The Escape

The sound of running could be heard behind them. It was raining hard this night so that every fall of foot sounded like that of a cannonball ricocheting off the surface of some great lake. The forest they were in had no name; it had no need for one for no one had ever escaped its clutch to tell of it. When they were younger, and the sun still shone, neither of them could’ve conceived a place like this to have existed, or rather; events to have unfurled in the manner of which they would to have placed them in such a predicament. In actuality, most of the past was filled with a haze of ubiquitous, convoluted portions of memory. All they could remember now was years of hastily running from everything, just like today.

Earlier that day he had told her that it was all finally going to be okay for the first time in years, he told her they would be free to irrevocably start their lives. They both knew however it was a bold faced lie. One he told her a great many times with no avail. He told her these little white lies to give her some sort of peace of mind in a world that only provided a virulent state of harm; a world in need of devouring them whole.

He refused to allow this path to perdition to persist or allow anything to hurt her. He loved her on a magnitude unfathomable or describable to most. Not that there was anyone. His conviction to this rapture that was his love was maddening at times, but necessary for the both of them. It was the force that drove him to fight and keep her alive by any means possible.

Twelve years ago he picked her up from the streets of a city long destroyed, vigorously saving her from certain annihilation. Others came and went or were destroyed but they survived. The ones they were running from were called: The Ciphers.

The Ciphers had come to our obscure blue satellite two decades earlier with the promise of ushering human culture into a new era. They came bearing indescribable gifts and a working knowledge of every human language. They had been watching us. As they peered down upon us though they were planning, readying, equipping themselves to stage an extermination of biblical proportions we could have never foreseen. The global community as a whole quickly trusted the foreign species as they now promised mankind a true eternal and everlasting life.

All of these promises were proven to be mistruths of course; we just realized it entirely too late. They soon introduced a ‘purge of souls’ where we were to join them aboard their primary ship, the Dregg-Init, and become part of the ‘Calamity of the skies’ as it were. It was an illusion to mask the holocaust that would proceed.

It took nearly two thirds of the population to die till the people realized what was happening and tried to conjure a revolt; but it was too late. They were too powerful and advanced. Three years after, only a million if that were left to flee aimlessly in strife. If not for a few lone jarheads from Utah we would all be dead and they would have this place once and for all. Somehow they managed to destroy the majority of the massive Dregg-Init by means of a Hydrogen bomb hidden under a wheelchair of all places and pushed right into their lair. It goes without saying this was a suicide bomb of sorts.

There they were though. On this ever-collapsing shithole of a place called Earth. Narrowly evading death and uncertainty at every breath, and living daily without resolve. No wayward wanderer one could ever come across will ever tell a weary passer that they are safe, or have the upper hand, or merely that they are simply happy today.

Nothing but war stories; The men, the women, the children all have according war stories and none of them know how many Ciphers are out there. We are all dead is the general consensus. They will continue to hunt until the end of us or them.

Nobody cries…

The two of them had heard of a place a time back where some folks were building a resistance and an underground city they call New Babylon. It may be just a rumor of a myth but it is where they would now attempt to head; tip by tip. Their only mission now is to keep running for now, his personal oath was to keep her safe and alive. Especially now that there will be three of them soon.