A Rising Fall

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  The first wave hit the outer shield like a rock through glass taking with it, the men caught in sheer surprise falling over themselves in great number being swept up by the force of hundreds of thousands of men, women, children and dogs stampeding forwards, driven by their physical and psychological hunger and some unexplainable celestial reason to gauge an old assembly factory in a tiny insignificant town in one speck of the earth; as their north.

  The first layer broke without any fight whatsoever; the White Hearts folding like paper and the roar of The Famined; building in deafening ferocity as they sensed the nearing of their salvation.

  Onwards they stormed the swell of bodies building and pushing the crest of the wave further and faster. With every step one would fall; a man, a woman, a child, whatever, it wasn’t important, not at this point.

  They would lose their footing and spill onto the loose gravel as hundreds of thousands of pounding feet stamped them into the dirt and continued pushing forward with new momentum; the face of the wave never losing its depth or force for behind it, the rest of the world, the last scraps of humanity fought with one another, fought with themselves to be the first to arrive in paradise; and claim its spoils.

  Onwards they stormed; a human flood, crashing against walls, crushing skulls and breaking bones, melting body with brick and taking with it, the structures that could not stand to human endeavour.

  Onwards they stormed seeing in their sight a line of White Hearts and silver weapons bracing for something lesser than this.

  Onwards they stormed through and over the White Hearts; some shrieks harmonising the bellows and animalistic roars as shards of metal pierced through the fragile skin of the wave, but with not enough wrecking to rechannel its direction or to slow its celerity.

  It was like trying to stop the ravages of time with the power of denial.

  The wave continued, taking with it once again, the White Hearts who rolled about the dirt being beaten to death by the crushing of feet like hammers; swinging down hard from all angles, tiny feet, massive feet and paws catching on their bodies and propelling them backwards into the core of the flood to build their forward momentum; onwards, through the winding streets that now brimmed with starving humans, the agrarian and voided DeDMeN, Famined and without empathy; onwards, to their saving.

  The White Hearts surrounding the outer wall were now swept away by dread before even the wave of Famined was in sight. The men looked at one another in trepidation and like their brothers before them, the focus in their minds; the orange hue of the Forever New Dawn blackened as a swarm of locusts molested their conscious minds; the buzzing stinging their ears and blocking the commands of the lieutenants and colonels screaming commands to flank left and to hold their position and for the love of the Nest and for saviour of The Collective and to love as one to be a fist and to look their enemy into their soulless eyes and to be war and to be one and to be At Focus and to be a fist again and again and again and then stand your ground men and then love as one and then we are war and then we are war and then oh my god, there’s so many of them and then be as one and then god help us and then fight as one and then die as one and then this can’t be happening and then only the screams and taunts of the growing wave as it pushed straight through the White Hearts defending the last piece of earth before the wave crashed against the outer wall; fracturing the structure but slowing the wave.

  “Launch the vessel,” came a scream from within the complex.

  “It’s too late,” screamed another.