To fight them, we use machines to make ourselves stronger. We climb into mechanized armor Jackets-science’s latest and greatest. We bundle ourselves into steel porcupine skin so tough a shotgun fired at point blank wouldn’t leave a scratch. That’s how we face off against the Mimics, and we’re still outclassed.

Mimics don’t inspire the instinctive fear you’d expect if you found yourself facing a bear protecting her cubs, or meeting the gaze of a hungry lion. Mimics don’t roar. They’re not frightening to look at. They don’t spread any wings or stand on their hind legs to make themselves look more intimidating. They simply hunt with the relentlessness of machines. I felt like a deer in the headlights, frozen in the path of an oncoming truck. I couldn’t understand how I’d gotten myself into the situation I was in.

I was out of bullets.

So long, Mom.

I’m gonna die on a fucking battlefield. On some godforsaken island with no friends, no family, no girlfriend. In pain, in fear, covered in my own shit because of the fear. And I can’t even raise the only weapon I have left to fend off the bastard racing toward me. It was like all the fire in me left with my last round of ammo.

The Mimic’s coming for me.

I can hear Death breathing in my ear.

His figure looms large in my heads-up display.

Now I see him; his body is stained a bloody red. His scythe, a two-meter-long behemoth, is the same vivid shade. It’s actually more of a battle axe than a scythe. In a world where friend and foe wear the same dust-colored camouflage, he casts a gunmetal red glow in all directions.

Death rushes forward, swifter than even a Mimic. A crimson leg kicks and I go flying.

My armor is crushed. I stop breathing. The sky becomes the ground. My display is drowning in red flashing warnings. I cough up blood, saving the rest of the warnings the trouble.