‘11 minutes. 10 times. Expected clear time…’

  A rushing wind streaming around her. A distant thunder beating the low ends not deafened by the buffet. Yells from below ignored because they were not for her and there was every reason to not slow down. Everyone had their orders, their place. There was no time for distractions. Her mind racing as is, at the implications imparted onto it. Repeating the message given over and over so it couldn’t be forgotten.

  No older than sixteen and already at the front, already flying as fast as she could for longer than she’d ever managed. Face reddening from the strain, muscles whining their issues. But this was no place to train, only to give everything and then some. Tents and concrete and sand and beaten earth, all spread out below her as landscape coopted. An armyscape of proportions unheard yet demanded. Stretching a mile deep between her and her goal, and for miles upon miles to either side.

  Her dirty blond hair, tied up and flowing behind her, caked in dust kicked up by the trains of movers and carts running their courses. No time to shower it off or even keep it straight, no time to rest until it was someone else’s turn to run intel to wherever it was needed. Her suit of meshed and plated metal faring just as filthy. Fiber colored and camouflaged grey simply because that was how it came, color required time no one had. And all of it signified with a haphazard velcro patch shaped like an ancient hoplite’s shield. Her own responsibility, her own moniker. She was a super, a hero of the League pressed into service, and she had a dire message to deliver.

  ’11 minutes. 10 times. Expected clear time…’

  Her destination was impossible to miss, impossible to even think of when all this started. Its bulk ceasing this military industrial sprawl with a sudden vast slab of metal, concrete, and gunpowder. A wall, The Wall, towering over everything. And sucking up all the output of this vast egregious effort. Whether it was materiel… or meat for the grinder.

  Triple wide stairs zigzagged up its back, the right side filled to the brim with soldier and supply, the left barren and awaiting the inevitable evacuation. Between them ran rail and pulley lines, tubes and ropes, end points for all that concrete and cart traffic. Clanking at the wall’s back with no hope of an end till the next shift was whistled in. The whir of machinery, of grunted effort, of powered purpose dominating everything. But not a single joule or watt allowed or had. Because those could be rent away.

  At horrific cost.

  Her final stop was upon her though, the raised lip of the wall not an obstacle expecting her. She focused, remembering what her mother taught her about stopping.

  ‘ ”Visualize all that thrust you’ve been using. How it’s been moving you about. Then reverse it slowly but surely in whatever way feels right. And don’t worry about looking dumb doing it. It’s better than smashing into the ground at 90 miles an hour.” ’

  She did what she had been told, felt that all-over push she’d imparted upon herself. That back filling flow like the air around her was hers and hers alone. Then let it abate and slowly press back opposite. Velocity gradually lowering but not decelerating enough, so she pulled her feet up and revisualized that thrust. A countering push to desperately keep her from overshooting her landing. Feet skimmed the helmets of the soldiers resting against disregarded defense, hoping for reprieve but receiving sudden air rippling startle. She stumbled in the drag, decelerated too fast and off balance. Kevlar boots missing the plastic shell strewn metal of her own hope and squeaked out over plexiglass revile. The clear coated platform turned landing strip hanging over the far end of the wall. Over the hell that it must keep back.

  She fell forward and caught herself from tumbling end over end. Yet was stuck looking down at the darkness that the wall’s shadow created. The shadow that paled in comparison to the vantablack stain that crawled up its surface below her. She forced her head away, but could not avoid the town beyond, the one sacrificed to this needed attrition. Just as stained, but truly lost to the horrors out there. Her breath caught as she remembered her first time seeing them. The way it had ripped its way up and over, the way its scaly skin boiled, the look on its face as it refused to just die… But she had to stop. She had to focus. The message.

  ‘10 minutes. 10 times. Expected clear time…’

  She picked herself up and rose to meet its recipient. His back was turned and nearly blocked out the entire horizon. A similar suit of woven metal and fiber just as dirty if not worse. Plates coated in Kevlar and topped off with a symbol reminiscent of the very wall he stood upon. His burnt orange hair short but haggard. If not for the cordite and ash that dominated her senses, she would have winced at the implications already clear. He hadn’t left his position in days.

  “Dad!!”

  The man, towering over even the soldiers watching on behind her, turned to face his daughter. With a smile almost unfitting.

  “Aegis! What news has come?”

  His booming tone, his defiant boisterous, everything about him was joyous in demeanor. Denying every bit of dire catastrophe that permeated the air. But still his face could hide none of the fatigue draped over it. His orange hued eyes were bagged and laden from days without meaningful sleep. His beard was scraggly, unshaven, and blackened with dust and powder charge. His suit was torn, scratched, and stained with old blood. Both no doubt his own and too many others’.

  And yet still he smiled. Beaming down at his daughter without a care for anything but what had been put before him.

  “This is serious! We have a swarm coming that-”

  “Good!!”

  The man took an even more proud stance.

  “I’ve been waiting all day for some action!”

  “NO DAD!!!”

  The girl gritted her teeth like this was far from the first time, staring into his eyes and demanding his attention more than his praise.

  “This isn’t like the other ones!! They said it’s likely to be in the tens of thousands!! Like the entire damn cordon is falling on us!!!”

  She was wide eyed, she couldn’t keep back the tears in her eyes, couldn’t let him just brave this news out like it meant nothing. The soldiers listening on behind her mirroring her horror. They knew what awaited them, they knew it first hand, but to hear it out loud only lifted their fear up past what meager resolve they still clung to. The man knew as much, and bent down to his daughter’s glare. His own desperate to quiet this fact.

  “It’s okay Aegis.”

  His boom turned to low reassurance and a hand pressed down on her shoulder. Down on that pain trying to come before it was real.

  “We can handle it. We’ve handled every swarm before. We will handle this one too. Don’t you start doubting yet.”

  He released, rose back up, and brought back up the joyous command he offered against the storm brewing before them. The rock unbreakable that will weather it for them.

  “Now! Go inform the squad leaders! Send the news down the line! We need to be ready!”

  She stared back at him, still unconvinced, but swiped away at the streaks on her face and turned away. The soldiers that had gathered up all looked to her, insignias slapped on helmets the only needed symbol. More plates of metal and kevlar bulking up their profiles into grey and black blobs, but they knew it was little more than desperate hope. The matte black auto shotguns resting every which way their more immediate deterrent, the smell of cordite and magnesium covering up every other possible stench. They stared back with tired eyes, with blank stares that could see for miles and yet see nothing but what their memories held. This conflict had gone on too long already. And showed little sign of ending.

  “Recon says a wave’s coming in 10. The numbers look to be 10 times the norm. And… the expected clear time is… tomorrow at the earliest!”

  Those looks deepened. Waves had stayed strong for hours before, demanded everything they had before. But a whole day was something beyond realistic. Something too much for them to-

  “AEGIS!!!”

  All heads turned back, her father back standing tall at the center of his platform without a hint of fatigue left to exude. Arms staunch at his hips, stature hardened against the backdrop of the hell beyond. Against… Against an ever building column of smoke and dust.

  “BETTER MAKE THAT 5!!!”

  Her heart, the world, the whir of the safety still waiting behind. All of it sank and drowned in the deep, beaten down by the rumble carrying up over all existence. The soldiers behind didn’t wait for the order, for confirmation or clear lines of sight. Leaders running down their lines and shouting with everything they had.

  “GUNS UP!!! GUNS UP!!!”

  The rails and pulleys squealed to life, yanked their payloads up into place. Skeletal turrets clanking up from the safe lip, crossing and being pushed into locking positions on the far side. Gunners clambering onto controls, pulled triggers to test spool their rotors for all the spring tension left over. Cannons needing every bit they had. Boxes brought up alongside, slotted into their bases with gears locking together and tightened by denser springs. Mechanical batteries of the deepest desperation. Because motors and currents were not long for this shrinking world.

  The girl knew she was in the way of this tightly wound choreography, of fresh defenders pushing forward to their dreaded places, but could barely bring herself to pull away. Fear driving her back and forth between helping and running. Her duty fighting better and focusing her back to that safe lip. Throwing her off the wall, yet keeping her there low and hovering over that edge.

  “SWARM SPOTTED!!! GREEN 10!!!”

  Spotters ran from their forward positions and flipped placards on the safe side, nine green with one flipped to red. Signals seen by all those stretching out behind, but looked to more especially by those farthest back pits. Thuds soon rising over the eroding rumble, the girl turning to that militarized expanse to see sequenced puffs of artillery fire from those farthest reaches. The ordinance screaming over, a continuous stream of screeching fire as frequent as the crews could produce it.

  It drove her low, hanging on to that lip with her head scrunched hard. Against the cacophony that this war had wrought. She could feel the rumble through the metal, the torrential stampede tearing toward them, even as the beat of the shells thundered against it. She could feel it all through the wall, this defiant drum getting beaten against. Every strike eating away at the resolve of those charged with its defense, yet still even she couldn’t take the cowering uncertainty. Her head pulled back up, worry splattered on her face as she look out to those awaiting.

  At the fresh replacements tight upon their positions. At the immediate reserves braced to the edge she clung to. At the turrets squealing to life in preparation. And at her father as he shot out his arms over those crossing shell tracers. With the true defiance of a hero indefatigable.

  The far side of the wall started to glow in orange backlight, brighter and brighter till it was undeniably there. Spreading for as far as she could see down the wall’s inward curve. For the miles upon miles that this wall had been placed. As the innocuous guard upon his arm sprang to prominence almost undo. Glowing its own defiance into all this expenditure.

  Curiosity too much to bear, the girl rose up higher, shakily hovered to bear witness to this inordinate extent. The artillery keeping her flight low but awe denying even this danger. She saw, for as far as even her eyes could see, a massive field of translucent orange follow this wall’s outer edge. A wall upon a wall to block this hell’s advance. A power she held as well, yet never knew its true breadth. This kind of extent in all that she had been taught. But just as quickly her awe was battered, as the rumble became the physical manifestation of that hell.

  Under a backdrop of fiery white smoke shot, beneath torn skyward ground, the land ceased to remain static. Monstrous reptilian things of nightmare made real. Ravenous to a fault yet unable to be sated. Nearly unkillable as their wounds merely regrew no matter how terminal. And now…

  Now numbered beyond counting.

  The ruins beyond clawed to dust in their wake, the stampede too close for that drum to hold still, their roars tearing through the last of what resolve remained. As they echoed into the stratosphere to say that no one would escape them. The wall heaved and shook as the leading edge clawed up it, like a freak wave had struck it and yet kept going. Solid metal, concrete, and defiance meaning nothing to them. All being ripped apart in their single minded quest up. But finding no purchase as it finally hit its crest. As it finally hit that miraculous orange barrier of hopes truest last.

  Scaled horrors piled up, crushed against it and one another. Claws rent metal and flesh alike without regard or care, but were stopped by the barest millimeter of purest energy. Of purest invulnerability. All hopes seeing, finding one good hold, bending that wave over to crash back upon itself. To toss back those horrors into their own and let them roil and boil themselves alive. But realism stymied even this. The man was its source, its caller and holder. They could rampage for eternity and a day. But he could only keep it up for so long. And yet…

  And yet his haggard state seemed to be the least of his worries. The least of all there ever was to care for. A soft utterance underscoring the hellish scramble, drawing away his rather needed attention away to-

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Today… today? Hmmm.”

  His thoughts clearing as to his ultimate goal. Raising his head back up and unsheathing from that softness to rise to the boom that carried over all. To carry all to what must be done!

  “Today!! Today we will fight!! Today we will bleed!! We will suffer and strain against what wrath has brought against us!!”

  Soldiers too caved and clung to their guns, to the sights aligned on the roiling hell below them… held back. Looked up toward the boom like nothing else mattered but his words. Like it was all that there was left in this world made utterly small.

  “But WE do not just fight for ourselves!! Not just for the brothers and sisters standing beside us!! We fight for everyone that stands behind us!!!”

  The man raised his head higher, the boom drowning out everything beyond. The entire section of the wall now looking toward him, unable to turn away.

  “Today we fight for the miles behind us!!! For the people depending on everything from us!!!”

  Those looks tightened, some resolve rising through the murky shell shocked surface.

  “Today we fight to give them back their safe and happy lives!!! To give them back their hope for a brighter future!!!”

  The girl landed down on the lip of the wall, taking in her father’s words so that they would drive her own fear away as well. And feeling her heart beat race louder than even those claws wanting it shredded.

  “Today we put fire to scale!!! We throw back fear and strife to stand firm against that which seeks our end!!!”

  “TODAY!!!”

  A flare unfathomable.

  “We will show them THEY!!!”

  Those grips becoming iron.

  “Will never again threaten this world!!!”

  And those guns spooling up to blister and locking on to everything needing obliterating below.

  “So today!!!"

  "May be the longest day!!!"

  "Of any of our lives!!!”

  “BUT TODAY!!!”

  “WILL BE THE LAST DAY OF THEIRS’!!!!”

  The wall erupted, yells of thousands meeting to beat out those hellish roars for all the air they stole. The girl yelling in kind as the man threw his arms down, as the barrier opened its abominable contents up to the waiting storm of incurable fire. The pounding of metal and meat and existence to dust. All of it torn asunder in the cacophonous roar of courage defiant. Blazing the path into that wanted future. With burning magnesium and rapid fire death.

  Clunking and chewing. Revving and ravaging. Ripping and tearing till all was made deaf. Till drums ran empty and barrels melted down. Till muscle was worn to ribbons and being weathered to nub. Till that shield flared again to cut that dread flow, allowed the next in line to pour their souls into the cauldron and renew this cycle again and again and again!!

  For hours upon hours, till light failed its stay in the sky. Remaining dirty and wicked across that immovable expanse. Stars of glittering hellfire down, burning flesh to char and char to black. Refusing healing factor and multitudinous resistance. Chafing that edge refusing to bleed dry, every time the barrier let them have it. Lighting up this their square of night, refused its true darkness. The forests ablaze refusing it that totality anyway. Screeching beats of artillery stymie never relenting. Not till the light in the sky out shone the inferno they started.

  Till shift after shift took their turn at that front. Rose from those steps and set fire to scale. Descending at the call, as that barrier held terror at bay. Reprieve barely a consideration as the storm started up again. Echoing righteous damnation and torturous screams, despite the depth of their stalwart baffling screen. Refusing them sleep even as night turned day.

  Whole divisions rotated like cannon barrels with no relief allowed. Whole turrets thrown over the side as their heat threatened cook off of whole sectors behind them. Cannon shot under capillary action running with no output but a trigger pull, factories refusing to relent for even a moment’s safety stoppage. They all knew what awaited them if the fire ever ceased. So down they went, adding weight to dragon’s breath rebuttal. Adding spewing output to the deluge of death, detonating once the flow was allowed no danger close. Another turret already wheeled into place from countless stockpiled behind. No time, no rest, only keeping them back. Till there was nothing left to fight but dust and ash.

  Till the shots died down in slow methodical order. Till roars were ceased in a hail of “You shall not pass!!!” Those claws and clambers reversed and wailing. Refutation too pure and complete for how long it took to come across. Maddening still as losses always appeared far too one sided. They would heal. They would live. If they chose to come piece meal then they would die true deaths. But massed as such, assurance of attrition remained impossible. The void at the base of the wall simple given a new coat of black. All that remained of their flash desiccating corpses. While the soldiers and heroes had to try and bury what was left of their dead.

  Those unlucky, those unwilling, those lost to the sea that crashed against this metal shore. Dragged away and eviscerated. Clawed to oblivion before fire could run its course. Eaten alive in the moment of lapsed focus it took. Blood drenched armor or turret scaffolding, horror locked faces catching the spray. All they could do was tally and write them off, count who made it down so they knew who was just… gone.

  Lost… in the quiet that returned in horrific order. Like this storm had never happened and the sun had never set. As air caustic and defiled was sucked away in droves. Burning lungs and eyes with a stillness that told them they were still alive. That they had made it through the night, through a day overlong. And the dawn had come and burned high into the sky. For whatever this effort was even worth anymo-

  “HOLD ONE!!! GREEN 5!!!”

  A spotter’s yell cracking that blessing and depriving silence. Killing what rest and relief could be had in their sector. Guns rewound, shoulders pressed in tight, eyes scanning every crack and crevice from the black to the tree line. Looking, watching, dreading what came next. A cascade of roars to repeat this all over again? More scrambling claws wanting to be feed? But none saw what he had. What he had locked on to too hard to look away. Breaths trying to meter, to not blow precious oxygen away before it was taken in. And all eyes on him as no one else could find his reason.

  “Spotter!! What did you see!?”

  A lieutenant just up the line, demanding but keeping her tone below triggering. Glare smoldering with the prospect that her soldiers were losing their grip on reality. Tightening too hard when all they got out of him was their continued attempt to not hyperventilate.

  “w-Wait One!”

  They relented, let binoculars see nothing but the lip of his position, let his eyes blink away the faulty reality they dared to call out. To ensure with true intent that what he saw was What. He. Saw. A deep torturous breath pulling him back into the far reaches of his sector, the far side of this shadowed wasteland, all the way to… to…!

  “MOVEMENT IN THE OPEN!!! GREEN 5 AT 600 YARDS!!! CIVILIAN SPOTTED!!! IT’S A KID!!!”

  All tension, all terror, all eyes shot to and a fore. All spotters gave up their duties and scanned to that one narrow spot. And one by one they-

  “AFFIRM!!!”

  “AFFIRM!!!”

  “AFFIRM!!!”

  Till the doubts at the impossible were dashed to smithereens. The lieutenant scrambling toward her spotter, gripping the lip and daring to think of snatching those eyes away for her own selfish need to see. Looking out at the imperceptible speck on the edge of her vision. Looking but failing to see what they saw, but knowing it was true by too many means. And dreading with all left watching on at the thought of a child out there.

  “What are they doing? What is their status!?”

  “Un- Unknown ma’am. Too far to be sure. But their walking… Their walking right into the spider holes!”

  The lieutenant reeled back, procedure blaring at her and cutting the fear just bucketed over her head.

  “Get- GET ME A-”

  “GET MY DAUGHTER BACK UP HERE!!!”

  The boom terror shattering, almost deafening in its demand. And completely unwarranted as the girl heard her father’s call clear from the line behind. She had never left, moving physical batteries up and dropping barriers when the worst called for it. She had added her own strength to the mountain proved unassailable, but now was face to face with what could only be upon her. Could only be done by a flyer like her.

  “Dad?! Are you ins-”

  The man was over her and frantic despite another day of neglected rest. Hands pressing to her shoulders before she could even think of backing away from this.

  “Listen to me Aegis. Listen to me! You’re the only one here. The only flyer for too gods damn long a trip to get someone else. Because that child out there is only a few minutes away from disappearing down one of those monstrosity’s gullets! I know this is too much to ask, and your mother will kill me for it, but this can only be done by you!”

  Her eyes met his in paired, orange hinted horror. The thoughts between shared in gruesome detail, in loss and duty and pure familial want to stay here. But the truth was apparent, maddeningly demanding. She was all there was… And hesitation was costing time no one could stand. So she gripped an arm holding her down and nodded all the courage she had left to give. Even as her entire body refused to stop shaking. But the man still refused to just let her go.

  “Remember! You pop your dome at the first noise you hear! I don’t care if it’s rubble or gas or a butterfly dying of a heart attack! You pop that dome!! And we’ll rain all we have upon it so nothing can dare test your resolve! You understand?!”

  “I-I do… I’ve got this!”

  “Then go! Fly!! Stay high till your right over them!! And put me and your mother to shame!!!”

  With no restraint and no resistance, the man grabbed hold of her arm and flung her into the air. Sending her careening into muscle memory from all the times he’d done it before. Except now it was real. Now there was no turning back.

  The air cut away in her path, thrusted back off her in continuous ram jet. Rippled off of her as she tore toward the tree line. Toward some poor stupid kid that was wondering into a nightmare made real.

  She could see him just a few blocks into the obliterated town. The craters and rubble piles made mincemeat in shadow. Every surface facing the wall riddled and pockmarked. What structure remained was caved in or carved out. And demanding all she had not to just stay hovering above it all. Above the darkness seeping and licking its wounds.

  But the kid, the little boy just walking, staggering, into their midst. He demanded far louder than anything she could imagine. His jacket was frayed, his shoes just shy of falling apart, his hat hanging low as his head swayed about. A walking stick just barely able to keep him upright. He was not long for the bipedal world, or any world thereafter. She had to go. And she had to go now!

  She hovered lower, thrust just enough to counter gravity’s draw. But still less enough to sink in slow order. She couldn’t announce her presence, couldn’t call out to keep him from startling off what balance he had. But all she had was herself and the sky. And a shadow to cast over.

  She saw him stop, draw back and scan wide. He’d seen it but couldn’t grip to its reality. So scared and so alone he was jumping even at the slightest dark corner. So even this needed one tiny quiet push.

  “No, up here.”

  Her whisper was as true zero to water. He froze in place and looked up to behold. His face dirty and disheveled by ash, but his eyes truly lost in their own moment’s lapse.

  “Hey! This is NOT the time to be daydreaming!”

  She had to be harsh, had to snap him out of even this grand relief. They were too far out and too close in. And the clock was ticking toward the inevitable no one could withstand.

  She shot down to arm’s length, reached down in the purest demand. Armored glove saying take hold and never ever let go.

  “Take my hand quick, we need to get out of here!”

  Saying it too loud to hear anything else. Deafening sense already worn down to its core. As that walking stick was let go of at that demands beckoning call. Letting it fall to the ground blasted as it was. To the gutting, hollowing, hellraising *thunk*.

  A sound that echoed through her mind and through his eyes. Though ever crack and cave torn out of this no-man’s wallow. Though every dark corner and creeping black edge. And through every eye opening back up to the light.

  Maws a glisten with fat laden char. Ashen and caked in what constituted their bleed. Claws as wide as each of their heads, knives rutting every surface they pulled themselves from. Scales greyed if not for the blackness of their wounds, the only sure sign that they could be killed. And the worst of it all staring back at their horror. Those eyes locked in emotion unfounded, unworthy of what they have done to this world. A green desperate shine creeping from a doorway facing them too bright to not-

  *RRRRRAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH*

  The air shattered, the world shattered. All life shattered but for what moved on its own. Her hands whipping out like her heart and mind beat them to syncretic. A shape burned into her mind’s eye through every trained repetition pushed without thought. Her feet scathing asphalt and rubble apart in defiance of friction’s limits. Thrust and making distance irrelevant in instants. As power came forth to her beck and her call. Her own finest millimeter, that thinnest expanse, a dome of orange will yelling “NO!!!” The deep down knowhow pulling it straight out of her skull. Because it was either that or die screaming for the instant it took to-

  *BBBBWWWWAAKK*

  For the instant it took for that monster to close the distance. And slam that barrier like a freight train on crack. To smash its own skull apart in vain ravenous need. To shatter its teeth and claws upon her physical “Go fuck yourself!!” To break every bone it had for no other reason than a want to eat her and this poor kid alive.

  And then the rest hit, and that bleeding in bravado caved away.

  Maw after maw, claw after claw, a sea of bodies swallowing them whole. All of it she could feel slam into her will. Smash themselves to pieces upon a numb part of herself. Obliterate their means to live for the chance to eat their fill. And yet reform in defiance of this defiance for all the good hope was. Teeth gnawing, claws scraping, bodies upon bodies pressing in and down. Crawling over each other and throwing themselves atop her dome. Wanting it all for themselves, wanting everything this world had, wanting nothing but to rip and tear and kill and kill!!

  And yet…

  And yet all of them stared with eyes too human. Of every shade and color nature provided. With undeniable emotion blaring outward like it was all they knew. Fear and horror. Sadness and desperation. Laughter. Fucking laughter like this wasn’t a hell of their making!

  But still she knew, she couldn’t get what her mother had told her out of her head. The thought and possibility that all of them were people. All of them were from some far off town in the center of this madness. And now they were all swarming over them, her and this kid. Her and this poor kid who had probably seen far worse. Seen the gruesome trails and burned out husks. Knew the smell of the blood and the weight of knowing too much. Heard the screams, heard the roars, heard the streaking wail of-

  Of the artillery incoming!

  She braced, she breathed, she held back all comers. Because what was raining down was worse than hellfire. White phosphorous knowing no semblance of discrimination. Shells bursting over and bracketing burning shrapnel that will burn eternally till there was nothing left to burn. The first strike pouring death over top of one side, bashing away the ravenous and lighting bones on fire. Dashing away those unlucky of placement, streaking with white caustic smoke and writhing to the ground. Until their healing could no longer stand. Till their own fucking inevitability took hold. And all the cancerous shit that made them up finally burst apart!!

  Meat on bones splattering to dust. Molecules breaking down and tearing apart from their excessive pressures. Whatever the cause, whatever the reason, they deserved to die in the worst way possible! As a stain of black across the landscape they dared claim! As dust in the wind to be forgotten for all time! Yet still it marred all it touched. Still it clung to every surface. Even that millimeter of orange will above her turning dark in the rain.

  The strike scouring them away, driving those unwilling to die as they deserve back into the shadows they crawled out of. Back into the nightmare that just wouldn’t end. But was refused in bright shining death for all of them! Till all of their roars, till all of their wails, till all of their screaming juxtaposed eyes were told to get the fuck away and stay away! To go and die in your holes!!

  Till there was nothing left but a girl holding up the sky and a boy on the ground. No sound but her heart filling every space. No smell but the garlic burn of phosphorous denial. No light but what could tear at the darkness dusting over her shield. The shield she released so that dusting was upon them. The grit and grumble refuted with demanded immediacy. Swiveling her about to scoop the poor kid up onto her shoulder. To lurch down and demand every bit of thrust she had to get her the hell out of here! Trailing black in streaking comet tail through the chocking white smoke, feeling it all seep and sap at everything she held dear. Numbing her to the world it was thoroughly denied. Feeling it fall away as she faced the wind in full, denied her denial of its friction so this black stain could be torn all away.

  So it could fall as rain from hands and heads. Flutter apart in the aerials of their passing. Stain those hands left powerless in the wake. As the past was forever stained in the ash and dust of those left behind.

  Of all those that he left behind.