You Won’t Need This

(a short story)

The air in the blue-block waxed thicker with the scent of serenity. The heaviness of it was almost suffocating. My hands busily scrawled away at a leaf of parchment, using a strange carbon-tool I’d found some time ago.

There was something eating at me. Sleeping underneath the mist of the blue-block was something strange, old, powerful—lying unseen. Many times, did I try to tell my brothers that I had sensed something. But their responses were always much the same.

“Do not think. It is not ours to think. Do not feel. It is not ours to feel.”

But something still ate at me, gnawing to the bone. When I slept it gnawed. When I hunted it gnawed. It pulled and twisted me. It was alien, it was unspeakable. It was taking control from me. Altering me in some subtle manner. Nor I or my brothers were tacticians. We are adaptive, instinctive. We do not have intuition. And so, they could not see it. And so, I could not see it. But I was fighting it. I searched systematically for a weak-point, thoroughly did I trace the paths of guidance gifted unto us. The words of the aged ones rang in my ears, chiding my slowness.

“Nothing is without disadvantage.”

With no way to tell my brothers of such an enemy or weapon, there was little they could do. So, I would fight it. The carbon-tool, the parchment were my weapons. With them, I could show my brothers that I sensed something.

As I grew distracted from my task, the mist settled more heavily, dulling my mind.

“There was something…”The carbon-tool no longer scratched along the parchment. Its crude markings were still and cold, for the strokes that brought growth had faded. “Something important…”

Struggling against my slipping eyelids, I gazed at the markings before me. A dark ugly blot took up the majority of the space. It was surrounded by eyes and pierced through with a thin, gangly stalk. Unformed wings scraped from out the flesh of the stalk.

Suddenly, the leaf vanished from my fingers—shocking my senses into alertness.

As I breached the surface of the mist-lake, all at once the many complicated smells of the masters filled my nostrils. My spine straightened instantly, my eyes taking in the commanding aura of Greyall; a master deeply respected by the aged ones. Ornate armor decorated his chest and shoulders, indicating his unquestionable superiority among even the masters.

“What is this Mel-8?” he growled, looking over the parchment, anger flushing blood through his expression.

I bowed my head. “It is not ours to know, Greyall.”

He started walking away with the parchment in hand, farther down the blue-block. “You won’t need anything like this.”

Greyall continued, but his words I did not hear. For the world darkened, the mist turning my limbs and eyelids to lead. This was not sleep, but peace. Time was burdensome, a heavy-handed dictation from the Gods. The masters were benevolent, accepting such a weight from us. As my brothers and I fell down into the mist-lake—into peace—we knew it would not be long.

In what could only have been seconds, Pyork’s God-Spear cut down through the murky waters, spilling light into me; into all of us. My irises spasmed, straining to protect my vision as they rejected the sudden brightness. Man, woman, child, soil, blood, steel, fuel, shit, fire, piss, fear, rage, and the unmistakable scent of my brothers filled the air. Each was a trail. But a simple path for me to follow after. Each and any of them could lead me to prey. I could smell the hunger of my brothers, crowding the lowering steel gates of our airborne transport. For this was the Hunt. The aged ones began the adage.

 “The masters, humble servants of the Gods.

We, vicious children of the masters.

The world is sinful, unfit for the Gods.

Ours is the sacred duty.

To Hunt the Gods’ enemies.”

“No greater glory awaits us,” the aged ones declared in unison, with finality.

My brothers and I followed their lead, burning with the fire of our building rage. “NO GREATER GLORY AWAITS US!” We bellowed in unison.

The gates of our airborne transport then fully lowered onto a rocky outcropping with a metallic crash—as the last word of the chant slipped from our tongues. Once more, our purpose was clear. Those who rejected the Gods, the spurned. Sacrilege. They had soiled the divine privilege of life with sin. My hands itched for their throats, their viscera, remembering. The flowing, the cracking, the snapping, the twitching, the gushing, the ripping, the popping; they remembered it all.

Slavering like vicious, rabid hounds, my brothers and I broke from the transport. Bolting along the trails of scent, we were led through a pitifully simple jungle to the entrance of a buried steel complex. Some of my brothers sprinted on their hindlimbs, some of them bounding forward on all fours. Death, the smell of brave men’s fear slammed us against the gates. We beat our fists against the metal in fury, tearing apart the hinges and bolts with bare fingers and claws. Like water and ice did we spill into the cracks of their defenses to pry them loose. The sound of mechanical whirring and hydraulic hissing sounded out above our heads.

Almost as quickly as the heavy-caliber auto-turret had deployed, a stalwart few of my eager brothers leapt upon it. Yet, they lacked the might to disable it at once. Every shot was as deafening as the one before it, being so close. What few brothers of mine had yet to reach the gate met a swift end, rending apart in frothy swirls of red. As the turret swiveled around to face the threats pounding down the gates it was assigned to defend, its heavily guarded electronics were finally reached by the digging, furious hands of my brothers.

With an electrostatic fizzle and a plume of smoke, the turret briefly froze, then fired a few rounds at the left side of the gate a few times before stopping. What brothers of mine had been in the way were reduced to swathes of exposed bone and mangled flesh. Wasting no time, my brothers rushed through the gap. Yellow flashes lashed out at us through the darkness, illuminating the barricaded hall, showing us the far-off whites of terrified eyes with each crack of a rifle.

Undaunted by the metal shards piercing our limbs, my brothers and I advanced forward. More than a few of us received projectiles to the brain or to the last of our necessary organs and dropped lifelessly into the gloom. The barricades were overturned in a tide of flesh and bone. I was the first over, far faster than the rest of my brothers. My hands gripped both shoulders of the first weakling they could. Without sight, there was no way to tell. But it was as if I were ripping parchment down the middle. To have come so far in so little time, our own rituals were more dangerous and challenging than this.

But this was the Hunt. My brothers fell upon the others, stimulated by the scents of battle and dying prey. Blood boiled ours brains into a frenzy. Our muscles twitched and contracted violently.

Rage grew within us, red grew within us. Rage was ours to know, crimson was ours to know. Rage was ours to feel, blood was ours to feel. Rage was our sacred right, blood, our baptism.

A storm, our voices howled into the darkness. Our rage was lightning in our veins. Our blows were thunder, and our feet the torrential downpour. My brothers and I were a flood, spilling into the cracks and crevices where the spurned lie. Like the current of a vicious rising river, we dashed their bodies against rocks and walls, drowning their unholy breeding-ground. Down the dark halls I ran after warmth, my body aflame with rage. But as rage burned, something changed. Scents of water and life-giving soil, small animals and insects. I burst out into a blinding surrounding, before me was quarry.

A multitude of spurned, escaping on sky-transports. Huddled in a writhing mass, shrieking and screaming as I approached. Their wails grated against my brain, scratching at something underneath.

Then it all stopped. Everything.

My fingers and limbs twitched in anticipation, searing me to push forward. Something greater than my rage, greater than my holiest duty, surfaced. My body slowly stilled. The spurned mass, squirming with fear, screeched at the transports disappearing into the sky. Shaking myself free of the feeling, I returned my rage. With fire in my limbs, I effortlessly cut my way through the defenseless.

It wasn’t long before the wailing stopped. My hands and body were soaked, dripping with the intoxicating scent of blood.

The markings from the parchment came to me, in that moment. I had never seen anything like it. It was seeping into me. Feverishly I strove to rip it out. Ripping and tearing, spilling purposefully the contents of the eviscerated corpses around—I worked and worked and worked until my brothers found me.

Some were panting and drooling like spent beasts, some dragging limbs from wounds. Many of our brothers did not return. They had fulfilled their duty to the Gods. Cryl, the oldest of the aged ones, slowly approached me. “Mel-8, I have warned you of this.”

“It was inside of me, aged one,” I declared, a great weight lifted off my shoulders. At last, one of my brothers would see it as well. “What is it?”

Cryl stepped away, unwilling to give attention to the matter. “The masters will see this. They will understand it.”

Our rage dwindled with the fall of the skyflame. When the air reached near the color of running blood, the masters returned with transports. Emerging from beneath his steel wings, Greyall was approached by the aged one who had accosted me. “Master Greyall, there is something you need to see.”

Slowly did he walk alongside the aged one and come to witness what it was I had done. For a long while he stared, his brow furrowed in deep thought. The veins along his skull pulsated with understanding, and at once his face lit up. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Hungry to understand the matter myself, I fell to my knees in respect. “Tell me, Master Greyall.”

“Did you do this Mel-8?” He turned to me, his reflective armor-plating glinting darkly in the fading light of dusk.

“I did, Master Greyall. I keep sensing something. It is powerful. Powerful enough to overcome our rage.” I said, recalling the time I’d briefly lost sight of my holy duty.

He began to laugh—one of the strange gestures of the masters. It indicated pleasure. His body shook and convulsed over and over again as he gasped for breath. “THAT, is stronger than your rage?!” he roared, bearing his teeth in joy.

He interrupted his words with more violent laughing. “I’d be furious if this weren’t painted with the blood of spurned! But it’s just so… beautiful. I can’t help myself.”

He interlocked his fingers in prayer to the many Gods, one of the most sacred gestures possessed by the masters. My brothers and I immediately mimicked his movements; only the severely wounded did not raise their hands and bend their knees to the ground.

“Praise the Gods, for they have truly granted us a wondrous, sinful world to live in. A world where our divine hunters can make sincere, cherishable works of holy art. Bless their power and creativity.”

Laughing once more, he turned around and began walking back to the steel wings. “Generation 8’s, huh… Hunters, tear Mel-8 apart. Our Gods have no need for a berserker who paints flowers.” Obedience.

Like trained animals, my brothers focused their attention at me. Their crimson eyes smoldered, stimulating my instincts.

It was the most grim of our rituals, when a brother is declared a target of the Hunt. All enemies of the Gods and masters are spurned. But a hunter will fight until his claws are no more. When his claws are no more, he will fight with his limbs. When his limbs are no more, he will fight with his fangs. When his fangs are no more, he will fight with his bones. When his bones are no more, he will fight with his worms.

It would be my brothers’ sacred duty to return my body to the Gods.

“We have never known fear nor pain. They were not ours to know.” We chanted in unison, solemnly.

 Those divine warriors, gifted with rage, kicked off the ground, infinitely hungry for the wrath burning within me. Just like all those who came before, I would not lay down my life. With rage surging through my veins, an earth-shaking bellow loosed from my jaw.

My brothers answered my cry, howling their unfaltering obedience to the Gods. Once more were we a storm. Our limbs were raging waves, crashing against one another. My claws tore through Lurr-2, one of my over-eager brothers. He had always been too competitive. His body was pulled underneath the flood, another raving hunter leapt over him. Launching myself forward, I met Brunn-6’s fiery eyes with a knee, a thunderclap crunching his head in twine.

Lunging from all fours, Ormik-8 smashed his skull into my chest, forcing the wind from my lungs. His iron grip pinned me down as we crashed to the ground. Locking him in with my heels, I brought my elbows to his spine, sending lightning into his brain. With a spasm, his legs stopped bracing against the ground beneath us. A swarm of claws and fangs descended upon me like night, pushing ever close to the end our holiest ritual.

As my flesh was parted from all that granted it warmth, I could only scream.