Sergeant Kael Voss knew the name well. He’d seen the aftermath—a tank crew found perfectly intact, their faces frozen in mid-laugh, their bio-signs flatlined as if someone had simply unplugged their souls. The Leech didn’t kill with claws or venom. It killed by attaching to a host and draining the one thing no armor could protect: the will to live.
But Kael Voss had one thing the other soldiers didn't.
“You wanted a load,” Kael whispered, his voice a rasp of gravel and grave-dirt. “Congratulations. You found the ex-load.” ex-load leech
Kael stumbled, his rifle clattering into the muck. The Leech was on him. He didn't see it—he felt it. A thing of translucent cartilage and needle-fine filaments, it fused to his cervical spine, its body flattening against his skin like a second layer of frost. It weighed nothing. And then the feeding began.
The Leech was gone. But the ex-load? That was his to carry. And he had learned, in the long dark between one death and the next, that some weights are the only thing keeping you from floating away. Sergeant Kael Voss knew the name well
The smell of rain on asphalt. Erased.
Tonight, Kael was the target.
Kael didn't look away. He owed them that much.