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rumors say a reaper stalks the halls of the base.
you've disregarded these rumours, of course. the nature of a boogeyman, you suppose. go into the hangar late at night and find that beaten up doru in the corner that never seems to have a maintenance crew and chant its name three times and it shall appear.
well, you say you don't believe in superstition, but you've seen the sorts of things that lurk deeper in the shadows of the empire. the things that make you second guess the sort of people you're fighting for.
beyond just the leather-dykes that carry around those rebel freaks at heel.
the barking and gnawing and chewing that comes from the hallways of the kennels.
you dont sleep much, nowadays.
your ears ring too much, is what you tell the medical officer. the truth is that you're having nightmares. a swarm of once-humans, toppling a mech. tiny half-sized machines tearing metal plating apart with their teeth. a swarm of once-humans, cannibalistically tearing a mech apart, shards of metal cutting through the linings of their stomach.
when they are done with their prey, they turn their sights upon you. eyes sallow and dull whet their appetite on your fear. they circle you, the once-humans hand over foot, trailing blood from metal digging out of their flesh.
you wake up in a sweat.
so you take to roaming the halls of the base.
it doesn't help.
you hear barking and howling at the ends of hallways, where the lights flicker as if to warn you of a darkness that threatens to swallow the world whole.
exhaustion finds you in odd places, at odd times.
you find that you quite like the silence of the hangar in the midnight hours. and you find yourself quite drawn to a particular spot, in the corner of the hangar. where scaffolding touches the walls and allows you to climb to the ceiling. from here, you watch the war machines as godly statues, at these sorts of times tended to by only a scant few sculptors, true obsessive that wander back and forth, welding their divine armaments back together for the next hunt.
one night, as you watch from this perch that you find yourself in, you see it. the reaper.
the bay doors open, a cold wind of death letting in. a mech suit lets itself in. not a doru, a personal one. one like the ancyor or genetor. you dont recognize this one.
bad luck, of course, for it to then park here, in your corner of peace and quiet.
a plain girl, on the taller end, disembarks first. then she turns and offers a helping hand to a companion. the companion steps out, one arm nestled into a sling, and you shiver as a shadow seems to cover the base.
her presence alone darkens the world. you think of the handlers and their hounds. of sartha thrace and empty eyes. you stare as the pair walk past you.
it is the closest you have been to death, you think.
you find a new place to spend your sleepless nights.