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5/20/3050
Trondheim
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The dry, acrid air hovered mercilessly upon the withering desolation of the ancient lava field. It's cracked, black surface a mask upon the red demon that slumbered beneath. A reminder of a rage contained, of a power unrivaled, of how quickly a world can change from serenity to violence.
In the gentle rippling of the warm atmosphere a lone cry of life reached longingly to escape the demons grasp. A short, stunted growth.A mockery of the mighty bastion of hardwood. Embracing the canopy, that it could dream of being in another place, on another plane, in another time. Its roots hunted like wild, starving wolves find the small pockets of life giving moisture provided the occasional rains before they too found their escape from this natural hell. Its few leaves gasped vainly and desperately to draw moisture from the air around.
One leaf in particular hung at the trip of a thin branch. Its clutch on life waning, it refused to release its tenuous grip, knowing that to do so would mean certain death. Its seemingly lonely plight the last straw in the war fought minute by minute, second by second by its parent. Its battle is the battle of the whole. Its stand is the last stand of them all.
From the silence a low rumble pushed its way through the choking atmosphere. An omen. A precursor to the destruction of the mask. A distant herald of the red demon. The leaf drew another gasp, a million gasps, as time passed only by the slow crescendo of the heralds call.
At some point, the rumbles nature changed. The herald’s path was a new, and its melody a broken but distinct series of beats. This was not the call of the red demon. The drums of war smashed the ground, shaking the tree and threatening to shatter its hold on the world. The drums were accompanied by the screeching of metal and the hum of power, the baying of the hounds of hell calling to the great red demon. Gradually the sound receded, the danger passed by on the other side of the mask. The drums rolled their last call, then a rumble, and then nothing.
The leaf sighed. Another gasp. Another second of life. Another front as it fought desperately to survive.
The rumble resumed.
The drums sounded their deadly intent. A different beat from the last, but no less fearsome. No less threatening.
The drums became louder. Intensely loud. The ground shook violently. The mask became like a sea in a great storm. The tree clung to the mask with all it could muster, threatened at any time to be thrown into the unforgiving waves of death, to sink into the dry depths of the demons ocean, forgotten and broken. The howling of unearthly power finally shook the leaf from its precarious perch. In defiance of the tumultuous assault that washed over it, the leaf seemed to hover for a moment once its grasp was broken, then floated slowly…slowly to the cracked floor of the mask. It made no sound, no movement, no scream of pain as its long and lonely fight came to an end. It merely rested there, on the shaking ground, abandoned.
Then a shadow.
Then the fall of a monstrous mechanical foot onto the broken leaf seals its fate.
The Hammer of God comes to crush us all.
Edited by Trondheim Live Daily Report, 20 May 2013 - 06:18 PM.
