Outside, things were bad. Ironbeaks were everywhere. Russell could see from the corridor people ripped to shreds by hordes of ironbeaks. Guttural screams filled the air and the cries rose to a cacophony unlike anything he had heard before. It was like a living thing and it breathed inside his head. Behind him the corridor was collapsing, pipes twisting inside themselves and bunching together like a magnet was pulling them towards the centre. As they ran the sphere roared like a vicious dying monster, metal tearing and pulling itself apart. It cried and screamed like it was being beaten, like its lungs were being ripped out. The floor beneath Russells feet swept apart right behind him and he had to leap through the door to avoid falling into the floor. He caught his breath for a moment outside, closing his eyes and breathing in chunks, but a sscream rapped at the side of his head. "Russell! C'mon, we have to GO!" Lester cried, aiming his fists over the hill. He picked up his pace and began to jog to keep up with them. All around him was destruction. Ironbeaks were doing everything they could to destroy the people surrounding them. The floor curled up like a carpet and wrapped itself around people, sucking them into the floor. Trees exploded, showering golden sparkling light over the riot. Microphones hidden in the bronze grass sqwawked and stuttered and licked at the air and Russell wrapped his hands around his head in an attempt to keep the noises out. Behind him the ground was lifting up and he picked up his pace, running to keep up with the others but falling, falling behind. He cried out, flinging his hand out and Lester heard him. he twisted sharply and saw what was happening - the floor had curled round Russells feet and brought him to a complete stop. He screamed and threw his hands in the air, and Lester barrelled towards the source of the disturbanc. A man ran past him, his face a running, rotten blur of what it used to be and he pushed the thing which used to be human out of his way. It fell into the dirty ground and was set upon.
Lester reached Russell and things were bad. Russell cried plaintively and Lester set about helping him, ripping tendrils of vicious metal off his wrists, ankles, and pulling Russell and his child free. Russell wondered briefly if the child was more important to Lester than he was. He wondered if he was just being rescued because he was collatoral, and he realised with a start that he was still the one who had brought him and his daughter into this filthy world, of crackling constant static and filthy dirty murder-birds where everybody hated him and wanted a piece of him, either his dick or his soul. He saw Lester and wanted to punch his face, his handsome, rugged face which had helped him out so many times before. What the hell was he thinking, bringing Melanie here It was his problem, what had he done to provoke him into stealing his daughter? His breath quickened as he was dragged and he thought that maybe God just hated him. As he was dragged along, Lester biting at writhing metal with his vicious fists, Russell thought. He thought that nothing he did could have deserved this. He had lived an honourable life, a quiet life, a life of letting other people go first, of standing aside when people were mugged, of letting other people run the world, save the world, enjoy the world. His daughter, his wife and these new friends had robbed the world of all that he thought he could have enjoyed from it. As Russell thought, Lester cried and bit back his tears as Ironbeaks tore at his skin.
One moment of happiness, of falling in love and into each others arms, and into the happiest moment of my life, and then it was gone, it had been ripped from him by harsh reality.
Lester shouted at Russell for help, and he realised that he had to. Russell got up and and made to run beside Lester – he had gotten barely more than five paces before he realised that Lester wasn't there. He twisted his frantic head back and saw Lester on the ground, beating off the winged magnet bastards. Russell tripped in his haste to turn around, but stood momentarily, frozen by his dual conscience. Could he let Lester die when he had saved his life so many times? Or could he let him live for bringing him here, for almost letting his daughter die, for forcing Russell to live his own life by giving him something to fight for? He was framed by the setting sun, cogs wheeling behind his back, twilight filtering past him, as everything stood still. Lester kicked and screamed in slow motion. A bird bit and flicked off bits of Lesters legs, his flesh, muscle, bone, skin, with a sickening slowness and methodical eye. Russell analysed impartially.
Lord knows he had to blame someone for the situation he was in.
His hair flickered in the wind. And he set off, his eyes focused on doing something worthwhile with himself, of saving a life finally.
The ground flexed its chest beneath him and tore open and black water spilled out. Lesters eyes widened in fear and surprise and he screamed “It's started!” It bled out of the rusted scar in the ground. Russell was ripped from his reverie and leapt towards Lester, as water splashed around his boots. He grabbed an Ironbeak and slammed it into the ground. It hit the water with a soft splash and fell apart instantly. His and Lesters eyes locked and Russell pulled him into the water, now gushing to around his ankles. Birds faltered and disintergrated around them, wings falling apart into cogs and bronze pipes like that as the magnet at the heart of the bird died. The birds sagged first, then carried on sagging like they had been humping their shoulders and the shoulders had fallen off. Lester dusted the remains of the fine cogs off him, and smiled at Russell. “For a second there,” he said, “I didn't think you were going to come.” Russell said nothing, but smiled back, a little falsely. He felt terrible. He could have let this man die, could have stopped his heart from pumping blood. The raw power in his hands at that moment was almost too much to bear – the responsibility of knowing that though he saved Lester, he could very easily not have made him see red for a moment. Neither of them moved for a moment, two blossoms in a hurricane.
Then Melanie opened her mouth and started to wail. Russell was surprised because he thought that she was asleep, or unconscious, but her cries told him different. He let her on the ground, and the tips of her dress began to soak. She howled and suddenly everything around them was still. People half-dead from bird pecks sat up, and saw what was going on. When they realised that Melanie had awoken, screams started in the distance. “Its happening again!” cried a man to Russells right, and he twisted around, tripped on his own feet and ran away at full speed. Fear slowly spread through the crowd like Melanies cries. The ground beneath their feet reverberated with it. The ironbeaks, who had stopped their assault and had watched Melanie, opened their mouths wide, clacking their beaks wide apart, and emitted a vicious caw as well, splitting the twilit air with a crushing sonic blow. There was nothing but the scream and the terrible cries of the birds as they lifted into the air as one, avoiding the drifting water on the ground below. They circled overhead, as the villagers raised a temporary hallelujah.
Melanie was hunched, shoulders bowed, standing stock-still and shaking as she screamed, face staring down at the ground, eyes wide and bulging. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she howled. Russell reached out a tender hand to try and calm the child, but he felt a resistance through which he couldn't put his hand. He tried harder, forcing himself on his daughter, and felt boiling blisters rip up out of his skin, as if they'd been waiting underneath to puncture his hands. His fingers bled as he tried to touch her, the skin flaking away at the tips as he edged his fingers closer and closer to her. He screamed too and pushed forwards with an almighty effort, finally touching his fingertips to her shaking shoulders. The ground splintered beneath her. The water tumbled out like a clogged drain, wet and choking, and the entire valley opened up. Cracks fissured through the bronze, and the ground shrieked as it tore open, an inhuman noise made by metal on the verge of collapse. Massive sheets of metal bent downwards, doubled over with pain as it drowned. Lester scrabbled at the metal as it bent downwards, his fingernails wailing across the floor, biting into rivets and rusted chunks.
Russell cried plaintively as Lester disappeared inside the hole, howling for assistance.
Around him, the ground shattered like broken glass and the valley became a sink-hole. People grabbed their families and prayed as they were swallowed by the water. The raging tide leapt up at them and nibbled playfully at corpses floating on the rising sea.
Russell was lost on a wave.
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