Ryder's ragged breaths sawed in the tense air. His eyes were glued to the flashing prompt dominating his vision, words burning against the pulsing sensor overlay.
[TARGET CRITICALLY DAMAGED: CORE RESONANCE EXPOSED]
[ANCHOR FINISHER: 'EIGHTEEN WHEELS OF FURY' - READY]
[ACTIVATE NOW?]
Across the ledge, the Hollowroot Shepherd lay broken. It wasn't trying to get up, just twitching feebly, one hand pressed against the gaping ruin of its chest.
Green energy poured from the exposed core, sizzling as it leaked onto the stone, staining it with light. The air smelled of burnt sap and ozone.
Even the remaining Thralls seemed frozen, stalled by the power bleeding from their master.
This was it. The kill shot. No more messing around. Time to end this damn nightmare.
He took a deep, steadying breath, energy from the patch pushing back his weariness. He focused all his will, gathering all his anger, frustration, and stubborn determination, like chambering a round and taking aim.
He might have yelled it or just thought it fiercely; the intent was clear:
"LET'S GO, BETSY! ACTIVATE! NOW!"
The universe hitched, then it tore.
The shift wasn't subtle; reality slammed on the brakes and spun the wheel.
The stone ledge shimmered and flowed like heat haze. The chamber walls seemed to bend inwards. Colors smeared across his vision – the sigil's pulse stretched into streaks, bleeding into the mist and the Shepherd's leaking energy.
Edges blurred and sharpened, like reality losing focus. The air crackled audibly with static. Cavern sounds – groans, whimpers, the core's crackle – warped, stretched, then snapped into silence.
Then came the sound he had only dreamed of hearing for real: the rumble of a massive diesel engine turning over, catching, then idling with immense power. It was followed by the blast of air horns, felt vibrating deep in his chest.
The dim light vanished. Intense white light erupted around him, engulfing everything, bleaching his vision.
There was a sickening wave, weightlessness slammed into pressure, like being vacuum-sealed and drop-kicked. Squeezed. Stretched. Pulled thin.
For a second, the void outside seemed filled with high-speed blurs – streaks of color, flashes of landscapes gone before he could register them.
Then, jarringly, it stopped.
WHUMP.
The impact threw him backward into a familiar, yet brand-new seat. His hands found something large and round – a steering wheel. Muscle memory took over even as his mind reeled.
The blinding white faded. The roaring settled into the powerful rumble of an idling engine. Vibration thrummed through the seat beneath him.
Ryder blinked, shaking his head to clear spots in his vision and the feeling of being turned inside out.
He was inside. He was in the cab. This felt... right. A strange sense of familiarity, of power settling into place.
He sat high in Betsy's driver's seat, hands gripping the wheel. The air hit him first: the smell of new vinyl, clean metal, and something electric, overlaid with a faint, impossible hint of pine.
It felt real, solid, grounding.
The dashboard stretched before him, gauges glowing steadily.
Faint blue-white lines pulsed softly around the panel, like glowing circuitry. Runes. A reminder she wasn't just any truck.
He looked through the windshield. The view was open and clear.
Betsy's arrival had blasted the mist back, revealing the root-choked cavern. The ceiling soared high overhead, a mess of thick, pulsing roots.
Across the stone floor, the Hollowroot Shepherd was dragging itself up, staggering and clutching the hole in its chest. The green core flared, spitting energy arcs that scorched the stone. It looked frail from Betsy's high cab.
Ryder glanced right. Rigg was slumped in the passenger seat, looking pale and unconscious, but seemingly secured safely by whatever force brought them here.
"All aboard!" Betsy's voice boomed from the speakers, loud with cheerful readiness. Pure chrome-plated firepower wrapped in southern charm.
The button labeled [ENGAGE: MONSTER CRUSH MODE] pulsed brightly on the dash.
"Now punch it, soldier! Let's turn that walking compost heap into firewood!"
He didn't need to think. His body knew what to do, even if his mind was still catching up to the fact he was driving his dream.
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. His boots settled onto the pedals. He grabbed the gearshift.
He slammed it into Drive.
CHUNK.
Gears engaged. Game on.
His foot stomped the accelerator.
ROOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRRRR!!!
Betsy's engine bellowed. A deep sound wave slammed against the walls, vibrating through the windshield and floorboards.
The red-and-chrome eighteen-wheeler surged forward. Tires found purchase on the stone, throwing up dust and debris.
She accelerated unlike anything Ryder had ever experienced, launching like a rocket and closing the distance with impossible speed. Tons of steel and chrome aimed at the flickering green light of the wounded Shepherd.
A few dazed Thralls were in their path. They felt like speedbumps when Betsy hit them, vanishing under the wheels with crunching sounds barely audible over the engine's roar.
The Shepherd looked up. Its featureless face was impossible to read, but its green eye-sockets widened fractionally. Shock? Disbelief? Fear? Didn't matter.
It saw the roaring metal behemoth thundering towards it. It feebly raised its green lance, as if that could stop the truck.
Too late. Way, way too late.
Then, collision.
Inside the cab, the impact was less a crash and more like erasure.
CRUNCH!
Betsy's massive grille connected squarely with the Shepherd's chest. Ryder saw the structure around the core shatter, vaporized by the force.
Then the exposed core detonated against Betsy's front end.
A blinding flash. Green light exploded outwards, overwhelming the headlights and painting the cavern in an emerald inferno. An uncontrolled detonation meeting the magically enhanced truck head-on.
Splinters, bone shards, and green energy washed over the windshield harmlessly. A protective field flared, energy dissipating against it like rain.
Betsy didn't slow down, plowing through the epicenter with unchecked momentum.
Looking through the windshield as the green light subsided, Ryder saw only emptiness where the Shepherd had been.
The floor was a blackened, scorched crater, the edges still glowing faintly. Across the chamber, roots recoiled violently, pulling back into rock crevices, some snapping. A few near the impact withered instantly.
Far below, the sigil on the floor flared brighter than ever, pulsing defiantly and lighting the chamber crimson. Then cracks raced across its surface from the center outwards. The light flickered and died. Abruptly.
A final hiss echoed, then silence, leaving only cracked stone.
A shockwave rolled through the cavern, hitting Betsy and rocking her massive frame. Ryder tightened his grip. He glanced in the rearview mirror – only dust and debris.
Betsy rumbled to a halt fifty yards past the impact zone, engine idling.
Silence fell, thick with the smell of burnt energy and scorched wood, broken only by the engine's thrum and distant cracking or crumbling sounds.
Ryder scanned the chamber, frowning. The air felt thin, unstable.
Then he saw it. The structure was dissolving.
Metallic wall panels flickered, becoming transparent and revealing cave rock before vanishing. Floor panels flickered and vanished, leaving the truck sitting on the damp stone floor of the cavern proper. Roots retracted rapidly into the walls.
The place was unmaking itself. Loud groans echoed, joined by cracking supports and tearing metal. The anomaly was collapsing in on itself.
Suddenly, loud alarms blared from the speakers. Red lights flashed urgently across the dashboard.
[WARNING: ANOMALY STRUCTURE DISSOLUTION IMMINENT] [CATASTROPHIC COLLAPSE LIKELY] [EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY]
"Floor it, Ryder!" Betsy shouted, her voice tight with urgency. "This whole place is goin' back to dirt and fast! The foundation's gone! Go! Go! Go!"
He didn't need telling twice. Adrenaline surged through him again.
He gripped the wheel, scanning for the tunnel entrance they'd come through – was it still there? – and stomped the accelerator.
Betsy roared, tires spinning on the damp stone before finding purchase. She surged towards the dissolving tunnels leading back the way they came.
It was pure chaos, even more so than when they entered this place. Artificial walls melted, revealing cave walls or collapsing chambers. The path ahead shifted constantly. Sections of the ceiling sagged, then gave way with crashes.
CRASH!
A huge chunk of ceiling – metal beams and rock – slammed down in their path.
Ryder wrenched the wheel right, tires squealing, the massive truck responding instantly, fishtailing slightly before he regained control and scraped past the obstacle. Sparks flew as metal grazed rock.
He didn't slow down. Couldn't slow down.
He plowed through dissolving debris blocking the tunnel, feeling the crunch. He felt the truck bump over fallen rocks. He dodged another falling piece, a support beam that slammed into the floor ahead, kicking up sparks.
Betsy's headlights cut through dust and mist, seeking the route and illuminating the destruction.
The noise was deafening – Betsy's roar battling the sounds of collapse: tearing metal, cracking stone, groans. He laid on the air horn, a long blast barely cutting the din.
Drive. Get Rigg out. Just drive.
He glanced at the passenger seat. Rigg was still out, jostled but unharmed. Gotta get him clear.
Then, ahead through the dust, past a melting archway, a light. Small at first. A point in the darkness.
Not the sickly green or pulsing red he was getting used to. But a whiter, warmer light, growing larger as Betsy devoured the distance.
Daylight? Lanterns from the surface? Rescuers?
Didn't matter. It was out. The exit. Freedom.
Ryder kept his foot floored, knuckles white on the wheel, eyes fixed on the light. Betsy's engine roared against the symphony of the collapsing anomaly.
He steered the truck towards it, towards escape.
The nightmare was ending. Almost there.