Snow and ash fall in a gentle dance with floating embers as the world burns. The light of the dancing flames bringing a new life to the dying landscape. Standing in the center of the blaze, as tens of thousands of figures flow through the chaos and destruction, is a single figure that gazes up into the grey clouds, hand outstretched as they catch flakes of falling snow and ash alike in the palm of their hand.
Melting in their palm from the heat of the nearby infernos, the snow and ash slowly becomes a stream of grey water that runs down the figures arm and drips to the floor as they watch on.
In the distance, one of the massive, abandoned structures of the humans falls as the flames and destruction becomes too much for it to remain standing. It collapses in great plumes of dust and pulverized stone; the sounds of twisting metal and breaking concrete being nearly drowned out by the cheering and screaming of almost a hundred-thousand voices and the pained roars of colossal monsters.
Gra does not look on or cheer with the rest of her smaller kin as the world burns down around her. Instead, she continues to stare up to the heavens in silent contemplation, as the snow and the ash and embers rain down all around her, the hot wind from the burning buildings carrying the dust past her as it flows through her messy green hair, and ruffles her clothes sown together from the hides and furs of slain beasts.
Off in the distance, a titan writhes and struggles as thousands of little bodies swarm its figure like ants. With each motion from its large frame, hundreds die as they are crushed beneath its body or thrown loose to fall to their deaths, swallowed up by the flames that burn bellow. Regardless of the many deaths, more are quick to come and replace those that have been reduced to bloody stains and blackened corpses, crawling all over it and stabbing it with their weapons or sinking their teeth into its exposed wounds.
The titan cries out in pain and fury, but it is simply one of many parts of the ensuing chaos that now consumes this place. Soon it will be dead like the rest, and though hundreds or even thousands may die to bring it down, its corpse, along with their own, shall become the food that will feed tens of thousands more. Food that shall become the resources for producing even more young and increasing their numbers even further beyond what was lost.
The tide kills and dies. The tide burns and destroys. But most importantly, the tide grows.
But Gra stands alone in it all. A single figure standing motionless in this all-consuming chaos and death, with not but a single hand, held outstretched to the heavens to receive the falling snow and ash…
“Sister, what are you doing?”
Gra remains looking to the heavens as she lowers her arm, a puddle of ashen-grey water having formed in the palm of her blue hand. She does not turn to address the figure behind her, answering him with a question instead.
“Brother Gov’es, why is it that we destroy?”
Gov’es simply laughs at his sister’s question, his voice a deep rumble in his muscular chest. “Hahahaha… We destroy because it is Father’s will. It is his desire that everything that stands in his path be burned away. That one day, we shall stand at the top of existence, no longer the prey, but the predators.”
Gra remains looking upward for a long while before finally turning her attention to her brother. He is, much like their father, a massive figure of a man now. With skin of a dark red, laced with black lines that run over his flesh in intricate patterns, he is the closest to standing on equal footing with their father.
Standing beside him is one of the many large four-legged beasts that their father had managed to tame. They are angry things that are always hungry and hunt in packs, but once they are tamed, they make for excellent mounts for the strongest of the People of Grigut.
Gra doesn’t particularly care much for the beasts. Despite being ‘tamed’ they have a habit of feeding on any her kind that are foolish enough to stray too close to their massive jaws. It is only those of her brothers and sisters, the Demons, that are truly safe around the beasts, but even then, the damn things can become temperamental if they aren’t fed regularly and handled with a firm hand.
Not to mention that her brother’s beast in particular once tried to bite her hand off when she tried to pet it. The damn mut…
Gov’es gives a toothy half-smile as he sees Gra glaring at his mount. “What? Still don’t like Fetfif?” He asks as he places a hand on the thing’s giant head and scratches it behind the ear.
Gra just glares some more, “No, I don’t…”
“Hahaha! She just doesn’t like being touched by anyone but me. Even Father has given up on getting her to like him.” He says with a smile and a clear hint of pride.
Turning away from her brother, Gra returns to silence as she looks over the chaos and destruction that is reigning all around them. Off in the distance, the titan continues to fight for its life against the unending tide. Rearing up on its hind legs, it falls backwards into another of the humans’ massive buildings, bringing the whole thing down with it in another cloud of dust and falling brick n’ mortar. The falling broken glass sparkles in the light of the fires, and Gra finds them to be rather pretty, though they are quickly swallowed up in plumes of billowing dust and ash.
Even standing as far back as they are, the wind from the collapse still reaches the siblings and carries the scent of burning flesh, blood, and death through the heat of burning fires and clouds of ash.
Gov’es walks up beside his sister and joins her in watching as his tamed beast rests nearby, chewing on some bone that it had pulled up from somewhere. Not that finding a bone around here would be difficult. Corpses of their own and monsters alike litter the streets like fallen leaves; snow and ash covering their bodies and filling opened mouths, frozen in the moment of death with a scream on their lips.
“What troubles you sister? What nonsense fills that head of yours today?”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Mmm… I was just asking myself if all of this is necessary. All of this destruction. The death and the chaos… Why it is that we must throw so many to their deaths just to continue killing more.”
“Sister… you are truly a weird one, aren’t you? We kill so that we can feed and grow. We grow so that we can become powerful. So that we can become the predators, become Demons! Just like Father desires of us. And once we are strong enough, we shall assist Father in getting his revenge against the Grey Demon. That is why we do this. Why we destroy and kill and hunt and grow. We do this for Father. For our King!” He declares proudly, like a teacher trying to teach a dumb student that doesn’t understand something so obvious.
Gra looks down at the puddle of ashen water in her hands, her blue skin getting died grey as it seeps through her fingers and drips down to the bloodstained snow at her feet.
“We die and kill because of Father’s desire for revenge, against a being that we have never met… I can’t help but wonder if there is a better path that we could be taking. With our power, we could have claimed any land we desired. We could have built our homes and made something, but instead all we do is destroy…”
“Do you doubt our father, our King?” He asks, his voice carrying a threat.
Gra remains silent as she continues to watch the titan fight on in the distance. Suddenly, a feeling of moving mana touches her as a domineering Field expands over the humans’ abandoned civilization. It carries with it the promise of fire. All-consuming and burning, heat like a star falling to the earth and erasing everything that it touches with its cleansing flame.
The fires that burn everywhere grows in scales and intensity as they are pushed into a frenzy by the burning mana that now saturates everything. Until suddenly, it all collapses, every flame and ember, even the ambient heat in the air, drawn forward into a singular point of a blindingly bright shining light.
The titan’s fight against the swarming masses seems to stop as it turns towards that point of glowing light. Letting out a roar that shakes the buildings around it, the world seems to stop as the light flashes out and hits the titan in a blinding ray.
The world shakes as a ball of fire consumes everything and anything within its range. The nearest buildings simply disappear as metal and stone are melted away. Further back, their neighbors collapse and break in half under the explosive winds and pressures that slams against them. The heat of the explosion further burning away everything in the surrounding and leaving everything burning and stone reduced to molten rock that flows through the streets and pools into craters and into the exposed undergrounds of the human ruins.
The shockwave is quick to travel across the land and blow past the two siblings where they stand and watch.
As the fire ball dissipates into a collum of raising smoke and ash, there is naught left of the titan but a charred corpse that remains slouched against the ruined molten remains of a building. All over its surface are the burnt corpses of hundreds of their people, now fused to the titan’s blackened flesh by the heat of a falling star.
All around, the sound of fighting stops as the world is forced to see the destruction wrought by a single man. Even the monsters, with all of their power and might are forced to stop and gape as they witness sheer and utter destruction. The evidence of the act now remaining as a mushroom cloud that dominate the landscape and fills the sky.
The cheering is quick to come, even with the sudden and violent death of hundreds, if not thousands of the own, the people cheer. A single word drawn forth by their simple minds and screamed with the fanaticism of a zealot into the wind.
“King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King! King!”
The sheer zeal of their devotion shakes the surrounding lands as the remaining monsters flee in every direction, rushing to get as far away as they can from the new apex predator of this place.
Gra turns to Gov’es, the winds from the explosion still sending her messy green hair flowing behind her. “No brother. I do not doubt Father. For he is powerful, and we are his children.”
Gov’es simply returns a big smile full of shape teeth, a laugh rumbling in his chest and just asking to be let out. “Good. Now come, I can feel Father summoning us.”
Gra lowers her head slightly and responds, “Yes brother.”
As Gov’es mounts his beast and rides out to answer the call, Gra looks back to the epicenter of the explosion, the mushroom cloud, and all of the countless charred bodies that now cover the surrounding area, the titan still frozen in its final moments as heat makes its blackened flesh bubble and pop under cracked layers of armored scales.
So much death and destruction… Why Father? Why is this the path that you have us follow?
Walking forward to join her many siblings and hear the word of their King, Gra steps through blood-stained snow with ash coated feet, leaving grey marks in her wake as she walks over corpses and rubble alike.
Passing by a human structure that has had its front collapsed, Gra looks inside as she passes, something catching her interest and drawing her to come to a stop.
Tilting her head, she walks into the building until she is standing before the fallen skeleton of a human, ratty clothes still barely clinging to its frame. Curled up on itself, the skeleton holds in its arm a torn and blood-stained pack.
Reaching down, she takes the pack from the skeleton, its arms falling away in a clatter as they are pulled away with the thing.
Looking it over, Gra finds the zipper and opens it. Inside, she finds a number of books.
Cracking one open with ash-stained fingers, Gra looks over the written words and frowns. She cannot read this… But it was through her father’s gift that she is now able to speak and make words that hold meaning. There is a magic to how her words and thoughts are formed, their language created through their father’s will.
Gra pushes on this magic that grants her words and understanding, attempting to direct it towards the marks on the page before her.
Slowly, it comes to her. Meaning pulled out of the world around her as lines of black on white gain meaning in her mind.
“This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stone to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountains down.”
“Hmm, did the humans make this? What does it mean? A riddle?”
Gra tries to continue reading further, her new understanding of English writing being a slow thing to decipher. Outside, more of her kind are running by to answer the call of their King.
As Gra continues to read the page, one of her sisters arrives at the building and calls to her. “Gra, hurry up! Father has called for us. He is going to give a speech and make more Demons. Come, come!”
“Yes Vedti! Just give me time, I will be right there!”
Vedti runs off with the others, a happy cackle of a laugh escaping her as she skips over the countless corpses that are littered everywhere outside.
Gra closes the book and moves to put it aside.
I should hurry up. It isn’t good to keep Father wait-
She tilts her head, a thought coming to her as she looks back the book.
Time… The answer is time.
Reopening the book, Gra slowly reads forward until she finds that her answer was correct. One of the people in the book having yelled the answer in fear of being eaten by the other...
…
Gra feels for her connection to the King, her father.
“Slay king, ruins town, and beats high mountains down… Father is powerful, but… can even he be killed? Will time eventually take him?”
Closing the book, Gra returns it back to the pack and notes the several others inside. Without thinking about it too much, and needing to hurry, she zips up the pack and then puts it on.
With a pack full of books on her back, Gra runs out of the building to go and join her brothers and sisters under the call of their King.