The woven death blanket swept across the mountains, sweeping every colonist away and across the hard landscape. Bodies and pieces of bodies dropped all around him. Gep ran as fast as he could, trying to stay under the mountains and away from the coming danger. Every colonists that survived the mountain sweep, leapt from the heights and ran along with Gep for the entrance.

And then the woven death machine cut through the pathways along the mountains, smashing hundreds of colonists into the path. Gep hid beneath one of the mountains as the cloth swept death past him. Legs flew at him, parts of exoskeleton scraped along the mountainside above him.

Gep felt paralyzed, unable to move long after the woven death passed him. He looked down at the smashed remains of the colonists, most of which were no longer recognizable. There was only a mass of twisted legs and insides where there used to be colonists.

The death sweep did another round, this time wiping away the remains of the colonists…and that’s when he smelled it. The scent that he’d picked up on the way inside, the scent that was just underneath the sugar on the paths. The woven death reeked of it and Gep thought that he might vomit from the combination of it and the smell of the colonist bodies around him.

He crept from mountain to mountain, trying not to be seen by the Gods (there was no used denying it. It could only be the Gods that brought this down on them). The elders were right. They had always been right and now he knew why. The Innerlands were among the most evil of places. He knew this now.

But all the “I told you so”s’ in the world didn’t matter a whit now that Bah was dead and it wouldn’t matter at all if he didn’t get to the entrance back into the colony.

Gep traveled like this while the air became thicker and thicker with the smell. Gep struggled to keep himself going through the sickening smell.

Finally, he reached the path leading into the entrance. There were no mountains here, only pathway…and it was only a few feet away.

He stepped out into the open and made a run for it. He’d made it. Somehow, he’d made it all the way…and he was still alive.

The path was still sticky and a part of him would miss the first feeling of sugary sweet, even though the other smell canceled everything else out.

Suddenly, he was drenched with something wet. There was a hiss and then he was wet again, his exoskeleton soaked…

It was then he realized that he was now covered in the smell…and that his exoskeleton was melting.

He tried to run, but his legs rapidly shriveled up beneath him. He screamed as his exoskeleton melted, burning his insides away. His legs burned away almost instantly, and he fell into the sugary sweet path, the thick smell spilling into his mouth and burning through his body. He lost consciousness right as his antennae fell off his head one by one.

His very last thought before everything went dark was a part of the rite that he’d spoken every morning of his life;

The paths of the Outerlands are the pathways to righteousness…

The paths of the Innerlands are the pathways to torment…