A shadow swept over the procession of moles that were clearing out a path. But no mole saw it as it rushed up behind them. Above them all was a winged spectacle, one of entirely black feathers leading up from the tail and suddenly stopped, revealing the skin underneath all the feathers, tanned from the sun shining down on its head. It tilted itself sideways and fell down on top of the largest group of moles. Its scaled claws that shined when it tilted itself and exposed them to the sun sunk into the group of moles.

Several unsuspecting moles were skewered by the talons and the rest were hit by a burst of air as the bird flapped its wings to take off. Several guards attempted to leap onto the bird, but were blown back from the wind. They tumbled back onto the ground, rolling and cutting themselves. They lay there, with open wounds, but rapidly closing up their wounds.

The monstrous bird flew away, with it were several moles near its claws. It dropped them, and they all fell against a layer of solid plastic which had been bleached and warped by the long days under the sun. The bodies smacked against the pieces of plastic and the bird flew down, awaiting to eat its meal which could no longer fight back.

The procession of moles continued on, as so many moles had died already, a few more didn't make a dent in the number that died.

--Dumpsite 19--

"Hey Cain! I searched the souls around here! Everybody's left!"

"They went along that path I assume?"

"Yeah! Just follow it and you'll find good food! Moles are bound to die! It's free food!"

"I feel like I'm forgetting something important…"

"Don't worry! Just go! It's the feeling of not knowing where they are! Just go!"

"I know! Water! I need to drink all the water I can!"

"Well, I mean, sure you can go do that."

--On top of Cain--

"Hey guys, why didn't you leave with the rest of them?"

"You think we didn't want to? All the scavengers knew about us! They watched each mole leave! There was no chance for us to hitch a ride!"

"Surely you could've hidden in a fold like I did!"

"You think? It was a dead end! The moles would've all died eventually! The guards too! Only the scavengers live long!"

"Well why hasn't this mole found out about us then!"

"He's an idiot! How else were you able to trick him!"

"Fine! Let's jump on the idiot!"

"Wait where is he?"

"Eh, who knows, probably just getting some water."

"Let's go hop on our ride!"

--Watering Hole--

"What is this liquid! Is it water! Satan! Help me!"

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"What? You've never seen water?"

"Not in this form, no!"

"Ah right, you must've been eating that damp dirt right?"

"Yeah! This is nothing like that!"

"Yeah well, This is the good stuff hehehe, now you know how unbalanced life is don't you… Doesn't this just make you want to kill them all? Don't you want to have revenge?"

"Yeah! Avenge the workers!"

"Exactly hehehe… Now drink up and chase after them!"

"Yeah!"

--Laboratory loading dock--

"Everybody! Remember to be careful! They can still bite off an arm if we're not careful!"

"Ah whatever, they're in cages!"

"You think just because there's a steel wall between us and them that we're safe? One of the creatures is a chameleon!"

"Ah, so they want to apply camouflage onto the soldiers? How's that gonna help it bite off one of our arms?"

"They have that tongue! You know, that thing they use to eat insects!"

"Hah! What's it gonna do, lick the wall? Relax! They engineered it for its ability to change color! Not its tongue!"

"Yeah whatever, don't blame me when you lose an arm and pay to regenerate it!"

"Don't worry about it! We've handled hundreds of animals! We're fine! We don't even do the dangerous stuff! You should feel worried for the ones testing out the abilities of these beasts!"

"Yeah, let's just get this done with I suppose."

"Hey! You're standing too close!"

"Chill, boss, I'm just a bit over the line! I'll back off."

"I haven't had a single incident so far and I don't want to have one, understand?"

Around the metal box, banging could be heard. The thick decimeter of tempered steel vibrated and clanged around the black metallic floor of the vehicle intensely as it was unsuspended from the ceiling of the truck. That was originally secured there to prevent any movement from the animal transferring to the white, unmarked vehicle through its long body that contained several more specimens that were just as violent. The container was loaded and secured by several yellow straps onto a carriage mechanism that followed the inset tracks along into a dark hallway. Another set of rails allowed the carriages to be returned from the dark room that lay beyond.

Surrounding the clean vehicle were several men, holding onto large caliber rifles whos inner barrels were ten millimeters in diameter and outer diameter was several more to support the force produced from each round. Only several rounds were held in each magazine due to the sheer size of each, but one was more than enough to put down the creature in the cage.

But the sheer force produced by each round would send a normal man back flying. That was where the exo came in. Engineered with the thought of stabilizing the user firing such a powerful round, it came in at a weight comparable to several men. The force that needed to move such a large mass required more power in exchange for speed. This was only the lower half. The upper half featured pneumatic cylinders that were supposed to be able to jerk around and destroy the offending creature at an instant while being able to carry the oversized rifle.

This was only the model used for guarding, not testing.

--Road--

"Cain! Look over there! A body! Go eat it!"

"Nice! I guess there is free food!"

"Hehehe my fellow devils, this is your time to feast!"

"Blegh! What is this! It's so dry! It's so tough! What is this!"

"This is dried? They died working for God! Their lives have been drained ou!t You think it's so great just working all your life working? No! Your life gets drained out of you and you can see what happened to this poor mole! Just look at him! His muscles are stiff, out of water, out of energy, this is what happens if you work! This is why you join us! Hehehe…"

"What do I do now?"

"Well, you sorta just follow them!"

--Foxhole--

"Well, nobody else out here to talk to so I might as well talk to you."

"You're no guard, I know that. Well, maybe you are, but you can't shut me up now!"

"I'll tell you a very, very important secret though! It's the answer to the meaning of life! I mean, I'm sure everybody's thought about it, but nobody's come up with a conclusive answer! I mean, just think about it! What's the meaning of life?"

"Some of my fellow moles might think that it's to advance the lives of their fellow mole, but is that really it? Of course not! What are they going to do with their life! They're just going to have fun and suck up your life! Well is that the meaning of life? No! The answer to the meaning of life must be common amongst all of us! Because let's face it. We can't all have fun forever. Someone's gotta pick up the slack! Besides! We don't feel like we're special if everyone else is equal to us! We'll all be sad then!"

"So how do we fill everyone's life with happiness! That's the question I've thought about for a long time and I think I have it! If we first define happiness as the lack of complaints then we arrive at the answer! Of course I don't mean just a boring life, that's boring! I seek to give everyone a happy life!"

"You know what the answer is? It's to remove life from the equation entirely! There are no complaints in the world if there is no life! And I seek to do exactly that! I will kill everyone so that they may have a happy life!"