Obsidian Series Day 6
By: Grisly Silence

Mihail slid between the trees, the thick underbrush snagging his trousers. Everything was silent. He heard no animals moving. No hurried movements or heavy breathing but for his own. He was alone. Or so one would think looking on him from a distance. But in his mind he was far from alone. The artifact caressed his mind, telling him it was all right, that it would all be made right when he rescued it. It called him by name, drawing him on with a summons sliding sensuously around his thoughts. His eyes were locked forward, and he marched purposefully toward his destination. He knew where the scientists were taking it. He knew shortcuts they wouldn’t be able to navigate with their heavy vehicles.

He didn’t know what he would do without the voice in his head, without the artifact. It had told him his name, and allowed him to utilize information from some unknown and mysterious past. At first, the voice had been painful, but it told him that was because he had still been resisting it. He wept, not knowing why he would ever do something so cruel.

Periodically he checked the watch in his pocket, analyzing the movement, making sure it was still working. The artifact assured him it was good that he did this, though he no longer knew why. All that mattered was that the artifact approved. He checked it every moment it wasn’t telling him to hurry on. He hadn’t eaten or slept or even stopped since the morning before. When the wretched scientists had stolen the artifact from him. The anger came boiling to the surface again.

The voice came again, soothing him, telling him that he was special. He would be able to retrieve it. That was why it had wanted him. He was better than the others. Better than the ones who had had the artifact before him. Once the artifact had discovered him, it was overjoyed, knowing that he was better. So it had them stop so that he could come. It even protected him when the military Stalkers would otherwise have seen him. It was unable to control so many, so it had to let them take it. But Mihail would rescue it.

A head suddenly appeared from the bushes ahead of him. Mihail jerked to a halt. Panic raced through him. He vaguely remembered that this was a thing that had caused him great terror and pain in the past. He should recognize it. He struggled to think, but the artifact’s crushing hold on his mind stopped him. But it told him what it was. A controller. Something inside screamed at him to run from the thing with the scarred face. But the artifact calmed his fear, saying it would be all right. It would help him. It knew what to do. He held still, like it told him.

He felt a probing at the edges of his thoughts. He gritted his teeth. That was the artifact’s domain. It admonished him to be still. His cheeks burned at the reprimand. The probing plunged deeper. The artifact gave way, not letting the probe know it was there. Pain stiffened Mihail’s spine as the probe took hold of him. Why was the artifact letting this happen? He wouldn’t be able to retrieve it if he was dead.

As if in answer, the artifact’s own tendrils launched out from their deep anchor in his mind and seized the probe. The head in front of him suddenly rose up. Mihail could see the thing’s grotesque body. It was vaguely human, but its skin was scarred like it had been engulfed in flames and left to heal on its own. It writhed in pain as the artifact’s tendrils steadily, greedily pulled it in, devouring it as it had him. Then suddenly it went still, staring straight ahead with a glazed look in its eyes. The artifact settled back in Mihail’s mind, sated. A gift, it whispered suggestively. He smiled crookedly. It had given him a controller. He controlled the controller.


The outpost was heavily patrolled. Soldiers armored in bullet-proof vests and carrying automatic weapons patrolled the walls. Vague black shapes stood in the guard towers, probably equipped with sniper rifles and binoculars. The walls themselves were a good twelve feet high, and who knew how thick. Mihail couldn’t see over them even from his high vantage point. Trees had been cleared away from the entire compound for several hundred meters so that it couldn’t be snuck up on. A dirt road leading from the gate branched off in different directions, disappearing into the forest.

Mihail and the controller crouched at the edge of the trees leading into the depression where the base lay. After a few minutes of observation, he decided there were about twenty men outside the walls. There were at least eight scientists and ten military Stalkers on the inside. They would all have to go. He would need to get rid of at least thirty-eight men before he could get the artifact back. He basked in the glow of the knowledge the artifact allowed him to access. It was so generous.

He looked over at the grotesque face of the controller. It was naked, though no sex could be determined. It looked down at the base intensely, leaning forward on its hands and knees, breathing shallowly. Sweat dripped off its greasy flesh. He looked away.

Mihail felt the artifact speaking, not to him, but through him to the controller. He felt the sharp pang of jealousy for a moment before the artifact rushed to soothe his fears. It would be all right. He breathed a sigh of relief. It needed the controller to leave on a brief mission. He nodded, listening to the whispering. That was wise. They would need a distraction before they could get in close enough to release the artifact. He couldn’t wait to hold it in his hands, to feel its cold black weight resting in his palms, soaking up its energy, its love. To hear it whispering forever in his ear, telling him of what it needed. He imagined what it would be like, and smiled.

A sharp peal of thunder echoed through the trees. Lightning flashed spider-like in the distance. Black clouds had moved overhead without him noticing it. He glanced over at the controller. It was gone. He looked around wildly but found no trace of it. He hadn’t even been aware of it leaving. He had been so engrossed in thought that he hadn’t noticed. Even the approach of the clouds had escaped him. Before he had found the artifact, that would have been a fatal mistake. Not any more. The artifact would have warned him of danger. He felt safe in its warm embrace. If only he could get closer to it! His eyes drifted back to the compound.

Without warning Mihail’s vision went black. He fell back onto the soft forest litter with a cry, trying to blink away the darkness. Reaching up to rub his eyes, his arms froze. His muscles wouldn’t respond. He couldn’t move. He was paralyzed. Blinding agony stabbed into his brain, turning his vision white with pain. He couldn’t scream.

Then the pain eased a little. The artifact whispered something to him. He couldn’t hear it. It said it again. Then he started seeing things. Vague shapes hovered in his vision, passing before him and disappearing. Sharp lines appeared, outlines of something he couldn’t make out. He squinted, or tried to. The image resolved itself. He saw walls all around with metal edges and clear sides. He was in a box. Beyond, men in white coats walked about or sat at stations. There was machinery everywhere. Everything was made from cold, emotionless steel. Two of the men came nearby and stared down at him. They were whispering.

“I can’t believe we found it!”

“Where was it?”

“North-east of here. There were a bunch of dead men, some killed by guns and some hacked apart. There was no one around. They even found the guns.”

“Who were they?”

“The ones it took when it-“

Then the vision stopped. He blinked in confusion. It started playing before him backwards. The white-coated men began walking again, but in reverse. Then everything jerked. The men receded into the distance. He saw doors closing, grim men with guns standing in long, brightly lit halls. More doors. A large room filled with row upon row of vehicles sped by. Then came a small room where everything stopped. Men milled about the box. Then suddenly he was outside. He saw the compound walls up close, saw the positioning of the guards inside. Hands gripped the edges of the box, obscuring his vision, then they fell away. Darkness shrouded all sides except in front where there was a rectangle he could see through. Then the outpost began receding.

The vision stopped again and disappeared. Mihail looked around. The canopy of trees hung above him. Something cold hit his face. He flinched. Rain. He scooted himself back until he was against the trunk of a tree, safe from the wetness. The artifact spoke. He stopped moving and listened. A slow smile spread across his face. It had shown him the way to where it was being held in the compound.


The way a controller killed was the most coldly efficient thing he had ever seen. What was left of his beleaguered mind shuddered at what was happening. The rest of him cheered. The artifact watched restlessly through his unwavering eyes.

Its pale form stalked swiftly through the men, distracted by the commotion on the opposite side of the compound. A distraction the controller had created. It drifted through them like death itself, touching them and then passing swiftly on. No one could stand before it. Before long the entire south side of the facility was populated only with men it had already taken. Men who moved about with jerky, robotic movements.

The ponderous metal doors sealing the walls opened slowly with a grinding and screeching of metal on metal. A truck full of soldiers—probably to put down the creatures on the other side, the creatures under the controller’s influence—sped out. It was swarmed before it could make it onto the road. A hail of bullets ripped through it, tearing through metal and flesh alike. The screams of agony of the dying mixed with the stutter of machine guns to become an unholy cacophony that reached piercing levels. A few fired back but were quickly cut down. The gas tank was hit.

The ground lit with a bright flash of red.

Everything within ten meters of the truck was incinerated in the fireball. Flames rocketed skyward, burning the air, raining down liquid metal death to the ground. The walls burst into flames. Men hit with fire fell to the ground screaming, charring into coal. Streaks of red exploded out, hot metal shards launching away on trailers of black smoke, cutting and burning through everything they touched. A wave of heat blasted outward, warming Mihail’s face. Fire was everywhere. Most of the compound was obscured by the oily black smoke expanding upward from the inferno burning on the ground and wall. It was time.

Mihail stood from his hiding place and charged down the hill into hell.

The fire cloaked him in flickering red light and intense heat. Smoke billowed up on all sides. He knelt by a charred body and tore the machine gun from the fingers clenched gruesomely solid in rigor mortis. The fingers, turned brittle by the heat, broke off and turned to dust. He had lost his own weapons back at the place where he had found the artifact. Everything about the time before then was only a vague mass of half-forgotten memories. He couldn’t identify much from them. Occasionally, he grasped something he didn’t think the artifact wanted him to know. But the artifact never said anything about it, so he let it be, hoping for more of the memories to come to him.

He returned to moving through the mess at the artifact’s impatient prodding. Flames licked the sky from the burning hulk of the truck. Mihail passed it without a second glance. He stepped through a wall of smoke that stung his eyes, but he didn’t feel it. The doors were a wreck, barely holding onto the wall, half-melted and scorched back. He passed between them and into the expansive yard beyond, stepping over bodies. He saw the controller’s minions firing at the soldiers, but paid them no heed. They had already cleared the way ahead of him. One raced ahead and tossed something at the compound door.

The small object detonated, ripping the doors and part of the walls off. Flame seared the ground all around. The wave of air from the explosion blasted dirt away from the doors. Mihail walked through the storm of dust and into the compound interior.

He strode across the small room he remembered from the vision and shoved the doors open.

Vehicles were lined up in the next room. Scattered across the floor were stains from oil spills, gasoline canisters, and various tools. Nothing moved. He passed them without pausing and entered the door at the end. He heard the echoing footsteps of his mindless army following. His eyes burned bright with the driving insanity of the artifact’s influence. Bright white lights shone from the low ceiling, giving the white walls of the hall a sterilized feel. Blood splashed up on those walls as he mowed down several military Stalkers in green. Their screams failed to penetrate him. His army fell upon the dying men and tore them to pieces. The screams rose to a fever pitch, then died. He started grinning suddenly, uncontrollably, ignoring the massacre. He was getting closer.

Mihail came upon a thick metal door. A window to the right revealed a brightly lit control room with a man in black clothing reclining in a chair. He didn’t know what was happening because no one had had a chance to pull an alarm. He saw Mihail and started, then yelled something at him, but Mihail couldn’t hear it through the glass. Mihail raised his gun as the man hit a button. The lights went red, flashing. An alarm. He fired.

The bullet shattered the glass, sending a shower of shards ripping through the air. The bullet slammed into the man’s temple above his right eye. His skull shattered and a brief spurt of blood escaped the entry hole. The bullet broke up on impact and tore through his brain like a shotgun. The hot pieces of metal exploded out the back of his head with a gout of bright red blood and hair and brains that splashed against the wall behind him. The man fell backward to the floor, tumbling over his chair, his eyes rolling up into what was left of his head. Mihail reached through, pressing the button the artifact told him to.

He continued on, walking through an unremarkable series of rooms, none with anybody in them. They were probably all gathering around the artifact with their covetous eyes and hands. He couldn’t bear to think of someone else touching it. His eyes burned with hate at the thought.

Then he saw the door. He could feel the artifact through it. Its presence was palpable. It knifed through him, searing a single thought into his mind.

I am yours. Come and claim me.

He pressed up against the door, his hot flesh sticking to metal surface. The presence of the artifact descended upon him in waves, engulfing, enfolding him. It was ecstasy.

Behind, he heard the sound of boots clacking on the floor. A vicious firefight erupted. Screams arose from the throats of dying men. He heard it, and yet did not hear it. It reached him and yet he did not perceive it. All he experienced was the overwhelming, almost suffocating presence of the artifact.

He heard the voice whispering to him. But it also whispered to the controller, and thus, to the ones behind him. They heard its call. They heard its need. Mihail stepped back, retreating down the hall though he did not want to, stepping over bullet-riddled bodies and across the blood-streaked floor. The minions of the controller threw grenades at the last obstacle in their way.

It sounded like a thump deep in his chest, and then there was a shriek of protesting metal. The shockwave blew them all back around him as roaring flames annihilated the door. Mihail dropped to a knee just as a corner of door shot past above him, spinning so fast it blurred. It embedded itself in the wall behind him.

Mihail was already moving past the zombies sprawled across the corpses of the soldiers. He reached the door first, charging through the smoke and twisted metal and hanging cables into the spacious room beyond. Scientists cowered in a corner. His gaze flicked up and dismissed them as unimportant. The zombies came pouring in behind him and immediately noticed the scientists. They descended upon them with a howl.

But Mihail only saw the lit box with the fragment inside.

At last.