Snippet #2773229

The city had taken on a desolate silence after the attack. Those that survived had either fled the area altogether or hunkered down in the few remaining shelters to try and ride out the rest of whatever it was that had begun that night.

The moon cast a milky light over the rubble. No one stirred. No one dared. When the rumbling began, it was because of this blanket of silence that it was so ominous. It was coming from the west, somewhere across the horizon. As it approached, getting closer and closer, the rocks and slabs of concrete and steel shook from the heavy vibrations.

When the first tank rolled into view it carried with it a sense of foreboding. Then came another, and another, like black shadows sweeping down into the city, moving over anything that stood in their way. And still, beneath it all, was that silence.

Their footsteps were hidden beneath the rumble of tanks: soldiers, thousands of them. They marched behind the line of mechanical deathtraps, clad all in black, their shined visors reflecting all of the emptiness around them and not the slightest hint of emotion.

Then the mortars began to fly. Propelled from the tanks’ turrets soared missiles of all types, screeching through the air to collide with the few standing buildings. Some shot blatantly into piles of already broken rubble. These flashes continued, moving just ahead of the line as it advanced. Where they passed, no rock was left unscathed.

Then they stopped. It was as though a silent order had been issued, and in unison every tank, every soldier came to an abrupt halt. Clouds of white fog slipped from beneath those helmets as the men waited, motionless, guns at the ready. The tanks shuddered as the engines were turned off. The silence returned.

The scream would be heard, distantly at first, then closer, closer as it approached. It was unearthly; inhuman. The soldiers and tanks remained still as that long, rocket-propelled missile soared over their heads, reflected for a moment against any shined surface among them. It went forward about two miles, then dove into the ground.

It would be as though a fissure in the earth’s curst itself had been torn. There was no sound for a few moments, and then that roar would fill the night as rock scraped against rock and building upon building toppled into the hole. And the missile kept burrowing down; down; down…

A mile beneath the city’s surface, that missile finally exploded. The resulting explosion mushroomed up, surging through the hole it had created to bring forth a pillar of fire into the sky. The area was lit as if by daylight for a few moments. Then it was cold and dark again, the mushroom cloud spreading down and over the landscape. And that awful silence.

Through the smoke and the smog they began their march again. It was a slow, deliberate march, and nothing survived where it passed. A father crawled from the wreckage of a nearby building. His hands were held high, and he motioned inside, saying something about children; a wife. The mortar shell silenced him in an instant. The building collapsed entirely behind him.

Now the soldiers had their work. Surging past the tanks, they broke into a military trot, the night vision of their visors giving them a clear picture of the surroundings. A sign of heat appeared to the left. They would fire. It would fall. Another figure tried to make a dash past a group of soldiers examining a fallen hotel. The screams of a child followed a short volley of gunfire.

Suddenly there came another of those eerie halts, where everything stopped its progression. The call was sent out, soundlessly somehow, and the soldiers swarmed back, leaping over the tanks as those armored hulks of destruction pivoted and then turned completely, moving back off toward the west.

There was a deep rumble, almost like some primeval drum roll. Then came the glow. Deep orange, it first shed light from the fissure created by the missile, but soon grew brighter and brighter. The drumroll was reaching its crescendo.

The geysers of molten lava sprayed from the cracks and breaks that found their way branching from that initial fissure. Trees were reduced to ash instantly. Where it fell the lava melted even the toughest steel infrastructure.

And even as they retreated that line of tanks turned their turrets back to the city as if in one last, glorious salute and fired a final volley of mortars. Breaking ground, the cracks spread, in turn causing more lava to spew from the depths. As they disappeared over the horizon, the military force left Wing City reduced to what it had now become: a veritable hell.