Day 1 Evening

[Okor]

The rotting revenant lumbered through the lumber, towering trees rising into the sky, their bark-clad girth obscuring the rapidly dimming atmosphere. Through minute gaps in the canopy were pinpricks of distant light, blazing stars peering through the oppressive foliage to illuminate the seemingly deserted forest floor.

A thousand stars, each with a world to conquer-

No. In reality, each star was a burning orb of fire, around which orbited hunks of rock. Some of them might have life, some possessed of stones and metals worth killing over, and others just happened to be convenient. They were all part of the intricate dance of life, a beautiful motion through space and time, destined to end.

This was not reality.

Those distant dots of light were no more than that, simple candles set in place far above the surface, a damnable farce, a mockery of all that was alive. Fingers worn to the bone twitched in their cages of steel, the biological imperative for combat bred into every fibre of his being baying to be heard. He was here to kill, was he not? Every slight, every subtle insult, every Victor Gods-Damned Wolfe he had been forced to suffer through itched to be repaid. ‘Verses would burn for The Smiling One’s arrogance. They would burn.

His building resentment was interrupted by a warped mixture of a neigh and a roar, the unsettling sound piercing the small clearing he had entered, shaking the ferns adorning the previously idyllic scene, droplets of water cascading from emerald fans. A beast stood atop a marble outcropping, bloodstained hooves meeting sulphur-yellow hide in a blend of colours no sane man would ever allow to occur in a horse. Even calling it a horse would be charitable. Crimson-splattered hooves were lengthened into curled claws, rending talons complementing the hungering fangs set into an elongated face. Black, soulless eyes gazed out from him, a hunger replacing the nobility one might expect to see in such a creature. With a flick of its whip-like tail, the beast lunged forward, its maw slavering for the taste of flesh, flecks of red foam apparent in its ravenous jaws.

A ferrous-fortified fist careened into the side of its skull, the enhanced punch cracking bone as it dissuaded the beast from its charge, an unnaturally lithe body tumbling through the meadow. Okor clashed his weaponized knuckles together, the familiar and comforting ring of steel on steel steadying him as the abomination rose to its feet.

He needed this. Just a little bit of violence, just this singular hit of brutality to keep him afloat.

The beast surged forth once more, springing from its prone position into a savage leap, its serrated fangs clamping down on a raised vambrace, yellowed teeth cracking as they bit into the rusted alloy of chitin and ceramite. Was that a spark of fear blossoming in the ebon abyss of its eyes? If not, then he would put it there. A fist crashed into its throat, the structure of its windpipe collapsing under the force of the blow, its teeth locked into place around his gauntlet as hammering strikes rained down on it, bones cracking under the Plague Marine’s might. Talons scratched against him, flaying dead skin from hardened bones, scratching against armour that had endured the predations of a universe for millennia.

With a howl of rage, Okor’s hands dug into its flesh, biting deep under its battered skin, clinging to any handhold he could reach. Grunting in effort, he began to lift the massive beast, its struggles slowly ceasing as it suffocated, his singular eye set upon the marble altar upon which it thought to consume him. The creature flew through the air, colliding against the unyielding rock, bones shattering upon impact, ending the struggle against entropy it has foolishly begun. He looked down upon the broken remnants of his attacker. Perhaps another warrior would have panted with exhaustion, but Okor breathed largely out of habit, by this point in his ‘life’.

His abdomen jaws gnashed together with hunger. They were bound by the magic of this place, lashed together by the invisible strands of fate. He was always hungry, never truly sated. Emaciated claws gingerly removed his helmet, the rusted contraption tearing away patches of skin from his leprous visage as it left. Twisted hands reached out towards the carcass, eagerly seeking the life-sustaining meat he craved. Slime as dark as the nights on the sunless world of Nostramo seeped from his maw, a grin breaking across his mummified face as he began his feast.

Survival. At any cost.