Part I
Rune
My boots sink into the wet earth as I try not to think about the blood that covers its surface. How many people have died here? I wonder about the women and children who took their last screaming breath right here on this crimson-covered ground. Like great stones around my neck, the thoughts weigh heavy on my shoulders.
This wasn’t what we set out to do.
A whir of gears grinds out behind me, followed by the clomp of steel boots sloshing through the muck this place is made of. I know it’s Jex—I don’t even bother to turn—he’s the last of my Sentinel I trust.
“Sir?” he calls out.
I hesitate for a brief moment before I turn to him, giving one last glance over the mess of human carnage. I’ll remind myself of the vision later, when I’m alone.
Jex stands a few paces behind me, his armor scraped and blackened, in some places cracked and caked with dried blood. Tarnished and dented. I’ve never seen him look so savage, his armor usually polished to a silvery glow. I wonder if it will ever get to return to its former glory.
By the looks of this world now, it’s highly doubtful.
“None of this was supposed to happen,” I growl. Anger heats my own armor. White noise pounds through my brain. “Are there any left alive?” I ask. I know the answer already. It’s the same as always.
“No.” He tilts his head to the side, listening to something in the far distance. “Sir, we need to find shelter, someplace safe.”
“Someplace safe,” I chuckle darkly. “I’m beginning to believe that’s an impossibility.”
In the distance, up ahead I hear movement, the bustling of excitement—the drone of gears—a screeching that slices out across the twilit sky. I stand and face the sounds, on the sharp edge of existence, waiting to watch the world fall apart.
Heat flows through my veins, deep under the metal of my armor. A sharp sense of urgency builds up inside me—I can feel them out there strategizing, readying for attack. I don’t know when it started—when the struggle of power began—but I have lived long enough to know what will happen and how it all will end.
It isn’t what I set out to do.
When I turn, Jex is gone and the noise of spinning gears is closing in.
We had lasted for a few generations, united. Until, one generation after the other fell like rain, flooding us with fear and uncertainty.
We came here for hope.
We came here for need.
None of us would have ever guessed our downfall would be caused by a woman.
