Ex Lacrima Remnant

Track #39 – Unsustainable

Murmurs, noises, words, fingers pointed at the display, at the tired face of Anthony Yarramundi, watching the crowd from the other side of a recorded message, still caressing an old world map.

“After just a couple days of inactivity, that alien seedship opened its gates, vomiting machines that razed everything that stood in their way, acting together with microactuators that remodeled the environment at an amazing speed. We… lost Germany in one week, completely overwhelmed by the alien forces. Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Italy were next. One month. They didn’t last one month. Our first line of defense, our first serious line of defense, went up around Naples in the South, Denmark in the North, the Pyrenees on the West side, Poland on the East side. We contained the emergency there for almost one year, through coordinated incursions, air raids, precise tactical nuclear strikes, scorched earth tactics and EM pulses. But, even then, it wasn’t enough. After eleven months, the Southern Defense Line was breached, allowing those monsters to spread to North Africa too. The Northern Defense Line yielded too, forcing the people of Scandinavia and United Kingdom to relocate to America or Russia. The Western Line moved to Portugal. The Eastern Line still stood, and, as of today, it’s still standing, albeit not there. While I’m holding this speech, the last line of defense is on the Ural mountains, as long as they last. We lost America last year, when the machines managed to reach it by air. Europe is no more, Africa is no more. What’s left… is just this part of the map. And I’m currently here, in my home country. Australia.”

Everyone watched with bated breath. Nobody remembered those names. Everybody understood the implications. The lost story of Earth. The final days, the enigma that was never explained by science. Now had a face. A chronology. A reason to be. Yarramundi kept talking, turning back to the viewers

“As the President of the Human Commonwealth, I’ve been granted the authority to choose my capital. It’s called Melbourne, the place where I was born. You’ll never hear of it again. I’ll be lucky if I die here.”

His expression turned graver than before, his eyes lowered.

“This is to say that we know we’ve lost. We can’t stand any longer. It’s a question of one year at most, maybe two before we collapse. This is why we focused all our efforts on the seedship program. The only thing we could do was giving mankind a chance to be reborn in space. Stronger, more independent. But…”

A long sigh, his eyes closed.

“…since you’re watching this video, our mission must have failed. No human opened this vault, which means that mankind isn’t the dominant species on your planet. This message was scheduled for broadcast if the current vault wasn’t opened within three days from the release date… or if a non-human hand triggered the unlock device. The fact that either of these conditions was fulfilled can only mean that you’ve either been wiped out, leaving nobody behind, or that you’ve been enslaved by another sentient species. A species that has now access to the vaults of the seedship that carried you here.”

Lily gasped. Her hand. Her hand triggered that video? She looked at it, looked back at the display.

“…what?”

Only to feel herself pulled back, thrown to the ground. Muriel van Perens. Was running to the terminal. Growling like a caged beast. Before the rhizomes could stop her, she reached the panel, pushed her hand on it, screaming, shouting.

“I’m the human you wanted, Yarramundi! Ignore that plant! Open that vault! Open that vault! Humans have this planet under their fist! My fist! Retry! Restart the device! Restart the Lagash-damned device!”

But Yarramundi didn’t listen. A video couldn’t answer pleas. A video could only tell a story.

“If your situation is different… I’m sorry, but we can’t jeopardize the fate of mankind. It might be that you all are innocent casualties of a system designed for a greater good. But, now, think about it, think about it from the eyes of a Terran president that saw his world destroyed, without being able to do anything to save it. Think about it: if an alien species managed to get a hold on our most advanced technology, even if we purged the position of all other seedships and of Earth from our archives… sooner or later, they’d be able to build their own seedships and… and potentially destroy our reborn civilization, wherever it has found a new home. We cannot take this risk. The stakes are too high and we must act in the hypothesis of a worst case scenario.”

Van Perens kept pushing the panel, cursing, trying to fit her hand inside it, trying to trigger the real video, the one she was promised. The one they were promised. Not that, not that excuse of a badly written science fiction story. Lily, though, sensed something amiss. Stepped back, slowly, slowly, then faster, faster, getting farther and farther away from the vault, followed by two other rhizomes, a Sword and Shield type that moved away from the terminal, slowly followed by more and more rhizomes. All while the faces were fixated on Anthony Yarramundi. All while every human was lost in contemplation. All while Muriel van Perens asserted her control over the machine, trying and trying again and again, without being able to stop the video, to start the correct one. She punched the terminal, growled, punched it again.

“But, fear not. Your sacrifice will not be in vain. For there is always a next cycle.”

Sacrifice. A new cycle.

Those words.

Made everyone in the room.

Fall silent.

Even Van Perens. Looked up. To her President. To the man. She so often saw. To the man. She would have liked to be. A man who was losing his composure. A man with a cruel light, a spark of despair in his fathomless eyes.

“To you, alien conqueror who can’t understand my words: your death is inevitable, it’s part of the process. To you, man that could not shake his yoke: you will be avenged.”

Yarramundi raised his arms to the sky, his mouth contorted in a grimace of pain, his eyes wide open.

“Let the tenth vault open. Let history… restart!”

A primal scream, a broken laughter, a mad grin.

“Humanity! Will live! Forever!”

The display went dark.

Switched off.

Lights went down.

Silence.

No humming.

No buzzing.

Silence.

Muriel van Perens breathed. Breathed. Cursed. Slammed her fist on the terminal.

“No! No! Start back! Start back, you bastard! It’s your fault! It’s all your fault, you dirty bastard! You ruined everything! Everything!”

She raised her fist, pointed her finger at the place where Lily was, not even one minute before.

“Everything!”

But the rhizome wasn’t there anymore. Muriel van Perens turned around, tried to locate her, her sight blocked by the crowd. Then, she felt something strange. A sound. An unknown noise. As if something was sliding. The column, the terminal she tried to activate. Was slowly. Going down. Down into the floor. Once again. She turned her attention up. The timer. The timer to the Turn. Died too. Completely black. Not a single number on it. That was a weird sight. One that made her even angrier. The moment all of them waited for one thousand years. Ruined by a plant. Ruined by an inferior being that played human. That’s when something else caught her attention. Grigorji Shao. The fat Eastcol bastard. His face. His face. Was shaking. His hand. Was shaking. Pointing at her.

“M… Muriel…? Y… your hand…”

Muriel van Perens raised her arm, the hand that before stood idly on the panel, looked at it. Looked through it.

A hole.

There was.

A hole.

In the middle.

Of her palm.

Then, she noticed. Her pinky. Was getting shorter. Her index finger. Her medium. Her ring finger. Her thumb. They were all.

Being consumed.

Muriel van Perens screamed, fell on the floor. Her hand was no more. Her skin. Her bones. Her muscles. Her shirt. Whatever was there, where her hand had to be, was gone. She screamed. Screamed. The wrist too. Her forearm. Her foot. Her other foot. Her other hand. Faster than she could scream. Faster than she could shout. Her legs. Her shoulders. Her flesh consumed without a pause. Till her lungs were eaten too. Till her heart stopped beating. And all that was left was a disembodied head, with eyes wide open, a mouth left agape in a grimace of absolute fear. Before also being devoured by the invisible wave.

Leaving absolutely.

Nothing.

Behind.

Not a drop of blood.

Not a scrap of cloth.

Not a fragment of skin.

Not a shard of bone.

Of Muriel van Perens.

Nothing remained.

Except her name.

Grigorji Shao stepped away, fell to the floor in absolute terror. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t think. Just scream. Just shout. Just pee in terror, soiling his pants.

Only to notice that

his right foot too

had ceased existing.

The whip rhizome at his side noticed that too. That her vines. Were being consumed. And the Minister of Economy. The Pangean Union representative. The President of Neon. The Mantis rhizome close to her. The corpses of the Peacekeepers. The blood on the floor. The podium. Prime Minister Herz. The loudspeakers. The PV system. All of them.

All of them.

Started disappearing.

Piece by piece.

Atom by atom.

A wave of nothingness.

Devouring everything.

One by one. All at once.

Those farther away ran. Ran to the doors. Pushed against them. The rhizomes too. They slammed the exit open, let the crowd flow, escape. But the corruption spread. All those left behind. All those trampled. All those who couldn’t move. Ceased existing.

In less than one second.

The wave ate the podium, devoured it. It gnashed Prime Minister Herz, chewing him alive, ate the suit that made him look like Anthony Yarramundi. The wave consumed the loudspeakers, thrashing them, eating them whole. Then, it attacked the PV cameras. And destroyed them. Interrupting the communications.

Interrupting the broadcast.

Leaving behind.

Only static.

And a noise.

A weird noise.

Before even the mics were eaten.

And nothing remained.

Except absolute darkness.