Were those stars? Brief flashes in the sky beyond the thin and sickly clouds appeared so vividly even if for a second. No, its fire. Comets of death streak down and punish the earth for it's animosity, burning her children in explosions of fire and metal. A black dragon punctures the membrane of rainclouds and continues it's hell storm.
I am one of her children, watching this beast obliterate the red devils in the jungle. I hold in my hands a rod of thunder, of quick and brutal death, to use against these devils. We cling to mother earth and feel her moist flesh accept us, trying to swallow us whole or at the very least conceal us with her overgrowth. She is burning, and she still protects us. We vanish in and out of the dim moonlight as we race to the lake of fire the dragon had created, watching every tree, every bush for sign of life.
A gathering of vines and broken trees rustle ever so quietly and we pounce, shouting, screaming, crying, unleashing death in a matter of minutes. We find nothing.
On, on, on we go, leaping over fallen trees and deep craters, the black dragon now decimating an area further down the mountainous valley ahead yet still letting us know it's presence with a low, steady roar. We find bits and pieces of the devils, gnarled hands, decapitated corpses clinging to each other, to our mother, to the sky, everything dead, everything ablaze.
We run again, tired, frightened, our lungs filled with embers, and we hear movement again. This time, the darkness gets us before we knew it. A roar of sudden violence and quick, timed, precise popping and snapping, metal fangs claw through everything. I fall to mother and feel myself screaming, though I don't hear it. It goes on, and my brothers around me die or try and fight. Lobbed stones explode and tear a man next to me to shreds, his hand grasping for something, I weep, though I still cannot hear it.
One of my brothers stands and shouts at the darkness, fear in his voice masked by unbridled primal anger and hatred. The massive cannon in his hands belches and coughs and barks and sends it's own fangs screaming into the night, the darkness lessening in it's assault. Soon we all rise and fight as one surge of strength and frenzied courage, ripping every inch of air beyond us to nothing.
Silence, again. Even the dragon has quieted, vanished beyond the sky's cover. The fires behind us have died, and all around the stench of atmosphere, copper and fire powder hangs in a thick fog. We look to each other and take count. We were ten, now we are six. We fall apart for just a moment then set about the dead, our own and the darkness'.
They are all so young. I see my face in each corpse I come upon, though the red devils are nothing like us. I hear screams and thunder and then silence again. My brothers are killing the survivors, taking their brutal revenge. I feel no pangs of remorse, nor sickness, nor even sadness. I am numb.
A man behind me speaks into a horn in his hands and motions for all of us, speaking quickly and pointing ahead to the endless ocean of night and flora, the last of the dragon's flames dying down.
I help one of the others with the dead, taking their tags and removing their munitions. My grim face is noticed by the corporal helping me, and he pats my back forcing a smile.
I shake my head at him and he looks away, busying himself again with the work. I stop to look to the sky, and see the gunship punch it's way through the clouds, continuing it's run and blowing the valley to hell. I clench my eyes shut, and try to wake up. I try, and try, and try. but all I feel come of it are tears.
Everything is unreal.
Nothing is real.
No one knows what to think and usually we dont.
Most days I'm not even awake, watching everything around me through a dream.
Thats all this ever is to me.
A Dream.
Not a dream.
A Nightmare.
