[Felt]

"GRENADE!"

I heard the shout from my right and I dived into the trench, catching sight of the sailing grenade in the corner of my eye. Just as I managed to slam my hands over my ears, it exploded with a reverberating boom that I felt in my bones.

Without waiting for the ringing to fade away, I grabbed my rifle and rested it on the lip of the trench. Thumbing the safety off, I heard the low hum of the tesla coils powering up and looked through the sight. Centring the plus on a charging figure, I pulled the trigger. With a sharp crack, the gun fired and I saw the figure jolt, before stumbling and falling.

Yet more still charged across the no-mans land, seemingly disregarding the deaths of their comrades. Frantically reloading, I heard a second call for a grenade seconds before another reverberating boom sounded much further away. This time, I could see the explosion send tens of bodies flying through the air. Even so, it wasn't long before more appeared, bursting through the veil of thrown up sand.

Slamming another high-v kinetic round into my rifle, I shouted over the noise, "There's too many, Sarge, we've got to retreat. There's no way we're keeping this post".

Off to the side, I heard Rakin shout, "He's right! We're running low everything; ammo, grenades, and external comms are shot so no reinforcements either".

At this point I barely had to aim, setting my rifle to automatic and holding the trigger down.

"Alright", the Sarge conceded, "sound the alarm. Set the advance mines to a 1 minute timer. We'll set off the trench by remote when we're clear".

"How many of them, sir?", Rakin asked.

"All of them. We'll give those sandsweepers a gift they won't forget", the Sarge replied with grim delight.

In the meantime, I let out a few more shots into the oncoming mob before shouldering my rifle and tightening the strap. All in all, there were about 18 of us guarding this outpost: the Sarge, Rakin, me and 15 privates. Probably the weakest point in the defence line, but only the higher-ups knew the full plans. The fact the enemy knew to make a full assault on this post was worrying to say the least.

Groaning mentally about the repercussions of this realisation, I made my way through the command trenches to the backline.

"Let's go, let's go!", the Sarge roared over the static of the internal comms, "You've got 30 seconds to get clear else you'll be given a free front row seat to a fireworks show worth dying for!".

The advance mines dropped on our first retreat over the no-mans land bought us some extra time, but not much.

They'd be on top of us any second.

Resisting the urge to look back, I broke into a sprint until I reached the furthest trench back. Climbing out hesitantly, I saw the others running to the trucks. Rakin yelled from an open window, "Hurry up! We don't have mu-". He was interrupted when a bullet smashed the window by his face.

I dropped to the ground immediately, reflexes acting faster than I could think. Before I could say anything, I saw his hand wave inside the broken window and breathed a mental sigh of relief.

"I'm alright, tis but a scratch", he yelled out. Hearing this, I stood up quickly and dashed forward, throwing myself into the open cargo bed with a thud before any watching snipers could get a good shot.

Gunning the engine, Rakin slammed the accelerator, the wheels spinning in the loose sands of the dunes.

Sand tracks kicking in, I braced myself against the walls of the cargo bed as the truck lurched forward with unholy speed.

"Bombs away!", the Sarge roared over the comms.

My mind hallucinating the click of the distant detonator as though it were next to my ear, I braved a peek over the walls of the cargo bed.

Just when I thought the detonation had failed, flames bloomed like roses simultaneously across the trench. The shockwave spread visibly in an expanding circle across the dunes. Even with my fingers in my ears, the sound was deafening as it rocked the truck like an earthquake. The sand beneath us threatened to give under the vibrations, but we just about regained traction.

The flames reached up towards the sky, dying the clouds in shades of pink and red. The fortress and the maze of trenches that once stood there were utterly demolished. Even the smouldering crater was obscured by fusion of heat-haze and thrown-up sand.

Half expecting rag-covered figures to burst through, I breathed a sigh of relief when nothing came to pass, not realising I had subconsciously held my breath. Sinking down in the cargo bed, the stress of the past few days of almost constant battling began to evaporate away, leaving only fatigue and dull aches to settle into my tired bones.

...

By the time we reached the settlement, the sun had just dipped behind the mountains on the western horizon, reddish rays peeking out from above. The temperature had begun to drop rapidly, the lack of cloud cover releasing all the heat of the daytime sun like a hot stove in snow. The standard issue military fatigues kept me warm, while also being able ward off the noonday heat somehow. Despite trying for r&d, I wasn't accepted due to some clearly untrue "intelligence issues", so I tend to leave the tech stuff to the tech lads. Either way, I had managed to fall asleep amidst the rhythmic rocking of the truck and the steady drone of the engine, and awoke just as we passed through the last checkpoint.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

Stretching out my back, I sat up, looking around at the settlement. My posting at the now-demolished fortress had lasted a good six months, though the settlement had undergone no changes I could discern.

There was the same scurrying to-and-fro of various messengers between sand-coloured tents and the occasional sergeant or captain leading a group of marching soldiers. However, there seemed to be a certain franticness to the veritable beehive of activity that wasn't there before.

The truck rolled to a stop amongst several others, one of which sported several bullet holes on one side, looking like a piece of Swiss cheese.

I swung my legs and jumped down from the cargo bed, feeling soreness in my feet and knees as I landed in a crouch. I heard the door open and close and saw Rakin step out onto the sand, a grin of weary relief on his face.

"Home, sweet home", he exclaimed with arms wide.

"As close as, least", I added. I hadn't been home-home in a long time.

I saw the Sarge leaning against the bullet-ridden truck with a piece of paper in his hand and Rakin and I snapped to attention.

"At ease", he said pushing off his perch and standing with his arms folded behind his back. "The Major wants to speak to you both in the tent ASAP", he continued.

"Does he want to debrief us immediately", Rakin questioned. If that were the case, the matter is of more importance than I previously thought.

"Dunno", the Sarge shrugged, "he looked a bit agitated, but it's hard to tell with him".

I exchanged a worried glance with Rakin before the Sarge dismissed us and we made our way to the Major's tent.

Navigating through the maze of settlement proved to be harder than expected and we had to resort to asking a rather green looking private for directions. Though that may have been his lizard heritage. Couldn't tell.

By the time we had arrived, the sun had fully dipped beyond the horizon and the stars were beginning to show. Blue-white floodlights illuminated the Major's tent, casting criss-crossing shadows across the ground.

Before we even had a chance to knock, the Major himself swept aside the hanging cloth and gestured at us.

"Took you long enough", he grumbled sarcastically. "Hurry up and get in here, anytime before dawn preferably".

Not thinking it wise to talk back to the commanding officer of our commanding officer, I followed him into the tent wordlessly with a cautionary glance at Rakin who most likely had a retort hanging off his tongue already.

The soft yellow glow of a light bulb hanging from the ceiling lit up the tent, illuminating it's contents. The Major had a strange penchant for paper maps and physical notebooks, yet these were now strewn across various tables haphazardly. Unintelligible scribbles and markings adorned almost every surface, only decipherable to the man that made them.

The man in question had seated himself behind a desk, staring intently at a piece of paper before him. Drawing closer, I made the title put to be 'Eastern Plateau', though no other markings were legible under the less-than-adequate lighting.

We stood in silence before the desk uncomfortably for a few seconds, before Rakin rather pointedly cleared his throat.

"Yes, yes", the Major snapped, "I'm getting to you two". Drawing his gaze up from the map with a long sigh, he swept it to one side and looked back at us, steepling his fingers.

"I've heard the full report from Sergeant Coll, but I'd like to hear your perspective", he continued.

"Well", I started, "Rakin and I were deployed to fortress 31 on the Eastern trench line just about six months ago.

"Being a relatively out-of-the-way area, we rarely had to deal with the enemy apart from routine scouting missions; and the occasional sand-bear."

"Yes that makes sense, 31 is pretty much in the middle of nowhere", the Major muttered. "Sorry, go on", he gestured for us to continue.

"Yes sir. Yesterday evening, our sand sonar picked up large movements seemingly coming out from under the mountain range", I said.

At this point, Rakin spoke up, "the mountains lie on a constructive boundary and earthquakes aren't all that uncommon so we thought nothing of it.

"However, instead of abating, it continued in our direction in a straight line. Clearly artificial, but we don't know what caused it. We still don't", he added.

"The next thing we knew", he continued, "our trenches were being swarmed from behind, the enemies appearing from beneath the sand without warning. Only the quick thinking of the Sarge allowed us to be able to retreat to the second defensive line, laying mines down as we went, without any casualties."

The Major had a worried expression on his weathered face as he pondered over the words he had just heard. 'The ability to appear behind our lines is a game-changer', he thought, 'clearly this is well-developed tech, so why only bring it out now?'. Breaking out of his reverie, he gestured for us to continue.

Taking a breath, I continued to recount the events, "A few hours later, perhaps less, they charged over no-mans land again, seemingly uncaring for the loss of life". I shuddered as I remembered the countless, ragged figures crawling over the bodies of their fallen brethren. "As you know, 31 has the main defensive turret on the last trench back, although even its mortars were only able to delay their advance.

"Once again, we were forced to retreat to the last line of trenches. We also discovered our external comms to be un-operational, though strangely our internal ones worked fine."

Coughing lightly, Rakin interjected again, "Any normal EMP would have knocked out all electrics, and we have defences against those anyways. No, this was...something different".

"Whatever it was", I said, "we had no reinforcements coming, so the Sarge ordered our retreat. We set of all our mines on our retreat, likely turning the fortress to nothing more than sand and rubble."

With a heavy sigh, the Major muttered something under his breath before speaking up, "You've done well boys and you've more than deserved a good rest. Get some sleep and we can discuss the rest tomorrow".

Nodding gratefully, we exited the tent, the bright floodlights having us blink spots out of our eyes before making our way to the barracks. Not even bothering to remove my shoes, I was in a deep, dreamless sleep before my head even hit the pillow.

*****************************

All creation myths for our world share one strange concept. This, in of itself is not peculiar but actually quite common among various worlds. No, it is rather how oddly specific this common point is that intrigues me. Even ancient ruins and murals on tombs from an age beyond age depict this occurrence with barely any variation. The event, known most widely as The First Dawn, describes some earth-shattering event leaving our planet as merely half of one whole; incomplete, a shell of its former glory and a barren wasteworld. Strangely, unknown mineral deposits do exist almost uniformly at a certain depth in the crust with no plausible explanation. Of course, the myths are of little use beyond this point, diverging on what could have possibly caused an event of such magnitude.

This story even found its way into the name for our world in the ancient tongue: Fel Etheras, which roughly translates to Half World.

 - Introduction to Mythical HIstory of Myths, by Melitor Mellus, Archive File #P786D7G4S831