Shall I damn those hands which fashion me
By omnipotent strength
To wake to feint
To love a God
I would rightly hate
Loving a flaw
Such as me?
Have His flawed hands fashioned, perfectly?
Or with perfect hands, failed, flawlessly?

----

It rested, silently observing a ruined city, under a sky without a star. War had found its way to this place more than once. Ancient skyscrapers and looming monuments alike bore the wounds and sutures of numerous civilizations. Each had thought itself capable of resurrecting a purpose here. It remembered them all. They would linger for a time, until the city devoured them as well, adding their memories to its shell. Black vines and picked bones cracked in shadowed halls and upon fallen towers. Bridges crumpled upon their shores. There were no graveyards. Home, it called the city.

It was born in this place, without another to sire it. It never considered where it had come from, or for what purpose it existed. Home was all it knew, and it resided without judgment. Its home was once an eternity of green and blue, until the humans came, seeking a refuge from themselves. It recalled the first house, and the first cloud that came with it. The clouds brought more people. It recalled the first industry, and the first shadow cast upon it. The shadows brought war. Or, this is how it reasoned things.

Dark thunderheads now sank low. Shattered spires penetrated them, trying to birth themselves into heaven – or claw back into an unseen womb. Home, now a cadaverous and treacherous city, was indistinguishable from the world. Was the world this way as well, it wondered?

Its immobile body bobbed in the scorching wind, the virginity of its green and white body unscathed by the millennia. The violation of decay and the horror of death was familiar only in the empirical sense. Immortality was a passing concept. Yet, it knew enough to realize it had been the only living thing in its home, for a very long time.

There was blood in the corpse today, however. Another civilization occupied the bones of this place. They had arrived only months prior – merely a little while ago. It basked a moment in a brief ray of light, watching the men and women and children scurry about. They seemed to busy themselves with greater purpose than normal. War, again, it considered. No. Something else. Watching these creatures for so great a time, it had grown to understand the species' mannerisms, as a whole. Today was different. It had seen this before, but only in its youth. It was excitement, it recalled. It was anticipation. Hope.

Faces smiled as they cast their gaze upward. Some fingers pointed to heaven, while arms embraced loved ones. Feet scrambled to the furthest reaches of the city's peaks. Eyes wept.

One of the men – was it a man? – abstained from the enthusiasm, however. The man in the ashen suit tipped his hat as he lit a cigarette. He alone stood in the streets, waiting as eagerly, but with another purpose. As others swarmed upon building tops, perched as the dark clouds billowed and swirled, the man in the ashen suit inhaled from his death stick. With warm indifference he watched the heavens parted, like a normal man might watch a flower sway.

It had never seen this.

The dark clouds scattered. Shadow vanished. The spires reached through the clouds and into heaven.

Paradise, it wondered.

Joy. Celebration. The people sang praises to a god they did not know. They slandered a god they once knew.

Silence.

The man in the ashen suit inhaled deeply on his cigarette, producing a flash of red in a sudden dark. Mist poured from unseen wounds in space, flooding the world with a blinding haze. The championing cries of the people vanished into the deepening blur, soon replaced by displaced screams of horror. The man in the ashen suit wearily exhaled, leaving a still-burning drug in the seems of destroyed pavement, as he vanished into the mist.

It rested, silently observing nothing. It wilted.


“Is this part of our god's plan?

“That's the question – the only question, I think – that we should be asking ourselves.

“And I don't mean that metaphorically, or even in a spiritual sense,” spoke the talking suit. “This is the third fringe resettlement colony that's gone silent in the past month, and still, no news of any intent to take action on the part of Primarch Gannadene.”

The pixelated image came into perspective on an aging, portable black and white television set.

“It's understandable, that... we've all been distracted. We've all been distracted by the economic collapse of two charter states, the... threat of a nation-wide recession – possibly by the end of this fiscal quarter – and certainly the ongoing election scandal involving President Hayden and the Smith and Perry corporation.

“But ultimately, none of this matters. Consider the recent border conflict with itinerant Union vessels, which have already resulted in small conflicts, in relation to the recent blackouts from – ”

“Now hold... hold on, hold on.”

In a clutter of used cans, soiled handkerchiefs and loaded weapons, a second talking suit occupied the static. Another misinformed political debate soured the airwaves.

“You're inflating these... conflicts, as you're calling them,” the television said, “from mere warning fire exchanged over a... a misunderstanding of national borders into... paranoia.”

“aranoia,” the first suit parroted, amidst a flicker of the television's image.

“Yes. And I'm not sure I follow your religious parallel, either... The Ameran Union acknowledged our border claims and redirected their fleet to – ”

“To who knows where.”

“Well, yes. They're itinerant. There's good reason for... well, no national tracking outpost has reported a sighting of a Union vessel in over half a year.”

Cards exchanged hands over the soiled desk. Three men muttered trite words over alcohol and the rattling words of the two self-important suits. Turn that off, came a voice. I didn't get to see it last night, came another. The television was ignored in favor of a sampling of cheap alcohol and bland tobacco. Their words were like a pale white noise, offering a deadly comfort of misinformation to common men.

“Neimadians remember the Federal Alliance,” the first suit said, ignoring the reaction of the second, “and the Cadans, the Kenten trade dispute, to an extent... We know what happens when you go lax and trust foreign interests, especially unsettled ones – like the Amerans.

“Now, even that disagreement aside, you can at least agree that this situation is not getting the attention it warrants from the Primarch.”

“From the Primarch's cabinet, no,” the second suit spoke with displeasure.

The first laughed in return. “No argument.”

“I think it goes without saying that Gannadene isn't... active in his role as a national leader.”

The quick, yet muted steps of a panicked man approached the small room. The door nearly popped from its hinges as it burst open. Trouble and dead were words that quickly found their way into the air. Hands lifted the loaded weapons from the table as every man raced from the room.

“Well, yes. In probably less than a decade, we've bore witness to a power swing no one ever would have expected: from the endocratic seat to the state nationals. It's happened almost overnight, it feels like.”

“If,” the second suit said, with a cough, “excuse me – if you're... looking for blame in regards to a lack of any public statement on these recent blackouts, look no further than the Primarch's staff. With the bulk of the influence and power sitting squarely on the shoulders of his cabinet – his well-lived cabinet, I'll add – a lot of people are... beginning to question if even the Primarch knows where his own place is.”

“Yes.”

“In the very nation he made.”

“Yes. You didn't understand my earlier religious parallel. Well... we all grew up reading about Primarch Gannadene. Whether it was in a history book or a fairy tale.”

The words from the aging box echoed down cold halls, mingling with the sound of gunfire and loud cries of anguish. Boots stormed the halls in response. The same men that had laid down cards only moments earlier lay dead upon marble floors.

“He's... essentially, worshiped as a god,” the television continued, amidst the confusion. “It may be taboo to say as much, but it's certainly true.

“The man... or whatever he is, unified the old kingdoms over eighty centuries ago.”

More gunshots. Bones breaking. Screams. The number of voices diminished to but a few. Blood stained expertly-carved walls and columns of an architectural wonder. This was a heavenly palace, besieged.

“Through violence, yes. Like a wrathful god, you might say. But he built a nation that's survived ever since, that spans over two-hundred million square kilometers. All in the face of early rebellions... attempted assassinations, foreign interests, uh... world wars, Vomiciles and... the problems of managing so many governments, under the banner of one nation. It's amazing, really. Perhaps it's right to worship him as we do.”

A few remaining blasts of light from heated barrels reflected down the dim halls, illuminating fallen bodies. Warm blood shone bright red for brief moments, before fading to black. The cold palace of a god did not acknowledge its defenders.

“But, once again, is this part of his plan? I don't mean to sound critical of him – sacrilegious even – but... perhaps we've relied too much on him.”

The television cast gray light upon the walls of its empty room, as the sounds of war settled to mere murder. It broadcast images of starving children, sunken cities, burning wreckage, and police forces colliding with angry citizens.

“Seeing images like these... it's easy to see as much. It's easy to take matters into our own hands, which I think is what we're seeing the ramifications of in recent years...”

Distant echoes of a final gunman cried with futility down the now emptied halls. Soon, only the sound of an empty clip could be heard. Then, merely the thud of a final body; silence, and the slow rhythm of a single pair of muddied boots upon the cold marble floors of god's empty palace.

“But maybe,” the television continued, unabated, unconcerned, “just maybe, we're being shown how... incapable we truly are. Maybe we're being shown that we can't match a god.

“Or maybe, we're just starting to realize that... our supposed god, is just as human as we.”


The god of billions sat upon an aging throne, wearing jeans and a tee shirt. The Primarch of the nation of Neimadia cast a sullen gaze across the landscape of his conference room. Gannadene heard the words of his cabinet; he did not consider them.

“This isn't a democracy!”

They bantered with ignorant words, again.

“Look, we hold majority share. There's no law forcing us to be charitable.”

“It's not a matter of charity!” cried another.

“As far as I'm concerned – ”

“As far as you're concerned, it's a matter of your own pocket! Cadia needs an infusion of industry to bolster our economy, and you're sitting on the contracts!”

“And why not? As a charter state, we have every right to – ”

“Don't start on that damned charter bullshit,” another voice lamented.

Gannadene stared into nothing. He was aware of the world's impending financial crisis. He keenly understood the whispers of his citizens and legislative supporters over his lack of faith in his own people. He knew of rumors of rebellions, and of ongoing wars upon the edges of his empire. He felt the weight of them all, yet shrugged them from his shoulders. The knowledge of their resolution was not absent from him – he had overcome such problems many times over. The god of this world had lost interest in his creation.

“ – don't get to dictate policy across channels. That's how the Primarch established us, and that's how I intend to govern my own state!”

“Really, now. I think you're misunderstanding the Primarch's understanding of the charter.”

“The Primarch's? Oh. Well.”

“The charter is a renewable contract with the states. The Primarch himself has altered it a thousand times over.”

“That's exactly my – ”

“Government is a living thing. It's not a matter of foreign exchange. The method of legislation itself needs to be changed.”

“As I was saying, that's my point. We aren't talking about waiting for a new constitution from the endocratic seat. We're talking about circumnavigating that entirely and saying to hell with the government. How does that make us any different from the defectors, or... or tyrants, by putting the power into our own hands?”

“Who's to say that's not what the Primarch has always wanted? For us to be capable of standing on our own two feet?”

“oetically convenient.”

“This is all knee-jerking. We're getting away from the – ”

“And who are you to talk about the Primarch's plan for Neimadia?”

“Isn't that our job?”

“You've made it your job. Your interpretation of it.”

“The only interpretation of it.”

The yapping voices swirled in the air, congesting. Gannadene did not recall their names. Men died so quickly. He had decreed their positions only decades before, yet many lingered near death already. They emulated the services of their predecessors so closely that he often mistook one for another, sometimes for ones that had died centuries ago.

He was tired. As a younger man, he had united small tribes and kingdoms, reclaimed ruined cities from an ancient dead civilization and transformed it all into the world they knew today. The first decades of his life were spent with the fuel of excitement of a better world, inevitably trying to separate fault from human nature. His goal had always been to transform not only the landscape of society, but the hearts and minds of the men within it. His Utopia was realized in many ways, throughout the centuries. Yet, men never changed. Those humans he loved and remembered quickly vanished from history, while he lived on.

His body was a relic of ages past: dark and lean, unlike any man that now walked the lands of his country. He lived perpetually in the body of a man in his twenties, yet his mind had slowly aged. Soon, disillusionment bred within him an apathy for his own people – an apathy for all humans. They were wild and ignorant.

The muffled ring of gunshots bled into the room. Some of the cabinet quieted, while others raged on.

“To hell with the charter! If we – ”

“Quiet!” one of them urged.

“ – had the liberty of a voting system, we'd – ”

“A republic? And destroy half the nation to line the other half's – ”

“I said quiet!”

More gunshots. Subdued cries for help leaked through the doors as the politicians boomed.

“ – pockets with gold?”

“Shut up!” one of them finally screamed, standing to his feet.

At last, silence.

A horrible scream ripped quickly down the hall to the conference room. The doors burst from their hinges as a body flew through the air, skidding across the surface of the table. The suits screamed and tripped over themselves. The Primarch, however, continued to stare into eternity.

“The hell!”

“Call security!”

“That is security!”

The suits swarmed like a confused nest of insects. Some buried themselves beneath tables and chairs, while others scurried without aim.

“Gannadene,” a rough voice spoke, its wielder stepping through the shattered frame, and into the den of politicians.

The man stepped forward, dropping a nameless security officer at his muddied boots. He was dressed unusually in leather and sparse armor, a long weathered cloth wrapped about his torso and hanging, unkempt, from his shoulders. The light glinted against the the fired hair of his beard and furrowed brow. He was without scar or sign of injury. A trail of bodies lie behind him.

“Since when do you need security?” he said, taking another step.

“Who the hell,” buzzed one of the suits, “who the hell do you think you are! If this is another power grab, I'll – ”

An open hand raised to meet the flapping jaws.

“I'll...”

With slow purposefulness, and without effort, the man clenched his hand into a fist, with the suit's face within it. Its bones snapped; its eyes burst from their sockets. Soon, its skull was a mass of unrecognizable meat, shards and fluids. The body fell, a mangled stretch of tissue spurting blood from what was once a neck.

“They're annoying,” continued the man.

Gannadene found his eyes had already locked to the man of their own accord. His memory shifted and ground into his mind, at last finding its way back to the surface. “Reklaw,” he nearly wheezed. He had not spoken in much time, he now recalled. Quickly, cognizance returned.

His vision drifted to the bodies and to the shattered door. The man standing before him was a man with only one name, like himself. The history between them came rushing back, urging him.

“Reklaw,” he spoke again, batting his eyes as though awakening from a deep sleep. “Why are you... Why are you here?”

“You deaf in your old age?” Reklaw asked, slinging pieces of flesh from his fingers, the few remaining suits in the room fleeing behind him.

“They... aren't for my benefit,” Gannadene at last replied. “One of the more recent amenities of my staff.” His eyes drifted back to the nearly headless body, bleeding on the floor. “Whom you have already met. They've been paranoid, as of late, of losing their power to another political coup.”

Reklaw mulled this over briefly, annoyed. “A cabinet?”

“A lot has changed in the past eighty centuries,” he replied, looking back up, without concern for the dead man at his feet. “I could have used your guidance.”

“Has it? Sounds like you've let things go to hell,” Reklaw said, motioning. “Not that I expected any differently.”

Gannadene shifted uneasily in his chair. “Why,” he sighed, “are you here?”

Reklaw shifted his glove, the blood of the cabinet member vanishing from its surface. “Took a while to get here, from Acruen territory. You know the Acruens, yet?”

“Yes, Reklaw,” Gannadene replied, wearily. “Somewhat.”

“Went through... probably,” he began, picking up a chair, and sitting with a huff, “eight... nine territories, states, whatever you call them here. Kept hearing people talking about... uprisings, the economy... what their leaders were going to do about it.”

Gannadene stared through him, somewhat to the dusty man's surprise.

“Now,” he continued, “I thought it was a little strange, not hearing your name spoken anywhere. Eight thousand years away, I thought, maybe he's abandoned them. Moved off to a cave somewhere. Got a lot of strange looks once I started asking; was called a blasphemer a couple of times. Can't blasphemy a man, can you?”

The Primarch nodded, understanding. “You don't approve of how I've used what you gave me? Is that why you're here?” Gannadene said, monotone, without a hint of concern in his voice.

“No,” he droned, flippantly. “Don't really care.” Reklaw arose from his seat and approached a solitary window. He tapped its frame with the same hand with which he had just used to kill a man. Inconspicuously, it was perfectly clean. “You know that.”

Gannadene continued to stare forward, indifferently. He had no interest in looking out of the same window, in seeing a vast sea of ancient, decaying buildings. They extended past the horizon, far beyond the borders of the heavenly palace. Ant-sized peasants busied themselves near the pristine, fortified gates of his home

“Just surprising,” he said, seeming to mock him. “You came to me, after all. If you've set yourself up as a god here, you're welcome to it.”

Gannadene laughed a little, and inhaled sharply. He did not move from his chair, or temper his gaze. Thoughts raced for a moment, as though making sense of a day's events, after a long sleep. He drew words from the air, as though imitating language, rather than speaking it. “Where have you been?”

Reklaw raised his eyebrows and cocked his head. “Same place you've been, I guess.” He motioned out, towards the city, a smile on his face. “Where've you been?”

Gannadene shifted his head, briefly looking towards the window. He grinned, finding the concept of caring for his own people amusing. A laugh poured out of him, louder now, as he turned back. Reklaw grinned and shook his head. Both men found some hidden joke in their words.

“Need your help with something,” Reklaw spoke, as Gannadene's crazed laughter subsided. He walked the borders of the room, looking out each window as it came. Each portion of the city was the same as the last. “Unfortunately, we have to save these people.”

Gannadene rolled his head, finding some joy in the brief madness. “You've never wanted to save anyone,” he smiled.

Reklaw silently agreed, stepping over the politician's bloody corpse. “Once or twice,” he elaborated.

“Why?” Gannadene demanded, challenging Reklaw for an answer.

“Why,” Reklaw repeated, as he picked up a pen, examined and then tossed it over his back. “Why not? You have something better to do?”

“Not anymore.” Gannadene rose from his throne, straightening his back. He was unsure how long he had sat there. “That said, I still have no interest.”

“That said,” Reklaw answered, “I'm not asking, I'm telling. Just like I was told. I thought you'd be overjoyed to save the world.”

“I did that already,” Gannadene groaned, approaching one of the windows. He looked down upon his city, for the first time in a long time. He had forgotten how scarred it was.

“How'd it feel?” Reklaw asked, irony tracing the words.

Gannadene scoffed. “Good, for a while.” He paused, overlooking what had once been a utopia. “Looks almost the same, actually. The people were happier.”

Reklaw sat down again, in Gannadene's throne. He frowned, finding it uncomfortable.

“I should have listened to you.”

“Most people could have given you the same warnings I did. Your father told you as much. No need to apologize to me.”

Gannadene stared on, remorseless. “I wasn't.”

“No regrets?” Reklaw asked, trying to reposition himself upon the throne.

“It's hard to regret not having a meaningless life,” he replied, pondering. “Not that mine's had any meaning.”

Gannadene smiled, with a more gentle laugh than the last. He exhaled, looking up into the sky, at the flying ships that had encircled his palace for a generation. “I tried giving everyone what they wanted, at first. Limitless resources, wealth... They always found something to fight about. There was always something new to want; someone new to hate, to kill. It wasn't good enough for me, of course. I wanted a perfect world. No war, no famine, no ignorance... bigotry. I was young, of course, back then, although I thought I was old. Mother and father had passed on, along with my wife and children. Making a utopia was the only thing I had left. I decided I might be wrong about things; tried new directions. I went from a monarchy to a dictatorship, then to a republic, then to socialism, democracy, kritarchy, oligarchy... everything.”

“Not easy,” Reklaw said, seeming to know how the story would end. He had tired of the throne, and approached another window. He watched as soldiers filed through the gates at ground level, to his exasperation.

“I kept at it for a few thousand years with no results, until the Vomiciles culled us out. Wiped out everything. Even I couldn't stop all of them. Supplanted what was left of us here, and left us in a dark age.”

“Uh huh?” Reklaw's eyes followed the soldiers, annoyed. There were dozens of them.

“I decided then, to use that to my advantage. ...It's amazing, really. People just want to kill each other, until something wants to kill them. Then, suddenly, everyone is one big, happy family.”

“Yep,” Reklaw nodded, watching more trucks arrive.

“It didn't last for long. After a few generations, the Vomiciles were bedtime stories or superstition, and people were beginning to focus on one another, again. I gave up, trying to hand them a perfect society. People don't want a utopia. They want conflict. So I decided... to trick them into it.”

“So you used yourself,” Reklaw chided, turning. “Molded their kids to worship you, changed the history books, something like that?”

“I realized it wasn't the details that mattered,” he confessed, turning back to the conference room. “I didn't need to give them anything. A perfect society is just a population that's happy with what they have. So, I made a society that believes I'm omniscient. They think I'm watching over them, guiding them. The fools actually pray to me. Now, they're happy with whatever I give them.”

“Or they were.” The sound of footsteps could be heard down the halls.

“They're like children,” Gannadene thought aloud. “No... more like animals. Eating, breeding, fighting, dying... Less than animals,” he said, looking back to the bloodied corpses. “They think they're above instinct.”

“They can be, sometimes,” Reklaw said, looking out past the shattered door frame.

Gannadene sighed again, disgusted with his surroundings. The thumping of dozens of footsteps now bellowed down the hallways. “I always hated this place,” he realized. “Let's move this conversation elsewhere.”

The Primarch left the room, ordering away a confused batch of heavily armed soldiers.

Reklaw followed closely behind, eager to avoid a repeat of his earlier misunderstanding with the palace security. “Clean this up, will you?” he spoke to one, freshly emergent onto the scene.

“Good lord,” the soldier exclaimed, choking on the smell.

“Careful!” Reklaw yelled back, as he vanished down the corridor. “I think the fat guy in the suit soiled himself!”


Immaculate petals twisted in the still, crisp air of the emptied palace, basking in the cascading light of a new day. Her hand frailly spun the fibers of its stem between its fingers. She considered its rarity, its beauty and its mortality. Somehow, knowing it was plucked from the earth, condemned to a slow death, made it more beautiful.

She sat upon a small throne, hidden away in an emptied hall. Looming pillars dominated the immense architecture, casting long shadows upon extravagant furnishings. This was her favorite place, in this hated palace. It was the only area exposed to the outside world, albeit elevated far beyond the earth. The light of dawn warmed her skin, as it had the day before – a solitary friend. This was both the happiest time of day for her, and the most desperate. The light was a constant reminder of days spent with her family, whom she had not seen in many years. Yet, it also conjured memories of living upon the streets, stealing to survive, and brought a grim awareness of her duty to her people.

No one would ever see the flower but her, she thought. It would die slowly, in her hands, and would only return to the earth when it had lost its beauty – when it had become waste in the eyes of its lover. It did not sadden her.

“ – won't matter,” continued a voice she did not recognize. “You need to organize your fleet as quickly as possible.”

“This has something to do with the Amerans?” spoke another voice, which she had not heard in nearly a decade.

The two men descended down a spiraling stairwell on the opposite end of the hall. One was Gannadene, a man she did not truly know; the other was a man she had never seen.

“Do you think I'd waste my time on something that trivial?” Reklaw replied.

“No,” Gannadene said, shielding his eyes from the flickering of early morning torches.

“Some of your northern colonies have been attacked recently, right?”

Gannadene moaned, trying to retrieve what was likely unimportant knowledge from his memory. “Yes, I had heard that. Actually... now that I bother to recall, I had overheard that they had been vanishing, literally. The public doesn't know of it, but the cities themselves are being scooped up. Or, something to that effect.”

“Right.”

“The Amerans are the only people I've ever seen with ships, like ours,” Gannadene spoke, gesturing beyond the columns, towards the flying vessels. They were a stark contrast to the city, and the technology around them. It was as though they were pulled from another universe. “If any human civilization had the technology, it'd be them. Vomiciles, maybe?”

“No,” Reklaw replied, without a moment of consideration. “The Vomiciles don't do this sort of thing. And they don't have the ability to rip a city out of the ground. This is something I've never seen.”

There was a tinge of joy for her, listening to Gannadene speak for the first time in so many years. Yet, the horror of their conversation was not lost on her. She understood it only a little, yet it filled her with enough dread to make her forget the light.

“So that's why you've come. If even you don't know...”

“Right. I haven't seen whatever is responsible, but I've seen the results. Dynimin and Fasah, both of which were a lot larger and advanced than Neimadia... they're gone. They were a few hundred million kilometers from your furtherest continent's borders. Dozens of others, too, further away than that. There's nothing there anymore. Just giant pits, as big as all of your nation's continents, combined. Whatever it is, it's headed in this direction.”

The two men approached, in silence. She mustered enough courage to feint a smile. “Hello, husband. Who is your guest?”

“Well, if it comes down to it, I welcome the release,” Gannadene spoke, ignoring her.

Reklaw looked to the young woman as they passed. She had already held her head back to the sky, staring towards the starless heaven, caressing the dying white flower in her palm.

“I've grown to hate life,” Gannadene continued. “If this new threat can end my immortality, I welcome it.”

“I'm not allowed to share your enthusiasm, unfortunately,” Reklaw answered, as they arrived at an immense, sealed door.

Gannadene balked, with his tiresome smile. “You? Not allowed?”

“No,” Reklaw said. “We all have our own gods, Gannadene, whether we want them, or not.”

“So I've learned.” He inputted a series of codes into the door's security system, sighing as the door's internal locks released, one by one. “Imagine my surprise,” Gannadene spoke, “to see mine today, walking through my office door. I had forgotten what it was like, to have someone remind me that I'm a fool.”


It loomed above everything. Tall, dark and immense, it turned to meet the gaze of the two men, who had violated its sanctum. It was apparent that the thing was not human, although its appearance was mostly concealed by a massive, shredded robe. The only readily apparent detail of its monstrous form was a brief flash of red lenses within a single opening of its cloak.

“Animals,” it addressed them, turning without a sound, “why do you interrupt my work?”

“It's me... Gannadene,” the Primarch said. “Reklaw, this is the Doctor. I thought you might make some use of him. He's been with us for about three centuries, now. Why, I don't know. It appeared to me one day, offering to help us dig up and operate cache vessels. Even before the Vomiciles wiped us out, we'd gotten nowhere near that level of technology. We've advanced further in the past three hundred years than we had in the previous seven thousand.”

Reklaw took in the layout of the room as Gannadene spoke. It was large enough to accommodate the creature – designed for its use, most likely. Vermin moved upon shelves, which were filled with specimen jars containing human organs and body parts. Several kennels housed imprisoned men and women, stripped naked and bearing marks of surgery and experimentation. An open body lay with its entrails exposed, upon an operating table behind the Doctor.

“I keep it hidden away from the general population, of course,” Gannadene continued. “It does not seem fond of people.”

“Acruen never are,” Reklaw responded.

“At first, I was concerned about its own goals... where it had come from, and its requests for live testing subjects. But it's been particularly useful, albeit secretive and disrespectful.

“Doctor,” Gannadene spoke to it, “this is Reklaw. He – ”

“I am aware of its designation, animal,” it interrupted. “I received information that you were on your way here, from our territories.”

“That's right,” Reklaw replied, beginning to admire the decor. It was cool here, and dark; he liked it this way.

“erhaps you will prove more competent in leading your animal kin. I have warned this designate-alpha of impending danger to this sector's animal hive, with no results.”

“I thought it was peculiar,” Reklaw said. “An Acruen advisor in the palace, yet the cache fleet you'd helped them dig up hadn't been mobilized.”

“It is imperative to Acruen interests, and the goals of the Core Directive, that this sector is maintained,” it replied.

“So, you're in charge of this sector?” Reklaw asked, cooly. He was certainly more in tune with the creature than Gannadene. Something told the Primarch that his mentor had a great deal of history with the race.

“Yes.”

“What information can you give me? The Acruen leadership was less than forthcoming. They wanted to ensure I was going to do something about the situation before they would tell me anything.”

“Little,” the Doctor said. “The area animals know as the Lowlands has had several of our observer units go silent within the past two of your months. Their destruction cannot be verified.”

Gannadene exhaled, his mind drifting as the two continued into a discussion he shared no interest in. In his past decade of silence, very little had captured his interest, or drawn his concern. Even with Reklaw here, he was a walking corpse, in many respects. He shared more familiarity with the open body on the operating table than he did with the people living on the streets, outside of his palace. It still breathed, without purpose.

“Only areas populated with animals are targeted,” the Doctor continued. “Hubs are removed from the local environment in their entirety.

“I will show you,” it said, turning.

Many of the infirm test subjects in the kennels rose as they saw Reklaw and Gannadene approaching, with their captor.

Hey! Hey, you have to help us!

He's keeping us prisoner down here!

That thing is experimenting on us! Primarch!

Even if their voices had the strength, they would never reach the indifferent, immortal ears of either man. Their lives were without merit. They would be quickly forgotten.

“Analysis of the post-traumatized areas reveal little,” the Doctor spoke, as it glided to the darker corners of its den. “All structures, technologies and debris vanish. Any being or species capable of this manner of destruction would possess capabilities on par with that of the Acruen. You animals cannot stop it.”

Please!

What happened to my family?

“So you have nothing, essentially?” Reklaw asked.

“Husk units have been attempting to transmit information streams during subsequent attacks, although the transmissions were always blocked or incomprehensible. We have attempted a variety of methods to counteract this, although none have worked, until several days ago.”

Green eyes peered into the darkness of the Doctor's laboratory from its entrance. Gannadene's wife silently observed their conversation as they slipped into the shadows. She had never seen the looming monster, nor the insides of this fortified room, its bolstered hatch now hanging freely upon its hinges. Her eyes, disbelieving, eventually discovered the kennels.

Words trailed as a door in the belly of the laboratory swung open. The three entered a room full of contemporary human technology, most altered in some way by their owner. Without a motion, the Doctor willed them to life. “There,” it directed, a metal talon briefly emerging from the hole in its cloak, towards a terminal. “You may use this one.”

“Wait,” Gannadene spoke, something at last capturing his interest, “what are Husk units?”

“They're humans,” Reklaw answered, moving to the computer, “with pieces of their brains and spinal cords clipped out; replaced with Acruen personality cores. They're essentially Acruens with human bodies – spies.”

Gannadene stopped, suddenly feeling enraged. It was an old sensation to him, and nearly alien. He scarcely understood why he would be angry. He cared for little else; there was no sensible reason for it.

“Replaced with,” he quietly repeated to himself, grinding his teeth. “Why did you never tell me of this?” he demanded from the Doctor.

“Because they are spies, obviously,” it replied. “They exist to manipulate your society and governments, and to ensure your hives develop in ways we deem acceptable. It would be more difficult to breed, harvest and shepherd animals, if they were aware of it. It matters very little now, however.”

He understood. It was the prospect of their deception having tainted his attempt at a perfect world that angered him. They had tampered with his grand experiment. Worse still, this had briefly poisoned his mind with false hope. Without them, would he have succeeded, he nearly wondered.

“Several are members of your own cabinet, if you are curious,” it spoke, almost mockingly.

“What!” Gannadene nearly shouted. “This is my country. I should – ”

“Gannadene,” Reklaw interjected, as he interacted with one of the consoles. “Shut up.”

Gannadene groaned, withdrawing from the conversation, again. He was less concerned than he had realized; indifference was quick to return. Even if he was truly concerned, he would never dare dismiss the commands of the person whom he had called his god only minutes ago.

“The facilities I have managed here are rudimentary and primitive – nearly beyond use,” the Doctor said.

“Why do you need them at all?” Gannadene chided. “You were insistent on having them when we constructed this chamber. Yet, you're a machine yourself, aren't you?”

“Your misunderstanding of Acruen physiology would be laughable, if I chose to emulate such a reaction. But yes, these machines exist solely for human testing.”

“Your test subjects use these?” Reklaw asked, his typing slowed.

“Yes. I uploaded the information you require several hours ago.”

Reklaw lifted his hands from the station for a moment. “The keyboard's sticky...” He frowned and punched in a final few quick keystrokes. “Gross.”

“This video was taken three days ago,” the Doctor said. “It is the only evidence from any of the attacks.”

One of the larger monitors flickered to life. The still image of the video appeared on its screen, with alien characters formatted onto its edges, scrolling as new data was fed through.

“Based on what was observed afterwards,” the Acruen said, as the video began to play, “nothing survived the attack.”


Little could be heard other than the labored panting of the small group, as they raced down a narrow, dark tunnel. It was man-made, and appeared quite old. The occasional photoluminescent lamp dimly lit the decaying passage.

“This is the time index we began receiving the transmission,” the Doctor said.

“What are these symbols?” Gannadene asked, referencing the markings on the edges of the screen.

“Acruen characters,” Reklaw answered. “They're used to reference data packets, in case information is lost during a transmission; helps to manually reassemble damaged information.”

There were at least five others running with the Acruen Husk as it recorded their final minutes. They were difficult to make out in the intermediate darkness. Two young men ran ahead of the rest of the group, followed by a mother and child, with another woman running alongside the viewer.

The tunnel rumbled, and debris shook from the ceiling. The mother screamed, pulling her son to her side as she stopped. The other woman urged them both to their feet as they continued to run.

“Don't stop,” said one of the men. “Don't stop!”

“Why're we even runnin'?” shouted the other man. “We never mapped these tunnels!”

“Shut up!” the first shouted back.

“Where are we runnin' to, man? The city ends at the shoreline, then it's ocean for a thousand miles!”

“Shut up! Shut up and run!”

The thumping of their footprints echoed down the empty corridor; the picture twisted and faded. The sounds of their steps began to heavy. Briefly, something lingered upon the screen. It held form for a moment, and then vanished, leaving darkness.

“What was that?” Gannadene asked.

“It was not in the original feed,” the Doctor said, after a brief hesitation.

After several moments, the image returned. The small group now stood before a cave-in, exhausted. The mother lay on a nearby wall, sobbing as her young child tried to comfort her. A dim green light soured the darkness as the Husk approached, carrying a fading lamp.

“What can we do?” it asked. The younger of the two men, who had panicked before, lay near the rubble, gasping for air. The oldest frantically examined the debris, pawing at the hardened soil and stone. It was apparent that it had collapsed long before now. The years had likely sealed it from human meddling long ago.

“What the hell can we do?” asked the younger man. “I should be back there! I should've...” His voice trailed as he recalled whatever horrors had forced them into this hole.

“Focus,” the older man spoke, possibly to himself. “Focus!” He frantically clawed at the rock facing, unable to pull apart the ancient wall.

“That's not getting us anywhere,” the Husk said, sighing. The older man continued, unabated. “We should backtrack, take a service hatch to the – ”

“To the surface?” interrupted the older man, turning at last. Each shared a look with the other, communicating a silent horror. None of them dared recount what doubtless weighed heavy upon all of their minds.

“We may not... We don't have a choice, Peter” it replied. Peter, the older man, pulled his hands away from the tunnel. He ran the crumbling dirt upon his palms through his hair, as threw his head back. “The service entrances run three hundred meters apart. If we can get to the surface, to the next hatch, we can get back into the tunnels.”

“Real fucking easy,” lamented the younger man.

“How long do you think we can survive down here?” it asked. “Even if it doesn't come down here, we have no water, no food.”

“I'll take my chances,” the youth replied.

“I thought you were eager to get back on the surface. I thought you wanted to save your girlfriend from – ”

“Fuck you! Fuck you!” the young man shouted back, rising to his feet.

“Hey, hey!” Peter came between the two. He was weathered and unkempt. It was hard to tell if he always looked this way. The girl came into view as Peter urged the boy back to the ground. “Sit down, Mark. We'll figure out a way out of this. Just calm down.”

“Baby, what's going on?” the girl asked the Husk.

“Nothing,” it replied. “We're just trying to figure out what to do next. How's she?”

It turned to the mother and child, each clinging to the other. Little could be seen beyond them, aside from the faint glow of the few lamps they had passed, in the distance. The tunnel rumbled again, faintly.

“She's all right. Calmed down a bit. She lost her husband, so... Her boy doesn't seem to understand what's going on, so he's... well, he's all right for now, I think. If we're going to do something, we need to do it now, though. Get everyone's minds off... We just need to get moving.”

“What about you?” it asked, stroking her with the palm of its stolen body's hands.

“What?” she asked, distracted. “Oh. I'm okay. I think. I don't really... I mean, what... what the hell's going on, Nathan?”

“Don't worry about it,” Nathan replied.

Mark laughed, from his seat in the dirt. “Don't worry,” he parroted, violently running an open palm across his forehead. “God.”

“What do we want to do, then?” Peter asked. “We stay here, we die. Either of thirst, or... or it... they? It-it comes through the ground.”

“W-what, come on?” Mark stammered. “We can stay down here, no problem. There's probably some pipes we could break open, and – ”

“And what?” Peter demanded. “Where'll we get food? I led us down here because I was on the maintenance crew for these service ways. We could never find a source feed for the pipes. The water would be poisonous, anyway. It's never been treated.”

“Okay, look,” the girl interrupted. “There's not much we can do, is there? We either have to go back, or find a way forward. Peter, honestly, it doesn't look like we can get through this.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry. I was just... Well, we have to go back.”

A solemn hush of reservation fell over them all. The prospects of a slow death seemed more favorable than facing whatever they had escaped. Yet, waiting to be discovered by the same threat seemed even more unsettling.

“Does, uh... do the tunnels fork at any point?” the girl asked. “If we could go down one of those, maybe...”

“Did you see it fork?” Peter asked, offended. His tone made it apparent that there would be no other passage. They had no choice.

“I ain't goin' back up top,” Mark said. “I ain't goin' back up top.”

“If we could – ”

“I ain't goin'!”

“If we could just manage to run those three hundred meters,” Nathan continued, “just three hundred, we could circumnavigate the cave-in, get back into the tunnels. Maybe it... th-the city may be clear once we get up top. We don't know where it's gone to or – ”

Mark burst into a fit of laughter. “You're fuckin' kiddin' me?”

“Shut the hell up, Mark!” Peter yelled, at last losing his patience.

“No, see,” Mark said, “did you even... even see it? It's the fucking sky. The sky turned into that thing. You can't run from it. It's everywhere. Probably all over the world.”

“It came out of the sky – the clouds – Mark,” the girl muttered. “We need to get moving.”

“Who... who's to say if we don't stay here, it won't eventually leave?” Mark spoke to himself, his voice lowering to a whisper. “Just a few days. It'll give up. It gives up, we go back home. Everything'll be back to normal.”

The others hung their heads and shuffled in place, disquieted. “I'll go speak to Sarah,” the girl muttered.

“Hey,” Nathan whispered, catching her shoulder.

She muttered in reply, her eyes wandering as she turned.

“Angie. You all right?”

“Yeah,” she coughed, pulling away. “Yeah.”

“I ain't goin' back up top,” Mark chanted.

The tunnel rumbled again, with more intensity than the last. An echoing, horrifying growl emerged from the ceiling. It lingered and deepened, fading into a quiet, almost inaudible chorus of screams. The recorded image crackled.

“What is that?” Peter's voice spoke, through the static.

“Quiet.”

The picture faded completely, leaving only bleeding colors. Briefly, there came disjointed images, vanishing quickly, one after the other: Angela, looking out over a field of flowers; a vast, alien complex stretching on for miles; Nathan, a silver needle piercing the side of his head; rusty clouds, swirling as it began to rain. Darkness.

The image crackled and returned, whole.

“I can't believe that dumbass stayed,” Peter muttered.

“Quiet,” Nathan whispered. “We couldn't help him.”

They moved carefully across the side of a fallen skyscraper. Much of its surface was gone, or crumbling away. A single step out of turn could prove fatal. It was only one of many. Rubble lay everywhere, concealing much of the earth. A thick haze obscured the distance. Occasional drops of red fell from the sky, staining the stone and steel around them.

“Come on,” Sarah, the mother, whispered to her child. The boy struggled to keep up, with Nathan keeping his distance behind them.

Their faces betrayed them. What was expected to be a minute's race across the earth had become a trek across an emptied battlefield. They had likely navigated this ruined city for several minutes, now. There were no corpses, no fires. The city looked as though it had always been a graveyard.

“Can't... believe he stayed,” Peter again muttered.

“Quiet,” Angela whispered loudly, somewhere behind Nathan.

Quiet, Quiet, a voice responded. It emerged from the mist, echoing. Sarah and Peter came to a stop, unsettled.

“What the hell was that?” Peter said.

Nothing could be heard, aside from the slow beat of the red rain. Something moved in the sky, deep in the cover of the clouds. It vanished, quickly.

“Momma?” The child looked to his mother for an explanation she could not give. She palmed at her mouth, nearly hyperventilating.

“Hey,” Nathan spoke to the child. “Hey, we need to get your mom over to the other side of this building, okay?” The child nodded emphatically. “Okay, just follow Peter, the man in front of you. And let's be as quiet as possible.”

Quiet, the voice came again, quieter now. They ignored it, although their pace hurried. Quickly, they turned the corner of the fallen structure, sliding down its opposite side. It cracked and fell away in some parts. An exposed beam granted them the stability to jog down the structure, as the mother and her child fell behind view. The shattered road that would lead them to the hatch – to safety – came into view.

“It's just a hundred or so meters away,” Peter whispered loudly, as his feet touched exposed ground. Nathan quickly followed. They began to race across the rare patch of open earth, their steps carrying away patches of bloodied mud.

“Nathan!” Angela cried out, behind the two men. “Nathan!” Her voice raised.

Hesitantly, the two men turned, away from their path. Angela stood upon the edges of the fallen building, pointing out towards the mist. Sarah was racing, her child's hand clasped in her own, into the reddening haze.

“Sarah!” Peter nearly yelled. “Sarah!”

Quiet, the voice echoed.

Peter ran to them, with Nathan soon behind. “Shit!”

She ran with surprising speed; the distance between them closed slowly. “Sarah!” The loud thump of a massive footstep resounded from the dark reaches of the clouded distance. They ignored it. Another step boomed, closer. They slowed, as the silhouette of a massive figure took shape in the darkness.

“Stop, stop!” Nathan urged.

The form of the beast was vaguely human, but as tall as the buildings that had once stood in this ruined city. It could easily be mistaken for a skyscraper, if not for its slow gait.

Quiet, the word came again.

“Jacob!” Sarah yelled, at last stumbling to a halt. “Jacob!” The looming figure turned, its body seeming to forget its shape as it moved, leaving pieces of shadow hanging in the fog. The thump of new steps approached. “Is that you?”

Two figures, similar to the first, joined approached. Their forms were more ambiguous. Their shapes contorted and scattered as they moved, clinging in midair like pools of shadow. Sarah and the child stood, casting their attention towards the mist, listening.

“No,” she spoke to it. “We're fine! We – ” She balked, as though listening to words the others could not hear. “Of course,” she spoke to it, with a mixed tone of relief and anguish. “I knew you wouldn't leave us.”

A sound, like bones cracking, echoed in the still air. The black images of the three figures swirled and congested within the black clouds. The red rain descended with greater intensity. Warped, trailing sounds, like whispers, fled from the mist. The figures merged as one, in a net of black veins. It vanished. At the same moment, a man appeared before the mother and child. His toes curled in the shallow mud, his calves already soiled with dried blood.

Quiet, it spoke, the word echoing quietly. Come home. Sarah, her child in one hand, took the creature's hand with the other. Jacob turned, as its final words continued to echo. In an instant, the three were gone, leaving a seared image of their bodies in the soil.

“Sarah!” Peter screamed.

“Go!” Nathan yelled, as Angela quickly passed them. “Go!”

The three ran, as the blackening mist deepened, and the blood rain poured.

Quiet, Quiet.

The earth distorted. The distance grew. Soon, the three seemed to be running in place. The road ahead stretched on, forever.

“Nathan!” Angela cried.

“Keep running!”

The buildings bulged. Their surfaces cracked like a layer of stone skin as their insides pulsed, as though breathing. The stone and steel whithered and crumbled away. Soon, only writhing slabs of tissue and organs remained. Figures appeared in the mist, more inhuman than the last.

Quiet, Quiet.

A loud cry arose from the distance, growing in intensity. Thousands of whispers grew to cries, then to screams. The three collapsed, covering their ears as a thick red veil overtook everything. The raging noise soon mixed with their own screams.

Quiet, Quiet, the voices echoed, over and over. The world vanished in a cloud of red ash, carrying Peter and Angela with it. The red world dissipated, as Nathan catapulted forward, collapsing into the red earth. Its body gasped, breathing into a thick mixture of blood and sand. The air quieted.

It lay still, wheezing and writhing in the slow rain. The pain subsided, as its body grew still. The sound of a lighter clicked in the still air.

The city lay destroyed, as it had minutes ago. The mist hung in place, and the red raindrops fell slowly. Peter and Angela were gone. It tried to cry out for them, but its breath escaped it. It could not move from its shallow grave. Its body was dying.

A black shoe shifted into view. Nathan tilted its head, casting its fading vision towards a man clothed in a black suit and fedora. He smiled down, bringing a glowing cigarette to his mouth. The rain seemed to fall through him.

“Hey there,” the man said, placing the lighter into his coat's inside pocket, the cigarette bobbing in his jaws. The image distorted as he exhaled a cloud of smoke.

“Where...” Nathan tried to speak, his vision blurring.

“Doing better than you are,” the man spoke, waving the death stick about, smoke trailing from his mouth. He exhaled sharply, looking out towards the distance. The image distorted, once again. An image of Nathan's body appeared, its brain exposed upon an operating table. “Dying's not so bad, I'm told,” the man's voice spoke.

The image returned, although fading. The tiny characters upon the side of the screen scrambled, and vanished. The man smiled down, again. “Not that I need to tell you.”

“What,” Nathan tried to manage, “are you?”

The man hummed in consideration, tipping the brim of his hat. “A religious man.” He blew a puff of smoke, rocking slightly upon the hatch he sat upon. Whether it was the one the group had sought after, or the one they had left behind, was impossible to tell. “You a religious... man?” he asked. “A religious thing? Machine? Whatever the hell you are.”

Its vision began to blacken and return. “This... hive,” it spoke, forcing the words out in a mixture of earth and its own blood, “must not...”

“Yeah, yeah,” the man said. “So your kind keeps telling me.” He brought the cigarette to his mouth, again. Again, the screen darkened and distorted. The mist seemed to encroach upon them, the smoke of the burning cigarette almost indistinguishable from the deepening clouds.

“You know,” he spoke, standing out of view, “if you were a man, you'd know what we are.” The cigarette dropped to the earth, as he stepped away. It burned brightly as the world faded around it. The man's footsteps soon faded, and then, silence.

The video blackened, leaving only the dim glow of the cigarette's dying embers. Soon, darkness overtook everything. A flood of images quickly raced upon the screen, too fast to be interpreted. The memories faded, and its body died.