“I tried.” When he saw my face, he tapped his roll of blue. “They put a bunch of us in there, all pink-jackets. Two groups. Two reds came with us, 30 and 25. They gave us all a knife each and told us to track the Buzzer with whatever we could find. 30 said straight out that the knives were just there to make us feel better. The best way to track the thing was to use the æther.

“One of the pinks was a rhabdomancer, so we made some lots from twigs. 30 gave us a bottle of blood from some guy that got his hand bitten off—that way we could use him as a querent. We smeared the blood on the twigs and the rhabdomancer cast them. They pointed west. We kept casting lots and changing direction. Of course, the Buzzer was moving as well, so we didn’t get anywhere. 21 suggested that we bring it to us. We made a fire and did a séance, calling the spirits from the woods.”

“Are there many?”

“Yep. All the idiots that tried to escape through the minefield, according to the reds.”

I suppressed a shiver.

“We sat there for a few minutes. The spirits vanished. We heard noises. Flies started coming out of the woods, crawling over my arms. Then this thing came out of nowhere—this giant, bloated thing. Two seconds later it’s got 19’s hair in its mouth. Nearly takes her skin with it, too,” he added. “She’s screaming, the thing gets confused. It rips out some of her hair and goes after 1.”

“Carl?”

“Don’t know their names. Anyway, he squeals like a piglet and tries to stab it. Nothing happens.” He examined the burning end of his roll. “The fire was going out, but I could still see it. I tried using an image on it. I thought of white light and tried to stick it in the Buzzer’s dreamscape to blind it. Next thing I know, my head feels like it’s being run over and it’s like there’s been an oil spill in the æther. Everything’s dark and dead. All the spirits in the area are trying to get away from the mess. 20 and 14 both run for it. 30 shouts after them that they’re yellow-jackets, but they’re too scared to come back. 10 throws a knife and hits 5. He falls. The Buzzer’s on him in two seconds flat. The fire goes out. It’s pitch-black. 5 starts screaming for help.

“Everyone’s blind now. I use the æther to work out where the thing is. 5’s getting eaten. He’s already dead. I grab the thing’s neck and pull it off him. All this wet dead skin’s coming away in my hands. It turns on me. I can see these white eyes in the dark, just staring at me. Next thing I know I’m flying through the air, bleeding like a stuck pig.”