I pull off my headphones and yank on my helmet in the moment of silence that follows. A gust of cold air hits me in the face as the doors slam. I pull my visor down, release my seat belt, and wait ten seconds as the heavies bail out, then I follow them through the nearest exit, opposite the entrance to the office.

So I’m standing right behind Sergeant Howe when the door explodes.

That’s why I survive.

I register it as a bright flash and a simultaneous ringing in my ears, then I realize I’m lying on my back looking up at the side of the OCCULUS truck. What happened? I wonder as I flail around and try to sit up, then slip on something warm and moist. I can smell shit. Something buzzes in my ears, and then my ward goes off like a hive of bees. I can’t hear properly. I roll to my knees and realize numbly I’m rolling in what’s left of Steve, which means enemy action, so I keep rolling and roll under the OCCULUS truck as I reach for my pistol and realize I can’t find the holster and my bad right arm is stinging like crazy so I open my inner eye fully and the confusion and darkness light up.

(I will note that Steve Howe wasn’t visible from the office window and wasn’t yet trying to open the door: it just went bang.)

Walls dissolve. There’s a smoking hole in the front of the warehouse, and a body inside, and another body—live, with a gun, and there’s an unhealthy bluish sheen to it like an oil slick or toxic waste or something. I hear faint shouts, the harsh metallic crack of gunfire. There are more people standing farther inside the building, but the one in the office is advancing and raising a pistol—

I grunt, and reach out for them with imaginary fangs and claws. I’m about five meters away but I’ve done this before, through a door even. I can feel their mind squirming like a toad, and there’s something sick about it. It tastes foul. No, she tastes foul. I bite and bite and chew and spit and then I find myself wishing for a psychic glass of water: the trouble with this Eater-of-Souls talent or curse or what-have-you is that there are some people whose souls you’d want to scrape off the underside of your shoe if you trod in them, and you really don’t want them giving you gastric symptoms.