The Path of Destruction

My world did not come to an end; it simply changed, abruptly and irrevocably.

The neighborhood in which I lived with my family was quite ordinary, large trees and green grasses.

I had already moved out of my parent’s place into a smaller one next door. I hadn’t started a family yet, but I was keeping an eye out just in case I came across someone that made my heart skip a beat. But mostly, I spent my time just trying to make ends meet, going about my work, sometimes happily, sometimes with the knowledge that I would probably like to be doing something else.

It really was ordinary, just ordinary.

Then the giants came. We had never seen anything like them before. I don’t know where they came from, but I know how they got there. They had enormous metal machines to carry them wherever they went.

Seeing one of the metal machines was the first clue I had that change was coming. I was walking alone, and there it was in the air above me. A huge, shiny, yellow metal thing. It was unbelievably large, almost as big as my whole home. It was making terrible grinding noises and belching smoke into the air. I should have known then that this was a terrible thing, but I was drawn to it. Like a moth to a flame, I drew closer, amazed at the look of it.

I was so close, almost close enough to touch it when its true destructive purpose was revealed. A huge claw extended from it and tore into the ground in front of me. I leaped back and scrambled to get my feet under me. The claw kept coming for me, rending the earth with ear-splitting crashes and moans. I turned my back and ran as fast as I could, my heart slamming against my ribs inside my chest. I could see my parents’ house in the distance ahead of me. If only I could get there, I would be safe, their house had always been a safe haven. I could not imagine a world where danger could find me there.

I did not stop to look behind me until I reached it. Once safely inside, I looked out, holding my breath, unsure if I would see it carving into my childhood home with its terrible claw. But it had lost interest and was still tearing the earth apart for no reason I could comprehend. Above and behind the claw, I could see one of them, one of the giants, tucked safely inside. It seemed so small compared to the thing it lived inside. We watched it for a long time, my parents and I, until the noise died down and the giant emerged.

It was at least fifty times as large as I was, maybe even a hundred. I had never seen a living, breathing creature so massive.

In the next few days, more and more of the creatures and their machines landed. They covered the ground they had demolished with a thick black substance that released noxious fumes into the air, and the soft summer breezes could do nothing to dispel the stench of it.

We thought then that it could not possibly get worse. But we were wrong. If we had known what was coming, we would have left, tried to find somewhere else to live. But the neighborhood and our friends and homes were there; it was the only world we had ever known.

Eventually, the fumes subsided, but the blackness remained. I had to cross it to pick up food, and most times, it was cool to the touch, but in the midday, it grew hot and still gave off a slight odor.

Things were mostly quiet, and the machines and their masters left us alone for a while. Sometimes smaller versions of the machines would speed by following the path of the blackness, but they seemed uninterested in us, so we felt safe. Just the same, we stayed close to home, venturing out only to get food. But then the larger machines returned, and with them, another wave of destruction more terrible than the last.

This time they came for our homes. They gave us no warning; they arrived in the early morning, the sun had not fully cleared the horizon when we heard again the wail of their terrible machines. There were more of the giants this time, and they wielded mechanical swords. A group of them gathered around my parents’ place, and as I watched, they begin to use their swords upon it. I ran to the back of my parents’ home and cried for them to get out, to come to me. Soon I saw them running toward me away from the destruction happening in the front.

I clasped my parents to me, so relieved that they were unhurt, and then we ran together and took shelter in a nearby thicket, barely daring to breathe as the monsters tore my first home apart. Even then, we did not leave. At the end of that terrible day, my home was still standing, and I took my parents there. We stayed up late into the night talking about what our next step would be. We finally decided that we would stay only as long as it took to gather food for the journey.

It would take many trips to get enough for all three of us, and we did not know when we would find more. We were so tired after our midnight conversation that we slept late that day, and the river of blackness was already warm to the touch as we all made trips to gather what we could.

After what seemed like hours, I felt that we were close to how much food we would need to leave, I told my father to wait for me, and I left to make my last trip across.

Then I saw someone lying in the middle of the hot, black expanse. I was overcome with a sense of wordless dread, a foreboding I could not understand. I bound to the side of the lifeless form; horror filled me as recognition grew, the body lying so still was my mother. It was my mother’s bushy brown tail matted with blood. It was my mother’s paws that had stroked me so gently as a kit, now stiff and cold. It was my mother’s face that had filled the first memories of my life; her eyes closed as though she were only sleeping. The nuts she had gathered littering the ground beside her.

I could not force myself to move, although my mind sounded a distant warning that to stay would be to meet the same fate as my dearest one.

I looked down into her still face, and helpless fury rocked through me. What was wrong with these furless animals that destroyed and destroyed and rushed by in such devastating blinded haste?

As I stood there, one of the smaller machines barreled toward me, shrieking over and over again, but I did not so much as twitch my tail in response, and it flew overhead, the wind stirring the fur of my face as the angel of death passed over me.

I remained motionless; the thing had not sought my death; it had not swerved to hit me.

I knew then what drove the giants to kill; it was not hatred or savagery; they simply did not care. Their cold indifference was as foreign to me as the hard, shiny walls of their homes differed from the rustling green canopy in which I slept.

Eventually, I roused myself and looking down to where my mother lay, I chirped my last goodbye and then, abandoning the hunt for more food, we would not need it now, I slowly turned my back and crossed the street toward the home that was no longer mine.

I hope you enjoyed my tail! (See what I did there?)

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