Justice League: Aftermath
If life was a movie, this would be my opening sequence for the next chapter. I imagine myself watching my children playing in slow motion, like something from a dream. Shimmering sand careens down around my daughters hair, as she gleefully tosses it into the air, embracing the bright warm day. Winter overstayed its welcome, it’s tenants cold and hunger as well. At this moment, the darkness recedes before us, and I feel something like hope.
Hope, Hope is fleeting but for in these small moments we are at peace. Even if it doesn’t last, my little soldiers are once again children, and I, just a mother. Nothing more, nothing less.
Laughter fills the air, and breaks the silence, as my son plays just within earshot with the neighboring camp children. Our humble sanctuaries don’t lend themselves to much more than survival, let alone social gatherings. Instead, we cower in silence, buried deep beneath the desert sands in our makeshift catacombs, keeping a vigilant watch for predators just like the slithering and creeping inhabitants of the wastelands.
Just beyond the horizon, the smoldering fires of another group rise high into the sky, likely burning the waste, or bodies, from those who did not survive the winter. Beyond that, the sky is clear, it is a welcome sight.
I had let my guard down. A glint in the distance, and the sonic blast like a gunshot that followed, shatter the serenity, and I realize we have been careless. I can only hope that my family is spared our deserved fate, by the sacrifice of those even more foolish to reveal their location in such unregulated measures. I am grateful that they should die, so my children may live.
A blast erupts from the nearby camp, but it doesn’t drown out the screams. He is looking for new slaves, new soldiers. Reflexively, my son darts to my side, and I sweep my tiny daughter up into my arms. The sand is soft beneath my steps, and threatens to engulf me, but my will is iron, and my haven is within reach.
The hinges creek and scrape beneath the weight of the door, grinding the glimmering sand as it opens, offering hope of survival to its inhabitants. There is no time to be concerned with stealth, and it’s too late to apply our sound dampening pillows and blankets, instead, we recede deeper still, as the heavy iron door crashes cacophonously closed at our backs, a metallic cry rattling our concrete tomb.
And, as so many nights before, the light dies. My daughter softly extinguishes the candle in an effort to conceal it’s soft glow from escaping the minuscule circulation duct that breathes us life giving air. For a moment, all is still, all, is silent.
Then, like the sound of bunker piercing mortar fire we can hear his fists pummeling away at the thick concrete surface above us. His fists, like sledgehammers chiseling away to find the mysteries contained within the hidden places of our world. When the Devil's herald calls for you there is no resistance against his mighty strength, a Demi-god unrelenting in it’s pursuit, and full of righteous wrath, corrupted by the tendrils of our New Gods that have claimed this Earth as their own; and every king needs subjects, and every god, worshipers.
Like plague locusts, his subjects flutter about the landscape and devour. Once my brothers and sisters, now, nothing more than mindless hordes, those whose minds, and bodies, were distorted into forms from nightmares, and these are the lucky ones. The rest, whom God could find no use for, slave away at the Devil’s furnace, stoking the flames of his engines, and offering tributes of servitude to their king.
Cowering in the dark corner of our bunker, the pounding stops, and the red glow pierces the darkness as molten concrete and lead pour from the wound in the ceiling. His emanating light flits about, as he begins to carve his way into our sanctuary.
Before me, the beast of our damnation, in my arms my children, and to my side, the rifle of our deliverance. I feel the warm tears stream down my face, and the shiver of my babies, and I can no longer bear the thought of mortal servitude to such a monstrosity. If it means their eternal rest at the expense of my own damnation, then my immortal soul for theirs seems a small price to pay. Forgive me Father, and deliver my children to your throne.
His figure is distorted in my tear blurred vision when he breaks through the barrier, and the trigger is tight and cold in my hands. I’m sure he heard the first two shots, but I’ll never know if he heard the third.
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