1: Prologue_Mosaic: The Shattered World

The crunch and crackle of coarse radioactive sand being crushed under the march of heavy steel-shod boots was the only sound on the windswept plains. Striding through the stirred sands were giants clad in heavy reflective plating, their eyes scanning the horizons from behind their thick black glass visors, their pointer, middle, and ring fingers holding steady on the triplicate trigger of the weapons they wielded.

Crunch

Hours went by without anything happening but the solemn march through the sands, but fingers never left triggers, and minds never turned from their task, until at last, their patience was rewarded.

Bursting from the ground in a spray of sand came what can only be described as an abomination—a gibbering mass of gore and flesh rapidly accelerating towards the solemn giants. But it never stood a chance.

The giants ceased their march, all but one ignoring the creature and scanning the sand and sky for any signs of life. That single remaining giant took a step forward and aimed in the creature's vague direction.

The first trigger was pulled. Deep within the tanks on their backs, encased in layers of the densest materials known to man, an eldritch blue glow began to shine.

There was no sign, there was no warning—the abomination was already dead. Invisible nuclear wrath had already torn through its body, violently ripping apart DNA and delicate strands of nerves. There was a hitch in its step, a stumble upon the loose sand, but still, it hungered.

It pushed itself off the ground before it fully fell with a random assortment of sporadic and unmentionable limbs, continuing its charge, its hunger sharpening its mind to a naked blade

The second trigger was pulled.

There was a blinding flash of light, and the creature came apart, the membrane of its cells torn asunder. Its organs, a rainbow of colours that flesh should never be, spilled out from skin that split and tore like delicate gossamer threads.

Silence reigned once more, its rule only interrupted by a wet squelch as the pile of gore’s lucky few remaining cells tried to feast upon its corpse and create another abomination, their mutagenic powers unnaturally animated by the thing that killed the world.

But soon, that too ended, as those final cells collapsed, starved in their attempt to reform themselves, or finally succumbing to the radiation.

And with that, there was nothing left but for the long march to resume, the giants walking further into the desert toward unknown threats, their mountain home behind them.

It wasn’t long until the first signs of the giants prize became apparent. There was a slight change in the timbre and tenor of the crunching beneath their feet, the grounding feeling and sounding just a bit more solid, grains of sand held together by questing threads.

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Cresting a dune, the lead giant looked down the slope and was welcomed by a single strange tree, with a canopy made of a single large leaf.

With no visible or audible communication between the giants, they all gathered upon the ridgeline that shielded the tree from the desert wind, and, pointing their barrels down at it, pulled the first triggers simultaneously.

The tree screamed, pours across the canopy and trunk opening to suck in air. It’s trunk buckled and shifted, faux bark revealing itself to have been thick keratin plates covering the pink writhing flesh within, now visibly squirming through the seams between the plates as it pulsed in rage.

The sand started shifting, the screaming shifted in pitch as the air was exhaled deep beneath the sand, aerating it, and turning it fluid like water. “Root” rising from this hellish pool like gooseflesh, franticly waving and searching for prey.

Several giants tilted their weapons down, unleashing the gamma radiation of the first trigger. It easily punched through the aerated sand, unravelling the molecular bonds of whatever abominable knot of grave flesh lay beneath.

Once the aim shifted, it didn’t take long for the creature to still. Whatever lay beneath the sands clearly more vulnerable than what lay above.

But nobody survived the apocalypse without being thorough. One giant, a point-man to take the risk, was tied to the others by a rope to pull them out of danger, and marched towards the now still tree, still propped up by the plates of keratin.

As they marched down the ridge, every other giant twisted a nozzle at the end of the weapons, switching from wide beam to a tight ray, and doused the area surrounding the sacrificial giant with far, far more radiation than before.

There were twitches in the sand as the beams raked through the sand, pre-emptively destroying the trap that lay in still living tendrils just below the surface.

Walking further, and further, the sacrificial giant reached the trunk. They twisted the nozzle slightly, not quite to full beam, but part way there, and pulled the second trigger, dousing a section of the keratin “bark” with a generous lavishing of beta radiation.

The flash held for three full seconds, but through their polarizing visor the giant saw the keratin blacken like it was in a furnace and heard it crack, loud as a gunshot.

Satisfied any pink flesh beneath was completely annihilated they dug their fingers into the seams and cracks created by the slagged keratin and tore with all their might. A series of pops rang out as the connective tissue ripped, followed a wet squelch as the plate was tore from the pink slurry of what used to be flesh. Dropping the plating onto the sand, the giant grabbed their radiation sweeper from where it dangled across their chest, held by straps, and pulled the third trigger for half a second.

This trigger, unlike the others, had a noise. A thin, quiet puff of air as an incredibly fine, nearly invisible cloud was blown into the hollow of the trunk, illuminating it with a dim blue light as a tiny aurora crawled and forked like hateful lightning, invisible under the harsh desert sun but distinct in the dim hollow.

Nearly immediately, the pink flesh above and below the cavity was utterly liquified, pouring out through cracks in the keratin. The few surviving cells, already twisting themselves into tumours, groped blindly with villi toward the dying flesh. If left alone, they would have metastasized into a new abomination, but the cloud’s scourge vaporized them before they could sate their dark hunger, as the tiny cloud billowed out down the trunk , snaking into every crevice, tracing the path of roots deep into the ground, scouring every cell and tendril of life in its path, leaving no trace of the abomination’s cursed existence.

Tension drained from their shoulders, and, turning around, the giant marched back up the hill. They were met with silent appreciation and clapped on the back by one of their fellows, the first display of humanity their entire march. But the job was done for now, a small show of camaraderie was permissible.

1: Prologue

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