What is death? Rather, what does it mean to truly die? Some believe that you simply cease to exist, while others believe there is an afterlife that rewards those who live like meek sheep.
I have always wondered how to answer such a complex yet obvious question; however, the meaning has eluded me for the longest time. Here in this realm of shadows, I have a thought I would like to share.
To some, Death is no more than an alleged promise of eternity proclaimed by various religious factions. To others, a shadow that stalks us from our first breath till our last movement.
To some scholars, it's the unraveling of threads that weave together our existence, the silence that follows the final heartbeat, and the final sliver of peace to those in extreme agony.
Death is the truth that no one usually wants to hear. But to me, death is the crystallization of life itself, and the ultimate ending of all stories.
...…
The blood moon scatters its crimson light across the battleground of the dead. Pain ricochets, violence converges, and despair shelters the screams of sorrow and agony, without a sign of peace or asylum in sight.
War shells rattled through the air as they eventually landed, exuding thunderous sounds and starlight, like a firework show depicting some great celebration. The only difference being that this show was accompanied by tens of monsters dying with every flash of light and crack of sound, as well as hundreds of humans dying for every dozen monsters killed.
A single voice, choked in anguish and misery, gently murmured. A figure clad in blood, human body tissue, and organs could be seen trying to form words in the midst of the trees and the sullen darkness of the forest.
"Blood."
"It's everywhere… It sickens me."
"All my comrades are dead. But I alone, the weakest and most useless member of my unit, am still alive."
"Why? Why does it always have to be this way? Why must I always lose all I hold dear? Why am I always too weak to defend myself and those who choose to surround me?"
Upon close inspection, one could see the person who spoke these words. He wore a military uniform colored brown with pristine camo patterns. He had rough obsidian hair, light silky skin, and deep brown eyes. The figure was covered almost completely in blood and gore, but seemed totally unharmed.
His facial features portrayed a boy who had never seen the face of war. But looks, as everyone should know, can be deceiving.
As this young man knelt in a pit created by one of those war shells. A pit filled with the blood of those who fell in battle.
He could remember it, all of it. All that had transpired in this dark, cold warzone.
_ _ _ _ _
ADAC – MILITARY DOCKS
ALEUTIAN ISLANDS COMMAND ZONE, ALASKA
ONE HOUR EARLIER
The water was calm. the kind of unnerving calm that never accompanies anything good. The calm before the storm, you could say.
A crackle of static interrupted the low drone of wind over the steel fortress.
{Inbound transmission — Tier-3 priority}
"This is Captain Raas of Forward Watch, Unalaska. We've got movement. I repeat, we have confirmed Veil disruption. Spire signature is forming off the southern quadrant of the island, approximately five klicks off the coast. No civilian visuals yet, it seems like the evacuation was successful. The energy profile is highly anomalous. Reading six, maybe even seven spires forming."
The voice sounded tight. Controlled, but just barely. Clearly showing the captain's ability to keep a cool head under pressure.
"Something's pushing through. No wait, we have breach activity, I repeat: we have breach activity. Estimated size... each spire is at least thirty meters in length and expanding. The Veil's membrane is buckling like it's being torn from the outside. We've marked a full shift in local gravity around the epicenter. This is real. This is happening. They're coming through. A calamity class disaster."
{End Transmission}
The transmission ended with a pulse of static which permeated the bones of all who heard it.
No one spoke for a moment. Just the sound of boots grinding on frostbitten concrete, and hands jittering in the cold air of American winters.
The officer nearest to the receiver turned, face pale under the dim red light of the moon.
"They've opened another one. Right off Unalaska." He said while also buckling in fear.
Just as the moon began to show itself. Without warning, the fragile illusion of order shattered. And a new one of chaos and madness was about to begin.
Outside, the sky was still whole. But they knew in their hearts what was about to happen.
A lot of people were going to die that night.
The military base was gripped by fear, but as soldiers of the United States of America, they knew exactly what they had to do. The commander of the military base stepped up, raising his voice in a manner to rally his troops.
"Gear up and prep for mobilization. We move in ten mikes. Get the word out. I want everyone kitted and ready. No stragglers."
Colonel Ivan's voice rang through the steel chamber with the tact of a leader. His dark obsidian cloak snapped behind him as he turned on his boots. The aura alone that emanated from this man left no room for question.
The hangar exploded into motion, and the troopers surged to life.
Lockers and Cellars grunted open. Rows upon rows of pulse rifles could be seen in pristine condition, as if they had never been used. Gloves were slapped on forearms, reinforced breastplates clicked into place over skintight synthetic body armor.
Helmets were worn, and the halo HUDs lit, showing neural syncs were initialized through the form of floating light halos on their heads.
The great men and women were now ready to serve their country to their last breath.
The air smelled of ozone, oil, rust, and fear. Some dumb people were confident of making it back through skill alone, others were not so sure, but many knew this would be their last day serving.
Overhead, a fleet of carrier aircraft, sleek and shaped like godly birds, hovered in landing formation. Ready and willing to carry the battalions of soldiers to their final resting place.
Unit 68 was already on the move. Seven soldiers with pulse rifles in hand, and heavy kits loaded on their backs, sat in an aircraft carrier on its way to Unalaska.
The insignia of their squad, a shattered eye that bled black blood, burning in cold white flames, rested on their right pauldrons.
_ _ _
Lloyd sat in silence inside the deployment hatch, the interior glowing with dull red light from the crimson blood moon.
He kept one hand on his chest plate, like he wasn't sure it was actually there. His heart was beating uncontrollably, his breath unstable and erratic behind the reflective visor that hid his face.
One thing was for sure, he definitely wasn't shaking from the cold.
Once a spire appeared, the entire region it attacked would be isolated from the outside world by an invisible barrier that disrupted external communications but allowed internal communications. It was similar to being stranded in shark-infested waters without being able to call anyone but your buddy, who also happened to be trapped with you. This made it impossible to request any help through the regular com lines.
All they could do now was send out a squad to the outside world to inform them of the calamity about to befall them. Unlucky for Lloyd, he was on the fighting squad. Not the running squad.
Across from him, Colt adjusted his gauntlets while throwing a glance at Lloyd.
"Hey." Colt's voice broke the silence, and Lloyd looked back at him.
Colt nodded once, and said words of affirmation to Lloyd.
"We hit hard, we hold fast, we get back. Follow the three w's, and you will walk out of this alive. Trust your training, trust us."
Lloyd wanted to answer, but wasn't able to form the words. In the world that he lived in, every single human being had some kind of special ability called a complex. Using such amazing power, it wasn't hard to understand their confidence. But for some reason, perhaps the gods didn't like him in any way, he was the only person who didn't have one.
If the probability of everyone else surviving in this world was already small, his odds were next to zero.
_ _ _ _ _
UNALASKA—COMBAT ZONE.
GROUND STRIKE INICIATED.
The entire coastline of Unalaska was covered in an intense inferno and thick smoke, which temporarily blocked out the light from the red moon. Pillars of black stretched into the sky, menacingly bursting from the ground like bloody bamboo shoots.
The streaks of fire that burned the terrain served as their source of light for a moment, further disheartening the soldiers. The sky was blocked by smoke, and the ground was scorched in ways that made the previously harsh snowy land almost feel like a distant paradise.
From the windows of the carrier aircraft, Lloyd could easily make out the visuals of the blood-wrenching spires that shot out of the ground. Grand and great structures that held the keys to damnation, and released all sorts of hells whenever they appeared.
There were dark pillars standing like grand monuments of calamity. Seven colossal spires pierced through the scorched earth, each rising over sixty meters tall, their silhouettes painted the flaming ground, and dwarfed hundreds of trees.
Across their ancient hides, sprawled grotesque carvings, scenes of torment, decay, and impossible anatomy etched deep into the stone as if chiseled onto them by the devil himself.
Each spire had doors of alabaster swung open, and creatures of unimaginable builds and flaming bodies rushed out of them like lava from an active volcano. Their very presence changing the aura in the air.
But even these small calamities couldn't compare to the absolute unit of an entity that was about to make its way out of the alabaster gates of the spire in the very middle. A beast beyond basic description was emerging from the gates.
Reaching out its putrid hands to take hold of the gates, it propelled its morbid body through the seemingly small cavity which was the gate of the spire. These gates were by no means small, but it made them seem that way. It looked like a cluster of flaming corpses, almost as tall as the spires were long, barely making it out of the spire.
Its head could be understood in some way. After all, it simply looked like a human head which had black, rotten veins, with a jaw that had no muscles or skin, just bones, and black eyes with orange pupils which had strange, ancient glyphs carved on them.
But its body? Its body was ludicrous, dreadful, and gave off the stench of death. Almost like it was inviting them to come face their doom. A huge corpse monster made of the sewn-together corpses of the tiny monsters that came from the gate.
On the aircraft carrier above, Lloyd and the other members of unit 68 could see the monsters they were about to engage in battle.
At this point, all units had one thought in mind, including the cocky bastards who assured themselves of their own lives. "How many of us would survive this?"
As if meant to distract them, a light beeping sound resounded in all their ears, suddenly bringing them back to reality.
{incoming transmission from Colonel Ivan.}
A call came in from the colonel; it was time to receive their orders. Colonel Ivan spoke, and they listened.
"Although the previous transmission from Captain Rass conveyed that the evacuation attempt was successful… he was wrong. Approximately 5 klicks from here, there are still some civilians who have yet to evacuate. Our job is to hold as the first line of defense until the people are evacuated, and either a hero or Seeker comes to help. The intel runners have already been dispatched. Intelligence says we only need to hold them for at least twenty minutes."
His voice halted with a small pause and then continued.
"For over a millennium now, Humanity has been plagued by the obscene parasites from the Umbra lumen that come to our realm for reasons unknown to us. They destroyed our civilization and killed our young without the slightest showing of remorse. If not for the advent of the great hero, Clavis Lockward, we would have gone extinct by now. But because of his veil, we survived."
The commander suddenly raised his voice.
"Today, we make our stand once again against the demons that plague our utopia. And so I say to you, my soldiers. Offer your hearts, your flesh, your blood, your souls, and your names. Dive with me to your doom, my soldiers, and protect the weak with the fury of your final moments. Dive my soldiers, DIVE!"
And so, the siege against the spires had begun. Thousands of soldiers rained from the aircrafts, like angels of war sent down to slay the demonic pestilence that had invaded their lands. Their halo HUDs were glowing with photons that danced like particles of prophecy above their heads.
…
Before Unit 68 could make it out of the aircraft carrier, a huge heavy artillery tank was swung at them by the gigantic corpse amalgamation that stood amongst the smaller ones. The force of the impact caused one of the carrier's thrusters to explode. This, in turn, caused it to stray off course. Unit 68 was originally stationed for the middle ring, but now, they were heading straight to the frontline.
After the throw from the corpse giant, it just stood there, motionless, watching the carrier fall to the frontlines. No follow-up attack of any kind, no nothing. It had a deep look of satisfaction in its eyes. As if it had completed what it set out to do.
Without paying any mind to the puny humans falling from the sky, it set its back to the soldiers and walked back to the middle spire, forcing its way through. And just like that, it was gone as quickly as it appeared.
Originally, Unit 68 was stationed in the middle ring of the war. But now, they were heading for the frontlines. An unexpected development, but they had to deal with it regardless.
The emergency sirens glowed with red light and rang with sounds of urgency. If they didn't get out of the aircraft soon, they would go down with it.
Colt snarled, gripping a support beam as sparks and small explosions manifested from the carrier.
"VERITY is going down; the main hatch is damaged. Prepare for an emergency drop."
"Once we touch down, we make a beeline for the Middle ring. Stay tight, and stay low. We do not engage unless we have to."
Using his complex, Colt extended his right arm and manifested a blade of light and heat from it. The blade sliced through the reinforced metal like butter, making a hole in the carrier large enough for everyone to pass through.
"Dive!" Colt exclaimed.
All the members of Unit 68 acknowledged his words and jumped out of the carrier.
One by one, like white comets, they dove from the burning aircraft, steering their thrusters to follow Colt's lead.