SILVER: Acheron (A River of Pain) (The SILVER Series)

SILVER:
Acheron

(A River of Pain)

By

Keira Michelle Telford

Copyright © Keira Michelle Telford 2011

Venatic Press

All Rights Reserved

Chimera Artwork by

Kitt Lapeña

scarypet.carbonmade.com

WWW.ELLACROSS.COM

JOIN THE FIGHT

Through me the way into the suffering city,

Through me the way into eternal pain,

Through me the way that runs among the lost.

-- Dante Alighieri

(
The Divine Comedy
)

Amaranthe

(Circa 2342 CE)

The Fringe District

(Circa 2342 CE)

Chimera

PROLOGUE

The Discovery

Second Reclamation Territory.

Amaranthe, 2342 CE.

-- One Month Ago.

It’s her job to kill monsters.

Chimera are the abhorrent result of an Old World catastrophe, and Silver is a trained Hunter. In the final months of the Second Reclamation, she kicks down the door into a large, crumbling room in some lost building in a forgotten corner of the Out District. Having been recently—and abruptly—re-designated as part of the Second Reclamation Territory, this area of abandoned Old World land represents a significant chunk of the unreclaimed city. Once taken back into human control, it will become an add-on to the expansion of the cramped and over-populated Sentinel District.

Silver’s sweep of this building is part of a final push to wipe out any stragglers left hiding in the shadows of the city’s dereliction, so that the rebuild can commence. With no working power supply, the room she finds herself in is dark, and it reeks of putrefaction.

Stepping confidently inside, her steel-toed Hunter Division boots leave temporary imprints in the puddles left behind from the leaking roof. She readies her PP-2000, a powerful submachine gun designed for close quarters combat. It’s a standard issue, basic weapon of survival for the Hunter Division.

The sound of her entrance has stirred a pack of starving Chimera from sleep, and she doesn’t hesitate to expend an entire magazine of bullets into their mutated flesh.

And, then … she waits.

Silence.

One more step, then two.

Her boots now leave imprints in Chimeran blood as she makes her way deeper into the room, a strange noise in the far corner quickly drawing her attention.

No chance to explore it.

Jolt!

Static.

Headset crackles.

Her heart rate leaps from a sedate eighty to an adrenalin fueled one-oh-five in less than a second. The voice on the other end of the static is fellow Hunter, Rachel ‘Red’ Jenkins.

“Silver, what’s your status?” Red’s sultry voice echoes in the hollow shell of the room.

Silver ignores her, and keeps her eyes focused on a shape moving in the shadows. She flicks on her pocket flashlight and spills the beam over a bundle of ivory skin crouched against the wall.

More crackles.

“Silver? Status report? I heard shots fired,” Red persists.

Silver crouches down, resting on her heels in front of the vulnerable bundle—a naked woman.

As Silver shines the beam across the woman’s face, the woman panics and tries to hide behind the corpse of a nearby Chimera. Lowering her weapon, Silver approaches the woman and takes her by the chin, tilting her face up toward the light of the flashlight. Against the glare of the beam her bright violet eyes shine back toward Silver, holding back tears. Her straggly blonde hair is drenched and matted, clinging to her pale face and shoulders, her skin prickled with goose bumps. In an act of humility and self-awareness, she tries to cover her naked breasts and crouches into a ball. Breathing fast and shallow, her whole body shakes with fear.