Broken World

Broken World

He had been the first casualty of them all. The thought made him smile despite the circumstances and he closed his eyes. The sounds thundered throughout the room where he was kept, yet none of them were close enough to bother him. The colonel had left him a long while ago and returned to his team of True and Tried while the soldiers readied themselves for his execution. Now he doubted anyone had survived.

Jraden set to work on his restraints with a sigh. The soldiers had done a mediocre job immobilizing him and he would not be contained so easily. He was free in a moment and his mission was his own again. He rubbed his wrists and made a face. They'd not bound him too well, but too tightly? Definitely.

He took his officer garments and moved on. The code on the door was a simple thing; the corridor was deserted, and as he broke into a jog, a smile threatened to appear on his face. He could not fight it. He was free. The air, even within the underground, felt wonderful against his face. He was alive, and there was another fight to be won. The thought filled him with more joy than he thought possible. He still had a purpose, and even if it culminated in his death, he would see it done.

Bodies were strewn everywhere, victims of the madness, but no enemies. The stairs. Not too many, and the way to the surface was open for him to travel it. Soon he stood before the last door, and the smile he now boasted was grander than any other he'd felt on his old face.

He passed the door, and the Gates themselves seemed to have been opened. Still, as the madmen turned to focus on him and smiles of their own formed on their faces, Jraden let out a chuckle and took a step toward them. This, he thought, was his purpose.

"Mankind prevails!"

***

It was the shout that echoed through the corridors as the True and Tried clashed once more against the hordes of the maddened. A scream filled with hope and trust in a cause that was greater than themselves and larger than anyone. Blades were swung, firearms discharged, and blood was spilled by the liter.

They had waged a bitter battle against the enemy from the medical bay to the courtyard, giving no ground, but taking it mercilessly. The soldiers advanced without pause and fired without hesitation. The officers covered their flanks with blade and pistol, ready to step in should the advancing firing line be threatened by yet another charge of the infuriated madmen. Xiaowen and Alex kept the pace and fought their share, but they were exhausted. It had been soon after the fifth madman had launched himself at them that they'd realized their strength was failing them. It had taken both of them to dispatch the crazed fighter, who assaulted them with nothing but his blood-stained claws and a furious determination to claw out their eyes.

"Rest, friend," a broad man had told Xiaowen at one point, but he had refused. They'd left a few men behind in the medical bay to care for the wounded, but that was not the place where he was needed. He would fight. Alex had been of the same mind. They would not be left behind.

So they moved on. The corridors became more of a nightmare with each passing step as the decorations the madmen had left in their wake were revealed to them. Entrails, organs, blood, and corpses. Dozens of them, and some still live enough to plead for the end as the men went by.

The group had reached the mess hall when a roar thundered throughout the complex.

***

"Do you even know how to drive this thing?!" Adam shouted as Russell pressed yet another button and pulled one more lever. The Desert Galley gave another roar and spewed a torrent of flame from its bow that reached ahead by a distance of twenty meters. The fire hit the mobs of madmen that had been chasing them, and it turned their reality into an inferno. Their laughter and death-screams were suffocated by the uproar of the fire as it engulfed their flesh and burned through them until nothing but charred remains were left.

Adam and Russell stared at the bodies in silence as the machine slowly settled down until it emitted nothing but a quiet humming noise.

"That was decent," Russell muttered.

Adam looked around and tried to see what the situation was. It wasn't too difficult to realize that the initial surprise of the assault had worn off. All around the camp one could see pockets of resistance joining together and advancing to rescue yet another group of stranded soldiers. The madmen had not been as numerous as they seemed, and less than two dozens now ran freely through the encampment. Bodies covered a great part of the place, and the sounds of gunfire finally seemed to be drowning the laughter of the madmen.

"Look," Russell called out after a moment, and Adam turned his head to face the mess hall.

From the building, a group of soldiers was emerging. It was the largest one they'd seen thus far, and it was accompanied by friendly faces.

They began to call out to them, when a roar broke through the sounds of battle.

***

Valerian emerged from the darkness of the prisons a nightmare covered in blood. He was a horror to behold, drenched in gore and advancing as though he were himself a tank. He had discarded the wrench for a laser rifle and a saber he'd taken from the corpse of a dead corporal when leaving the prisons, and as he made his way out into the courtyard, the sight that he witnessed was strong enough to make weaker men pause.

It wasn't the bodies, nor the way they had been mutilated, but the symbols. The symbols were what terrified, and what they represented instilled more than terror into the soul of the common man. In Valerian, it did nothing if not fuel his hatred. With a snarl, he took a step forward, and then another. He advanced onto the middle of the field and stood before the symbol of a demon painted in blood and organs on the sand. It was a human skull with four curved horns and six eyes that was depicted.

Valerian did not know the demon, but he did not doubt that it was out there. With a disgusted grunt, he turned away from the symbol and walked away towards the mess hall. There he could see a group of survivors was assembling. He had not taken his seventh step when the ground beneath him trembled and parted.

He stood atop a growing mound of earth that was slowly rising even as it was broken by a force from beneath; trying to rise to the surface. Valerian growled a curse and threw himself to the side. He rolled across the dirt and then rose to his feet in time to see the first bright, crimson claws rise from the ground.

The demon raised its head above the ground. It was like that which had been painted, Valerian realized, in the beast's likeness. Its six eyes opened then and so did its mouth.

With a roar, it silenced the world.

***

She felt like retching. Little else could describe the feeling in her stomach, but no matter how hard she tried and willed her body to be rid of the vile thing that brought her such pain, it simply would not. She heaved and coughed as violent spasms wracked through her body. Her leg was not the worst of it, by far it must have been her heart. Every beat of it burnt and ached terribly. It was an evil warmth that spread throughout her chest with every contraction of it.

Damage control, was all that resounded in her thoughts. What is that? she had asked. Damage control.

Footsteps, somewhere nearby. Also the whimpering of a man. She was not sure whom, but maybe it was Richard, if he had not died by then. They drew closer and closer and she thought of asking for a final mercy, but she couldn't. It was not that her body would not speak the words, but something felt terribly wrong. A creeping sensation of unholiness seemed to take hold of her, and it made any contact with whatever was near impossible out of sheer terror. She closed her eyes then and prayed that whatever it was would not see her.

The shuffling of feet could be heard. A few more whimpers. A child's giggle.

Cold sweat was forming on her brow. She prayed some more and imagined her own voice to be so loud that it hurt; anything to keep the footsteps away. One step closer, a stone moved out of place, and that hellish laughter. One move ahead of her desperation and terror, it drew nearer.

In the darkness of the night, surrounded by the corpses of her men, she felt a cold, dead claw against her cheek and heard the laughter once more. A flowing sound that slid through the air like water and sawed through her sanity with all the ferocity of an electrical saw.

She had always thought of herself as a strong woman. Not a bastion or an example to follow; a saint without flaw, but she would never have believed that so few words would have been enough to destroy her.

In the darkness of the night, lying on a pool of her own blood, she felt the kiss of a demon. Won't you sing for me, mother? it said, and its claws yanked the screams from her throat.

***

Dingu took another piece of food from the tray and bit down on it; chewing eagerly on the morsel he already had inside his mouth. The cold air of the desert night had no effect on him, or none that could be seen. He enjoyed his meal and waited. For Martian, that was the worst part of it all. The waiting.

"We have to act," he said. "If what Julius says is true, then we can't let them reach Sah."

"Be patient, Martian," Dingu said. He licked his fingers clean and smiled. "Jraden will not reach the city. His mission will not be completed. I will see to it, I swear, but we must wait."

"He must not only be stopped," Julius said. He had one of the girls he had found in his arms, sound asleep. "He must never be able to undergo another one of these missions again. That man must be ended."

Martian sighed and looked down at the encampment from the hill where they stood. It was chaos within, that much was obvious. Whatever had happened to the soldiers was wreaking havoc without restrain. It would take but to do nothing and perhaps Jraden would die. If it could end in such a way then it would be excellent, but he could not leave such a thing to fate alone.

"I'm goin' in," he said. Julius and Dingu turned to look at him as he walked down the hill to the small encampment they had built. It had been a full day's ride without stopping. They had lost two horses and a man to the heat, but the prey was now at their feet; bleeding and unaware. Blind luck could not be the decisive factor of the final battle for Sah. Jraden would die by his hand, Martian knew. He needed but to reach out and put an end to him and his mission.

Dingu's men were a ragged lot. They lounged about when not patrolling or enjoying themselves. Several of them were playing betting games around a tiny, seemingly powerless heater about the size of a shoe. The night was cold, and Martian could see it in the men. He could feel it as well. His own skin trembled from time to time as a breeze swept over him, and he realized how his breath misted before him.

"What the-?" It was then that it sounded, from somewhere down in the valley, the most horrible sound a man can hear and survive without damage. It was a roar that thundered through and over the earth and made the bones tremble and the knees go weak. It made the flesh of his arms tingle and the muscles of his jaw tense. The faded shade of terror crawled at the edge of his mind, receding into the darkness soon after showing a gnarled smile. He forced himself to turn around and look back up at the hill. He did not want to walk back to Dingu and Julius, and the fleeting idea of fleeing seemed, for a moment as short as the time it takes a claw to tear through skin, so very possible.

Too possible. Too easy. Not acceptable. Shaking himself free of the thoughts, he took a step forward and then another, until he passed over the crest of the hill and stood behind four immobile men; staring into the darkness of the night, and the raging fire that had been born from amid the darkness. It was a pyre of a size that made it hard to believe it had been born so swiftly and without need for an explosion of some giant airship. It rose into the night sky and illuminated all within a large radius.

Martian stopped a few meters away from Dingu and Julius. The world had become darker and more terrifying, and the sensation to run had become a necessity. Like the flame as it touches the skin without warning, so was the urge to turn away and run. To simply flee the scene and never return. To never conjure the visage again and die with a clean mind would have been a blessing, but the same terror that urged them to flee seemed to grasp them in a vicious hold that would not be lessened, and they could do nothing but feel their heartbeat quicken at the sight that unfolded before them.

The girl in Julius' arms screamed even as she slept. It was a howl of agony and horror that shook the men to the core and drove her to convulse violently before finally dying, without anyone ever diverting their horrified eyes from the shape and the aura of the Great Demon as it rose from the ashen ground and unfurled its wings.

Its roar deafened the universe.

***

Noremac was dreaming. In his dream he was dead or dying, perhaps alive. He could not be certain, for he walked, and he saw, and he felt, but the trail of blood that he knew was his own would not stop flowing. There was too much of it, and it was fresher than it should have been. It did not clot. It dripped from him and fell to the floor; pure and beautiful, untouched by the darkness of the world. Simply red and brighter than the sun.

He did not feel any pain from the bleeding gashes under his knees. There was no pain as he walked, even though he knew it should be there. Starting under the knees and circling around both legs were cuts so deep he could feel the bone— no, that was not right. He could hear the bone where it had been broken in two by the jaws of the mutant. One end of it scraped ever so insistently against the other, and he could see the blood spurting out from the wounds. An air current swept by and he realized that there was nothing keeping his calves attached to the rest of his legs. Not a vein, an artery, or even a strand of flesh. The air passed through the gap, and he could feel it, though he did not know how.

He walked further down the endless hallway, even as it transformed into a cave. It never stayed the same. Windows turned to smaller cave entrances, which then transformed into large, purulent eyes that followed him as he passed. No sound seemed to reach him but that of the endless dripping of his own blood.

'Am I dead?' he thought from time to time. He did not think so, not entirely. Death would not be so confusing. It would be simple. Something that is accepted, not questioned. In this realm, there were nothing but questions. Noremac stopped. Something peered at him from behind a street sign. It had the shape of a man but all the appearance of a shadow. A thing of darkness.

"Are you dead?" it asked, and its voice was an echo of the echo it once may have been. Noremac shook his head, and he felt naked before the thing. Exposed. Somehow unsure of how much could be seen, not of his body, but of his soul. What secrets long held by him were now common knowledge to the thing? How much of himself was still his own? The creature walked toward him.

"Are you alive?" it asked, and Noremac shook his head. Somehow, someway, neither answer seemed to apply to him. He was not dead, but he did not belong to the living. He was something between both states, a being that shouldn't exist, as much as the world around him ought to be impossible. The walls of the mining tunnel where they stood pulsed and transformed, and they were standing inside something living and warm. Veins and flesh surrounded them, and the faint beating of a massive heart could be heard somewhere in the far distance.

"I am," Noremac said. He did not try to continue. He was. That was all that could be certain. He existed. If nothing else was certain, then at least that much was truth. The beating stopped in the distance, and the flesh and muscle tissue around them contracted violently. Veins burst and blood sprayed around them. The world around Noremac convulsed and writhed in absolute agony. The creature of darkness before him tilted its head to the side and a sad smile appeared on its featureless face.

"Not even that," it said, and the life around Noremac transformed into steel and the blood became oil. The sounds of pain became the howling screech of steel being shredded and steam escaping from leaks across massive tubes. Noremac turned away from the creature of darkness and walked in the opposite direction. He left the world of dreams and saw that reality was waiting for him, but it was not his reality.

He was not. Yet, he would be.

***

The Demon looked not at the men who stood before it. The Demon looked beyond them.

This was the first thing he had been taught of the creatures long ago, and he had never forgotten. The Colonel took a step forward and immediately regretted it. The eyes were on him. They were on him, through him... beyond him. The eyes of the Demon were everywhere and at all possible and impossible places. They were everywhere. No, to believe they would focus on him was foolish. It was stupid. Stupid. The Demon saw it all. It would not focus on him. There was no reason.

The Colonel was on his feet, but he wondered if it would be best to let himself fall as had everyone else. The screaming was agonizing, but his training helped control— no, not control. It was impossible to control the Demon. To think so was idiotic. The Demon controlled all. He must remember so. He must not let his mind forget. He was merely allowed to maintain his sanity. The Demon permitted it.

He opened his mouth to speak, but no words would come out. The Demon did not impede his speech, but he did not know how to address it. The flames were all around him, dancing, flickering from place to place; kept at bay just because it wanted him to live, for whatever reason. The Colonel fell to his knees before it. No titles or honors would appear in his mind. He fiercely suppressed the urge to praise it. To do so meant to offend, for he could not understand it. He could never hope to understand the greatness of it.

He could not talk to it. That was the bitter truth of it all. It had been a sacrifice so grand to summon even just a pale shadow of its greatness, and he would never be able to address even that. The Colonel fell to the ground, defeated. The Demon towered above him. It towered above everything in more than just size. It was grander, greater, and everlasting. Ever powerful. It was. Nothing else was certain but that. The Demon existed, because it willed itself to exist. The Colonel simply suffered in silence as he realized the futility of summoning the great creature. In silence he awaited it to end him. But the end of his life did not arrive.

"You h-have summoned the Great One..." someone's voice called out, and The Colonel knew it was not it. It would never speak to the mortals. It was greater than them all. The voice was broken and tired. It sounded of defeat, as were all men before it.

The Colonel raised his head and saw a woman approaching. Her face was pale and seemingly without flesh. Her arms were so thin that the bones were visible under such a thin layer of skin that seemed so easily broken. Veins and arteries pulsed violently throughout her body; dark and red as they pumped a fluid that was not blood. Her eyes were lost and dead, and a creature clung to her. Its claws were deeply stuck inside the bone of her shoulders, and the thing's fangs were biting into the flesh of the woman's neck. It sucked the black liquid viciously from her body.

"Master Corporal?" The Colonel felt the whisper leave his mouth. The woman did not react, she simply trembled as the thing on her shoulder growled and ground its teeth deeper into her body. The Colonel swallowed hard and nodded. "I am but a man. I have not summoned as much as I have pleaded and begged for a sliver of his attention."

The woman shuddered.

"You h-ha—" her knees buckled and she almost fell, but with a growl the thing bit harder into her shoulder and some strength seemed to be born from the pain. She straightened up, but her voice sounded drier, the words clumsier, and her eyes looked as dead as the earth around them. "You have summoned the Great One..."

The Colonel nodded.

"I have," he said.

"Your s-s..." She did not need to finish. He did not want her to finish. Somehow, if a kindness existed in the universe, not hearing the word, the price, might null the transaction. A dead hope inside a man that was now more than dead. He grew deaf to the sounds of the world and leveled his sidearm to his own head.

"It's his," he murmured and pulled the trigger.

The world was then a mass of nothing and a sea of all that existed. It became one with it all and was separated, severed from it with such ferocity that it all ceased to exist and was born again at the exact same moment. It was and it was not. They were and they were not. The deal had been made. Not one soul but many and not one favor but a thousand, perhaps a million. Billions, in time, might have been included. Nothing may have been gained. All could be won. The end of the war or the beginning of a new one. It had all been included and bargained for. Men and Gods stood as equals for a brief moment, and then the world returned to normal.

The Demon was gone, and Valerian, Xiaowen, Alex, Russell, Adam, Jraden, and Kelly found themselves screaming as the pain slowly receded. The only evidence that anything had happened at all was a single corpse lying on the ground between them all, with a bullet hole in his head, and charred holes where his eyes should have been.

In the distance a mutant war horn screamed.