasn't frightening—at least, not to him. It was expected.
They'd been handed passports—real, official ones issued by the militaries of their respective nations: Indian for Rudra, Australian for Riley. The documents sat heavily in their pockets, a reminder that, yes, the world still existed outside the bubble of the Hercules. But out here, in the endless plains, the world seemed to have forgotten itself.
Madison had stayed aboard, tending to the ship's systems and monitoring their descent from the command center. Her green eyes flickered constantly over the data streams, but she had made the call—this was a manhunt and reconnaissance mission, not a sightseeing tour. She trusted Rudra to lead on the ground, even if Riley complained every step of the way.
"Mate, I swear, we could walk for days and not see a single soul," Riley whined again, kicking at a clump of dried mud. "I didn't sign up for ghost towns, I signed up for monsters!"
Rudra's gaze swept the Mongolian plains, restless and calculating, eyes narrowing at every clump of grass, every ripple of dust. "Now I wonder," he muttered, voice low, almost to himself, "what's the population density in Australia?"
Riley snorted, waving a hand at the empty horizon. "Depends where you mean, mate. Everyone piles up along the coasts—Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth. Outside that, the middle of Australia's mostly desert. Nothing but sand, rocks, and angry kangaroos."
Rudra crouched for a moment, swatting at a particularly aggressive marmot—or whatever bastard rodent had decided he looked like a snack. "Figures," he said, brushing off dirt. "Barren in the middle. Everyone packed along the edges. Makes sense… humans like not dying of thirst."
Riley chuckled, shaking his head. "And yet somehow, out here in Mongolia, you expect to find civilization? Mate, this place is emptier than the Nullarbor."
Rudra straightened, fingers twitching as another rodent squeaked at him and darted away. "I'm not expecting it," he said, voice calm but clipped. "I'm observing. One does not hunt monsters with assumptions. One prepares for everything—including giant marmots that have anger issues."
Riley laughed despite himself, slapping his rifle strap. "You're unbelievable, mate. Who fights marmots for sport?"
Rudra's eyes flicked back to the horizon, faintly glowing with that simmering, unnatural awareness. "My body temperature's constantly 120 degrees Celsius," he said, voice flat, almost bored. "Thrice the normal human. Leads to… complications. Sweat, pheromones, things like that. These rodents? They hate it."
He stooped and grabbed one particularly defiant marmot, holding it up by its scruff. Its tiny claws scrabbled at his fingers, squeaks high-pitched and furious. "And no," he muttered, examining the creature, "we can't even eat them. Bubonic plague vectors, all of them. So… what are we supposed to do?"
"They're cute, though," Riley said, eyeing the marmot as it wriggled.
"Kind of," Rudra admitted with a sigh, letting the creature drop back into the grass. It scurried off without a backward glance. "Let's just camp here."
"You… know how to camp?" Riley asked, suspicion and amusement fighting for dominance in his tone.
Rudra's smirk was faint, self-assured. "Well, of course. I've seen all seasons of Man vs. Wild with Bear Grylls."
Riley froze. "The fuck, mate?" His jaw dropped slightly, disbelief written all over his face. "You're tellin' me survival skills come from Bear Grylls?"
Rudra's eyes glinted faintly as he crouched, surveying the plains. The endless expanse stirred something inside him—a subtle, almost illicit sense of freedom. He remembered the two years he had spent locked in a cold, dark room, alone, with nothing but the sparrow's imagined chirping in his head and the steady rhythm of his own breath. Mongolia, for all its barrenness, felt almost intoxicating.
He inhaled deeply, letting the crisp air fill his lungs, and a small, unguarded smile tugged at his lips. "Seriously… this won't be that bad a place to live in," he murmured, voice quiet, almost reverent. "So much clean, fresh air… so much space…" His gaze flicked down at the scrabbling marmots near his right leg. "…If these little fuckers weren't trying to attack me on sight."
Riley snorted from behind him. "Yeah, but the internet's crap here. And don't forget, mate… this place's been a Soviet satellite state for the past century."
Rudra tilted his head, curiosity sharpening. "Have the Chinese decided where to stand in this version of the Cold War yet?"
Riley shrugged, kicking a pebble across the plains. "Still communist, still playing it cautious. Moscow keeps breathing down everyone's neck, and Beijing's not exactly jumping off the fence anytime soon."
Rudra exhaled slowly, letting the wind brush against his face.
Rudra's tone shifted—calm, but carrying that razor of foreknowledge in it. "This will eventually lead to another world war," he said, eyes still fixed on the horizon as the wind whipped through his silver-streaked hair. "You can feel it… the quiet before the next global tantrum." He glanced sideways at Riley, expression unreadable. "What do you think Israel's position would be—besides being glued to America's hip?"
Riley hesitated, tightening the strap on his rifle. "Hard to say, mate. They've got fingers in every pie, tech, energy, defense. They'll do what they always do—play both sides 'til one burns brighter."
Rudra's mouth twisted into a bitter half-smile. "Figures." He brushed a hand through his hair, the motion sharp, restless. "Never trusted those people much. There are demons," he said, ticking invisible categories off his fingers, "then capitalistic sociopaths, and then—Uncle Sam." The words came with no venom, just the dry weight of someone too used to seeing nations behave like predators in nice suits.
He paused, his gaze hardening a little. "And I'm pretty sure Israel and Egypt are already at it again. Quietly, beneath the headlines. Drones, naval standoffs, a few border skirmishes here and there."
Riley frowned, half squinting toward the endless blue horizon. "Wouldn't surprise me. Everyone's pokin' the hornet's nest these days."
Rudra exhaled, watching the grass sway under the Mongolian wind. "Yeah," he muttered. "And hornets don't sting quietly."
The wind shifted across the plains, carrying only dust and the low rustle of grass—until a shadow broke the monotony.
Riley froze mid-step, hand tightening on his rifle. "Uh… mate… what the hell is that?"
Rudra's eyes narrowed, the faint glow returning, just enough to catch the reflection of something enormous moving through the tall grass. At first glance, it looked like a marmot—but the size, the way it moved, the unnatural weight in its gait, betrayed it instantly.
It stopped, head lifting, eyes burning with an unholy red light. Steam hissed from its nostrils, and a low, guttural growl rumbled across the plains, vibrating through the ground beneath their boots. Rudra crouched, muscles coiling, a hand brushing instinctively over the hilt of his Talwar.
Riley gulped audibly. "That's not… that's not a marmot, right?"
Rudra's lips curved into a grim, dry smile. "Depends on what you call a marmot…"
The creature's claws dug into the earth, earth and grass erupting around it as it let out a deafening screech. The plains themselves seemed to hold their breath.
Riley stumbled back, eyes wide. "Mate… it's… it's—"
Rudra cut him off, voice calm but deadly: "—demonic. And it's very angry."
The shadow lunged. The chapter ended there—time frozen in the tense beat before impact, the plains echoing with the shriek of something monstrous, and Rudra's fingers tightening around the weapons that had waited seven years for this moment.