Never Home Again

            Zane held his gun close. Four bullets left, and he was nowhere near home. The Greybacks were crawling all over the place, they had won. At least that’s what the word around the Redbelts hold. The Blue Kings, the Yellowbreasts, and the Greenheels had all been taken down. The Redbelts and Brownsleeves were all that were left to hold the land against the Greybacks.

            In seven hundred years, the Greybacks had never been able to take The Crossing at Meraksh. That was the only thing keeping the world from burning to ash. And then, four years ago, Ambassador Axsen blew up the blockade and allowed the Greybacks to come in. He had been promised all of the shiny jewels a man could ever need, only problem was that dead men have no needs, and a dead man was what Captain Holt, of the Greybacks, had made him.

            Zane had left his home, Astoria, to fight and protect it. He was under Redbelt Law, so of course that was the army he joined ranks with. The Redbelts believed in arson and martial arts. ‘Fists of Blood and Fire’ was their mantra, and Zane’s hands were scared from the use of his GPG’s, or gun powder gloves, as they were formally introduced as at the Armory Brigade’s Decade Brawl. The only place weapons were allowed to be tested on others with no repercussions. Prisoners on Death Row were used, and the survivors of the Brawl were automatically enlisted in their proper militaries.

             Maybe if they had had these brawls every year, instead of every ten years, there would be better weapons, at least that’s what Zane thought as he made his way from one burned building to one crumbled to almost sand building. Astoria was a sea city. Sand, glass, and stone were what the building were made of, and walking around in the city made it seem more like an industrial city, like a Greyback’s home city.

            Four bullets left. If Zane made it to his family, there would be one bullet left over, if he didn’t, he would at least have one left for himself so that a Greyback wouldn’t turn him into a mechanical walking corpse. That’s what the Greybacks did, that’s what they specialized in. ‘Bodies of Metal and Steel’ was their mantra. And they knew just how to use their tech to make the dead walk and fight for them. Zane had seen them at work, the night he had fled to find his family.

            That was two nights ago, and he knew the only way to get out of this war, was to get away from the Greybacks, and that death was the only answer. Getting onto Bastille Street, Zane saw what was left of his colored glass windows reflect the fires in the city. He saw his doors blown open by what looked like a cannon. He had stopped in the middle of the street, staring. He didn’t notice his dead robotic twelve year old daughter come up behind him, raise her saw blade arm, and come down towards his head. But he did see his dead robotic mother walking towards him, head split open and tilted toward the air, a howl-like alarm sounding from what had been her mouth, as her arms lifted in the air and her fingers extended with wires to draw him in, to become part of the Greyback army.