Into the Maw of Heaven

Chapter 3: Into the Maw of Heaven

The briefing room smelled like ozone, antiseptic, and fear. Josh had been called in to work with some of the company's top agents on something important. Away from his usual team.

He sat at the end of the long metal table, his enhanced nose twitching every few seconds. He tried to focus on the data feed blinking across the wall-mounted screen, but the scent of anxiety clung to the room like smoke. Reiko Tanaka hadn’t stopped fidgeting since she walked in, and Carmichael was chewing gum like it owed him money. Lieutenant Amara King, on the other hand, was still as a statue. Her only scent was gun oil and determination.

“Gate 717,” the voice over the comms said. “Opened seventy-two hours ago in the Lockyer Valley region. Initial probe readings were inconclusive. Signal degradation started thirty minutes post-entry from our scout team, then total blackout. No response since. We believe the team may still be alive.”

A holo of the lost team hovered above the table. Six operatives in Atlassian armor, led by Commander Elena Frost. Josh leaned forward slightly. He’d met her once during orientation. She smelled like cedarwood and static.

“Mana readings?” Amara asked.

“Unstable,” said the tech. “Gate 717 doesn’t align with any current elemental or dimensional classification. Temporal distortion is probable. You'll be carrying time-synch anchors and enhanced filtration.”

Josh grunted. “Any signs of interference?”

The tech hesitated. “There are... fluctuations we can’t explain. The gate pulses irregularly, almost like a heartbeat.”

That earned a glance from Reiko. “A living gate?” she whispered, mostly to herself.

Josh didn’t like the sound of that.

***

They suited up in silence.

Josh wore a lighter rig than the others—minimal armor, reinforced gloves, and a scent-isolating mask he could toggle on or off. His role wasn’t brute force. He was a tracker, a sniffer. Good Boy, as they called him, with varying levels of respect.

Amara wore a full-body exo-frame, matte-black with blue lattice veins of anti-mana shielding. She moved with quiet confidence, every motion efficient.

Red Carmichael—his nickname earned from his fiery hair and tendency to cause explosions—wore a heavily modified engineer’s suit covered in small devices and portable anchors. He carried a coilgun slung across his back and whistled as he worked, despite the tension.

And then there was Reiko. Her suit was white and forest green, custom-built for bio-readings and analysis. She had a satchel of strange instruments at her side, and her dark hair was tied back in a tight braid.

“You okay?” Josh asked her quietly.

She didn’t look at him. “One of the missing team is my fiancée’s brother.”

Josh blinked. “Shit. I didn’t—”

“It’s fine,” she said quickly. “Let’s just bring them home.”

***

The portal shimmered before them like a tear in reality, its surface rippling with colors too vivid to exist.

Josh inhaled deeply. It smelled like... newness. Like static before a storm, mint leaves crushed underfoot, and freshly baked bread all at once. A cocktail of contradiction.

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“Activate anchors,” Amara ordered.

Red set the field. The group linked arms in a practiced motion.

And then they stepped through.

***

Gate 717 wasn’t just another world. It was a dream that had swallowed gravity whole.

They landed on a floating platform—stone covered in moss and strange glowing fungi. The sky above was a swirling mass of pale violet and blue, cracked by arcs of lightning that didn’t strike so much as drip from cloud to cloud. Below them, the void was filled with islands of earth and crystal, suspended in nothing, connected by living vines thick enough to drive a truck across.

“Jesus Christ,” Red muttered. “This ain’t in the training sims.”

Josh’s nose went wild.

The air was saturated with mana. Not just one type—he could smell dozens. Some familiar, like fire and water, but others were alien. One reminded him of fossilized wood soaked in honey. Another like fermented metal.

He dropped to a crouch, sniffing the moss. “I’ve got something.”

They moved across the vine bridge toward the nearest island. It pulsed faintly underfoot, alive in a way the Earth never was. Josh followed the scent trail—six people, heavy gear, adrenaline... and something else.

“Trail splits here,” he said, pointing to a fork in the path. “Three went left. Three went... nowhere.”

Reiko frowned. “Nowhere?”

He nodded. “No scent. Not even decay. Like someone scrubbed it clean.”

“That’s not supposed to be possible,” Amara muttered.

Josh looked up at the island above them, suspended in midair with waterfall-like vines hanging down.

“We go left,” Amara decided. “We find someone, we get answers.”

***

Two hours in, they encountered their first real obstacle.

A grove of white-barked trees with leaves that hummed.

Josh stopped dead. “Don’t move.”

He could smell the air changing—pressure shifting in a way that triggered his instincts. Something was here. Watching.

The team froze.

Suddenly, one of the trees opened its eyes.

Not all of them. Just one.

It wasn’t a tree at all. It was a camouflaged creature—mimicking the scent of bark and decay. It lunged.

Josh tackled Red out of the way, barking in a deep tone that echoed unnaturally through the clearing. The creature flinched, disoriented.

Amara fired. The thing shrieked and vanished into the canopy.

Everyone was breathing hard. Reiko knelt, scanning with her instruments. “That thing was tracking us. Masked its presence by duplicating our scent trail.”

Josh nodded. “And it’s not the only one.”

He could feel it. Something intelligent had shaped this place.

***

They found the camp not long after.

It was wrong.

Tents were arranged in a circle, their contents destroyed but carefully stacked. The firepit was cold, but recent. Blood, but no bodies.

“Whoever did this... it wasn’t a monster,” Reiko said softly.

Josh sniffed the air again and froze. “Someone’s still nearby.”

He followed the scent around the perimeter—and stopped in front of a carved stone slab.

Reiko approached behind him and gasped. “No way... this symbol... I’ve seen this before. Back at Gate 273. Dr. Vale found it during a dig. He said it was a ‘mana harmonization key.’ A way to interact with gates directly.”

Josh turned. “Dr. Vale?”

“He was my mentor,” she said, voice distant. “Brilliant. Paranoid. Disappeared five years ago with an expedition team. Everyone assumed he was dead.”

Red knelt beside them. “You think he’s connected to this?”

Josh didn’t answer. He just sniffed the air again.

There it was. That same scent that had been hanging in the background since they’d arrived. A smell like ozone, blood, and candle wax. Faint, yet distinct. It had been everywhere.

And now it was getting closer.

He stood abruptly. “Something’s coming.”

The temple ahead of them pulsed with light.

Amara raised her weapon. “We hold position. Josh, you’re on point.”

The wind shifted.

And then a voice echoed from within the stone structure.

“You shouldn’t have come here.”