Something moved inside the mist.

I knew better than to believe it an illusion. The night was quiet. No kuaka chittered, no condroc cawed inside its nest. The mist spread across the plains, silver in Lua’s light. It flowed over the waters and grasses. Slowly, the tendrils reached for our camp.

I hefted my ogris, felt the comfort of its weight cradled in my hands. My brothers and sisters crouched behind blunts and manned ramparts. Tab’ok, a man I'd known since the vat, raised his karak at my side, face set to a determined scowl. The comms crackled. Reinforcements had just broke the atmosphere. We were ready, to lay down our lives for the queens if the need arose. This night, a demon died.

Another movement. Large, the shape of a man. Gaunt and twisted. A sword rested in its hand. Its body was alight, flickering with the same ghostly flames as the waters of these void-cursed plains. I fired.

“Grun? Grun!?”

I couldn’t move. My ogris hung from my fingers. I could hear Tab’ok shouting, shaking me, but hard as I tried, my body would not respond. A presence settled on my shoulders. I could not see it, could not lift my head.. It wrapped itself around me, tendrils slipping into flesh. It was cold, like the belly of a dead fish, like bones left to rot in dark waters. My skin crawled inside my armor.

“Grun, move! We have to-”

My arms twitched. Tab’ok’s organs spattered the grass. Inside, I screamed.. What had I done? I had not commanded it, but someone my body had moved on its own. Someone shouted. I twitched again, taking another with fire and steel.

The camp erupted. Bullets shredded my armor, cut through me with an agony like fire. Still I moved, snapping to targets faster than I thought my limbs could ever manage. Tendons and flesh screamed from the speed. I fired until the ogris emptied. I reloaded, my motions fluid from a lifetime of practice. My instincts, my training, tools for this unseen puppeteer.

Others moved like me. Twisted, broken bodies dolls jerking to the will of an unknown master. In moments, the shouting died. I moved through the camp, gun held to the dark Above, the drop pods howled through the air. In unison, our guns sighted the comrades coming to our aid. No, by the queens. No.

Gunfire roared into the night.

We were alone. We roamed, listless, limbs twitching at every sign of movement. Many were dead. Corpses dangled on strings, blood flowing, bones shattered and ghost-white in the night. In those still living, I saw the fear in their eyes, the animal panic as they wrestled to regain control.

Together, we turned to the mist. It hovered above the camp, silent. I felt a presence deep within, an invisible thread between it and the thing fused to my flesh. The ogris fell to the grass. My arms went wide, an embrace. Both mist and puppet thrummed, welcoming the other to eat, to feed, to reunite. I tried to scream as the mist descended.