The hot afternoon sun poured down relentlessly over the Gatefield Mine in Pennsylvania, turning the dusty ground into a shimmering furnace. A long line of exhausted men slowly moved toward a makeshift food station, each carrying a battered compartment tray with both hands. Their clothes were little more than stitched pieces of rough sackcloth, stained with sweat, mud, and the dark residue that clung to anyone who spent their days working inside an Aether mine. Around every miner’s neck was a thick black collar with a small red light embedded into the front. The lights blinked at regular intervals, accompanied by faint electronic beeps that served as a constant reminder that every person in the line was being monitored.
At the far end of the distribution area, several women stood behind another makeshift counter. They wore the same rough sackcloth clothing as the miners, although most had bonnets covering their hair and disposable gloves protecting their hands. Behind them sat a massive metal pot filled with watery porridge, a large basket overflowing with stale bread, and several crates containing bottles of water. There was nothing appetizing about the meal. Even from several meters away, the smell of old grain and sour bread hung heavily in the air.
As each miner reached the counter, the process was almost mechanical. A woman scooped a single spoonful of porridge onto the largest section of his tray without bothering to keep it inside the designated compartment. Another worker grabbed a piece of stale bread and placed it beside the porridge before dropping a bottle of water into the remaining section. Nobody complained or asked for more. The workers had learned long ago that complaining only made things worse.
Several armed soldiers watched the process from a distance. They wore black and white tactical camouflage and carried rifles lined with glowing blue aether circuits. Their weapons were powerful enough to kill most miners instantly, and their position had been deliberately chosen so they were too far away for the Dregs to reach but close enough to make their presence impossible to ignore.
The miners kept their heads down at all times, nobody wanted trouble.
A bald young man with unusually pale skin, broken lips, and dull, exhausted eyes suddenly lifted his head from the line and glanced behind him. After confirming that none of the soldiers were paying particular attention, he leaned toward the middle aged man standing in front of him.
"Has anyone seen Lucius? He’s missing again," he asked quietly.
The middle aged man turned his head slightly. His hair was already beginning to gray despite him being barely in his early thirties, a consequence of years spent inside the mines. He rolled his eyes and gave an irritated grunt.
"That rascal is probably hiding somewhere inside the mines again, getting some hoo haa with one of the servers," he muttered. "That bastard only turned eighteen and has already gotten more action than I have in all my thirty three years of life. Tch, I’m honestly tempted to rat him out right now."
The bald youth looked at him with disbelief. "You’d really sell him out over that?"
"I’m hungry, exhausted, and sexually frustrated. At this point, I’ll sell anybody out for a second piece of bread."
An old man standing behind them chuckled.
He was balding badly, with only a few strands of gray hair remaining around the sides of his head. His face was wrinkled and weathered, making him look like a man in his seventies despite being barely past forty.
"Don’t be such a killjoy," the old man said. "The kid does his fair share of work and more. So what if he fools around here and there with the ladies?"
The middle aged man looked over his shoulder and glared at him. "You better mind your business if you want to make it to fifty, you old bastard."
The old man grinned. "I’d rather die happy than make it to fifty miserable."
Before the middle aged man could respond, a distant siren suddenly pierced the air.
Wee woo! Wee woo!
Another siren immediately joined it.
Wee woo! Wee woo!
Every miner in the line froze.
Heads snapped toward the massive siren poles positioned around the mining compound. Red lights began flashing across the settlement, painting the dusty landscape in brief bursts of crimson.
The casual conversation died instantly.
The bald youth’s face went pale, the middle aged man’s expression changed completely while the old man’s grin disappeared.
"Dear God," he whispered. "It’s the Tide."
The miners immediately began looking toward the mine entrance and a sense of dread spread through the entire compound. Everyone in the mining settlement knew what the sirens meant.
It was not a routine alarm. It meant something had breached the outer defenses.
High above the Gatefield Mine’s main entrance, soldiers stationed on the watchtowers stared across the dusty plains.
For several seconds, none of them spoke. Then one of the soldiers raised his binoculars and his breathing stopped.
A massive horde of mutated beasts was pouring across the distant plains.
There were hundreds, then thousands.
Creatures of different shapes and sizes moved together in a chaotic mass, kicking up enormous clouds of dust as they charged toward the gate. Some ran on four legs, others on six or more. Some had twisted humanoid bodies, while others looked like mutated versions of animals that had once been familiar to humanity.
Their roars blended into one deafening sound. The ground itself appeared to tremble beneath their collective movement.
The soldier slowly lowered his binoculars and his face had gone pale.
"My God," he whispered. "It’s an MT 3 Tide."
The soldier beside him immediately turned.
"MT 3?"
The first soldier nodded, his hands were trembling.
"We can’t contain that."
He spun around and shouted toward the personnel inside the watchtower. "Withdraw! Sound the alarm for a withdrawal! We don’t have the facilities to contain this Tide!"
Several soldiers immediately began moving.
"Contact the 31st Division! Have them move in and protect the Gates Family assets!"
A younger soldier grabbed him by the collar before he could walk away.
"What about the miners?"
The senior soldier’s expression hardened.
"What about them?"
"Are we seriously just going to leave the miners undefended and withdraw?"
The senior soldier slapped the younger man’s hands away and shoved him backward.
"They are replaceable assets of the Gates Family. We aren’t."
The younger soldier stared at him in disbelief. "But there are thousands of people down there!"
"And there are thousands of replacement workers available once this is over." The senior soldier retorted immediately.
The younger soldier clenched his fists. "You can’t be serious."
The senior soldier turned away from him. "We will leave them in the hands of God until the 31st Division gets here."
Below them, the sirens continued screaming.
The miners were still gathered around the food station, many of them staring toward the distant horizon with growing terror.
They could not yet see the full horde from ground level. But they could hear it.
Then the black collars around their necks began beeping faster and the miners looked at one another. Nobody needed to explain what that meant.
But something was coming.
Meanwhile, within one of the many tunnels of the mining facility, low moans drifted through the damp air as Helen lay on a makeshift mat of layered sack cloths spread across the uneven stone floor to soften the ground beneath her.
A permanent smile stayed etched across her face while her body jerked back and forth under the steady, full-strength rhythm of Lucius’s waist clapping against hers.
"Haaaa..." Helen gasped, her hands reaching up to clasp around the back of Lucius’s neck as she locked eyes with him.
Lucius pressed his lips firmly against hers, their tongues intertwining hungrily and sweeping through each other’s mouths while his hips drove into her even faster.
Helen wrapped her legs tightly around his waist, their free hands interlocking as Lucius held her left hand in his. They kissed for several long seconds before he pulled back just far enough to watch her breasts jiggle with every thrust.
He smiled down at her and she smiled back, both of them then glancing lower to watch his cock sliding in and out of her pussy, the shaft already coated in thick white juices.
"Beautiful, isn’t it?" Lucius asked, and she nodded without looking away.
Wee-wooo! Wee-wooo!
Wee-wooo! Wee-wooo!
The distant wail of the facility sirens suddenly cut through the tunnel, sharp and insistent. Both of them froze for a heartbeat, eyes meeting in shared shock, before the heavier cracks of gunfire erupted outside and quickly drowned the sirens beneath a rolling barrage.
"We should..." Helen began, trying to push herself up, but Lucius simply pressed her back down onto the mat and swung his hips hard into her again.
Pa!
"Aah!" Helen cried out, the sudden force stealing whatever strength she had gathered and leaving her breathless against the cloths.
"It’s a tide..." she muttered between heavy breaths.
Lucius stopped moving for a moment and held her gaze. "This is the newly excavated mine farthest from the gates and restricted from miner or soldier entry. This is the safest place to be. Let them deal with the tide while we make love and hopefully babies."
Helen giggled shyly and turned her face aside. "If only it was that easy..."
"If it doesn’t work now, we can just keep trying over and over again until we get lucky," Lucius said, and a deep flush rose across her cheeks.
Helen threw her arms around his neck and pulled him down until their faces hovered only inches apart, her legs tightening at the same time to draw him fully inside her until their bodies met flush.
"If we are going to continue we should at least try to do it more quietly," she whispered.
"Anything you want." Lucius smiled, then sealed his mouth over hers again.
They kissed with rising intensity while their hips began to grind in opposing circles, slow and deliberate at first, then tighter and more urgent.
Low moans slipped between their locked lips as the grinding went on for several minutes, the wet sounds of their joined bodies soft against the distant chaos outside.
Helen’s eyes widened when she felt Lucius’s release flood into her, hot and sudden; her body trembled beneath him, nails digging into the muscles of his back, yet neither of them broke the kiss or the motion until every last pulse had emptied inside her and the excess began to leak out around his cock.
Lucius eased the kiss apart and slowly withdrew, watching more of the watery fluid spill from her pussy onto the sack cloths below.
His chest rose and fell hard while Helen remained stretched out beneath him, a satisfied smile still on her lips as she studied the lean lines of his torso and the sharp cut of his handsome face.
"Let’s go again... It’s still rowdy outside," Helen said.