Broken World

Broken World

The child was beautiful. A beauty that frightened as much as it awed. It was pale-white to a fault, and it had four, large eyes that were a silver color. The lips she had were full and red as a ruby, with teeth so small, yet sharp enough to tear through bone in one bite. She was weeping and thrashing— her arms were long and slender, like the rest of her body, and had long claws instead of fingernails, and they were blood-red and sharper than blades.

Pat'lestia looked down at the child, horrified. Her men did so as well, all standing in silence as the creature wept before them. The night had grown heavy around them, and the dreaded sound of silence felt thick in their ears. Pat'lestia took a step back and motioned for her corporal to follow. She led him a ways back from the group.

"I don't like this." she told him. The corporal was a heavy man of broad shoulders. Only Madness itself knew how the propulsion pack was able to lift him without trouble. He stroked his beard and arched his eyebrows. A small smile adorned his face.

"It doesn't matter whether you do." he said, "All that could have been done has been done. All that remains is the damage control." he shook his head slightly, smiling all the while. Pat'lestia frowned, and moved to ask what he meant, when a shrill scream pierced the night.

"What is that?" a man asked, and others took up the question. They looked around, weapons raised and ready.

The corporal sighed.

"Damage control." he whispered, and before Pat'lestia's eyes, a bullet tore through his head.

***

Saint Kelly cursed as the others saw him. He hurried away, making certain to keep out of sight from the rushing soldiers as they went to man the defenses. He had to hurry. Escape was within his reach, and all it took was a swift dash away from the camp to be back with Ida.

He passed the courtyard, moving from cover to cover, until he was at the arsenal's door. There was a guard, a lock, and then freedom. Kelly had been through too much. He was annoyed to death by the nonsense of being captured, bored beyond possibility by the tedium of being restrained, and, more importantly, he had a gun. Why suffer it any longer?

He didn't even bother calling out to the guard to see the look in his face. He couldn't be bothered. It had been a while.

The first shot went through the man's cheek, the next one through his shoulder, and the third through his chest. Kelly grinned as he discharged as much of the pistol as he could into the man, who had not the time to scream before his throat was punctured by half a dozen laser shots.

The man lay dead at his feet, and the rest of the encampment was plunged into chaos around him. Why, he didn't know, but what a sight it was. The soldiers manning the defensive turrets were dead, torn to pieces before their posts, while the rest of the encampment suddenly fell into an orgy of blood and violence around him. It was not his mind this time, he could smell the blood in the air and hear the demonic laughter seeping from the soldiers that now gleefully chased after their former comrades to tear them to pieces.

With a smile, Kelly took a few grenades from the dead soldier and set upon the task of opening that door.

***

Russell and Adam stood amid the chaos.

"What in-" Adam cursed as his bodyguard was tackled to the ground by two of his former comrades. The man screamed and cursed at them, but it was in vain. With savage brutality, the two maddened soldiers used teeth and nail to mutilate him beyond recognition. The man screamed and begged as his blood pooled around him, and his murderers laughed and squealed in sadistic joy as they set to work on his innards.

Russell and Adam could not help him. Even as they moved to shove away the killers, a dozen more soldiers burst into the room from the far end. They all had wild smiles on their faces and a symbol clawed into their foreheads— one that needed no introduction and allowed none. The soldiers howled demonically at the two startled men, and charged.

***

Valerian had heard the screams long before any of the others. It did not take too much to recognize demonic taint when one knew what to look for.

He groaned as he moved, always mindful of the wound in his chest. Still, he made certain not to make too much noise. The servants of Madness were loose, and nothing but steel and shot would keep them down.

"There is no more time." he muttered at the terrified guard that stood outside his cell. The man was young and frightened, fumbling desperately with his laser rifle as the sounds of slaughter rose ever higher on the neighboring corridor. "You must choose. Release me and fight, or stand your ground and die."

The man looked from Valerian to the only door between him and the madmen. A single, tiny window allowed some vision of what happened outside. Or it would, if blood and viscera had not stained it. Through the window, a man peeked into the corridor where Valerian was kept. The guard felt his heart stop as the soldier beyond the door saw him, and smiled.

***

Xiaowen was breathing heavily. He could barely stand, yet he held the sword as firmly as he could nevertheless.

"Until the end, friends." a dark man muttered beside him. There were five of them. All True and Tried, except for Alex. If Xiaowen was in bad shape, Alex must have been dead. Bandages covered the entirety of his face and no nose could be seen whatsoever. Even all the prowess of the medics could not keep him awake much longer. They either broke through the madmen's lines and escaped in a single strike, or they died.

"Are you up for it?" Xiaowen asked with a tired chuckle at Alex. The beaten man did not turn to face him. he just raised his fist slowly and flipped him the bird. Xiaowen smiled, and then the madmen tore through their makeshift barricade.

Choruses of "Death! Death! Blood! Blood!" swarmed the room along with the maddened soldiers as the wooden door and the furniture barricading it broke down. The True and Tried shouted out a single cry of vengeance for mankind, and they all charged forward, swords and maces raised.

***

Noremac was awake. That was the only thing he knew for a certainty.

That, and that he was not going to be killed so that a bunch of lunatics could get a kick out of it.

He lay against the wall on his bed, firing away at the encroaching mass of demented soldiers that threw themselves at him. In their bloodlust, they had all discarded their weapons and charged him barehanded. He was glad for it.

Brains and blood splattered over the running horde of madmen as they tried to reach him from the corridor. Bodies fell beneath the feet of the men behind them as they all rushed to the far end of the medical bay, stepping over their own dead and stopping to tear the other patients to pieces. Noremac thanked whatever deity was looking after him that they had placed him at the very far end of the room.

Still, they drew closer...

***

Saint Kelly stood before the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Weapons. Hundreds of them. Everywhere. Of all types. They were all lined up in neat rows for the soldiers to get them. Still, most rows were now empty. The soldiers must have rushed to them at the blare of the alarm. Still, Kelly was surprised no one was around. What with the massive slaughter going on, he assumed people would be killing each other for a better gun.

He shrugged and set about finding something he liked.

He passed by the heaviest weapons without paying them any mind and instead moved on to the lighter ones. Smiling, he carefully selected his weapons: a sub machine gun, two pistols, and a nice-looking motor-sword. The thing was heavier than he liked, but it was just so good. He had to have it.

Satisfied with his choice he moved to leave, when he caught a glimpse of a few of the mad soldiers loitering about in the courtyard by themselves. They were not mindlessly tearing into the dozens of hopeless men around the encampment, all surrounded by vicious killers, and instead watched as things unfolded. Kelly knew they were mad as well, for they too bore the symbol that did the others.

With a gleeful smile, Kelly decided to spice things up, and he went for a cart.

***

Pat'lestia screamed. Bullets tore through her section within moments of the first shot being fired. The shots came from every direction and mercilessly reduced her men to corpses before she could react. She herself felt her right leg snap as gunfire dug through the flesh and shattered the bone beneath. Her own weight collapsed what remained of her leg as it folded in a way it was never meant to. Blood and pain were hers to suffer as dozens of mutants swarmed the valley from all directions.

Few of her soldiers were able to even react, much less fight back. The intelligent ones tried to fly out of the battle and died swiftly as the shots tore through their propulsion packs and detonated the fuel, killing them instantly. The less fortunate ones, like her, were on the ground, agonizing as the mutant infection coated over the bullets slowly seeped into their bloodstream.

She stared at the sky, feeling her life blood leaving her, as the mutants walked up to them.

The last thing she remembered before passing out was the image, carved into her eyes and mind, of a mutant reaching down and cradling the demonic child in her arms. The creature stopped weeping and looked around— looked at her, and smiled.

Then the world went black.

***

Russell and Adam were running away from the crazed murderers, but that was as much as they knew. Without weapons or the vaguest idea of what to do, they could only run as the murderers gained ground. Adam cursed for the eleventh time as he stepped on the innards of some unfortunate soldier and almost slipped. Behind them, the hordes of demented men and women cheered and urged him to fall.

They passed a bundle of dead men who had tried to make a stand, and Russell stopped.

"Wait!" he called out, eyes fixed on something in the distance. "We have to go this way."

Adam shouted out a string of curses as Russell ran off, but he could do little other than follow.

They ran until they stood before the makeshift hangar of the encampment. Russel and Adam both stopped before the opened gates, and smiled. A Light Desert Galley stood inside, just waiting to be brought to life.

***

Valerian roared as he brought the wrench down against the maddened soldiers with all the strength he could muster. His arm was bloodied up to the shoulder, and most of him was covered in both blood and viscera. Still, he fought on. One after the other the soldiers threw themselves at him, and one by one he destroyed them within that small corridor. The soldier who'd guarded him lay dead at his feet, a fact that Valerian lamented, but that he could do nothing about. The man had died fighting, and that was all that mattered.

When the last of the murderers stood alone before him, Valerian, drenched in blood, looked him in the eye and slammed the wrench against the wall, taunting the madman to attempt an assault. He did, for he was not sane, but before the end of his life, Valerian was certain that a shade of fear had crossed his eyes.

Tired and bloodied, Valerian left the corridor behind and his cell as well, as he made his way out and into the madness.

***

Xiaowen and Alex stood amid the carnage, surrounded by the sounds of battle. Both of them swung madly at the enemy with the swords they held, and blood splattered the walls. Bones broke, men screamed in pain, and laughter filled the air as the madmen died. The True and Tried that had aided them were now pushing past the broken barricade and joining forces with another small group of soldiers that had managed to survive the first onslaught. Xiaowen and Alex followed behind, both of them aware of their fading strength.

The two groups merged into one and advanced through the encampment, dealing swift dead to any madman that dared place foot near them. Slowly they reached the medical area, where the marks of battle were vividly painted.

However...

***

Noremac smiled at the new arrivals, recognizing a few of them.

"Took you long enough." he called out, flipped them off, and blacked out— surrounded by a dozen corpses and twice as many empty pistol magazines, courtesy of the small cadre some paranoid nurse had left hidden under the bed.