Chapter II

Death-engines of hue, and firearms of saturation.

Our escape through the streets provided evidence of the massacre we had earlier missed. Bodies lay crumpled on the ground, their bodies spewn with crimson pools, pink organs, and yellow and green filth. My love gripped my hand to the point of pain, but I could not look away enough to care.

 

The red was splashed upon the sides of buildings, on clear glass and graphite brick. Smoking black holes peppered the sides of the chrome metropolis. The fluids and powder burns were already leading to something reddish and brown. Rust.

 

I hadn't noticed the sky darkening at first, but the gasp to my side alerted me that something on high was amiss. I peeked to the heavens, and found the sun's warmth eclipsed by smoke. It was just beginning to crest over the spires of the Shining City, and as I followed it to its source there was the flickering noxious glare of orange flames.

 

We pulled out onto the main boulevard. My love let out a cry of joy at the familar, clean sterling walls and unmarred slate roofs. The street remained blissfully granite and the sky here was still illustrious silver. The noble town guard, attired in gleaming plate as shiny as platinum, were already forming battle ranks. One of them saw us and frantically waved us behind the lines. We obeyed, ducking heads below their dark as pewter shields and blades.

 

The Rainbow Demon stepped forth, hands raised and curled around those horrible cannons. The pistols absorbed the light, engorging upon the pure silver and white rays of the sun and entrapping them in its dark-maze of anodized blue. Wisps of scarlet smoke still trailed from the ends of those firearms. Both of the demon's thumbs were raised, poised at the hammers of its weapons. That terrible grinning helm bespoke the future.

 

We had been jammed against the remaining survivors, where only at a snail's pace two lone soldiers tried their best to evacuate everyone. I could not bring my head around, both eyes were glued on this inworldly entity of such sight, of such light that revealed itself in ways I could never conceive by bouncing off its mere surface.

 

The men at arms barked their final orders, standing firm, dutifully ready to stand in its rampage. The demon gave no response but the jingling of its bells, and raised its guns. The soldiers brought their shields closer together, hands right around their swords and spears, ready for the onslaught.

 

Thunder and starfire boomed from the rider's hands, and scarlet erupted from the frontlines, spraying over the others. The beast and its owner loomed high, appearing at once before the shattered phalanx and rearing upon them. The linemen jabbed and thrust at the creature, but the demon's death-engines cracked yet again and felled another handful. The bells jingled.

 

The last line of defense had fallen. The remaining soldiers swarmed and flung themselves at the invader, their only hope now to delay the dreadnought long enough for the rest of us to flee. My dearheart cried out to me, and I turned back to her. The crowds had surged past and were churning themselves out into the very countryside we had just come from. I fled with their direction, fingers stretched towards hers.

 

More gunshots, and then a looming black shadow overhead, scattering and superseding our pale ones. Horsehair and stirrups and boots soaring through the air, arcing high, crashing down upon the panicked mobs ahead of us. The guns roared, and more people fell, the colors once coursing inside them streaming red, yellow, black, and green into the ashen grass.

 

I lunged, caught her wrist, and pulled her back. Now I led, coursing over the bodies back into the now Rusting City. Already at our heels I felt the tremble of the horse-beast's plod, the cacophony of bells assailing my ears. We crossed streets, heading deeper into the areas that first fell victim to the rampage. The bells have faded with the distance, but I dared not spare even the breath to slow. We lost ourselves in the dead heart of the town.

 

There were scorched marks along the walls of buildings, seared red and brown. The gray streets were tinted in red with splotches of other colors, and the burning orange in the sky gave the normal fog and cinder-toned spires a hue like no other.

 

My foot slipped out, I tumbled to the ground. She pulled me back up, but my hand was wet and sticky. I brought it up, and it sheened with those surreal colors, those shimmering reds and greens and blues and violets and tans and yellows. It was on my arms, my shirt, my knees and legs. Oil. I wiped it off on a pantsleg; the stain smeared but refused to relequinish itself from my palm.

 

Up ahead, there was a door still mostly intact. We dashed inside, secluding ourselves within room within room. And we waited.

 

I held my love to me; the oil, the stains, the colors leeching onto her, making her cinerous skin glisten in the shallow dim. Those cool gray pupils of hers searched mine; I had nothing to say.

 

Gunshots rang out, and burnt holes suddenly appeared in the walls. The windows outside shattered, from the impact or the sonic boom I couldn't say. Waves of heat ripped down upon us as we huddled in the corner, thermals from the bullets flying overhead and bursting through layer upon layer of structure. We muffled each other's sobbing with our bodies.

 

Finally, the barrage tapered off. The telltale jingling gradually faded. My mind and body could not take anymore, and I faded from consciousness.

 

 

When I awoke, my love would not stir. Mute, I slowly rose to my feet, and made my way to the front door. Asbesto-colored chunks of walling littered the ground, dusting the shale-colored furniture and turning them ivory. The granite ceiling were charred with hints of black and marred by speckles of red. Glass shards covered more of the floor the closer I got to the exit.

 

What's left of the grayed wood was in tatters, so riddled with holes that it barely clung together as a solid piece, much less to its hinges. It reeked of charred flesh, abrasive powder, and flames. Unhurriedly, I made my way towards it, only for the decimated thing to finally break apart just before I reached to push it open.

 

I stepped outside, purveying the destruction and gore. Everything was silent, except for the sudden jingle of bells.

 

The Rainbow Demon was standing right there.

Author's Note

I usually proofread my works, however as always I'm sure there are typos and syntax errors. I appreciate any and all notices of that, and will work to correct those. If I haven't do know that I did acknowledge your notice and try implementing it, but found that it detracted from the effect I wanted and so omitted it.