Starts with a Match

Your Right, or Mine?

The bad news is, we're being hunted. By PCs and soldiers alike. One of those is a terrifying, blood thirsty thing that's got it's mind on one fucking thing. The other is a glut.

The good news is, we got shit they want. Info they didn't want us to know. Donovan tries Sam Hether's walkie again, hoping that, as we limp the last three miles to base, we'll get back in range enough to send something down the line, praying whoever is on the other side is one of ours.

But that intel. Fuck, it's juicy.

White Guild, internet bastards, 'as we began in darkness, so we shall return to it' is behind the bomb theft. Taking them, remarking them. What once was US property becomes 'from Turkey, from Japan, from Russia'.

And, back in Rustavi, they had a hand in green's constant fuck ups. Getting us swarmed. Taking out soldiers

More than likely, they're the ones that were seeping into keg soldiers' heads, too, using their blood for their own weapons.

They're everywhere.

White Guild has been the least of my worries this entire time.

Talk about fucking sleepers, man.

Shit, yeah, they've been known to take out VB vans on the way to the volunteering camps every once in a while, but most of the imports get to where they need to go alive and unscathed. WG hasn't even tried to infiltrate said camps yet, either.

But we got some crucial shit that I bet even Seya doesn't know.

WG is attacking the vans, nearly figured that one out already. But they're not killing like we thought. Not right off the bat.

They're kidnapping. And they got some fun 'volunteer' camps of their own. Two, to be precise.

One for experimentation. If you're too old, too weak, sick, infertile, even fucking arthritis, they play with you, take all your blood, vacuum out your marrow, trying to find a cure meant only for them. They were never about letting the virus 'run its course'. Some stupid news TV program made that shit up, and WG thought why the hell not, let them think we're crazy—which they are.

Cause the second camp is for breeding.

You fertile? You young—from the age of thirteen to fucking forty-five? You got a uterus, eggs, sperm? You got that cherry blood? White Guild's coming for you. Stalking VBs, their families, breaking into homes, watching them for months to learn who they know, and what they know, before making a move.

They haven't attacked any volunteer spots yet. But that's what those bombs are for.

I'll admit. Getting that info was a new low for me.

Got buckets of US soldier blood on my hands now.

At least I feel like, after what Donovan saw, he's not about to go outing all this shit at the bars like I'm a hero.

Here this guy was just a few weeks ago, going on and on about how I was a demon in the field. Boy hadn't seen nothing yet. Don't stand between me and survival.

Those are screams I'll never be able to get out of my head. Glad Elijah wasn't alive to see me sink so deep like that.

—

Donovan's panting and begging for a break, and I ease him to lean on a tree, hidden out of sight. "You got two minutes, Don," I whisper, eying over his shoulder.

"Just need one, Koop." He nods hard, blood and sweat and tears mixing on his cheeks. He looks up, gives a sharp sniff, and another nod.

Just this morning, he rolled over on his mat and looked to the stars still over us in big sky country, and he told me Gracie's pregnant. And he thinks he really loves her, as much as he complains.