In the depths of Antioch, lay the remains of the old city. Wicked things are found there. Wicked things and twisted men.

  -The Journal of the Bannerman

  Alex gazed up to the stars once more as he lay in the gutter of Leninplan. A bottle of vodka rolled into the gutter, and he gazed at it. His bushy, straggled beard and unkempt, tattered coat marked months of his descent from the young, bright son of two old farmers.

  His mind rolled back to the night he first found the mirror. How it spoke to him, whispered in his dreams. How long has it been? He wondered. How long have I lain here?

  His throat felt dry, and he wished to slake his thirst. With outstretched hand, he grasped at the bottle when a familiar voice poured from the depths of his mind. Alex froze, his hand flicked uselessly at the edge of the glass.

  “Leave the bottle… Answer yes…” Said the mirror’s voice cryptically. Alex stared around curiously, his body shaking from the cold and newfound terror.

  What do you mean? His mind raced. Yes, but to what? He wondered if the voice was real. Has it actually returned, he wondered, or have I truly lost my mind? His fingers snapped into a fist, which he pounded against the antique cobblestones of Soviet Leninplan.

  As he pondered the mysteries of the voice and the dark silver mirror, a soldier dressed in a dark green officer's uniform placed his thick leather boot on the bottle and crushed it with a single firm step. The old soldier grunted.

  “A young man without work?” He demanded of the haggard boy in the gutter. Alex slowly looked up at the soldier’s chiseled form. Alex’s face scrunched with hazy confusion. “Have you considered joining the glorious red army?”

  “I… don’t understand,” he replied hesitantly. The Officer held out his hand and tugged Alex to his feet, “I don’t think…” Alex stuttered, “I just relocated here… They’re not done filing my pap-,” he began to explain when the officer interrupted him with a sharply pointed finger.

  “You don’t need to think, boy… if the Red Army says it needs another warm body, the bureaucrats comply. Simple as that,” he noted coldly as he dusted Alex’s shoulders off and forced him to stand straight, inspecting his arms and chest for signs of illness, “and you look fine enough. Red Army needs another warm body…” He noted with pursed lips, “follow me, soldier.”

  Is the Red Army is desperate for grunts to churn in their meat grinders on Antioch, he thought bitterly. The papers littered Leninplan. Their advance must have ground into a stalemate, Alex sneered.

  “Do as he commands!” The Mirror snapped. Alex closed his eyes and fist. He breathed deeply and accepted his fate.

  Alex gazed down through a thick window onto the Soviet cruiser Kuznetsov. Months of grueling training wore on his hand-me-down uniform and scarred hands. Antioch lay below. His stomach churned at the thought of the violence awaiting him below. The other soldiers, tank drivers, and crew scarfed a final meal in the mess hall.

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  Below, the fields around Antioch were covered in blood, and the surface of the planet was littered with pockmarks from the orbital strikes. Death gazed upon her ancient fields and wondered if the blood of those who died would satiate the bloodthirsty killers who sent their soldiers to die. Ten thousand men lay upon the field; many still lived, but few, if any, would survive, and none would remain unscathed. The soldiers of the Soviet Red Army combed through the field to find their survivors and enemies.

  “Retreat is defeat!” Alex’s commanding officer exclaimed at the men in his unit, “defeat is death!” He continued. The man had a country accent from the colonial worlds. “Comrades…” the officer pounded his fist on a steel table before them, “any man retreating has signed his death warrant. Charge the enemy… Slaughter them… Or shield for the warrior behind you. Glory to those who kill for the Motherland,” he concluded.

  The men chanted, “Ura! Ura! Attack!” They cried in unison, “For the Motherland!” They cried as they boarded their tanks, which were loaded onto an orbital strike round. The command ship, Katyusha, soon ordered deployment. Alex listened to their chatter on the radio as his shell rocked and shook violently. Death waited upon the field as Japanese warriors steeled themselves for combat.

  There was a younger man in Alex’s tank, no older than fifteen, “I will protect you…” Alex said with a smile, “together, we will survive!” He exclaimed and tried to rouse the other men of his tank, who were deathly quiet. They knew their chances of survival.

  “We are not here to save him,” whispered the mirror, “we are here to join history,” Alex’s heart sank as the orbital deployment round shuddered and hurtled towards the surface. The young crewman cried into his hands. Alex smiled meekly and patted his shoulder.

  From their viewport, the men of Alex’s A-56 watched the ground below grow closer. Finally, the round crashed against the ground, hurtling tons of dirt into the air. The earth thumped as hundreds of rounds landed on the fields around Antioch. Some exploded on contact, while others began to deploy lines of tanks.

  The sounds of screams and ordered chatter blasted over his radio. Alex turned it down and peered out of his porthole and saw a clearing in the fields below. The mirror burned in his pocket, glittering dimly in the dark belly of his A-56.

  Their tank’s engine was started up, and they dropped onto the dirt below with a heavy thud. Hundreds of trucks and armored tanks rolled towards the stronghold of Kurodahara, where a thousand Zeibatsu warriors prepared their last stand.

  Alex felt then, his eyes glued to the damage wrought upon Antioch, the weight of a billion wasted lives, thrown away by war. The mirror cackled against his chest. He breathed deeply, then pushed his A-56 forward.

  Alex’s tank rushed across the fields, running over the corpses of those who came before. Flamethrowers attached to the head of the tank were lit and fueled as their A-56 approached the defensive lines. Soldiers stood in their way, firing uselessly at the tank as it turned their meager lines of resistance into smoldering ash.

  “Order them to turn left…” the voice whispered, and Alex relayed. His driver obeyed and guided the tank, giving Alex a clear view of Antioch’s planetary shield generators. A wicked smile crept across Alex’s face as he fired a single round into the station. The explosion lit up the skies above the battlefield, and the grid began to collapse onto itself.

  Alex glanced up as an Atommass Tupolev ship rumbled overhead. In an instant, the city of Antioch disappeared in a brilliant flash. Alex quickly shielded his eyes but could still see the outline of his bones through the irradiated hellscape outside of the tank.

  “My god!” muttered the tank driver.

  “God is dead!” Snapped Alex, “man killed him when we split the atom!” He cackled as the nuclear flames burned ancient Antioch.

  Alex’s tank roared ever closer to the atomic hell before them when a second blast struck the earth on the spot where his tank stood. The earth shook and rumbled. The mirror melted and twisted into an unheard form in the eternal heat of the atomic heart of the beast that burned the battlefield. Flesh ceased to exist. Death watched the raining chaos with a curious glance.

  Below, in the vast crater formed by the atomic flame, the melted husk of the Soviet tank burned, and from it crawled Alex’s irradiated husk. The mirror lay upon the ground, bubbling and boiling, swirling into a strange portal.

  “A pathway to the underworld…” Death mused, “How?”

  The broken mirror lay smashed upon the ground, slowly overrun by foliage. Its hollow face lay dead and empty. Reijl wandered elsewhere. Onto its dead surface stared the hollow, dead eyes of Alex, his mind slowly churning into vile, fetid mush. His heart lay open, his devotion filled.

  From far beyond, hidden beneath a veil of secrecy, Hurona watched and smiled. Her old plans had come to fruition.