Decay

Blood, rust, bone, steel and iron.

That which comes from the dead things. Dead earth, dead men and now I. Blood and rust and bone and steel. This graveyard, a grave of minds. All here will fade too, with time.

She died on the balustrade. Arrays of broken panels. Her perfect sniper’s crow’s nest. She could hold an army back. One army but could not two. Rows upon rows of soldiers. Falling with the metronome. But the flow reached the stairwell. Boots and claws piled on the steps. Echoing in the darkness. Their shots rattled off the walls. Plasma burned our defences. Here cometh the knife, glinting. Sharp blade piercing shields and skin. She stumbles, rust billowing. A cloud of red to obscure. And makes the Fallen fall back. She’s up and the blade stabs down. Another win, a near miss. And it doesn’t last, it can’t.

Red dust, red rust and red blood. All has deserted her now. Where she fell I cannot leave. I circle the bones by day. And hide from the chill at night. Flesh melts from bones and armour. One day a bird, gone by night. It lays a feather on her. Upon her hand, on her gun.

She believed in high constructs. Relive the conversation. My memory banks now fail. High constructs with feathered wings. Take her where I can’t follow. I can’t follow so I stay. When the sun is high I live. And each day my life is less. In this bed of death and bone. The sun feeds paltry morsels. I long to feast on power.

Perhaps I’ll be found after. Her last great quest saved in me. The data I protected. Kept safe as systems fail me. In the garden of red dust. I will rest in the red rust.

The Fearless

As a child I feared what was outside the wall. My family taught me that we were safe within our city as long as the Traveler watched over us and the Guardians defended our walls.

I used to play and make believe that I was one of the Guardians, a member of the Vanguard, fearless and mighty. I could pretend to be brave. And somehow that always seemed to make me feel a little safer.

Some days I miss being innocent.

My life as a Guardian is nothing like the fantasy of my youth. It's hard, and cold. And the fear is always with me.

Fearless. That was just the fantasy of a child. A foolish child.

Standing now on the cold, red of Mars, the fear is almost more than I can bear.

I don't know how long ago it was that this barren city had life. And I don't know what took that life away. What I do know is that this city was buried. Intentionally. And that scares me.

What must have transpired here that this once beautiful city earned the burial it received? Was it buried as a punishment? Or was it a kindness? A generous blessing to the rest of us, to forever hide something that must never be found.

The fear swells within me.

But I am a Guardian. Not the fearless warrior I once believed in as a child, but something more. I know now that strength comes from facing our fears. And I know that I won't face it alone.

I am a Guardian of the last city of Humanity. There are few of us left, but we stand together. And we are stronger than our enemies believe us to be. We will endure.

Didn't get on this until an hour ago but what the hell, that was fun!

Dust

I hear you walking, still. Is my shadow there, broken, whispering in the red sand? Memory and time twist and fade in heaps of broken images. There is a city in the desert. The ancient walls shake with sound, something big moves the air above, footsteps fall in rapid percussion, a freight train hits me and I am suddenly elsewhere, weak and scraped thin. I lay in silence, calm within a hurricane’s pillar where machines of war work their terrible purpose. The Fallen are with us, silhouetted by the sky in the wasteland of our creation. There, hushed light strobes upon a fiery muzzle. I begin to fade, you disappear into the dust, distant cries echo through neural pathways and a million deafening keys rattle into locks as I sleep in pieces.

I have a dream where I'm falling, flying into the earth. There is a road, open, within a limitless canopy that curves away, down, down, down. A gentle push, sudden release; I slip out the bottom and go sailing. The ground recedes high above. Up is down. I spin and tumble. There is no end.

Once more, however, time reaches out in whorled spirals behind us, twisting, fading, carrying memory and shame deep beneath where all is noise and arms outstretched, I am rising. Ashes to ashes to life everlasting; the Traveler calls us back from the deep abyss, for good or ill. My body aches. Joints and flesh and wires growing, twisting, becoming whole.

Eliot had it wrong again. There is no fear in this handful of dust, nothing to fear under this red rock. Dead a thousand times, to follow the path is our destiny and our curse, for we are the Guardians.

I awake to the sound of your voice.

This is nice! Fast pace and a lot of action packed into a small space.

I wanted to contribute, but I'm not especially flush with free time on the weekends. I'd hoped to sneak 300 words in at some point but just ran out of time. If I'd heard about the contest a couple of days sooner, it might have been a different story (see what I did there?).

Voting is now open. Some really amazing stories.