The beetles looked to sky and it was black; veiled over by thick, stinging clouds of smoke. The beetles looked to their city and it was red; angry flames devouring structure after structure. The beetles looked to the ground and it was grey; the ashes of their hopes and dreams. And then the beetles looked to their hearts and there was only death; death, despair, ruin.

Judgement day was upon them. And these were the harbingers of the apocalypse. The mud god and his golden angel. Agents of divine destruction. How could they resist? How could they stand against these messengers of the end? All their drills and formations, their practice and training, it was worthless, meaningless in this chaos of black smoke and red fire. Their war games and battle honor, their champions and berserkers, powerless, helpless against the strength of the strong. The world was ending around them. The sky was falling. Demons walk the earth.

Bob walked slowly across the threshold. The smoke stung at his eyes. The hot air pressed against exposed skin. The city was burning. And everywhere there were beetles, dying or fleeing, broken or breaking. There was so many, so many more than he'd ever imagined. There must have been thousands. It was a city, a civilization, a nation of beetles. It was all burning.

The beetles didn't even try to attack. Nobody even dared. As soon as they laid eyes on him, they would grow manic and demented, throwing themselves into the flames, crashing into the walls of their homes, anything to put one more step between themselves and the enemy. And all the while, the mud scythe swept left and right, thud, thud, thud, each blow a killing wound, a knife to the back or chest, a corpse on the ground and a smear of yellow-green blood.

He was the instrument of death. Bob's mind was quiet, empty. He didn't know what he was thinking, if he was thinking at all. He could taste the death in the air. Death solidified, given-form, a smell and a taste and a shade of misery to the scene. This is what he came for. To rape the city. To pillage and murder. He was the conqueror and experience was the new god and this was his sacrifice in Her name. Thud, thud, thud, the mud scythe reaped its price of weary souls, thud, thud, thud. Bob treaded forward.

The city had once been shaded. There had been a vast canopy, a slanted roof, stretched across the settlement, in that distinctive grass-green. Bob hadn't noticed before, but the treated-grass let through a trickle of warm light, so that you could feel a tinkle of sunshine against your skin. The ground had been layered with soft, fuzzy grass that hugged your toes. It must have been a happy place.

He saw storerooms, overflowing with fresh grasses; he imagined he could almost smell it, that smell of cut grass, sweet with an earthy sharpness; it made him think of open fields and blue skies. Then fingers of flame pried through the walls and feasted on the stored grass, exploding upwards and scattered more red demons.

Thud, thud, thud, it was impossible to miss; every blow was death; the beetles have nowhere to flee; the flames have got ahead of them and some turn back, only to freeze when they lay eyes on Bob and circle forlornly, until the mud scythe strikes out and they topple down. Thud, thud, thud, Bob doesn't know what he sees, doesn't know what he's doing. This is not the world. This is not the world.

George whines in the back of his throat. He doesn't want to be here. He's afraid. He pulls on Bob's leg. Let's go home, the dog begs, let's go away. Thud, thud, thud. Every time the knife impacts, the world seems to rock. Bob's flinching at the sound. He laughs. He's flinching at the sound of his own attack. Bob keeps walking, deeper and deeper, he's seeing the city like it once was, like it might have been, and at the same time he stares into this painting of inferno.

George whines and whimpers. The dog's spooked. He looks back at the gateway, but smoke has settled down and over, and you can't even tell which is the way out. Thud, thud, thud. George starts to bark. The dog's barking at Bob. Loud, jarring barks, deep, guttural calls that scrape at the air. Bob doesn't hear. He's in a trance. He's the instrument of death. He's the instrument of death. And all of a sudden he stops.

Bob's hand rises up and points out dim shapes in front of them.

"What's that?" He asks in a whisper. He already knows, but he doesn't want to say.

A nursery. The young beetles. The larvae and pupae. The beetle eggs in little clusters, tucked thoughtfully into patches of grass. How could they escape? The fires were everywhere. The smoke was everywhere. Where could they escape to? Bob chokes up. He feels slimy inside. It was one thing to fight their warriors out on the plains. It was one thing to defend oneself against an enemy. It was one thing to take the life of a vicious monster. But this, this felt different. This felt evil.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"Are these really monsters? They don't look like monsters to me."

Bob feels tears running down his face. The heat from the fire rips them away leaving only glittering streaks of salt. Bob pulls up his hood. Because it was out of his hands now, wasn't it? The fire was a living thing, a demon of hunger, gorging itself on the green city in snatched handfuls. There was no stopping it. You can't put a bomb back inside its shell.

Was this the way to greatness? To strength? Did the path go through these ugly places? Somehow the books didn't write about this. What would Jonny have said? Jonny the Man. Would he have done this? Is this what it means to be a man? The mud scythe has frozen in place, blade poised over a beetle trying to drag itself away from him. He hesitates.

The grand canopy over their heads shudders. It feels like the ground itself is shaking because all shadow and light sways with it, distorting the shapes around them. The roof shudders again. There are too many beetles up there and the supports are smoldering away. Crack, the roof tears itself off and the whole thing comes down on top of them as a burning rain.

Bob just manages to sweep Harry up in time and harden him into a makeshift shield, protecting himself and the dog. They're safe, Bob crouching beside George, they're safe, but Bob trembles, trying to think of anything else. But the mind is cruel to its master. The young beetles. The eggs, the larvae. Who has protected them? Not Bob, not Bob. Fire and death.

And through the smoke and dust, there is a rushing sound. It starts as a trickle and in a half-second is a roaring wave of noise. Bob pulls back the cloak, only to be swallowed up by a tidal wave. What the? Have the gods picked their side? Is this divine retribution? The waters drag Bob off his feet, turning him over, spinning him round, he clings to George.

"George, don't leave me, don't leave me!"

The currents cunningly get between and rend them apart.

"George, George!"

The water flickers with reflected red eyes. Bob slips under, ah the dark silence, the peace, everything is a dream and a memory, then he bobs up and the fire is hissing and spitting, the low buzzes, the crackling, it's all real, it's all real and under he goes, before the waves crashes down on top of them, shattering the world into pieces of white foam.

He impacts the ground, soft ground, mud. He's back on the mud plains. The water has washed him clean out of the settlement. The dark waters have circuited the settlement, quenching away the firestorm, bringing silence and emptiness.

"George, where are you?" Bob calls out. Bob's lost his knife, ripped out of his hand by the wave. "George!"

The beetles must have had their own reservoir where they trapped runoff from the canopy against the far walls. All that rain...

"George!" Bob calls, but there is no answer. The plains are speckled with flotsam. Beetle corpses, living beetles, torn off pieces of hardened grass, stones, the ruins of a city. Bob closes his eyes and searches with his mud sense. There, he runs off in the direction of the first warm, moving object, but stops as soon as he makes out the rounded beetle form.

The beetle sees him. He expected it to flee, to quiver and shrink back, but the beetle sneers at him and finding a chunk of grass-brick, it starts to tap its horn. The rhythmic, repeating sound cuts across the silence. And for a moment it's just a lone voice, thin, weak, hollow in the grand spaces, and then the call is picked up and chorused back until the air shivers with resonating echoes.

Bob staggers back. What has come over them? The ominous music plays up over the plain and Bob trembles at the sound. What has changed? Why aren't they afraid. The fire? Were the beetles afraid of fire? Or maybe it was despair, maybe they've already decided the city is lost and that they've rather die on their feet?

Either way the beetles are coming. They are forming up, rank after rank, every last survivor, anyone who can stand and fight. And Bob hasn't found George. He closes his eyes. He stills his mind. He needs to concentrate. There are so many objects, and water is puddled here and there, and the music of the horns cut into his thoughts. George is larger than the beetles. He should feel different. His soft fur and hard backpack.

Bob searched the whole plain in front of him, wandering in thought all the way back to the city walls, but there was his limit, there was the end of the mud. An invisible barrier that swept across his vision.

"George might still be inside," he bit his lip and gazed at the ruins of the town. He'd have to fight his way through. The beetles were arraying themselves. Their lines were many ranks deep and stretched straight across the plain, across the gateway. Somehow he'd have to get past. Could he get past? Not a chance. Shut up, Bob. We've been through this before. I'm not going on without that dog.

The last army of the beetles. Their death march against the destroyer of their homeland. Rank after rank of black horn and bitter vengeance. Bob swallowed, he steadied himself, he didn't have a plan, he couldn't think of anything. He'd run through them. What other way was there? They knew he could go underground. They'd never let him pass. And there was no mud in the city. He'd have to surface. Yes, he'd just run through. That would work, maybe. Dammit all. George was somewhere back there. George needed him.

Even a monster will die for love. Even a monster.

"For George," Bob whispered to himself and the words sobered him. They gave him the strength and courage he hadn't quite been able to find in himself.

"For George," he said again, now louder.

"For George," he war-cried, shouting over the trumpets of the enemy, as he took off at a sprint and plunged straight at waiting death.