- Joined
- Feb 7, 2006
- Messages
- 4,028
- Age
- 30
Capital G
I pushed a button and elected him to office and,
He pushed the button and dropped the bomb
You pushed the button and could watch it on the television
Those motherf*ckers didn't last too long,
I'm sick of hearing about the have's and the have not's.
Have some personal accountability.
The biggest problem with the way that we've been doing things is
The more we let you have the less that I'll be keeping for me.
The world was ending.
I pushed a button and elected him to office and,
He pushed the button and dropped the bomb
You pushed the button and could watch it on the television
Those motherf*ckers didn't last too long,
I'm sick of hearing about the have's and the have not's.
Have some personal accountability.
The biggest problem with the way that we've been doing things is
The more we let you have the less that I'll be keeping for me.
The world was ending.
That’s what all the broadcasts said, anyways. Even without every synthetic personality out there wailing about the bombs on England or the total atomic obliteration of Soviet Russia, it was pretty easy to see. Ever since Monday the sky’s been this really odd tint of red, where if you look one way you’ll see nothing but pink and if you tilt your head to the left a bit, you’ll get crimson. Something about the radiation in the atmosphere scattering light differently than oxygen. It’s creepy, too, since all the Abrahams are painted gray in total contrast to the backdrop of the sky. Makes them impossible to miss, passing over the cities on their daily patrol. I don’t really understand why we need a patrol ourselves, it’s not like there’s any invading forces or anything marching the streets. It’s our war, anyways. My dad was drafted a few months ago, like most people in the country, so he got the pleasure of seeing the battles up close. Every time he’d write home, he’d always say the fight was going well. That we were on top of things. The UK had our back, and The United Front of the People’s South Africa was a wasteland. We were the biggest force in the world, and we weren’t afraid to show it.
And then, last week, the sky was red. Like blood, if you’re aiming for cliché induced terrors. Korea grew rambunctious overnight, and they managed to gather up the most powerful weapons human kind could muster, and the rest of the civilized, hate driven world followed suit. And that was the end of our supremacy. All around the world our camps were blown to bits by SA-Ms, and all across the atmosphere, satellites began to plummet out of orbit. Worldwide communication fell apart in days, as organized terrorist strikes around the world brought every radio station and tower down to its knees. Telephone lines were cut, and most foreign radio personal were butchered in public squares, effectively bringing the age of communication to an end. We were all alone now, all alone in the dark as around the world people’s hearts grew just as dark as our television screens.
And yet life kept on going inside the country. Crowds kept bustling down the streets, cars still stood still in traffic, and people still got up on stages and sung. It’s just, now, we all did it while the Abraham floated over our heads. And all the while, I couldn’t help but wonder why they were here, watching us, instead of off saving our soldiers. Maybe it didn’t matter.
After all, the world was ending.
Sera was late that day. So were most other people. The Abraham that went down apparently knocked out a number of roads, probably a few houses, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the people who didn’t show up that morning would never come back again. I was amazed I even managed to push myself to school. The barricades and soldiers on every street corner seemed to imply some kind of quarantine. Almost as if nothing beyond that point was natural, nothing past there was anything worth keeping safe. If it weren’t for Sera, I probably never would’ve shown up at all. All through class, after all of the pro war speeches and the anti semantic ravings, I couldn’t keep my mind off her. So why I ended up in a tight storage closet with an upperclassman after classes had let out will always remain a mystery. I didn’t even know her name.
Her voice was soft and playful, and her eyes glistened with naive lust. I can’t help but think mine did too. Her breasts were warm against my chest, the first time I’d ever felt naked skin against my own. Ever since the war began cotton had been embargoed and rationed. Few people had the money to afford jackets or other luxuries, let alone bras. And so she clung to me, bare and almost entirely innocent. Even when our lips touched, though, even when I was up against the wall, leaning over her, I couldn’t help but think of Sera.
Almost an hour later, both of us exhausted, we dressed and wandered outside, eventually settling against the walls. She sighed and leaned on me, wrapping her thin arms around my torso. “My parents always said I shouldn’t do it until I was older. You’ve made me a bad girl, you know.” She slid her lips onto my throat and began to suck. As captivated as I was, I felt sick to my stomach.
“We should go back. I mean, the sky, look, its turning yellow. There’re Abrahams coming.” I muttered, watching her seductive approaches from the side of my eye.
“So? They’re ours, aren’t they?” She murmured, as she drew her lips away to breathe. “They wouldn’t hurt their people.”
I stared at her, and then back up at the yellow bleached air. She was probably right. I’d never seen an Abraham land before. I actually had no idea what the intents of their pilots were. It was just so hard to pass off something so menacing as an ally that I never really bothered to wonder what their real purpose was.
In the distant, a terrible sound began to brew, and from beyond the streak of golden green clouds where the sun barely pushed though, a sleek black and gray pod slid out into the afternoon sky. One of the countless time bombs orbiting our country. There were no indents or details on the exterior of the war machine; it was simply an elongated oval, pushed foreword, ever foreword to wars not yet complete, by the hand of God. I had no idea what it was carrying, and I didn’t know anyone who had ever seen the interior of one either. I’d never actually heard of one landing in Civilian ground space before. All I knew was that whatever was inside of those giant ovals was responsible for the end of the world.
Sirens buzzed and searchlights flicked to life, sweeping across the barren earth. One landed on me and the girl, but it was gone a second later. For a machine that preys on its fallen enemies, its allies were useless. We were less than trash to that and whatever lurked inside of it.
“See? We’re its friends, right? It wouldn’t hurt us.” The girl said. Her voice was steady, but her hand inside mine was trembling. A weak smile flashed upon her face, but it was as unsteady as her hand.
“We’re not its friends.” I replied. I didn’t know what to think, honestly, but I knew for a fact that the ship circling above us didn’t care if we lived or died.
The oval halted in mid air and hung there, a hundred thousand searchlights blaring from its sides, scouring the city and everything in it. Then, the ship screamed. It started as a low rumble and grew more and more certain of itself, until eventually it was a deafening roar stretching on for miles. Birds fluttered up from their roosts in panic, and nature itself seemed to shudder in fear at the iron abomination.
“What’s it doing?” She asked slowly.
“I…don’t know.” I replied. I was used to knowing everything about the military, because of my dad’s involvement, but this was new to me. The searchlights circling the ship like a flock of vultures, and its echoing roar. What the hell was it doing?
And then, in an instant, every one of its lights focused on a single point, off into the murky green abyss. Its roar reached its pinnacle, and then faded below our limit of recognition. The ground began to quiver and shake as its frequency meshed with the scream of the ship, and the earth began to crack and split. The girl screamed and wrapped her arms around me. Her whole body was shaking now, although everything else around us was too. Maybe it was a sign, and maybe I should’ve been afraid of whatever was coming, but instead I was nothing but curious. Had dad hid this from me? Did he even know about the ship’s erratic behavior? Was it even erratic?
And then, in the focus of the war machine’s countless spotlights, a fighter jet was spit out from the clouds. It moved jarringly, shuddering as it flew. It was an older model, its wings clipped by time and its hull rusting away, but it held itself together somehow, and it was charging directly at the ship. A dozen jets flew behind it in formation, pushing through the clouds with willpower alone.
And then I understood. The ship’s scream had been a challenge.
The ships hurtled forward, and a volley of missiles was let loose, hurled at the gigantic elliptical ship. The outward blast of flame and force dispelled the greenish haze, and for the first time we could see what lay beyond them. An entire fleet of jets and helicopters and countless other vehicles of destruction lumbered in the distance, hanging from the sky patiently, waiting for the retaliatory strike from our gigantic defender. I grimaced slightly as I realized that we were the demons on the other side of the frontlines to the pilots approaching. Just like they were to us, an endless, faceless lot of bastards trying to steal our lives from us. It was all so stupid.
The missiles never made contact with the ship. They were pushed aside by the war machine’s barrier, a condensed wall of air gathered about the exterior of the behemoth. It was technically referred to as the ship’s force field, but that just sounded so synthetic, so in my mind, it was simply a wall. Forced aside, the missiles sputtered to the ground at least half a mile north of us, exploding in a belch of flame and the smell of burnt flesh. The pilots payed no attention and circled around for another shot, this time shooting from every conceivable angle. There was no blind spot in this wave. It was a perfectly composed assault from which there was no escape.
A shrill cry came from the war ship, and its shining silver surface began to tremble and ripple in response to the attack. The steel peeled back and a tendril shot outward, streaking across the midday sky and cleaving the missiles and ships in half. It screamed once again in triumph, then recoiled its tentacle and began the slow drift back to the remainder of the fleet. I had no doubt that it would tear them to shreds. My curiosity was gone, and a slow creeping sickness was welling up inside my stomach. I knew that we would be fine, the ship would never let the enemy touch us, but what it had done and what it would do was reason enough for my horror.
One of the downed ships stumbled to the nearby earth, where it skidded across the broken ground, coming to a halt barely over a hundred feet from us. It lay there for a moment, smoking and steaming, before the blackened glass slid backward with a hiss. From inside the void a gloved hand reached out, streaked with blood, skin boiling and melting away. It clung to the side of the jet for a moment, then began to sizzle, and slid back into the cockpit. The girl next to me clung to my sleeve, whimpering slightly. I wondered what she thought was inside that cockpit, what she thought the enemy actually was.
"Don't worry," I whispered to her, then began towards the corpse of the ship, and towards the doomed pilot. I wasn't entirely sure who it was behind the oxygen mask myself, but I was more than willing to find out.
The world is ending, and it might just be the government's fault. Original, huh? C&C, please.
~Dorian Gray
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