There they came. Like a tidal wave they flowed towards us, shrouded in shadows and darkness. It made for an absolute eerie sight.

As they reached the distance where normally our artillery would fire, they stopped. I saw it in my teammates eyes, some of them had hoped for an explosion, but nothing happened.

A loud shout could be heard. The enemy’s ranks parted, letting the reapers slowly float out of their ranks. It felt like they wanted to mock us; they had all the time of the world. We could not stop them. Hovering in front of their army, they called out their war scythes from the void. Then in unison they screeched before they took to the skies, flying in our direction.

Now the Moment of revelation had come. Would we stand strong or fall?

Aiming my rifle at the incoming reapers, I breathed out slowly. Now the fun began.

“Fire!”

Same as yesterday we peppered them with bullets, but this time no sniper fire came. I adjusted my possible strategies. We would have to fend them off alone.

Bang!

One reaper got his skull pierced by a sniper bullet and fell from the sky.

Some were still alive. But they were too few. They could not protect us from the reapers.

Singer realized that too and immediately ordered us to retreat into the bunkers. We could defend the doors with our shotgun-armaments with armor piercing shells and the machine gun that was already set up in the bunker. Its larger ammunition ripped right through their armor.

We pushed some crates into the open door but left an opening to give them an obvious way of attack. Even though that seemed dangerous at first glance it also gave us a clear path to aim at. It would prevent them from trying to get creative and attack us from a side we wouldn’t expect.

I was still in the motion of taking aim when the first reaper suddenly appeared in our field of vision. My body reacted instantly, pulling the trigger. I hit the beast frontally into its chest. At the same time my comrades also fired, riddling it with bullets.

The next ten minutes turned into a harrowing horror movie. We stood in the twilight, shooting at the attacking enemy with everything we had. Yet, they overwhelmed us at the beginning. One of the other group got his hands amputated by a down cutting war-scythe and another one got cut in half before we got the situation under control.

Then it ended. No monsters tried to barge in anymore. We waited another twenty seconds while hearing the whimpering of our soon to be former comrades. We couldn’t help them. If more soldiers stopped targeting the entrance, the next reaper would massacre us all.

Nothing happened. The medics followed Singer's hand-sign and lowered their weapons. They made their way quickly to the injured people. A sea of blood had formed around the hand-less soldier. There were no live signs anymore. Ken, the medic, looked back and only shook his head before proceeding to the next one.

Having gotten the confirmation, Singer shortly closed his eyes before opening them again. He gave new orders, mourning the dead could be done later.

“Tolson, Brody, check on the situation outside, we will cover you and follow if you deem it safe!”

“Sure, boss.”

They immediately walked towards the door, gun at the ready. Checking the area around the entrance, they slowly proceeded forward. They didn’t find a threat and signaled us it was safe.

“Okay guys, now it is our turn! Andrew and Mat, you take point. Afterward the others follow in pairs, cover each other!”

“Copy that!”

I gripped my rifle firmer and proceeded with Mat to the entrance. Walking through it, I checked our immediate surroundings.

Mat walked to my right. Everything looked- I grabbed Mat by the shoulder and pulled him back as fast as I could. Not half a second later a war-sythe slashed through the space he had been. The shadowy figure of the reaper followed. We were too close. My left arm proceeded, pulling Mat further out of the way, while my right arm adjusted my weapon, unloading a high-caliber-round right into its torso.

It didn’t so much as flinch. My forceful pull had thrown Mat behind me, leaving me to face the reaper alone. The soldiers in front of us yet to react to what had happened behind them.

Its second slash came instantly. I knew I was too slow to move out of the way. I had to block it. Yet my weapon would not hold. My mind spun into overdrive. I changed the angle of the rifle, using it as a ramp to change the trajectory of the incoming scythe, missing me. It still cut diagonally through my weapon but that was okay. Not stopping I moved further into the reaper’s space. Before it could reverse its swing I thrusted the rest of my weapon upward.

Stolen novel; please report.

It stood slightly forward and above me, opening its throat to my improvised spear. Normally I had no chance to pierce its armor but it provided me so readily with an opportunity. My weapon slipped between its plates burring itself in it’s neck. Not waiting any longer I rolled out of the way, getting distance between me and the now trashing reaper.

My sidearm flew automatically into my hand as I came up. I turned to the now downed reaper. Getting greeted by my big eyed mates who had planned to support me.

Not paying them any attention I scanned the surroundings. No threads detected.

“Got anyone another rifle? Mine had a slight accident.” My mates were still in shock, only Singer got himself out of gawking quick enough.

“Sure lad. Catch!” He threw me his own rifle before tacking one of the additional weapons in the bunker. “Great move there, Andrew! Boys, stop starring and do your job! A trench needs to be manned! Don’t relax soldiers, the main army will attack shortly, prepare for engagement!”

Singer pointed us towards our assigned positions. I set up everything, so I would be able to shoot as quickly as possible and waited.

I didn’t understand our enemy. The Darkons could act misleading and were capable of using insidious plots. So why did they wait now?

It reminded me about how it had all begun. We made the first contact with them in a research laboratory in the year 2061. The scientists were doing experiments with space itself, when they somehow formed a small portal to somewhere else.

It didn’t take long until the first of the Darkons had stepped through. It was clad in a black robe, having very pale skin and black eyes. It looked quite evil. But against our better judgment, it seemed to have no ill intentions. It said that its name was Andors, he was a member of a merchant race that traded with other worlds. Andors wanted to build a profitable relationship with our planet.

At the beginning we were skeptical, but he gave us a lot of information regarding different technologies. They were not further developed than our civilization but had developed in another direction. In certain fields like weapons, they were far worse than us in some aspects. They had focused on themselves, so they were individually much stronger than a normal human. Using their additional knowledge enabled us to develop further by leap and bounds.

Andors slowly won us over and around eight years after our first contact we had agreed to build three large portals. They would be built in America, Germany and Russia. The portals would connect our two worlds, so we could grow further together.

It was all a ruse. As the three gates came to live, legions of their warmongering race came through. They overpowered our defense and killed everyone in the area, before they secured the three bridgeheads into our world.

But that was not enough of their treachery. They used their knowledge over our new technologies, to cripple our military. We had to fall back on older weapons to defend ourselves.

The military deployed plain old rockets to wipe them out. But their mages could somehow change them, turning missiles and nukes into a heap of junk mid-flight. Afterwards we tried it with aircrafts. To our horror we had to find out that the black clouds had something living in them. No jet that flew into the black fog came out ever again.

Luckily, they didn’t have a powerful air-force. After that, the war devolved to a trench war between us and them. Our tanks worked wonder against them but were too few. We had a battalion in the past but they got restationed.

So yes, they could be very treacherous. But on the battlefield, they had their own strange honor. Otherwise it made no sense why they waited with employing the main army while we were still fighting the reapers.

On the other hand they had no qualms about using strange means to destroy our artillery and half of the hill. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Stopping from brooding further on the topic, I reminded myself that they were aliens, they thought differently than us.