Our Darkest Moments

    My insides were screaming. Every inhale felt like a thousand nails grating back and forth inside my lungs but this was no time to stop and catch my breath. That thing that had been stalking me earlier was running full sprawl right on my heels. The more it gained, the colder the air seemed to get, a kind of pungent, metallic scent corroding the air. I ran on, shooting towards the glaring glow of Haven rising above me.

    I had been sent on a retrieval operation to procure a nuclear device key from the Old City. The City used to be a sprawling metropolis. Home to millions of humans before the last nuclear bombs opened up the gateway that had let all the Angels flood onto our planet. Now it was a skeleton; a crumbling, cracked, and crooked ghost. The skyscrapers looked more like rows of tombstones to me. Once upon a time those very buildings towered in the air. Gleaming glass and silver steel jutting into the sky, seen from thousands of miles away. A reminder that mankind had reached for the sky and had grabbed as much of it as we had wanted. Turned the clouds into another place for us to grow, and build, and explore. Now, every few weeks you would hear the distant crash and bellow of a chunk of some skyscraper plummeting thousands of feet to smash into the pavement. Now it was a reminder that this planet was not a home to us anymore, the sky we had stolen for our pleasure was now strangling us back.

    My foot caught onto a rogue vine growing right across the splintering roadway and I tumbled over, my quick reflexes however let me roll out of the fall and continue my sprint without missing a stride. I caught a glance of the Angel chasing me. It screeched in dismay, enraged that it had just barely missed its chance to grab me. This damn key better be worth it. Haven's Military Leader, General Akihito, was planning the biggest offensive strike on the Angels that Haven had ever seen. Paramount to this mission was the acquisition of this specific nuclear key which could be used to access one of the only active nuclear reactor chambers located just on the opposite side of the Old City. What he might need with a nuclear fusion reactor was a frighteningly curious thought that I banished from my head as I focused on the task at hand. Thinking of only breathing and keeping up my pace. Just about a hundred meters now I thought, the hollow, bassy, whistle noise of the Angel that was gnashing and screaming behind me a reminder of what would happen if I slowed down.

    I slid across the hood of what used to be a car, but was now a stripped and rusty carcass of machine as the main gate danced into my line of sight. Just about there. I could feel the odd chill of the Angel as it reached ever closer. I felt the last slash of its claws brush the back of my hoodie, every molecule of cloth it touched vanishing and being absorbed by the strange and complete blackness that coated the Angel. I strained every muscle to push a little bit harder. The Angel was running on all fours now. Its movement more akin to the rushing of water then any gallop. It was gaining. I wasn’t going to make it. The gate was still 20 meters away, and the Angel was running at an angle behind me, dodging the bright light cast by Haven by staying within the long shadow being cast from my body. Just my luck; I volunteer for an op and I run into one of the most capable Angels I had ever encountered.

    I thought of the fraction of seconds it would take me to slash at the Angel with my LED blade (a handle that emitted a blade of focused light that could tear through an Angel’s skin) pondering if I could draw the blade faster than it could grab me as I felt the spiral hiss of a Concentrated Light Rail Gun (also known as a COLOR gun) being charged and a blinding flash as a laser of rainbow light shot inches past my head and slammed into the Angel behind me. The Angel screeched an ungodly pitch that shook the rubble under me and I grabbed at my ears from the deafening noise and pitched over, landing hard on the ground. The last thing I saw was the Angel standing up and staring right at me, twin stars for eyes glowering from behind its pitch black shape before it pooled into a liquid form and disappeared back towards the Old City.



    I’m lying on my belly on the floor of a living room, reading out of a large picture book about a baby bird. The room is warmly lit, and though I haven’t ever seen upholstery that isn’t scratched and torn and tattered, and wood that isn’t tarnished, somehow almost all the furniture in this room seems brand new.

    There’s the scent of something absolutely delicious baking, the fire at the far end of the room seems to be muttering a lullaby to itself, bathing the room in its warmth. I hum the tune of some long lost nursery rhyme to myself, the words new to my toddler’s tongue but still spoken with confidence. “Ashes, ashes, we all fall down!” I giggle in a feeling of accomplishment as I turn over the thick parchment paper to the next page as laughter from my family drifts over from the kitchen. I had never heard that noise in my life. My family had died when I was a baby, taken by the Angels when they had first appeared.

    I flip the book close, pulling my fleece blankie off of my back and scrambling up to investigate the laughter. I’m approaching the kitchen when a flash of light blazes through the window on my left, rendering the curtains useless. Before my eyes can recover from the blinding light an earthquake rumbles over the house, the pressure in my ears rising and popping as the windows shatter into a million shards and tear through the room, the walls splintering open, and the floorboards bending and pulling up to resemble a crumpled sheet of paper.

    I screamed and covered my ears, the earth still roaring around me as my mother rushes into the room and pulls me towards the bomb shelter underneath our house. I stumble over broken kitchenware and make it the doorway, only to realize that my mother is still standing by the kitchen, screaming my father’s name, as he pulls at the fallen rafters to help my sister escape from the rubble. I see my mother notice me still standing outside the bunker as she lunges over to me, heaving the titanium doors open as I quickly skip inside. Her hands gently take my face, her fingers trembling and attempting to wipe the tears away as she sobbingly tells me she loves me and nudges me further into the cold and dark opening.

     I hear the mute hollering of my father and my mother turns away and leaps towards him, the rubble over my sister weighing too much for him to lift free on his own. I reach out and scream for my mother to come back, as I notice the horizon outside the window rush closer, the air pressure sky-rocketing as the bunker doors slam shut leaving only silence, darkness, and me.



    I woke with a start, instinctively grabbing for my secondary LED blade hidden in the side seam of my combat boots. I was already holding the blade in a defensive position when I realized I was only in the medical wing of Haven’s military quarter. I turned the concentrated light beam off, and slid the LED blade back into my boot. I glanced around the room catching my breath and repeating to myself that it was just that same dream again. It had never happened; my family had been murdered by the Angels. Everyone all around Haven had similar nightmares, always feeling more like a memory than a dream. It had been concluded by the High Council that this was just an effect of the chemical waste that was blown into Haven from the Old City.

    I snatched up the multi-coloured pills lying in a tiny plate waiting on the bedside table, tossing them into my mouth as I took a swig from the bent tin cup to wash down the pills, ending up draining the entire cup of water. I had been on that retrieval op for almost a week now, so it made sense that breathing in all that dust and ash would leave me parched. I flexed my muscles, stretching and turning to check for any serious wounds. My movement caused the room’s patient alarm to set off: a rapid, dry croaking emitting from the ancient speakers. I reached behind the monitor and unplugged the speakers and the noise died out with a pathetic mew. It’s not like there was a nurse or doctor who could get here anytime soon. The military quarter’s medical ward used to be solely purposed for injured military personnel but the rapid spread of diseases and sicknesses in Haven’s cramped walls had changed that. The people needed all the medicine they could get and the medical ward changed its regulations to accommodate for that.

    I swung my legs over the side of the bed and regretted the decision immediately. I wasn’t in pain but the thought of having to stand, move, walk- just anything but lie down and actually get a good night’s rest seemed like the worst thing I had ever decided. This humble wish was left as just that however as the announcement system that branched all across Haven announced my urgent attendance in the War Room.



    “I would like to start off this council session with another reminder that the unidentifiable enemy force we have been at war with for the last hundred years are not to be called Angels. This name is the result of the mad ravings of an ex-soldier who is suffering from extreme post-traumatic stress disorder and is obsessing over ancient reading material he has uncovered called the Bible. The enemy we are at war with are not angels. They are not a force of righteousness sent by a greater being to bring balance to the world once more, they are a mishap of nature with no sense of morality or action and thus do not deserve a name. This soldier’s delusions are not to be enabled further for they are in disregard of Haven Act 237. Those who continue to support this misrepresentation will be penalized accordingly for the spreading of fear throughout the populace.

    Moving on to the main subject of this meeting, we have recently procured the nuclear activation key to a fusion reactor located at the opposite end of the Old City. All of you called here today have proven yourself to be the most apt choices for this operation, and will be mobilizing immediately to carry out this mission as to reduce the chances of this news spreading panic among the citizens of Haven if leaked. It has been agreed that the success of this operation could very well bring an end to the Enemy threat we have faced for centuries, and as such the complete arsenal we have available to us has been opened to all of you, including the last remaining dropships at our disposal.

    You will be split into three companies: Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. Alpha will essentially be a vanguard; you will be dropped on the southern outskirts of the Old City and must draw the attention of the Enemy away from the reactor station. You will be under heaviest attack and will need to fight as hard as you can to keep the Enemy distracted long enough for Beta and Gamma companies to drop inside the City and make their way unhindered to the reactor. Beta will be dropped in the central district of the City and will clear its way to the station, establishing a defensive perimeter so that Gamma company can drop into the station, use the key to gain access to the reactor, and set off the chamber to a timed self-destruct. You will then double-time it back to your respective evac points and be flown back to Haven, where every citizen will have been evacuated into the bomb-proofed catacomb network that has recently been dug right under our very feet.

    Your specific objectives will be explained by assigned squad leaders as you gear up. This is the greatest offense Haven has ever mounted against the Enemy, and all of you here today are the greatest guardians Haven has ever had. Stay out of the shadows, secure your objectives and the best of luck to each and every one of you. Dismissed.”



    It is currently forty-five minutes into the operation and over an hour since General Akihito’s briefing. I am enjoying the view of the skyscrapers in the Old City looming vertically above me, lying on what used to be road, but is now broken cement and asphalt. This was as far away as I could stumble from the fire blazing where the dropship crashed after it had been hit.

    I had been assigned to Gamma Company due to my agility and high operation success rate. We had immobilized without a hitch: Alpha Company had taken off to begin the assault on the southern district of the City as decoy, and Beta and Gamma were en route when Alpha Company ceased responding and dropped all contact. Beta and Gamma were ordered to hover over their respective drop zones until the War Council back at Haven could contact Alpha or give us an alternate directive. Beta Company was then directed to continue operation as planned and upon landing was swarmed by Angels, their radio’s ringing in gunfire from their light weapons, distorted whistle-growls from Angels, and pleas for help from the soldiers as they warned us that the Angels had been waiting for them. Every last broadcast slowly winking out into white static as they were taken by the Angels. It was then when the operation was deemed a failure and Gamma company was told to retreat when something very new occurred: the Angels used Alpha and Beta’s Light weapons to gun us out of the sky. The ship’s left wing was ripped off, and we pin-wheeled, plummeting three hundred meters before smashing into one of the shorter buildings and then tumbling off that too to crash into the pavement and explode moments later. I was miraculously not even dangerously wounded; I’m left handed so my injured right shoulder was not the greatest of problems and besides that I was only battered, cut in dozens of locations, and absolutely terrified.

    The City was occupied by thousands of Angels. Gamma Company would have had the combined total of four hundred soldiers equipped with Light weapons, fighting the Angels off so that they could blow the nuclear reactor. Now there was still no contact from Alpha Company, Beta had been annihilated, and all of Gamma Company was lying on the ground in the middle of the street staring up at the buildings reaching towards the sky.

    I groaned and picked myself up. Rotating my right arm in circles to stretch out the bruised muscles, and picked up a COLOR gun lying next to me. I was the last survivor of Gamma Company, but I had survived. This meant that the success of the mission was on my shoulders alone, and I’m not the type to give up this far in.

    I pulled the strap of the gun over my head and let it rest on my back before starting a strong jog towards the factory. The first thing that triggered to me was that it was so quiet. Minutes earlier there had been gun fire and the roars of Angels tearing humans apart. Now there was just dust and echoes. I kept alert, scanning across every street and avenue before making my way across. I was not far from the reactor, the crash site was under a kilometer from it, but I took my time getting there. A thousand Angels were roaming around here and I was not going to be killed off due to haste. I peeked around another building and could now see the abandoned reactor facility. It was right across the street, diagonal from me. I was starting to get a lot more nervous: how had I not found any Angels at all yet? How had they not found me? I scanned the street again before taking a breath and stepping onto the road, quickly jogging my way across to the cover of the factory’s entrance. I opened the door and looked back just to make sure nothing was stalking me. There wasn’t. Only the eerie quiet and the distant thud from a chunk of skyscraper falling somewhere in the City.

    I entered the barely lit structure and made my way inside; the congested halls and my raging heartbeat making me sling the gun off my back and slide off the safety. I kept up a light pace, winding further and further into the factory until I saw the light flickering of active screens at the far end of a chamber. This must be the fusion reactor console as I had not seen any other active machinery so far. I climbed over a large pipe and hopped down, bee-lining for the console when an all-black silhouette moved between me and the console causing the light from the screens to wink out.

    I raised the gun immediately, in less than a second I had my sights trained on the middle mass of the Angel. It didn’t growl or move aggressively at all. In fact, it stayed perfectly still. Shape shifting to look like an outline of a human with two starry eyes burning right at me. Looking at it brought a strong sense of vertigo over me, like looking into the endless depths of a black-hole, but also a longing. Somehow I felt nostalgia too, hidden away in the depths of its inky abyss. I kept the gun trained on it however, not taking a step closer. Seconds passed as we silently dueled in this way, and then it spoke. It didn’t have a mouth, but a metallic and whistle-like voice reached my ears, emitted from somewhere within its void.

    “I have been looking for you. This world is ending. It can no longer bear to support you humans. Long ago it groaned in agony, burning itself out internally to try and keep you from burning, yet still you insisted on your wars and your weapons. In the last of your conflicts it was decided that for the survival of the planet humans needed to be removed. But the natural ways of removal would take too long to bear results, and thus we were created.

    We do not know who or what decided so. We do not know from where we were born. We do not know why we are crafted of this anti-matter, nor what we even are. Only that for the earth to continue, we were to remove you. And that we have. But you are nothing if not adaptive. For a hundred years we have hunted, yet still you find new ways to prolong yourselves. First it was the use of direct light to pierce us. And now it is the renewal of nuclear weapons.

    We have upgraded this reactor. Activating it now will cause destruction far greater than that which your commander predicted, and it shall turn Haven to ashes, so that from those ashes a new earth may flourish.

    You must understand. For life to continue, you must all die. Too long has the natural cycle of life and death been ignored by humans. We are a mercy. But you have to give up the key and prove your race greater than the sum of its past. And if you do, I can return you to a life you could have had if it had not been stolen from you by the ignorance of man. Return you once more to when you were happy.”

    My finger was grazing the trigger. I had been brought up my entire life to absolutely despise these creatures. They were an abomination that needed to be fixed. Yet now, that same abomination was speaking to me and I believed everything it said. More than that, I agreed. I could feel the anguish and frustrating despair of only surviving. People in Haven were not happy. They were not living: they were existing. And for what? A day when we won against the Angels? What would we do then? We had nowhere else to go, no materials to rebuild, no purpose to continue on.
I could see the answer now. The Angels could return humanity to how things were before our ignorance resulted in the irreparable destruction of the earth. When we did more than exist. Back when we weren’t ghosts.

    I lowered the gun, casually holding it limp as I reached into my jacket pulling out the palm-sized key and looked back at the Angel. Its eyes glowing a soft-white now, as it calmly remained standing before me. I confidently walked towards it and staring it right in the eye I brought up my hand and it brought up its own. I suddenly pulled away at the last second, fear and hesitation forcing me to rethink. It cocked its head slightly, its smoldering eyes still looking right at me. How did I know it could do what it said it could? How could it return me to a time when I was happy when I did not know of such a time myself? As if sensing my thoughts it spoke once more:

    “’Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.’”

    I looked at it. Brought my hand up; offering the key. It slowly nodded, and I felt a sudden sense of right. This was the right choice. It took the key from my hand in its own pitch-black fingers. In one fluid movement it raised its hand and slid the key right into the console’s slot and turned. The factory hummed awake, lights snapping on, screens blinking to life, and electricity surging through cords as a high-pitched screech began shuddering though the entire building. The Angel did not waste a moment before stepping right through me, its anti-matter surrounding me. All traces of sight, sound, smell, and touch removed. There was only darkness and me.



    I’m lying on my belly on the floor of a living room, reading out of a large picture book about a baby bird. The room is warmly lit, and all the furniture in this room seems brand new.
There’s the scent of something absolutely delicious baking, the fire at the far end of the room seems to be muttering a lullaby to itself, bathing the room in its warmth. I hum the tune of some long lost nursery rhyme to myself, the words new to my toddler’s tongue but still spoken with confidence. “Ashes, ashes, we all fall down!” I giggle in a feeling of accomplishment as I turn over the thick parchment paper to the next page as laughter from my family drifts over from the kitchen.

    I flip the book close, pulling my fleece blankie off of my back and scrambling up to investigate the laughter. I’m approaching the kitchen when I stop and turn to the window on my left. For a fraction of a second there is a figure made of complete darkness standing there, but I blink and it’s gone. I take a tentative step towards the window when a second round of laughter reaches my ears. I turn away and enter the kitchen, my sister is still giggling from something my father must have said, and I reach my arms up to my mother as she picks me up and places me on her lap.