Paradise Falls

by Jim Spencer

  And with that, he made his way towards civil country using the transponder.

  *

  The doors opened and the Nargus slid inside like some snakes in water. Their reddish white interior made them look like gigantic cobra snakes as they slid along the grounds and moved quickly along the grounds. The people of neutral country were not entirely caught offguard, but they were not as strong. They slid amongst the people as some shot at the Nargus and some threw spears. In all the years that they had been separate from the rest, they had never truly considered what they would do if the Nargus ever came into their complex city.

  More and more Nargus entered the country as the rest backed off and closed as many doors as they could. But the design of the city was flawed. Due to all the gold, it made the doors extremely heavy. They couldn’t close the doors quickly enough to stop the Nargus from entering. There were literally over a thousand of them inside now and all the people of the country were fleeing. In the background, they could hear a rumble. What they didn’t know was that the Wolves had been completely eradicated from the earth at that moment. They all stumbled as their weapons were lost and the Nargus advanced, sliding along everywhere, draining the blood of the humans and feasting on their flesh.

  *

  Atan got up. He wasn’t dead as Alexander had thought, but was playing dead. Luckily for him, this man didn’t know or remember much about medical sciences as he didn’t even bother checking for a heartbeat. And in all that time, he was close to neutral country now. He could feel the rumble in the distance. Maybe it was an earthquake again. But that hadn’t happened for years he thought. As he came upon the coast of neutral country, there was only one thing he could think of and he kept saying it out loud

  ‘I’m gonna get you, Arion.’

  *

  There were no more Nargus in the cave below. If that was not all of them, it was certainly most of them. Either way, she would have done something no one could have dreamed of in her lifetime. And all because she was angry. She grabbed hold of Arion’s dead body, attempting once more to rejuvenate it. His head was completely crushed. It didn’t work. She sighed deeply and tried not to cry for him. Although their relationship was short lived, he was her husband. She might never get over this, but she had to do this one last thing. She had to know why. Why was Atan so obsessed with finding and using this formula. She probably already knew the answer, but she wanted to hear it from his mouth. And Arion, in death was still useful, unfortunately.

  *

  ‘Where are the rest?’ Tali asked Ruto.

  ‘They’ve thrown the bomb and are making their way back.’

  ‘You know that land won’t be inhabitable for at least fifty years.’

  ‘I know. Then again, our world population is so low now, that it probably will be one hundred years before we even consider moving out.’

  ‘It’s a shame it had to come to this.’

  ‘I know. It’s not the life I had envisioned for my daughter.’

  ‘Was she an only child?’ Tali asked.

  ‘No, she had a brother who died when she was about two. She’s probably too young to remember.’

  ‘What about civil country?’

  ‘We’ll wait a few days and go over there to make peace. He has no choice, he has to make peace.’

  *

  Atan finally came across the coast of neutral country. The cold air was biting to the skin, but they were making their way inside, so that didn’t matter. It took him a moment to realise that something was wrong. The doors were open and the great structure was broken, something he had never known in all his days.

  ‘He must have more giants,’ Atan snarled.

  As he moved across, he saw Arion laying in the distance. Without thought, he made his way across and Sana simply pounced on Atan.

  ‘I honestly didn’t think it would be that easy to get hold of you.’

  Before he could say anything, Sana slammed the gun in his face, rendering him unconscious.

  *

  Inside the complex, an internal army had come forth. The Nargus were taken by surprise and some fell in quick succession. After that, they quickly regrouped and began to slither around the army at bay. Some of the armies began to retreat as they saw the sheer number of beasts in front of them.

  ‘Get the hell out of here,’ one of them yelled.

  As they ran back, the entrance behind them was blocked by more Nargus. In the background, Sana was moving Atan along the ground. No one noticed this in the chaos. The remaining army began to shoot wildly as the Nargus dodged bullets and slid between crevices and coiled around civilians. They didn’t eat any, for they were full right now. They simply killed anyone who came in the way.

  One neck snapped along with seven others.

  For each shot taken, seven more were taken down. Amongst the thousand or so Nargus, five hundred was no match. They simply took away their weapons and the rest was history. Utter chaos ensued and all the people were helpless. They were so arrogant in their victory, that they hadn’t even wore much armour. Their barriers were broken down like layers of tissue paper and blood splattered along the floor. There was so much slaughter, that the entire country was flooded with blood.

  Amongst the red and gold, it looked like an odd fire. From the distance, it would seem as though a great fire was burning. As Sana watched, Atan could not move due to the shock of it all. Sana moved towards the entrance of the slaughter and decided to watch a little longer. After a moment or so, she said,

  ‘I think I’ve seen enough.’

  She took a shot along the ground, which didn’t create much of an effect. She looked elsewhere and remembered a great dome in the centre of the country. So with that in mind, she aimed for the ceiling. The resonance of the god particle hit the wall and spread like wildfire. Due to the chaos at hand, some of the creatures didn’t notice straight away. But after many of the Nargus begun to fall, people noticed what was happening.

  She stood at a safe distance from the particle and kept her finger on the trigger. The reaction continued over the remainder of the country. In the panic, people attempted to make their way towards the main entrance, but that was the source of the destruction. They were trapped and since neutral country had no exits to speak of, there was no way out.

  There was a panic in the looks of most people as they knew that death was literally above them. Some people closed their eyes and accepted what was about to come. And the creatures simply tried to scatter away, but were unable to do so. Every one of them was about to die. The particle hit the dome, though Sana couldn’t see that far ahead.

  When it hit the dome, the particle began to engulf the country. She kept her finger on the trigger. It was beginning to feel numb, but she didn’t care. This had to be done. For what felt like eons, but was in fact only a few minutes, the particle spread along the country and engulfed everything at last. Sana only stopped when the particle began to spread outwards towards her. She then let go of the trigger and allowed the particle reaction to die down. Everything in the country was dead, but against all odds, the blood was still intact.

  *

  ‘What are you gonna do to me?’ Atan asked her.

  ‘Take a wild guess, why don’t you?’

  ‘I think I already know.’

  ‘Oh, you do, do you?’ she mocked him.

  ‘Please…’

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry, I’ll make it easy for you. But first, I’d like to have a little chat.’

  *

  Alexander arrived in civil country to find Genghis running riot. He destroyed the machine he had and ran inside with his newly made sword. There was chaos as people didn’t really have any weapons to defend themselves since everything had been taken by the army. In the middle of this chaotic scene was Genghis, raping a woman as her father tried in vain to stop this.

  ‘Khan,’ he screamed as this finally led his attention away from the dead woman and onto him.

  ‘Oh yeah. You would stop me, wouldn’t
you?’ He got away from the woman as he turned his attention towards Alexander.

  ‘What madness is this Khan? I told you to help get these people out and you’re raping women?’

  ‘The father looked at me funny and his daughter looked… ripe,’ he smiled sinisterly towards her as she sat there crying, unable to move due to fear. Alexander got in the way and pointed his sword towards him. His half flesh half bone face looking towards Genghis’s rotted complexion in disgust.

  ‘This is low by any moral standards.’

  ‘Do I care for standards?’ he yelled at him. Alexander knew where this was going and made a plan before anything worse could happen. He grabbed the transponder that Genghis had come with and destroyed it. As Genghis screamed in anguish and tried to put it back together again, he ordered the people to get out of the country and make their way towards Tribe country.

  ‘What if they don’t accept us?’ one of them said.

  ‘Aren’t we at war with them?’ another one said.

  ‘I haven’t got time for this,’ Alexander screamed. ‘Get out of here or both of us kill you. And judging by how quickly he managed to get through, I’d say that won’t be too difficult.’

  This seemed to have the desired effect as people began to run out of the major city complex they were so used to. He didn’t know it, but they were running away from the lies of a perfect utopia. As they ran out, Genghis finally composed himself and grabbed a weapon. If Alexander wasn’t expecting it, then he may have been killed right there.

  But he was, so he was able to stop the flow of attack. As they jabbed into each other, the remaining people of the country had left. There was no one here now except the two of them. They stabbed at any point they could find, occasionally slicing the arm or sometimes, slicing at the leg. It seemed to be a stalemate as both cancelled each other out.

  Genghis using brute force combined with Alexander’s skill and genius seemed to cancel everything out. Finally, they came close to one another and Genghis stabbed with a small sword he had taken out. As the pain of a thousand swords sliced into him, his vision became impaired and he saw a light, which meant he was finally there. He forced himself back to reality as he took out the sword and stabbed it into Genghis. He didn’t want to take any chances, so he twisted the sword and pulled it out as hard as he could. In the meantime, as both warriors bled out to death, the remaining survivors of civil country made their way to tribe country, the only refuge they had left.

  *

  She smashed his knees again as he wailed in the bitter air. Tying him up was easier than she had thought, it was just like tying a chicken once it had been sacrificed. She looked around at the dead corpses and the country she had just destroyed. As Atan sat there on the rock, the weapon was close by just out of reach. There was no way he could get to it on time, he had already tried.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ she finally said as she held the weapon and threw it aside, ‘you don’t deserve to go out so easily.’

  ‘What the hell do you want with me?’ He screamed at her.

  ‘I want to know a simple thing. Why were you so hellbent on getting the god particle?’

  ‘The Nargus were a threat,’ he screamed out when he saw her going for his knees again.

  ‘They have always been a threat. Stop giving me your politics, I want honesty.’

  ‘That’s what it is. They’ve been looking for greater territory to advance for a long time. That’s why the attacks are more frequent; we needed a way out to stem their flow.’

  She smacked his little toes with the edge of a baton that she had found in neutral country. He screamed as they were broken into pieces.

  ‘I TOLD YOU, I TOLD YOU’ he screamed at her, tears falling down his face.

  ‘And I said no politics, just honesty.’

  ‘WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT FROM ME?’ he screamed again.

  ‘I WANT YOU TO SUFFER.’

  ‘I’ve not done what anybody else wouldn’t have.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. You did worse. You killed people for greed, for power. And for that you deserve to suffer.’ she slammed him to the ground and as he attempted to get up with his broken toe, she grabbed a sword, another of the items she found from the country.

  ‘Please, don’t. I don’t wanna die,’ he finally said, genuine tears falling down his face. She stopped for a moment as she studied him.

  ‘So that’s what it is,’ she finally said, ‘You’re afraid of death.’

  ‘Isn’t everybody?’ he screamed as he was useless to do anything in the position he laid. He was shivering and she could see water coming from below his loins. Against her better judgement, she half laughed as she realised what was happening.

  ‘I’m not,’ she finally said, ‘but that’s because I know it’s inevitable.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be. You can live forever.’

  ‘Until the world ceases to exist.’

  ‘That won’t happen,’ he tried to reason with her. She sneered at him,

  ‘You’re fucking joking right. Have you seen what we’ve done here? It’s a miracle the world still exists.’

  ‘I don’t believe in miracles.’

  ‘Well that’s where you go wrong, chancellor. For example, do you have any idea what I’m going to do here?’

  ‘Kill me,’ he answered her clumsily.

  ‘I’ll do that yes, but now that I have my answer I still have to make you suffer.’

  He began shaking again as he saw her grab his skin from the back and push it up

  ‘No, please don’t. Please I’ll do anything.’

  ‘I think you’ve done enough for one lifetime.’ With that said, she carefully began to skin him alive, careful not to do too much so as to make sure the shock didn’t kill him.

  *

  She was with him for a few minutes as she did this as he was finally reduced to mere flesh. As she saw him finally going into a state of shock, she used the god particle to bring him back from the brink every time. He was shaking uncontrollably as he begged for mercy. She finally obliged by slicing into his heart and pulling back so hard, she was able to yank it into the open.

  She felt somewhat queasy as she did this. Honestly, she had never done this to a human before and would probably never do it again, but this man deserved it, she kept telling herself. As life finally went away from him, she looked at the side of her and saw some Nargus who had survived looking at the dead carcass.

  ‘He’s all yours,’ she muttered to them as she took the god particle and made her way to the nearest vehicle in the country that was still working. Although she knew the god particle had done the job, she wanted to make absolutely certain. She remembered about the zinc sulphide the chancellor had mentioned. They wouldn’t mind if she used some. The structure had already crashed in on itself and everything was surrounded in the substance. She found a match in one of the soldier’s pockets and lit the match as she drove the vehicle away. She wasn’t a great driver having only tried once or twice before, but her skills were adequate enough as she threw the lit matches towards the structure.

  They lit up straight away, and an eerie greenish yellow flame erupted around the city. The further away she drove, the bigger it became, until the entire view behind her was just that and nothing else. She kept driving until she could not feel the heat so badly and then ventured to stop and look back. As she took one last fleeting look, she had that same queasy feeling again. Unsure what this was, she went into the vehicle and into the small one man medical bay, used to treat wounded soldiers on the go.

  She decided to be safe and scan for everything, just in case. Within her safe haven, she sat there and listened to the flames of the country going down in the distance. Once the scan was complete, it found two foreign objects in her body. At first she panicked, but then upon closer observation she realised, they were foetuses. She was pregnant.

  *

  The people of civil country had finally reached tribe country. It had been a few days since everything h
ad taken place and Ruto had finally received a message from his daughter who told him what had happened.

  ‘It’s interesting you should say that my dear, as I see a great deal of people from civil coming to us.’

  ‘Then Alexander did his job,’ she told her father through the projector. Ruto nodded.

  ‘You said you had other news as well?’ he asked her.

  ‘Yes, I’m pregnant.’

  Ruto was silent for a moment, before he finally said,

  ‘Well that had to happen as well. And Arion?’

  ‘He didn’t make it.’

  They were silent for a few moments, before Sana finally asked him,

  ‘What should I do with this weapon?’

  ‘Destroy it, like we did with the ones here.’

  ‘Do you think that’s wise father? We could use it to our advantage.’

  ‘I know, but it can always be a danger also.’

  ‘Not if it’s used in the right way/’

  ‘Sana, no. It must be destroyed, understood?’

  She sighed and nodded.

  ‘What about civil country?’

  ‘What about them? We’ll accept them with open arms of course. They have a lot to learn, but they should be ok.’

  ‘You think that wise after what they did to us. Historically speaking.’

  ‘I’m not them. Besides, their forefathers did that. Why should I blame them for something their forefathers did?’

  ‘Fair point. I’ll be back in a day or so,’

  ‘Be safe my dear. Remember, you’re not only thinking about yourself anymore.’

  ‘I know.’ The transmission ended.

  *

  She contemplated what to do. She had a point, but so did her father. The world had become truly too greedy because of finding out a fragment of the power of god. Imagine if they got any further. Though getting to a cosmic level was impossible for any humans, the mere implications had been witnessed by her almost first hand.

  She had seen an entire war happen in a matter of weeks and countless people die just to gain control of this item. And now, she understood what power really was. And she hated it. Not necessarily the feeling, but the thoughts it was putting in her head. She could barely think straight. Destroying it really was the only way to resolve this. It had to be.