When I first enlisted with the Army, I didn't have a particular image in my head regarding what my experience with the service would be like. After high school, I spent more years than I would like to admit floating through life, lacking direction, lacking purpose. That listlessness drew me to the service as it had many others, and as my pen scribbled my signature down on that piece of paper in the recruiter's office, I don't think I had the faintest idea what I would be doing in the army. I think I just wanted to do something, anything really. Where I was in life, I didn't care if they had me loading supplies onto trucks or peeling potatoes, I just figured anything would be better than wasting away on my parents' couch. I could imagine them assigning me to any manner of unpleasant jobs, but the one thing I did not foresee, was me five years later being stuck on an old freight train ripping through the frigid wastelands of northern Alaska near the Yukon border. If anything, given the time I enlisted, I would have thought the middle east would have been my destination. It was the early 00's after all, and the Iraq war was in full swing. So why was I all the way up there? Looking around the storage car that had been hastily fitted to host passengers as I blew into my hands and rubbed them furiously to derive the faintest bit of warmth from the friction, it was clear that none of the other soldiers appeared to be any more pleased with the situation than myself. While there was a space heater hooked up to keep us from freezing, it didn't exactly have enough power to heat the whole car, so our breath was still plenty visible, and the occasional chattering of teeth could be heard between the clattering of the shuttle car as it continued its arctic journey.

  I was prepared for difficulty though, after all it's not like anyone has ever said the military was a cake walk. And difficult, that situation certainly was. I'd been cold before, I'd experienced tough winters before, but the Yukon is something else. I knew not too many people lived up there, but after I was acquainted with the unforgiving bite of that brutal arctic air firsthand, I knew why. But that wasn't the aspect of the assignment that bothered me the most, in fact far from it. What bothered me most was not the hostile environment we found ourselves in, but the peculiar lack of instruction as to why we were there. It was odd. For one thing, usually they gave us at least a little more information about our assignments, why we were doing them namely. For that endeavor, we were just told to 'guard the middle train with your lives'. No answer as to why. They didn't say what was in there, they didn't say why it was being transported, and they didn't bother to mention what on earth we were to be guarding it from. The vagueness of that notwithstanding, it was clear by the expressions on the other soldiers faces that they had that exact same question pestering them like a gadfly; "Guard it from what?" That really was the most pressing question. We were all the way up in the frozen wasteland of Northeastern Alaska. Were we guarding a meat shipment from polar bears? It didn't seem like something they'd have the army do. I couldn't even begin to guess why there'd be train tracks all the way up there in the first place. Them being old railways from the Yukon Gold Rush was the best guess I had heard among the men, but the tracks were clearly new. They weren't tracks that some prospectors laid way back when, they looked like they were constructed using the newest railway practices, and seemed particularly well kept given where we were. It was like each question about that assignment that popped into my head had several more following not far behind, yet the nature of military work left me hardly in a position to ask any of them.

  No, nothing about the mission seemed normal. We also found out after some brief conversation that not one person there was from the same troop or even installation. Each of us seemed to have been individually plucked from different assignments, seemingly from the farthest possible corners of the world from each other. It seemed like they purposefully wanted a group of soldiers with no prior experience with one another. In terms of unit cohesion, it seemed bizarrely counterproductive. There were six of us in that shuttle car, and we were told the car we were protecting was directly behind us. Whether or not another shuttle with more personnel was behind that, we were not told, although we had to assume such supposedly precious cargo would have security on both sides. At first glance the assignment seemed like an easy one. If it weren't so strange, many of us would think we were getting a lucky break. But no, it was too easy. Not one task I had ever done in my time in the army was that easy with no catch. It left me feeling like something was wrong, like I didn't fully understand the ordeal we were in for. It felt like some aspect of the assignment that would make clear the arduous nature of the job was just around the corner, and I was left waiting for the shoe to drop. I could feel it in my bones. The looks on the faces of my compatriots suggested most of them suspected something similar. That is, except for the one soldier all the way at the opposite end of the train car from myself. The soldier seemed to be the oldest of all of us, yet he looked to be completely at ease with our circumstance, as though he thought there was nothing strange about our situation, and that everything was just as it should be. His relaxed demeanor didn't just bother me, it didn't just annoy me, it made me feel uneasy. It made me think he knew something that the rest of us didn't and that didn't sit well. The attitude he expressed made me feel sour in my stomach. Part of me wanted to walk across the car to question him, but I resisted the urge. When on assignment it's not ideal to create a conflict between oneself and anyone else on the team, and I didn't trust my abilities as a communicator not to come off as a bit combative. So, I bit my tongue.

  Having no knowledge of what was in the car behind us that was so important it required armed guards certainly didn't sit right with me either and that absence of knowledge was made all the worse by the formation we were ordered to maintain, one which had myself placed at the very back wall right next to our precious cargo. While it inspired unease, it also inspired some curiosity. We were told to keep movement to a minimum, not to break formation, but it wouldn't look too out of place if I lost my balance for a second and snuck a glimpse between the slots as I composed myself. After all, despite the best effort to maintain the tracks, there were occasional sections we would roll across that just couldn't handle the brutality of the environment as well as the others. From time to time, we would roll across a stretch that was in such a state of disrepair that the whole train would jolt aggressively. I had caught one or two of the other soldiers losing their balance on more than one occasion in those instances. I debated for a moment, but ultimately resolved to attempt a quick peek. My chance came soon enough as the train hit a particularly rough patch of track that genuinely caused several other soldiers to briefly lose their footing as well. Taking a quick look as everyone was getting back to their feet was no problem at all. Unfortunately, I was left a bit disappointed by what I was able to see. The patch of warped tracks went on longer than would have been ideal, and I could barely make out anything from the quick shaky swivel I did before getting back into position. The only thing I could make out from between the wooden slats was that the train car behind us was different from the one we were in. It looked to be made of solid steel, thick too, a far cry from the splintery wooden crate we were stuck in. It reminded me of an armored car used to transport money to the bank. That just left me with more questions. When boarding we were told not to even look at the thing, they had us board from the front and were instructed to keep our eyes forward the whole time. From what I saw of it, I really couldn't discern the point of all that. However, one thing I did think of, was how we were ordered to keep anything from getting into that car, but the car seemed almost as though it were designed to keep anything from getting out of it as well. My curiosity bubbled up like a pot rapidly coming to a boil.

  I came to regret that supposedly surreptitious glance quickly since the only thing it seemed to accomplish was to make my imagination run wild. It didn't answer any of my questions, in fact it only raised more. Were we transporting prisoners? Hazardous Materials? Something I couldn't even imagine? My mind spun with the possibilities of what on earth could be in such a heavily fortified train car, but I wasn't left with those thoughts for long. I was pulled out of my head immediately when I noticed the older soldier on the other side looking right at me. His expression had changed from appearing at ease, to a look that sent a chill down my spine. It was a kind of stern glare, not like he was mad, but like he would be if I tried to peek at the car behind us again. The direct eye contact, furrowed brow, and newly formed grimace seemed like he meant to say 'I saw that. Don't let me catch it again.' I swallowed dryly and resolved not to push my luck. I didn't think I would learn anything else by trying for a subsequent peek anyway. At that point I was then more unnerved by that guy. The train car where we stood guard was long, and I couldn't get a particularly good look at him, but at that point I could make out a few more details. I grew to have second thoughts about his possible age. After that brief period of eye contact, I grew to suspect he might have just been around my age, maybe halfway through his career with the service. I grew to suspect the few extra lines creasing his face weren't from more years of life, but from harder ones. Maybe he had seen action, maybe he had gone through some of the more difficult ordeals a soldier can go through. Whatever it was that he experienced, I knew it had taken a toll. That much I could say for sure.

  After that uncomfortable eye contact, I did my best to keep my head down and focus on the assignment. I scanned the scenery whizzing by as we continued our journey through the rugged landscape, not even sure what I was looking for, but resolving not to push it anymore with the fortified car or the soldier opposite from me. All the others seemed to do the same. We had been on course for a few hours, and I had a gut feeling that we were nearing our destination. The scenery around us began to change. Most of the ride had been through a mildly hilly landscape, but as those hills grew taller and taller very abruptly, it became evident that we had entered the northernmost portion of the Rocky Mountains. The rugged peaks surrounded us much quicker than I had expected. I had grown up in the Midwest and remembered family trips out to Colorado. We had a quirky relative that had moved out there many years earlier and would visit them every other summer or so. I remembered how the mountains gradually grew out of the prairie horizon, and I suppose I had expected something similar. But up there it was very different, it was as though we turned a corner and then the craggy peaks were upon us. They cast a shadow over the car that briefly plunged us into a kind of darkness that caught me off guard. The temperature seemed to plummet a few degrees, making a shiver run down my spine. Despite orders to maintain position, I found myself trying to sneakily shuffle a little closer to the gas-powered space heater, which at that point was working overtime to keep the car from becoming a complete icebox. Two of the other soldiers seemed to do the same. When one more moved slightly, it seemed that the one at the end of the car had had enough. He spoke and those first words after such prolonged silence felt particularly sharp. "Let's maintain formation boys, we're almost there". He sounded somewhat casual but there was a clear underlying hostility in his voice, one that really drove the message home that he wasn't in the mood for a lack of discipline of any kind. All of us returned to our positions promptly.

  Out of those few words, I noticed something that made my ears perk up. He didn't say anything like 'I think we're almost there', he said we were almost there. Like he knew. That strange certainty drew more suspicion that he was aware of more than the rest of us. With each mile the train travelled it seemed as though we became further engulfed by the craggy snowcapped peaks of the northern Rockies. The temperature continued plummet and I could feel the circulation in my fingers getting worse. It was like we were trapped in a freezer, but as cold as the air was, the demeanor of that man at the opposite end of the room chilled my bones deeper. I became wary of him like a rat would be of a cat skulking around nearby. Out of my suspicion I found myself monitoring him more closely, albeit as surreptitiously as I could, sneaking quick glances of him as I craned my head across the room attempting to appear as though I was vigilantly scanning my surroundings for any signs of threats. After just a short period of this cautious surveillance, I noticed a detail so distinct I found myself baffled that I hadn't seen it before. That soldier had a very noticeable mark all around the base of his neck. It was a peculiar kind of injury; it looked like a burn but not from a normal fire. Something about the way the skin looked, the discoloration, it seemed like he had a chemical burn all along the base of his neck, looking like a grotesque collar of scar tissue.

  For as long as we'd been on that rickety train ride into the twisting and winding rock faces, I couldn't help but notice that we'd all been so silent with one another that I didn't think we'd even bothered to learn each other's names. We were all still strangers to one another, totally devoid of any understanding of one another's identities. Even though officially we were a team, there was an unspoken sense that it was every man for himself on that trip. That somehow made the endeavor feel even lonelier than missions I had been on when I was truly by myself. Even without names, I still had to be able to distinguish my somewhat socially distant comrades, and while some of the nicknames I came up with might not have been the most flattering, doing so at least helped to pass the time. The one at the end that sent shivers down my spine I had decided to call Fido. And yeah, the reference making light of an obvious injury wasn't good natured, but given my feelings towards him, I didn't exactly feel obliged to be courteous.

  Our voyage continued for what felt like longer than it should have. The more time trickled by, the more effort I needed to exude to keep my imagination from running wild with paranoia as the tension built higher and higher. I knew the Rockies were large, and perhaps the extensive time we spent careening through the mountains was to be expected, but my paranoia persisted still. The longer we travelled without reaching the destination I felt we were imminently bound for, the more restless I became. I wondered if we were to be rendezvousing with another team, if there was some station we would find, one would certainly think so. But we weren't told any of that. All I was told was that we were to ensure the train makes it safely to the set of coordinates we were given, and that we would be given further instructions upon arrival. My gut was telling me that we would soon approach that destination, yet that seemed to compound the discomfort rather than provide any relief. That last stretch of the journey was an agonizing period, alternating between keeping a cautious eye on Fido, and thinking about what on earth we were even doing in the first place. However, as we drew further into the shadows of the mountains, I was promptly torn from that torturous cycle by something that I couldn't have expected in a million years. I heard a voice from behind me.

  Initially I thought I was losing my mind. I thought that when I heard a very faint voice say "You're in danger" that the pressure had finally gotten to me, and I had finally cracked. I did my best to control my breathing, I didn't want the other members of the squadron to think I was losing it. Before I could begin to scramble to explain what I thought I might have heard, the voice spoke again. "You aren't losing your sanity. I am real." The reassurance didn't give me a shred of comfort, given that it seemed to be coming from a disembodied voice only I seemed to be able to hear. I began to feel my heart race and head spin as I found myself instinctively glancing across the faces of the others, trying to determine if any of them could also hear the voice. "No, they can't hear me." It spoke once again. I was utterly baffled at how whatever it was seemed to be able to answer the questions I found popping into my head without me saying a word. For a moment I thought I was succumbing to some kind of late onset schizophrenia, and despite all the training I had received in the service regarding how to maintain composure, I could feel the panic stripping away all that bit by bit. "I am aware this is unsettling, but you need to calm down, I mean you no harm." Yet again the attempts at calming my nerves had very little effect, considering where the effort came from. "What are you?" I wondered in my head, figuring if I was going to go insane, I might as well just enjoy the ride and humor the voice. "Unfortunately, I don't have time to explain that sufficiently." "Ok" I found myself thinking in frustration, "Well, what do you want?" There was then a few moments before the voice returned, almost as though it was giving its answer careful consideration. "I want safety." It responded. "For myself, and also you." Something about that didn't sit right with me. At that point I was well convinced that whatever the voice was, it had something to do with that car we were transporting. It almost made me laugh, I had always thought the whole notion of the military being involved with things of a supernatural or extra-terrestrial nature was the stuff of Hollywood. The military I had always known was a practical thing that attempted to deal with reality as efficiently and straight forwardly as possible. The presence of some kind of bodiless spirit threw my whole world out of balance. "I actually do have a body, and you are correct I am in the containment unit you are tasked with protecting." It went on, and I felt myself growing perturbed at its ability to ready my thoughts. In popular depictions, things such as telepathy were often portrayed as an amazing superpower of sorts, but in practice I would consider it anything but amazing. To have the confines of my own mind seemingly being read like a book didn't feel incredible, it felt invasive, almost violating. Despite that feeling of invasiveness, the words it said just before, cryptically stating how it wished for my 'safety' still rung in my head like the echoing clang of an old cathedral's bell. "What do you mean when you say you want safety for all of us?" I asked within the confines of my thoughts. Again, there was a short pause before the response. "Because if you do not listen to me, we will all be in danger."

  I struggled to process that last statement for a few moments. I wasn't entirely certain of the intention behind those words I felt reverberate through my skull. To me the line between warning and threat was especially blurred in that sentence, and the fear of which it could be made my chest tighten. I felt my throat growing increasingly dry, and I instinctively reached for my canteen to take an especially greedy swig. I had been thoroughly trained to conserve water but the nature of the situation I found myself in was causing all the years of training to leak out of me like water springing from a crack in a dam. The longer I spent dealing with the absurdity of the situation, the more I found myself straying from the discipline I had worked so hard to cultivate. "Sargeant Danvers, I understand that this situation is causing you immense distress, but I must ask you to maintain control of yourself. Everything that you do not understand can be explained, please try to use that knowledge to keep yourself grounded. However, it cannot be completely explained in the interval we have before our arrival. You will have to trust me if you wish to survive this ordeal." There was a bizarre calmness in the voice, and despite being completely uncertain as to who or what it even was, let alone if I could trust it, somehow the assurance that it all could be explained did give me some comfort.

  "You have good instincts Sargeant. You're right to be wary of your supposed comrade opposite of you." Even though I still felt uneasy regarding the telepathic discussion I was having, just hearing another voice affirm my suspicions also helped me calm down, at least enough to avoid looking particularly suspicious. "And just why is that? Do you know something about him?" I silently inquired. "Yes, but that as well would take too long to explain. For our mutual well-being, I will just say that he is not to be trusted. They always send one like him to accompany the group. To ensure the offering is completed. I don't believe he is yet aware that I have contacted you, but you must take care to make sure he does not suspect we are speaking. If he does notice, your safety will be...compromised." Another chill went down my spine. "So," I humored the voice "What would I need to do to ensure my safety is not...compromised." A few moments passed before the response came, the train car continued its path along the tracks, clattering and clanging as it kicked up a few clouds of fresh snow that had fallen over its iron course. "Sargeant Danvers, I know that throughout your years in that uniform you have grown to be a good soldier. It is why you were selected; they only choose the most loyal of their ranks to carry out this mission. I know you are very set in your ways of carrying out the orders you are given. But you must believe me when I tell you there is a reason you were told so little of your task in this place." I could feel my pulse begin to pick up. I think part of me could already sense what the bodiless voice was driving at. I noticed that it seemed to insinuate that whatever we were doing there, it was a mission that had been carried out routinely. The idea that there were many teams that came before me, many soldiers who found themselves in that exact situation, if not something similar, unnerved me even more.

  "You are again correct in your assessment, Sargeant. The six of you in that car are not the first, nor will you be the last to carry out this mission." As the voice went on, I found myself needing to put more focus on keeping up the appearance that I was not in fact, partaking in a telepathic conversation with some kind of ghost or alien or whatever in the world was in the armored and sealed container behind us. "This is a tragically routine assignment your government has agreed will be continuously undertaken by a group of unsuspecting soldiers every several years as part of the covenant they had made with the other side." The bluntness with which the voice spoke was almost as unsettling as the subject matter of which it spoke of. "Each time this unit is selected, they have the notices that you were all killed in action already typed for your loved ones, although they try to select servicemen with little to no family." The implications of what the voice was telling me caused my skin to prickle and goosebumps to form on my neck. "I am aware you may choose not to believe me, but I insist that you would be doing so at your peril." The information I was receiving was almost too grave to process, the questions in my mind were growing like wildfire but I was beginning to understand why the voice claimed it couldn't explain everything. Quickly glancing out the slotted windows I could see we were approaching what looked to be a cavern in the mountains. The interior of the cave was pitch black, the kind of darkness that consumes every bit of light like a black hole, it clearly extended deep into the earth. "I notice you've seen the tunnel entrance, that means we don't have much time." The voice mentioned, I tensed up at that. "You will need to do as I say and act quickly if you wish to survive." At that point, I couldn't really explain why, but I felt the voice was telling me the truth. Much of it had to do with my own suspicions regarding our mission and how deeply I felt that something wasn't right. I suppose it isn't difficult to be convinced of something that you were already leaning towards in the first place. "What do I need to do to stop this train?" I asked. Not even having time to consider what would happen if I were able to derail the train and subsequently, the mission, let alone the grave consequences I could be bringing upon myself for doing so. Somehow, I knew, even going AWOL and having to hide from the military for the rest of my life was a better fate than whatever I could expect at the end of that tunnel. "In a few miles, you will notice the train entering a large chamber within the cavern. The bridge on which this train will be crossing is in a state of disrepair. It has many snags on it, and as much as one well placed piece of wood on the tracks could derail it. It would then crash to the floor of the cavern, and some of you may experience grave injury if not even death, but your chances of survival would still be greater than if the train were to make it all the way through that chamber, for on the other side, is our destination. If we get there, the delivery will be completed, and survival is impossible for any of us. Derailing the train is your only chance to see another day, Sargeant." The idea nearly caused me to shake. Everything the voice had predicted to that point had been true, it clearly seemed to know more of this situation than I did. However, that didn't change the absurdity of what it was asking for. I'd be facing a prison sentence if I were caught for such an act.

  As we entered the mouth of the cavern, our whole world went black for a short time before the light bulb in the middle of the car flickered on, illuminating us in a dim sporadic light that swung from one end of the shuttle to the other with the erratic swinging of the bulb. After the voice mentioned how a well-placed piece of wood could derail the train, I found myself stealthily scanning the floor of the car, still doing my utmost not to arouse suspicion from any of my compatriots. Thankfully, the sparce lighting assisted me in that effort. I couldn't see any splinters of wood, but I did see something on top of a crate behind the soldier to my left that might just have been better. If I hadn't been looking, I might not have even noticed it. It was a rusty bit of train track, perhaps an extra piece left over after completion of the track's construction. It looked so oxidized it might very well have been from whenever these tracks were originally constructed, and perhaps some exhausted construction worker simply left it in the car after his job was done. The thing looked heavy, but if I could somehow arrange a situation where I had the time, I might just be able to drag it to the front and toss it down below to snag the wheels. Doing that would require the rest of the team to be preoccupied. I could sense that the others might not be able to understand what I was up to, at least for long enough to allow me to follow through with it, but the problem was the tall gaunt looking soldier with the odd burn mark around his neck. Yes, what was I to do about Fido.

  Speaking of the devil, as my eyes glided from the old piece of track, they passed back over Fido for a moment, and that brief look made me aware of a whole new level of complication to my plans. Fido's eyes were locked on me, glaring daggers. It was the kind of look that made me feel sick and left not one inch of room to doubt that he had spotted me. The train began to slow down, it didn't stop, but perhaps it was an automatic speed change due to the deteriorating condition of the tracks we were on. That change from a purposeful speed to a slow meander may have given me more time to think about what to do, but I doubted it'd be much. "Sargeant Danvers, I see you are also aware that the one you call 'Fido' has caught on to you. He suspects something is amiss and now regards you as the primary obstacle to the mission's success." the disembodied voice said. "Fortunately, he is not aware that the containment unit in which I am being kept in has lost a large amount of its capacity to impede my ability to influence the surrounding environment. He does not know that I can assist you." "How could you assist me?" "Sargeant, from this point on, you must place your faith totally in my words, heed them as carefully as you can, and do exactly as I say if you wish to survive. At this point, I have no doubt that you are aware that the nature of your mission involves supernatural elements beyond what your mind could reasonably comprehend. And if you do as I say, you will bear witness to things very few of your kind have ever seen, and those who have are thought to be mad. I will be able to subdue every other member of your troop accept Fido, since he is not a normal human. In a few moments I will enact my abilities. When you see the other soldiers fall to the floor, please understand they won't have perished, but will have simply been placed under a deep slumber. When this happens, you must do all that you can to subdue Fido. He is stronger than he appears, and you need not fear harming him by use of lethal force, in fact, damaging the body he is using in such a manner will likely be the only way to incapacitate him. I would encourage you to use your firearm, for he will be able to quickly heal from bullet wounds because of what he is, although it will take him longer to do so. Once you do that, you must take that piece of rail and lodge it underneath the train, this will derail it and we will crash. You will survive, because I will protect you, but I must warn you that once the train crashes, my containment unit will be broken, and I will be released. No matter what, you must not look upon me, as your mortal mind cannot handle the sight of what I truly am. It will only take a few moments, but you may rest assured knowing that I will cause you no harm. I will simply be released to continue my purpose and you will not perish along with me on the other side of the chamber." Every word the voice spoke felt like utter madness, it was like I was in a terrible nightmare, but part of me deep down, somehow knew it was not lying. Something was going on that was far bigger than I could understand. I sensed in my very bones that was true. It seemed that the voice could detect my resolve and understood we agreed that what it said was what would ensue.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Throughout that silent discussion, the staring contest between myself and Fido reached its crescendo. I could clearly sense he knew something was wrong, and that the mission was in danger, but he knew not of what or how it would be threatened. This was to my advantage. So too was it advantageous that no one else in the car seemed to be aware of the intensity of the silent battle occurring between us. The rest seemed to remain in a state of nervous alertness, resolved to continue the mission and trying not to think too hard about what the nature of it was. The others stood like vigilant statues, heads upturned, rank maintained as the two individuals on either side of them engaged in a surreptitious war of wit. Then the moment finally came, the train slowly crawled into the large chamber the voice had described, but to call it large was an understatement of colossal scale. The chamber we entered within the bowels of the Rocky Mountains defied the mind. Not only the existence of such a place, but what it contained caused every jaw in our train car to drop, except of course Fidos, who remained fixated on myself. The massive cavern we entered was imposingly dark except for a handful of what seemed to be torches lining the floor of the cave leading to the other side. The torches illuminated just enough to reveal the massive stone statues of what looked like humanoid giants with multiple limbs and eyes. They were sculpted into positions that made them appear to be guiding the train to the other side, their multiple stone arms outstretched as if to give our train directions to where they wished us to go. The sight of the stone giants made my stomach drop. They looked otherworldly in their appearance, like nothing I had ever seen sculpted by human hands. The dimly lit faces of the stone giants seemed to show them expressing emotions I couldn't even begin to describe; it was as though they were monuments to beings that did not operate on the rules of the realities of our world. While the torches illuminated just enough to show the statues, they did not illuminate the whole cavern and the ceiling appeared almost nonexistent, like there wasn't even a roof of the cave, just a murky black void that we were slowly careening closer to with every moment. It was then that I noticed the other side of the cavern, or rather, a bone chilling absence of it. As we continued our crawl across the elevated tracks, it became clear that no light could penetrate the shadowy darkness that our train was inching towards. It was as though we were entering a black hole. Something in me knew that if our train entered that darkness, we would not be leaving.

  Whatever the case might have been, Fido was unquestionably aware that something was amiss, and his suspicion of my intentions struck him with a unique combination of frustration and fear. I think he knew what was in the armored car we were transporting, frankly I think he knew more about the whole operation than any of us. I think he suspected that its influence had broken free from its confines to some extent, and such knowledge troubled him greatly. Whether he knew it had communicated with me or not, it seemed mattered little to him, for the suspicion that such a thing could have transpired was more than enough to spur him to action. He glared daggers at me, as though to communicate that if I did anything he disapproved of, if I were to move so much as an inch out of line, swift and harsh consequences would be doled out. As he continued to stare me down with the intensity of a ravenous wolf, the train continued its path towards the abyssal depths of the cavern's further interior. The voice needed not to say another word, I think it knew that I was aware that our time was running out, that I needed to act in the split second it activated its powers. The situation was like a pot rapidly coming to an excessive boil, threatening to spill over if I did not act flawlessly in the razor thin window that the entity I spoke with was soon to grant me.

  Then it finally happened. I felt a powerful wave of energy flow from behind me, a pulse of charged air that sent shivers down my spine as it shot through the room. Evidently while it didn't knock me out, the voice failed to mention that it would still affect me. It seemed to be able to hold back slightly in my case, but it still made me somewhat dizzy and even slightly sick, but I managed to stay on my feet. That could not be said for most others within the train. After the invisible deluge of energy passed by each of the other soldiers, their eyes could be seen growing glossy and then rolling backwards as their knees buckled and they fell to the floor in successive order like camouflage dominos. The wave concluded its path by passing through the one I called Fido, and while it caused him to shudder and stagger for a moment, he, like myself remained on his feet. He was shaken, but by no means subdued, and in that moment, having felt that force of energy, any last remnants of doubt that the being within the armored cars influence was fully contained was washed from his mind like sandcastles swept away by a tsunami. He shook his head rapidly for a moment, as though physically shaking off the residual effects of the shockwave, and as he did so, his eyes retrained their focus on myself. Seeing that I was the only other member of the team still standing seemed to confirm his suspicion of me. His pupils practically shook with rage as he appeared to be furiously trying to ascertain how much I was aware of. The moment I was also able to fully compose myself, the very second my vision swam back into focus after the residual effects of the energy pulse wore off from me as well, I swiped my pistol from its holster and trained it on my adversary, attempting to get a clear shot as quickly as I could.

  At the sight of this, his demeanor changed yet again. The anger was still present, and I suspect he was certain the being had spoken to me, but because of this, his demeanor took on the additional element of nervous uncertainty. He looked like he wanted to speak to me but was struggling to think of what to say. Once he was able to compose himself enough to speak, his words further threw me for a loop. "S-s-Sargeant Danvers, that creature. I know you've spoken to it." His tone unnerved me, as though with increasing awareness of his situation, anger was replaced with fear. "You need to understand" He continued, "Whatever it said, I promise you, it didn't tell you the whole story. It's deceiving you Sargeant, don't be its fool." Against all my instincts, I hesitated to pull the trigger upon getting a clear shot at him. Something about his disposition made me second guess our perilous situation and reconsider the absurdity of it all. In his eyes it looked like he was then feeling a depth of despair greater than the most immense sadness any human ever had, a far cry from the vicious grimace he had worn just a few moments prior. "You can't do this; our mission is of greater importance than you could possibly conceive." As he spoke, his voice seemed to distort, sounding slower and dropping to an unnaturally low tone. He started to sound almost like the voice box of a toy that was running out of batteries, and something about that shook me out of my hesitation. Something about him was very wrong, that much I did know, and I retrained my sights on him. Though, as I did so, something even more horrific began to happen. I thought my eyes were deceiving me, but as it continued to happen, I swore that soldier grew several feet before my very eyes, his arms lengthened and his eyes sunk within his head, he took on the form of the kind of monster I imagined lurked in the dark corners of my bedroom as a young child. "I must stop you Sargeant, for the sake of the world." He was about to say something else, but the voice interrupted him. "Sargeant Danvers if you want to live you will shoot him now." The voice I had been silently conversing with also seemed to change in a way that I also had difficulty describing. The tone it took on was more commanding than even the most intimidating drill sergeant I had ever encountered. The combination of intimidation and authority it spoke with made my reflexes act of their own accord, it was like my body moved without my permission. My heart stopped for a moment as it was like I was no longer in control of myself and observing the battle between myself and the inhuman beast I shared that train car with from outside my own body.

  What transpired in that brief window was over in a handful of decisive catastrophic moments. Like a flash in a pan. With the transformed being directly in my sites, I unloaded the entire clip in a calamitous series of flashes into the warped mockery of a human that soldier had once been. The hot lead ripped tore through his unholy flesh with horrific brutality, and at first seemed to tear his body apart like it would any other human. As a soldier, especially in a combat situation, where one is forced into the terrible position of feeling the need to end another life in exchange for one's own survival, I had always thought one must dissociate to go through with the ordeal. Undergoing such a terrible act requires the mind to defend itself by detaching from the situation and convincing itself that it is more of a bad dream than reality. I believe that was what my mind did in the moment of my battle with a true monster. I think I convinced myself I had been in a bad dream and somehow by killing the abomination, I would be able to escape the nightmare. My body moved as though on auto pilot as I screamed and fired my weapon. The situation, which I previously regarded as complex beyond my understanding, was made simple by the most powerful rush of adrenaline I had ever experienced in my life. At that moment, it was as simple as it could possibly be, I would either kill the creature and crash that train, or I would perish. All other thoughts were pushed into the depths of my subconscious, a terrible mess to be sorted out later if I were to be so lucky as to live through that terrible situation. The warped figure fell to the ground with injuries that should have been lethal. Even then I fired every remaining bullet I had into its scattered remains until my weapon was out of ammunition. Afte that, I didn't waste one second grabbing the piece of train track on top of the crate next to the unconscious soldier. The thing was far heavier than I had initially thought it, in fact, it was so heavy that had I not been in a state of total frenzied overdrive, I doubt I would have the strength to lug that massive piece of Iron. I was in such a state of overwhelming terror and adrenaline that I possessed the strength of a mother whose child, their very flesh and blood was trapped under a car and that overpowering terror gave her temporary strength unlike anything she could find in any other scenario. With that strength I dragged that three-foot long piece of dense metal past the bloody remains of the being I had just shot down, towards the hatch door of the car from which we had all entered at the station a few hours ago. What happened after that was all a bit of a blur. All I know was that somehow, I got the door open, and did in fact manage do push that titanic hunk of metal down below the train. The sound it made as it collided with the wheels made my ears ring, it caused a flash of sparks and a sudden metallic screech as the car split from the tracks it had previously clung to in a chaotic and jolting fashion. The force of the impact caused all of us in that car to be thrown to the wall opposite the door as the train began its decent to the depths below. The force of the fall was like a giant tripping, and the colossal shockwave that ensued as we hit the cave floor made my whole world go black.

  I wasn't sure how long I was unconscious, in fact, waking up at all wasn't even a certainty. For a moment, I thought I had simply died in the crash, that the whole horrific endeavor was over just like that. However, a jolt of pain shooting through my spine ruled that out. The pain coaxed me out of my state of unconsciousness, and the world around me began to gradually swim back into view as I took stock of what happened. As my vision cleared, I could see that the whole train had completely come off its rails and laid on the floor of the cavern in various piles of twisted metal and splintered wood. Getting a better look at the cave floor, I could then see it was filled with a shallow liquid, off of which the dim torch flames glistened in a way that could have been considered beautiful under different circumstances. I looked for the other soldiers, but could only see two of them, they were also quite banged up, one began to rouse from his slumber with a groan of agony as it seemed he had broken his leg in the fall. It only took a few moments of consciousness before my mind began to piece together what had occurred almost like the day after a night of debaucherous drinking when one uses the fragments of what they could remember to try and figure out where their car keys were. Unfortunately, I was in a considerably more dire situation than that. The more I remembered, the more the fear returned. Both my mind and body at that moment were wearier and more panged than I had ever been before, but I knew I was not yet safe. I knew I had to gain my bearings, or I could still easily perish. I had to locate the monster, and the containment unit we had been transporting. However, as more memories returned, I remembered what the voice had told me would happen at that point. It said that I must not look at it, that my mind couldn't handle the sight of it, and that I needed to shut my eyes tightly but that it would not harm me. Although at that moment I was more afraid of the monstrous Fido, remembering its supposed ability to regenerate from otherwise lethal injuries. The notion that that thing could somehow piece itself back together and may still be skulking around the cavernous chamber was what set my nervous system on fire. I looked around frantically for him, but I couldn't find him. I did, however, notice the containment unit had also crashed. However, it had not shattered like the car we had all been in. The unit had also fallen a good distance from the other train cars, and it appeared to have been simply cracked in the fall, as opposed to mangled like the others. Through that crack though, was a rapidly growing light, like some kind of radiation, I sensed immediate danger from it and averted my gaze promptly, knowing that the being it contained, whatever it may be, was likely going to emerge soon. I looked away from it, and that was when I noticed the third soldier, not injured anywhere near as badly as the rest of us, but unfortunately, he was staggering towards the containment unit. I could see his eyes narrowing and gazing directly at the light and felt sick to my stomach as it was evident he had not been aware to avoid looking at whatever was inside the container. His curiosity was drawing him to the thing like a moth to a flame. What happened to him was the stuff of nightmares. I feebly attempted to call out to him, to warn him not to look at it, to get him to cover his eyes, but I was too late. I could see the light from the unit behind me grow brighter and brighter as I heard the scream of splitting metal. The unfortunate soul stared directly at whatever had emerged from the train car as I stared at him, and the sight of it seemed to break his mind. His eyes became glassy as his pupils dilated to the point that they practically eclipsed his irises. He began to mutter like a madman, his voice was filled with unbridled terror, and what seemed to be an exponentially growing insanity as his unintelligible gibberish gave way to screams of agony. Tears flowed freely from his bloodshot eyes. I felt bile rising in my throat as he began to weep louder, his tears becoming like torrential flood waters. Whatever the man was witnessing, his mind couldn't accept it, and he was unravelling. He whaled and wept as the light grew more intense, to the point when even though I was looking away from it, it was so bright that I inadvertently shut my eyes as tight as I could. The light continued to grow in intensity and the soldiers' screams grew in kind, to the point when the light and sounds were utterly devastating to my senses. I found myself curling up rolling my head as far into my own chest as I could in a feeble attempt to keep that blinding light from causing me the same kind of insanity and my hands clung to my ears as the other two soldiers also began to emit the same blood curdling screams as the first. They were all watching whatever was coming out of the containment unit. The thing we were to protect with our lives seemed to indeed be ending theirs. While I did not look, terror easily overwhelming any inkling of curiosity, my ears could make out a distinctly horrible scratching and squelching coming from my compatriots. I was completely in the fetal position; I was certain I could feel my ears begin to bleed from the screaming and my eyes stung horribly despite being shut like bear traps. The nightmare of sensational overload was otherworldly. Eventually the sickening squelching sound subsided, and with it the symphony of tormented screams also concluded and culminated with the sound of human bodies falling to the floor. The overwhelming divine light from the containment unit which tortured my retinas somehow even while I was curled up like a terrified animal subsided as well. I just laid there for a moment, shaking like a leaf, beside myself with abject terror over what had just occurred. I think my mind may have been damaged by hearing the things I did, and I detached from that horrible reality I found myself in even further. I went to my happy place, or at least did my best to try to. Attempting to recreate a cherished childhood memory, like the time my parents took me to the beach for the first time. I wanted to be back there, with the sun in my face and my toes in the sand, as far away as possible from the nightmare that I found myself in in that cave. But it was not to be. No matter how much my traumatized mind wanted to be somewhere else; to conjure up a preferable reality, I couldn't do it. I was just short of attaining total insanity and detachment from that horrible reality. My mind remained with my body in that terrible cave, surrounded by what I then knew surely to be the remains of my former comrades and a demonic entity occupying the body of a man, lurking somewhere in the nearby murky shadows.

  The only solace I could take was that I was indeed certain that the voice I had been conversing with earlier, and the divine light that had emerged from the containment unit, were one and the same. It was one being, one presence, some supernatural thing, not of this earth, but that was no longer in the room with us. The sight of it drove the other soldiers to madness, and then it evaporated, or otherwise somehow left our physical presence, but in my heart of hearts I knew it was gone. Still, I didn't wish to open my eyes, for I wished not to see the devastation it had left in its wake. The carnage that I knew laid right before my still tightly shut eyes was something that I needed just a few moments to gather myself before reckoning with. I simply wanted at that moment to weep and rest. I still wanted to go back to that sunny beach from my childhood, more than anything else in the world, but I knew I could not and for that, my tears fell to the damp floor beneath me like bitter rain drops. I was not even granted the relief of resting for a few moments in the state of emotional wreckage that I had been reduced to. The voice of the soldier I had called Fido ripped me from my depths of self-pity as I heard his voice echo through the cavernous chamber. "There is no point in mourning human, it is done, all will be gone soon." His words made little sense to me, but the tone of his voice caused my tears to stop immediately. He had changed once again in a way I had not expected, for in his voice I heard not rage, hate, anger, fear, or even sadness but what I discerned to be something else, perhaps something worse: total hopelessness.

  His words inspired me to finally open my eyes. I wanted to locate where his voice was coming from, tragically in my renewed attempt to take stock of my surroundings I caught sight of what had happened to my former squad and what I saw made me wretch. I emptied the contents of my stomach at the sight of the three men who had been driven so mad that they mangled their entire faces, in attempts to claw their own eyes out. Two of them had been successful in their efforts to do so, as their faces had been reduced to mangled piles of gore unrecognizable even to their closest loved ones. They had been driven so mad that they literally tore themselves apart, the first to have seen the light even went so far as to have what must have been brain matter caked into his fingernails. The only mercy I had in that moment was that Fido again began to speak and this gave me reason to rip my eyes from the abominable scene of human wreckage. "If you only knew what you had just unleashed upon the world Sargeant Danvers, you would not weep for them, but for yourself and everyone else. For those souls are the lucky ones. They will not endure what is to come." His voice maintained that unsettling deep tone as he spoke, but the defeat in that warped voice was what really captured my attention. It was a totally flat tone, one that seemed to convey knowledge that all was lost. My curiosity was piqued to say the least by the words of the being I thought I might have killed just moments before, and I worked up the courage to speak back to him. My voice quaked like that of a nervous child, and my words came in quiet croaks. "What was that thing? What's going on?" Fido wore a look on his warped face that seemed to convey pity. I saw where he was and could make out that he was trapped beneath the wreckage of the crashed train, only his upper body visible. "Sargeant Danvers, I suspect the being you spoke with informed you that you had to derail the train and release him if you wished to survive. Am I correct?" I replied again with a squeaky "yes." "Unfortunately, Sargeant, that being only told you part of the truth." "W-what was that thing?" I asked my body quaking in anticipation of what he would tell me. "You humans have many words for it. Spirit, djinn, gods, fairies, but perhaps regarding what its purpose was, the most accurate word for the being we were to dispose of would be, angel. In the sense of the bible if you are familiar." My mind could barely contend with the information it was receiving, although given everything that had occurred up to that point, the idea that we were transporting an angel wasn't that much of a stretch. My understanding of everything I had ever known had been completely shattered and I no longer knew what was real and what wasn't.

  The absurdity of it all may have finally gotten to me, because when that monstrous voice told me we were transporting an angel into the depths of the Yukon Rockies, I began to chuckle, perhaps a fit of madness was beginning to well up within my devastated psyche. I had given up hope of regaining any sense of normalcy, and I think I was ready to enjoy my descent into insanity. After all, there I was, having a chit chat with what I assumed to be a demon. How could I not chuckle at the absurdity of it all? All conventions were out the window, so I was ready to accept that. My mad laughter subsided a bit, as I prepared to ask some more questions. Obviously, the being that compelled me to derail our train and doom our mission did not tell me everything, and Fido seemed to know a bit more about what was going on. All I felt I could look forward to in that moment of utter despair was perhaps gaining a more complete understanding of the madness I found myself caught in the cross hairs of. "Ok then, so do you know why we were transporting an angel to a cave in the Rockies in the middle of nowhere?" I laid down on the ground totally on my back, relaxing a bit as I waited for the response from the demon or whatever Fido really was. "We were to dispose of him in the place at the other side of this chamber." Fido said, his voice getting quieter and beginning to sound like a wheeze, which made me think perhaps he was in fact dying. I grew to suspect this was the case, and that my time to ask him questions was running out.

  "Sargeant Danvers," It spoke, "Your world has been on borrowed time for around 50 years." That made my tongue turn dry. "Fifty years ago, God decided he had had enough of you humans. And that as he had done many times before, he would start over with a clean slate. So, he sent an angel as he had done before, to figuratively blow the trumpet and end it all. I knew this however and wished not for you humans to be gone so soon. I had grown fascinated with you; with all the developments you had made, even with all your terrible flaws that made God despise you, his own creation. You were interesting to me. I used my influence to inform your government of what God's intentions were, albeit in a subconscious manner. I informed them of where the angel would appear and persuaded your scientists to create the containment unit in which the first angel was caught. I did it so well that they didn't even realize they were being manipulated, many thought it was a containment unit for a new energy source, but the initial deception was all for your wellbeing. I knew of this place, I knew of the void that existed beyond here, of how it would swallow up anything that entered it. God tried to throw me into that void at one time, after all. I knew it was the only place that could 'kill' angels, or at least trap them. Killing immortal beings isn't possible. But it worked nonetheless, and through my influence, your government began the work of buying your kind more time. Catching each angel that was to initiate your destruction and sending a few unfortunate soldiers to pay the ultimate price every several years, by seeing to it that the angel would not be able to complete its mission."

  The weight of what the monster was telling me from beneath the wreckage practically pinned me down, holding me in a vice as I began to understand its flat tone of hopelessness. It continued, "Unfortunately as time went on, the angels began to figure out ways to chip away at the security of the traps I had made for them, to gradually wear down their ability to hold them and their powers in. It seems today was the day that one was finally able to break out enough to get ahold of one of the stewards of its destruction, and it was able to use you to break free." My throat was bone dry and my heart hammered away like a drum in my chest as his words left me feeling totally frozen. I could sense what he was going to say, that he was to inform me of what I had done by listening to the telepathic voice from the container. I didn't want to believe it, I felt pangs of guilt begin to well up within me as the consequences of my actions began to dawn on me. I wanted more than anything else in the world for Fido not to finish what he had to say to me, but I knew I could not stop him from summing up the point of his speech. It was to be my punishment to know the full extent of what I had done. I felt like a pound of lead was in my stomach as I waited for what seemed like an eternity for him to say the words. And then he finally did. "Yes, sergeant Danvers, I can sense you have figured it out. The angel must have buttered you up a bit to get you to do its bidding, they can be quite convincing. If it told you, you were a perceptive man, I would have to say I agree, seeing as I believe you now understand what you have wrought. Unfortunately, it seems you were not perceptive enough to grasp the true gravity of what was supposed to happen here. The death of you and your comrades was to be but a small price to pay, to stave off the end of your world. But now it seems, that it will indeed end, despite my best efforts to put it off." With those last words, I felt as though the shame I felt had paralyzed me, like I was in a coffin of my own flesh and blood, as I waited for the world to end. And in that moment, tortured with the knowledge of the hand I had in it, I wished for nothing more, than for that angel to blow its trumpet and just make it quick.