The presence of an entire Marine platoon had turned the fairly large tunnel into a goddamn sardine can. Marines filling this side of the tunnel were starting to become worryingly overwhelming.

  What had started as scattered SEAL fireteams and a few Marine squads was turning into a real defensive position. Troops moved in from the only entrance, all heading toward whatever nightmare hid in that blood-stained darkness and setting up layered defenses.

  In the midst of the controlled chaos, Mack and Will stood aside, discussing their next move while the Marine Platoon Leader struggled to impose order on what was quickly turning into a traffic jam of warfighters. Marines moved around them like water flowing past rocks—some hauling ammo, others carrying heavy weapons. But all bore the same worried look that said they'd rather not face whatever the hell spooked the Navy SEALs bad enough to stop doing whatever the hell they were doing.

  And smack dab in the middle of it all, with absolutely nothing to do, was Finch and the rest of his fireteam.

  The Lance Corporal and his Sergeant had been relieved from their security posts and stood aside with Newman and Pham. Finch felt uneasy now that he was just sitting there doing nothing. Especially with something so... disturbing just around the corner. The Lance Corporal wanted to either get it over with and get eaten or, more preferably, run the hell away.

  With a stressed sigh, Finch turned his head to see a weapons team hauling an M240B into position, aiming at the spot where the monster was first seen. Some thick-necked Lance Corporal with camo face paint that looked like it was slapped on by a monkey dropped the pig onto its bipod right where Finch had been guarding security.

  "Surely, it’ll work this time," Finch muttered, watching the gunner set up.

  On the other side of the intersection, another poor bastard struggled with those new confined-space AT4s. The kid—couldn't have been more than nineteen—dropped a few of them that he held in his arms and flinched like he expected them to spontaneously combust.

  Finch huffed in amusement with a cheeky smirk as he watched the boot slowly open one of his eyes to check if he was alive before setting the rest of the ordinance down and lining them up against the wall. The poor kid’s hands were so bad that Finch could see them even through the green haze of night vision.

  Looking past the Marines setting up security and toward the other, less grotesque corridor that hadn’t been secured, Finch saw more Marines and SEALs slowly creeping down and expanding that security bubble. Fire teams leapfrogged forward along the slow and gradual bend, establishing a protective position before another team gradually moved toward it.

  Now that he had nothing else to do, Finch found himself drifting closer to where the SEAL officers stood in hushed conversation. He knew he shouldn't eavesdrop—knew it would probably bite him in the ass—but curiosity won out over common sense… Again.

  "—Ya, we definitely should pin this direction and continue the mission through the other tunnels," Will said in a low but intense voice. "Wait until we get our hands on a Q-UGV to check what this thing is before we commit to clearing it. There should be one topside with the support element."

  Mack's body language screamed skepticism, even through the tactical gear. "And if this is a critical juncture? What if this tunnel leads somewhere important?" He paused, considering. "Or worse—whatever in there gets a drop on another unit?"

  Will gestured toward the blood stains decorating the walls like a slaughterhouse's abstract art. "What if there's a dead end down there? Do we really want to risk rushing in and getting our guys killed when we know whatever is down there is so..." he searched for the right word before looking at the walls, "...messy?"

  The silence that followed was heavy. Mack stood perfectly still— that kind of stillness that meant his mind was working overtime. His second-in-command had a point. Rushing things would only lead to unnecessary death. But they also couldn't simply leave this tunnel unsecured. The last thing anyone wanted was whatever the hell was down there running around loose and unchecked, hitting them or some other unit from behind when they were engaged elsewhere.

  Mack's head turned slightly, and through the green phosphorescence of night vision, his gaze locked directly onto Finch.

  Fuck.

  Finch flinched and immediately looked away like a kid caught stealing cookies. His internal monologue went into overdrive as he realized he was in some serious trouble now. They're probably gonna make his dumb ass take point and walk into that nightmare for being such a nosy bitch. He couldn’t help but wonder why it was like this. Why did he always have to stick his nose in shit he didn't need to?

  But Mack was already walking over, Will trailing behind.

  "You two," Mack's voice was all business, addressing both Finch and Reyes and causing them to exchange confused looks. "I need you to explain what you saw in extreme detail."

  "I don't want to hear 'some big monster,'" Mack continued, pulling out a waterproof notebook from his admin pouch. "I need detailed descriptions. Size, shape, and how it moved. What exactly did you see?"

  Reyes cleared his throat, trying to sound professional despite the tremor in his voice. "Sir, it was... brief. Maybe two, three seconds of visual contact."

  "Start from the beginning," Will prompted.

  There was a brief silence as the two Marines took a moment to gather themselves. Mack just stood there patiently, notebook in hand, pencil ready, while Will crossed his arms. The only sounds were the distant shuffling of Marines taking positions and hushed orders.

  Finch took a deep breath, forcing his mind to organize the chaos of what he'd witnessed. "Alright, so... I decided to run the rabbit." His voice steadied as he started gesturing, raising his hands as if reenacting it. "Reyes was set to corner the target while I crossed the threshold and established intersecting fields of fire, right? Textbook stuff."

  He paused, licking his lips nervously. "The moment I activated my white light and crossed, something moved. Not really subtle, either. Probably scared it from the blinding light."

  Reyes picked up where Finch left off. "Yeah, at first I thought I was looking at a fucked up part of the wall. Like, maybe the stone had collapsed weird or something. But then it turned and jerked away." He swallowed hard. "The head was... lizard-like. Like some kind of giant girdled lizard, but all... all wrong."

  "Define wrong," Mack pressed, his pencil moving across the page.

  Finch’s hands started stroking his smooth chin as he tried to find the words. "Its whole head was covered in these thick ass overlapping scales, but it looked more like armored plates. Not smooth like a snake—each one was all… craggily and jagged. Like someone had beaten the shit out of a rock."

  "It was also grey," Reyes added. "Not natural grey like most reptiles. This was like... concrete grey." He trailed off, grimacing.

  "Ya, and like…" Finch finished. "I think it was bleeding between the gaps of its armor plates. Like it had been... I don't know, swimming through bodies or got hit or somethin’."

  Will's brow furrowed behind his night vision. "Size of the head?"

  "Massive," Reyes said immediately. "Four feet across, easy. Maybe five. The snout was elongated, triangular, with these ridges running back from the nostrils. Each ridge was armored, too, and the scales or plates got larger as they went back toward the skull."

  Mack tapped his pencil against his notebook in a slow, deliberate rhythm. He let out a deep, stressed sigh that seemed to come from his very soul before looking at Will, and even though he couldn’t see his Ensign’s expression behind the PVS-31s, he knew exactly what was plastered across Will’s face. The same mix of dread and resignation that Mack felt settling into his own gut like a lead weight.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  The silence lingered, broken only by the sounds of Marines stacking sandbags and checking weapons in the background. "You think it's a..." Will finally spoke, but trailed off, unable or unwilling to finish the thought.

  "Sounds like it," Mack finally responded as a heavy pressure weighed down on the SEALs' shoulders. "Fuck."

  Finch and Reyes exchanged nervous glances, their minds racing. Whatever had the SEALs' panties in a knot must have been really bad news. These were guys who'd been in country for months, who'd seen all manner of magical bullshit, and they looked ready to piss themselves.

  "What does that mean, sir?"

  Out of nowhere, Pham spoke up, finding the courage to ask what was on everyone's mind, but they weren’t brave enough to voice.

  Newman's hand immediately connected with the back of Pham's helmet, sending the kid's head jerking forward. "What the fuck, boot?! Shut the fuck up!"

  But the SEALs didn't seem to care. Mack turned to look at the four Marines, tilting his head to get a better angle through his night vision while considering his words. "They’re the equivalent of a living, walking, breathing tank," Mack finally replied while his gaze drifted to the AT4s propped against the wall.

  Will picked up the explanation. "The locals call them Wyrms. We call 'em walkers. Basically, land dragons that are armored against rifle and machine gun fire." He paused, letting that sink in. "Hell, the fucking things can tank .50 cal for a while before deciding it hurts too much and fucks off. That is, if they decide to leave at all."

  The fireteam froze like their brains had just blue-screened trying to process this information.

  Around them, several Marines who had been pretending not to eavesdrop suddenly found very important things to do elsewhere. The few who caught the full conversation had that unmistakable 'oh fuck' expression plastered across their faces before quickly refocusing on their tasks—checking already-checked weapons, adjusting already-adjusted gear, anything to avoid thinking about what they'd just heard.

  "You're telling me," Reyes said slowly, his voice barely above a whisper, "that there's a fucking dragon in these tunnels? An actual, armor-plated, bullet-resistant dragon?"

  "Wyrm," Will corrected automatically. "Dragons are much… much bigger and have wings. These things are built to tear stuff up on the ground. Really fucks up our armor if they get too close. I've seen them be thirty to forty feet long, armored like a main battle tank, and they're smart as hell too."

  The SEALs turned their attention back to each other, lingering in the middle of the tunnel as they tried to figure out what in the hell they were going to do next. The weight of command seemed to physically press down on Mack's shoulders as he unbuckled his helmet and pulled it off, letting the eerie, oppressive darkness wash over him. His thumb found the indentation between his nose and forehead and pressed hard, hoping the pressure would ease the headache that had been building since they'd breached that damn wall.

  "What do we do now?" Will's voice came through the darkness, barely visible through the haze of darkness. "Any ideas?"

  An exhausted, frustrated groan escaped Mack's mouth as he racked his brain. This was far from ideal. They couldn't just run on the assumption that whatever those Marines saw was bullshit and ignore the possibility of a Wyrm crawling around down here. The problem was, the thing could pop out anywhere, even topside. Nobody knew how big this underground complex was or if any of the passageways connected. This thing could ambush another vector of the assault and slaughter an entire platoon before anyone knew what hit them.

  After a minute or two of thinking, Mack snapped his helmet back on. The white phosphorus screen lit up, providing him with a view of everything around him in that familiar green haze.

  "We need to pause the assault until we take care of this. Get a runner topside, have them relay the information up the chain. Tell them we have a possible feral Wyrm in the tunnels." Mack said after turning to Will

  Then SEAL Lieutenant spun around to face his communication’s speciealist, who'd been maintaining security. “Alright, I need to relay the message. Our main priority right now is to fix this damn comms problem." He spat the words like they tasted bad.

  Here's what we're gonna do," he continued, his voice adopting a tone of control and authority. "I want all our guys to take off their MPU-5s. If we position them throughout this shithole within line of sight to each other, the mesh network should create a relay system. It won't be perfect, but it'll give us some semblance of communication.

  The communications operator, a rather short operator with a bit of razor burn on his face, raised a hand. "That'll leave us without individual comms, you know that right?"

  Yeah, we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way and just have one guy with a radio acting as the RTO for each element, Vietnam-style," Mack replied, adjusting his helmet to fit properly. "It’s not ideal, but it's better than being completely deaf, dumb, and blind down here."

  Word started spreading down the line toward the SEALs like a ripple through water. "We need your radios, take them off and pass them to Jorge." The message traveled from operator to operator, each one looking confused but compliant. Within minutes, SEALs were pulling out rolls of 100mph tape—that olive drab duct tape that held the entire military together—and started slapping their expensive mesh network radios against the tunnel walls. The devices looked almost comical, taped up like some boot's field expedient fix, but it was their best shot at getting any semblance of communication in this stone nightmare.

  "Grab someone and go spread the word,” Mack started as he turned to Will. “Everyone is to halt their advance and hunker down. Make sure they know we've got a Wyrm loose down here."

  There was a brief, painful moment when both men just looked at each other and cringed. They both understood what this meant—they were surrendering tempo to the enemy, giving them time to escape or dig in and set up defenses. In any assault, momentum was everything. Lose it, and you give the enemy time to think, plan, and establish kill zones. But between charging headlong into a massive armored killing machine or giving up tactical advantage, the choice was clear.

  Will nodded, already turning to grab the shoulder of one of his men when Mack spoke up again.

  "Hey, one more thing." Mack's voice was quieter now, almost apologetic. "Go link up with the Raiders. I know it's fucked to take from the dead, but..." He gestured vaguely at the tunnel around them. "We're going to need their radios, too. Every working piece of comms gear we can get."

  The Ensign’s jaw tightened, but he nodded again. They both knew what that meant—stripping gear off corpses, maybe off guys they'd been joking with just an hour ago. But the living needed it more than the dead.

  "Roger that," Will said, before smacking a nearby SEAL on the shoulder. "Come on, you’re with me."

  The two SEALs jogged off through the darkness, dodging and weaving as they slipped past Marines who were still trying to organize themselves. It didn’t take long for Will's form to vanish around the bend, fulfilling his Lieutenant's orders, but before Mack could focus on his own tasks, another voice called out.

  "Yo, LT!"

  Mack turned to see one of the operators he tasked secure the less messy tunnel with that marine fireteam making his way over. The man was also slipping through the crowd as if his life depended on it, pushing and shoving people out of the way.

  LT! We ran into a dead end," Mack’s subordinate basically shouted when he finally got within speaking range. “Nothing but blood and guts, but..." he continued before shoving a glowing disconnected ATAK screen in Mack's face.

  Squinting at the bright display, Mack flipped up his night vision to see better, leaning in to really examine what in the hell he was looking at.

  "Whatever was in there went fucking crazy. The only body that was relatively intact was some dude with his head cut clean off." Ramirez swiped to another image. "But here's the weird part—the body looked like it had been dragged… gently into pen with their head set right next to it. Like someone or something did it on purpose and... arranged him."

  "Arranged?" Mack's voice was flat, processed.

  "Yeah, but here's the thing—" Ramirez zoomed in on the image.

  Mack squinted harder, the weapon lights in the photo casting harsh shadows that revealed details he wished he hadn't seen. There weren't just claw marks scarring the walls as if two monsters had scraped there, and what looked like gouges from blade strikes—deep slashes that had carved into the stone as if it were butter. Whatever had happened in there, it wasn't just animal violence.

  "But here's what's really fucked," Ramirez continued, swiping to another photo. "There were also remains of other Wyrms. They looked ripped to shreds."

  The image made Mack's blood run cold. What should have been enormous dragon-like monsters was reduced to chunks of armored flesh scattered across the pen. Scales the size of dinner plates were embedded in the walls, massive bones snapped like twigs, and what looked like a Wyrm's head was split nearly in half by some incredible force.

  The Lieutenant couldn’t help but shudder as he reached out and grabbed the ATAK, taking it away from his subordinate. "What the hell happened here? Intel reports stated these things weren't feral—they always had handlers. Always."

  Sir, the only shit we know about these monsters is what other SEAL teams managed to get out of prisoners. But..." The subordinate SEAL tapped the screen, pointing at the intact corpse. "That body? Look at the uniform markings. Same insignias handlers usually wear. The braided cord on the shoulder, that weird-ass medallion."

  "So the handler lost control?" Mack zoomed in on the image, studying the decapitated figure. The cut was clean, almost surgical—not the ragged tear you'd expect from claws or teeth. “Or… Someone put the handler down, and the monster went nuts.”