Chapter 1
Clack
Pulling down the switch, the hatch slowly opened in the back. Simultaneously, the seat started moving backwards, exiting through the hatch being opened. The sounds of engines releasing smoke, and the engine slowly shutting down, resounded in the empty lands.
As the hatch opened, and the seat leaned out the cockpit, the boy, looking no older than 18, looked up at the blue sky. Small glimmers, the same as stars would produce, shined in the sky. A result of the metal floating in the atmosphere.
A small gust of wind blew past the boy as if kissing his face whilst gushing by.
“How many did we lose this time?”
That question, blurted out from the radio in the machine, irritated the ears of the boy. The question was asked in a matter-of-fact tone. Carried by the deep tone, the sentence sounded even curter.
“Five”
Answering whilst looking at the sky, the black-haired boy’s tone was the same as the persons on the other side of the transmission. Some might even call his reply an even darker shade of black.
“Pick up their bodies Dario.”
“Why am I the one that always has to do it? Is this some kind of prejudice!”
“It’s because you’re always the one closest to them. Now stop complaining and get to it!”
The voices on the other side of the transmission bickered with one another. Through the static and aged radio, Tamil could hear the others laughing at the bickering. Both male and female laughs mixed together.
They tried to hide it, but some small sounds escaped their mouths and he could hear them.
Tamil jumped out of his seat and landed on the hard ground below. Dust and small rocks were kicked up with his landing. The orange-colored, fractured ground lay below his feet. The ground made from dried sandstone, or another material of a similar appearance. Tamil worried the ground might crack, and he fall into a cave of some kind, but it managed to hold his weight.
Examining the white remains nearby his feet, Tamil bent down to pick up the metal hanging from the skeleton’s neck. Judging from its appearance, this body had been here for years, decomposing, until eventually turning into a skeleton.
How long would it take for a body to dry up and decompose in such a dry landscape? Tamil wondered, but, there was no way for him to know, so he just gave up thinking about it.
It didn’t matter anyway. Once a person was dead, they didn’t care whether their body was encased in gold or rotting in a desert. Even if their body was to be devoured by beasts, it was of no significance.
Death came for everyone eventually, and caring about what happened afterward was simply foolish. The people that still had a life to cling to should worry about more important things.
As his fingers touched the metal object hanging from the skeleton’s neck, a light flashed before the eyes of Tamil, before an abyss-like darkness came. Tamil’s golden eyes shined in the abyss, being the only source of light.
In the next second, he could see. His sight returned. A clear image appeared in front of him. Like a spectator of a movie, Tamil could see, but neither interact nor feel.
In front of him he saw, he saw the last moments of the dried-up, skeleton that was once a man. His body still human, Tamil could see what was likely the last moments of the corpses life.
Lying on his stomach, the man dragged himself forward. His lips white, the skin dried up peeling away. With eyes blankly staring nowhere in particular, the corpse continued dragging itself forward. Slowly.
The dying man wore a green uniform. A standard army edition.
The man came to a stop. Shaking, he managed to roll over on his back. The small rocks grazed and cut his dried flesh, opening the way for blood to flow.
In silence, the life faded from his eyes and he passed on to the afterlife.
“He paid the price for his ancestors. He died debt-free.”
Tamil looked upon the last moments of the man, that was nothing more than a skeleton in the present. His eyes remained the same as they had been earlier. Without a change whatsoever.
In the next moment, Tamil was back in the desert, feeling the dry air rub against him. He ripped off the metal collar and went back into his machinery.
“Where’d you go Tamil. You see something interesting?”
Greeted by a question as soon as he entered, Tamil gripped the large, microphone-like machine to respond.
“There was a corpse nearby. I took the collar.”
“You gotta stop doing that, it’s not like it changes the fact that it’s dead. You put yourself in danger every time you exit on the battlefield.”
“It’s fine, there’s nothing nearby.”
Tamil responded with his indifferent voice.
“But you can’t be a hundred percent sure. There might be enemies that are immune to your eyes.”
“Enemies like that haven’t appeared yet.”
No matter how much Yuo tried to convince him not to go out, Tamil’s attitude remained indifferent. He was apathetic to the danger. He had long grown past being scared.
“You should give up, Yuo. There’s no way to convince the captain of something after he’s made up his mind.”
Everybody else, responded with a small sigh to confirm their ally’s statement. A second later, a voice returned to the intercom. The radio crackled as it picked up his words.
“I rounded up the bodies. Come to my location to bury them. You should try to avoid looking at the bodies... They’re pretty messed up.”
Turning his machine back on, Tamil looked at his navigation and drove towards his comrade. Arriving last, Tamil left his machine and approached the bloody, dismembered bodies.
Some of them had shards of metal pierced through their skulls, eyes, and various other parts of their bodies. One of them had his stomach cut open, his bowel halfway out of his body, the blood and other substances, a vile black and yellowish-green color, gushing out.
“You weren’t kidding, Niel. I think I lost my appetite. And today was supposed to be Meat day...”
“I warned you not to look, Ren.”
Two of his comrades held their stomachs and various others seemed to be on the verge of it. Tamil approached the bodies, ripping off their collars, and handing them to his comrade, Evian, who was next to him.
“We’ll need quite a bit of fuel for this... Do we have enough to spare?” Evian asked.
“Who has the most left?”
“Milana”
“Have her take her fuel out and bring it here. If she won’t have enough left for the journey back, she can ride with me. We can send someone to pick up her rig later.” Tamil said.
“Looking at the number of corpses, I don’t know if it’ll be enough...”
“We’ll make do.”
With a sigh and a nod, Evian went away and returned with Milana’s fuel. Tamil stretched out his hands and took the fuel. Walking around the corpses, he poured the liquid carefully, leaving enough for the trip back.
Silence enveloped the squad. Not a single sound was made. Even if it wasn’t much, everyone present wanted to pay their respects to their fallen comrades. It might not have been an easy life they had to live, but it was a life nonetheless. Having finally paid their debts of sin, they may finally pass on.
Even Tamil closed his golden-hued eyes and offered up a moment of silence.
Tamil lit a match and threw it on the bodies. The smell of their skin rotting and burning away agitated the soldiers’ noses and the sound of the skin burning away, accompanied by the sound of a crunch, made their stomachs turn.
Not everyone felt this way however. Evian, Yuo, and Tamil, with a couple more people didn’t feel unwell. The feeling of losing one’s appetite and their stomachs turning wasn’t a symptom they had.
“We should probably get going. It’s harder to navigate at night. Also, Blätterlinge might come.” Evian said.
He was right, if they didn’t move on soon, they might get lost trying to find back to their base. They had already taken the measures to prevent the bodies from getting possessed. There was no reason to stay any longer. Tamil knew, there was nothing to gain from staying here any longer. He turned around and ordered their return.
“We completed the mission. Let’s return before the night comes.”
With those words, Tamil left the still burning pile of bodies behind him and returned to his rig. With the course set to their headquarters, the group moved out in formation. Staying in contact with one another through the radio systems in the machines.
