Somewhere overhead the gulls were circling, exchanging loud cries. Where the buildings had stood before, now you could see all the way to the shore. The sun sparkled on the waves, and on the debris that covered what had been pavements just earlier today. The air was filled with fragrant smells of burnt wood, molten glass and charred flesh, and all was right in the world.
The leader of the fraction climbed onto the nearest pile of stones, and was cheered.
‘We have won!’ he proclaimed, waving his entire body about in enthusiasm. In the sunlight, the life-fire that engulfed him was barely visible, but still under his feet the weak, pretend stone began to melt. ‘Our fraction of the Society For Free Earth has got its well-deserved victory today, and already there is news that our fellows everywhere are meeting with the same kind of success!’ The cheering intensified. Someone threw an alien limb into the air. A blistered, blackened stick, with its original color and texture long gone, it still made for a decent celebratory torch. ‘This foreign infestation is about to be eradicated, and a new era shall soon dawn! Perhaps even today, even by this evening, even before Sundown — who knows — we may hear that it is done, that it’s over, and the land is once again free…’
More pieces of flaming matter flew up — flesh, burning clamps of earth, even stones, dripping wet. The dancing was breaking out — the relief was too palpable, too unbelievable, and nobody could stay immune to it on this fine, long-awaited day.
They had won. It had been a dream of their ancestors, their mothers and fathers and all who came before, for so long that it had begun to seem impossible they would ever reach it, ever find a way out, let alone rule the Earth. Shut in the depths of rock, they evolved and learnt, and had gradually come to sense the Call. What it was that called to them from above, they had not known then, but the desire to follow had grown so strong with time that at last they chose to abandon the ways of the deep, and search for a way up. And finding the way itself had not even been difficult; but little had they known then that it would turn out barred.
That was when they had first met the invaders, and soon learned enough of their language to discover their treacherous, alien nature. The creatures were frail but inventive, and far more formidable foes than had at first seemed. It was then that the fight had commenced, the fight that had gone on until today, for all those long years. Many had perished in the freezing showers of water, or substances even more cold and treacherous; many others yet had been trapped in materials too strong even for their best flames, and died of starvation there. The people of the deep knew their right, but could not find a way to assert it; they felt the Call, but were powerless to heed it. Whatever cunning plans the people devised, the invaders thwarted them all.
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Until one day, the people had found their break at last. It had seemed hopeless by then that the aliens would ever err, that the people would ever see the day come when there would be an opportunity for them to at last make their way out. But they had never given up, never betrayed the Call; and eventually that day came. From then on, all else was suddenly easy. They defeated those that tried to stop them, still. They flooded through the corridors, up and upwards, out the exits, melting the feeble doors as they ran. And then at last — at long, oh, such a long last — they saw the Sun, and understood.
The glory of its touch, the kinship of it, caressed their flames and sang in their souls. It would be their next stop, they knew then; there they would go some day, and find a superior home. Before that, they would of course need to cleanse the Earth of the alien infestation, but with the Sun in their hearts surely that could not be hard.
It proved true soon enough. The surface world was not prepared for their coming. The machinery was too fragile, the houses too flammable, and the people — oh, those could not stand any contact with fire at all. Those watery many-limbed bodies fell at the slightest touch, and rose no more. It was almost too easy, really.
There were many fractions, active all over the world; the deep had birthed great numbers. This city had already fallen to them, and now it was becoming all too certain that the others would follow suit if they had not yet. And then the whole of the land would at last be theirs, as it should have perhaps been all along. The crowd continued to dance and cheer, basking in the relief of their war being finally over, and in the joyous blaze of the Sun that they had so longed for.
The gulls kept screaming, busy at their beach, unconcerned with what was happening in the city. In the far distance, beyond the fields, a forest showed like a narrow green ribbon; and on the other side the sea rolled in, and out, and in again, each time coming a little farther inland as the tide flowed in.