Damasa Front

I yanked my combat blade free from a Goblin's skull, its body collapsing in a twitching heap.

This one had been stupid. Rushed me with a rusty knife, all piss and rage. I dodged, slit its throat, then finished it with a quick stab through the temple.

No point in wasting bullets on vermin.

I made my way back to the Humvee, shaking blood off my hands.

Gino was already unloading a flamethrower, directing a roaring column of fire into the ruins where the Goblins had nested. The flames licked up the broken walls, turning everything into a searing, crackling inferno.

Dan grabbed another flamethrower from the truck, turning to Foster.

"Get the little ones out here," he ordered.

Foster laughed like a giddy child on Christmas. He started dragging the tiny Gobbers out from the ruined structure, tossing their twitching, barely-breathing bodies into a pile.

He wiped a bloody hand on his pants. "Why the hell do we have to drag these little fuckers out?"

Dan shrugged, nodding toward the recovery unit rolling in.

A convoy of armored trucks parked beside our Humvee. The doors swung open, and a team of researchers in armored suits stepped out, moving toward the pile of Gobber younglings with professional detachment.

One of the eggheads crouched down, inspecting the pile.

"This one will do," he muttered.

He picked up a doll-sized Goblin, barely larger than his forearm. The thing whimpered, weak and trembling. He marked it with a red X, shoved it into a steel cage, and gave Dan a nod.

The rest?

They burned.

Dan unleashed the flamethrower, the whooshing roar of ignited fuel drowning out everything else. The little shits screeched, their tiny limbs convulsing as they curled into charred husks, their flesh bubbling and blackening in seconds.

Foster winced. "Kinda fucked up."

Gino smirked. "Also wicked."

I exhaled, watching the smoke rise. "Tell me about it. We've been bombing the shit out of everything, but we still haven't seen those other things."

Gino stretched his arms, rolling his shoulders. "Yeah, well. Those things are rare, man. We just got unlucky that time."

I didn't like that word, unlucky.

Made it sound like we had no control.

And I fucking hated feeling powerless.

Dan's flamethrower ran out of fuel. He turned back to the Humvee, reloaded the tank, and went right back to burning everything in sight.

Dan liked fire way too much.

Foster made a disgusted face. "Shit, man, you got any paper towels?"

I dug through our supplies, tossing him a can of disinfectant spray. SOP required us to douse ourselves in the stuff after encounters like this. Because we had no idea what kind of diseases these freaks carried.

I sprayed Foster down, then handed the can to Gino. He did the same for me. Dan finished torching a collapsed house, came back grinning, and got sprayed like a wet dog.

"Try not to burn yourself alive, pyro," I muttered.

Dan just laughed.

HQ had officially greenlit a scorched earth policy for this entire region.

Not just the ruins. Not just the monsters.

Everything.

The forests around the outposts and makeshift forts we were setting up? Gone. Reduced to ash.

The top brass had decided that forests were liabilities.

They gave cover to enemies. They gave food and shelter to Mutates. They gave us nothing.

So we were erasing them and turning them into farmland.

Sure, it would take years before anything grew back, but that wasn't our concern. We weren't here to preserve the land.

We were here to take it back.

As we wrapped up the operation, HQ sent out another update.

They had secured a nearby town, one that still had its old-world sign.

Damasa.

Normally, UH forces renamed these places. Wiped the history clean. But because the old welcome sign still stood, it meant someone back in the city could pull up records.

Compare evidence. Get a sense of history.

Not that it mattered much.

Because soon, whatever Damasa used to be?

It was just going to be another human outpost.

* * *

We rode to Damasa for supplies.

Ran through too much ammo, and Dan and Gino emptied their flamethrowers torching those freaks. We needed to restock, grab some rations, and maybe—just maybe—get a few hours of actual rest.

Damasa already had barbed wire, prefab walls, and concertainers stacked high around the perimeter. A proper forward base, still smelling like freshly poured concrete and napalm. Troopers stood guard at the entrances, their rifles held lazily but eyes sharp.

Gunships whirred overhead, their engines a dull roar even from miles away.

Another day in the war to take back the world.

Before entering, we got hit with another disinfectant spray. Standard procedure. Kill the stench, kill the bacteria, pretend we're still human.

Once parked, we went to the quartermaster with our resupply list and then sat around with the other troopers.

Gino tore open an MRE, barely glancing at what he was eating before digging in.

That's when he decided to bring up the freaks.

He pulled out his PDA, showing the pics he took of the things we fought in the ruins. Didn't even know he took any. But the other troopers were paying attention now.

Dan, chewing through his meal, broke it down for them.

"Fast, strong, smart. Don't fight like Gobbers. If you see something that moves like a fucking person, torch it. Just don't spray inside a building unless you wanna be extra crispy."

One of the troopers grunted. "Damn. You guys get all the fun shit."

Dan scoffed. "That ain't fun."

Apparently, we weren't the only unlucky bastards to run into something that wasn't standard extermination work.

But one of the other squads had a different problem.

"Had to deal with a big-ass Mutate last week," one of the guys said. "Napalm didn't kill it. RPG didn't kill it. Took the whole squad dumping rounds into it before it finally dropped."

He pulled up an image on his device, and we got a good look at it.

Nine feet tall. Six feet wide. Limbs thick as tree trunks.

The thing looked like a rotting meat sack held together by sheer spite. Its single, bulging eye was clouded, and its body was covered in scar tissue, boils, and deep gouges.

But the worst part?

Shit stains.

Big, nasty streaks running down its thighs.

"Goddamn," Gino muttered. "That thing must've smelled like actual death."

"Yeah," the guy continued. "Stench was so bad, we had to wear masks. But here's the weird part—"

He zoomed in on the lower body.

"Why's it missing its dick?" someone asked.

The guy shook his head. "The Recovery Unit cut it off."

We all went silent.

"Wait," Dan said. "They cut off its dick and balls?"

"Yup."

"Why?"

"Studying it, apparently."

Foster made a disgusted face. "Man, that's fucking weird."

Another trooper groaned. "Tell me about it. It's one thing to kill the fucker, but then some nerds show up, slice off its junk, and ship it back to HQ? Not cool, man."

"Yeah," I muttered. "Even we have limits."

Apparently, desecrating a monster's dick and balls was where we drew the line.

After eating, we headed back to the Humvee, setting up our camo tents and laying out our sleeping bags.

Took off our armor, chainmail, webbing, and harnesses and stretched out.

A Battalion Commander passed by, reminding us to maintain our gear.

I didn't even open my eyes.

Internally? We all told him to fuck off.

Externally? We just nodded.

Then I passed out.

I woke up to the sound of gunfire and the rumble of supply trucks moving in and out.

Muscles aching. Bones burning. Mouth dry as hell.

I crawled out of my sleeping bag, grabbed a pot of instant coffee, and shoved rye bread into my mouth.

PX had bacon and eggs, so I traded some of my smokes for extra meal that actually tasted like food.

Then, back to the Humvee to clean my rifle, sharpen my blade, and check my electric baton and shield.

The sun was already brutal, baking the dirt into dry, cracked patches. The smell of hot dust and exhaust fumes stuck to the air.

By ten-hundred hours, we were gathered in a large tent, where our Battalion Commander droned on about the importance of capturing targets alive.

I had no fucking clue why I was here.

We were trained for riot control.

Crowd suppression.

Urban law enforcement.

Not this.

Dan leaned in, muttering under his breath. "Man, we should be fucking around in Libertalia right now."

I sighed.

Instead, we were stuck in this shithole.

Dan nudged me with his elbow. "You get any of that?"

"Nope."

"Same."

Gino leaned forward. "Think he'd notice if we just walked out?"

"Yes," I muttered. "And he'd have our asses for it."

"Shame."

The Commander kept talking.

Eventually, we were dismissed, but not before being given new orders.

More clearing operations.

More search and destroy.

More scorched earth.

We were heading south of Damasa which was a stretch of ruined towns and abandoned farmlands that had become a breeding ground for monsters.

SOP was simple: If it moves, kill it.

If it doesn't? Burn it just in case.

We packed up, loaded into the Humvee, and rolled out.

The convoy stretched down the highway—multiple teams, multiple armored vehicles, all heading into the wasteland.

Inside the Humvee, the mood was the same as always.

Exhaustion. Resignation.

And bullshitting to pass the time. Gino started talking again, which made me wanna cover my ears.

"So," Gino started, wiping the dust off his rifle. "You guys ever wonder why HQ's so obsessed with capturing monsters now?"

"Research," Foster said. "Same reason they chop off dicks and balls."

Dan shook his head. "Nah, I got a theory."

"Oh, here we go," I muttered.

Dan leaned back, smirking. "Think about it. Why capture them alive if all we ever do is exterminate them? That means someone, somewhere, thinks we might need them for something."

Gino raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"

Dan shrugged. "Dunno. Maybe they wanna experiment on 'em. Maybe they wanna tame 'em."

Foster scoffed. "We're not gonna tame fucking Goblins… right? Those living turds isn't going to be my fucking my meal."

"No, but think bigger," Dan said. "What if they're looking for something else? A way to control them? A way to use them?"

The Humvee fell silent for a second.

Because the fucked-up thing?

Dan wasn't wrong.

An hour later, we reached the next shitshow.

Ruined buildings. Scattered debris. The skeleton of what used to be a town before the war wiped it from history.

The place was quiet.

We parked the Humvee, climbed out, and started sweeping the area.

Rifles up.

Eyes scanning.

Every step kicking up dirt and ash.

Something felt off.

Gino was the first to notice it.

"The fuck is that smell?"

We all paused.

It wasn't just the usual stench of decay and old-world ruins.

It was stronger.

Like rotting meat left in the sun for days.

Dan stepped forward, his boots crunching over something wet.

We looked down.

It was a severed arm.

Not a Goblin.

Not human.

Something else.

Flesh pale and leathery, claws still twitching.

Dan muttered under his breath. "Well… that's new."

Foster took a step back. "This isn't from the bombing, is it?"

"No," I said. "This is fresh."

I looked around.

There was no blood trail. No tracks. Just random body parts scattered across the ruins.

Like something had hunted here.

And then I heard it.

A sound I never wanted to hear again.

Clicking.

Low. Guttural.

Like something was talking.

Dan froze. "Oh, fuck me."

I gritted my teeth.

Not this again.

I turned to Gino. "Call it in."

"Already on it," he muttered, radioing HQ.

The clicking sounds grew louder.

And then, from the shadows—

Something moved.

Something big.

Something that wasn't supposed to be here.

I exhaled slowly, tightening my grip on my rifle.

Here we fucking go again.