"Eternal"

February 1st, 2026

South Africa - 9:10 PM

Suddenly...

Gunfire erupted from the left, sudden and vicious. The calm African air was shredded by a chaotic cacophony of screams, ricochets, and the dull thud of bullets biting into dirt.

Ray's comms crackled to life.

"Captain, we're ambushed!" one of his men screamed.

Ray didn't hesitate.

"To the left side! Find the enemies and outflank them! Move! Move!" he barked. He spun the wheel of instinct in his head, rapidly calculating. The high ground to the left. Natural advantage. No cover to the south. Thick brush to the north. His boots hit the dirt as he flung open the humvee door.

The world exploded around him.

Bullets zipped past his ears. He dashed for a ruined stone wall and slid behind it. One of his corporals ducked beside him, face pale.

"Captain, they're fucking crazy!"

"I know," Ray muttered, popping his head over the wall to scan. Muzzle flashes glared from the ridge.

The voice crackled in his earpiece again.

"They're screaming in Latin, sir! It's... feminine. High-pitched. Like banshees."

Ray squinted toward the ridge. The sound was unmistakable now: a shrill, feminine voice chanting or screaming in Latin. The cadence made his skin crawl.

"Cook grenades! High arc! Target their cover!" he ordered.

The men moved with military precision. Grenades primed. One-two-three-

"Throw!"

Explosions rocked the ridge. Shards of rock, dust, and bone sprayed out in all directions. Ray immediately followed up.

"Smoke out!"

Twin plumes of thick gray fog hissed from Ray's belt and blanketed the air. They moved like ghosts into the smokescreen.

"Go, go, go!"

They stormed the ridge in silence but with bloodlust in their eyes. As they burst through the smoke, the cultists were exposed, wide-eyed, clutching rusted machetes, crude spears, some even holding torches. And most disturbing of all - they were almost entirely women.

It didn't matter.

Ray's blade slashed across the throat of the first enemy he saw. One of his soldiers stabbed another through the gut. Blood sprayed like fountains. The smoke became a dance floor of death - red shadows against grey mist.

"They're fanatics! No hesitation!" Ray shouted.

Screams. Squelches. Gunfire and gurgles.

Another scream came from the right.

"Captain! Another wave charging our flank!"

Ray looked up to see a mass of bodies charging toward their right unit. More women, all howling and screeching in Latin, their faces hidden behind painted white clay masks.

The right flank opened fire.

The charging cultists fell like dolls under a machine gun. Dozens. Blood soaked the earth, creating rivulets in the sand.

Minutes passed. Then silence.

Ray exhaled heavily. They had survived.

His boots crunched across the dirt as he inspected the aftermath. The enemy wore mismatched uniforms, ceremonial dresses, some even naked. And each bore the same symbol: a burned brand of an eye pierced by a thorned crown.

One body groaned.

Ray spun, gun raised.

A woman, her face disfigured by burns, writhed on the dirt. Her lips curled into a bloody smile as Ray knelt beside her.

"Who is the Matriarch? Where is she?" Ray demanded.

She laughed. A chilling, gurgling sound that didn't belong to a human anymore.

She whispered something in Latin.

Ray frowned. "What did you say?"

Then she screamed. Not in fear, but like a hymn. A sacrament. With trembling hands, she drew a concealed blade from her robes.

Before Ray could stop her, she plunged it into her own throat.

"Shit!" he cursed, stepping back as blood spurted.

Then..

A soldier approached behind him.

"Sir... she said, 'The Matriarch is eternal. Your time will come.'"

Ray turned, narrowing his eyes.

"Excuse me?"

"That's what she said. I speak Latin. Just translated."

Ray stared down at the corpse, then back at the battlefield.

The phrase echoed in his mind like a curse.

The Matriarch is eternal. Your time will come.

A shiver crawled up his spine.

He tapped his radio.

"Call and prep for an extraction point. Search the perimeter.. Intel. I want to know where these lunatics came from."

"Yes, sir."

His soldiers spread out, scouring the wreckage. Ray stood still, trying to shake the whisper of the cultist's dying words from his thoughts. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't.

The Matriarch is eternal. Your time will come.