6 - Occam's razor dulled

Filth and muck aside, a carnal lust descended upon the Sullen – infused by Factions who strengthened under the cover of a worldwide carnivorous asphyxiation. They went about on two legs putting out the lights, thrusting and stabbing at colors fallen from skies now choked in the detritus of suicide. Translucence bereft of glory, drooping lids and spilling memories onto particulate like blood over an aeon of witness, gave way under the stain of their slain riders. Faithful of the Factions dispatched life with an aloof practice gained only by repetition of their deeds.

Fleeing as from a tempest, they gathered flyers as they went, Fuz and Emerald. The fallen cried over the dying and dead, human as well as the ancient deflating eyewitnesses. Some refused to abandon their translucents and were left behind to fall below the spear. The remainder, hobbled by sick and crippled, stumbled on to the hidden caves Fuz promised them. Under the hollow mountain that climbed above the suffocation, frigid air tunneled into the depths - sucked by forces unseen - and the vexed few who refused to die shivered under a crushing weight, too weary to realize they waited for a sign.

Fuz was introduced to this oasis many years ago as a child, when his father, the Slayer, took a fattened slithering crick troll with his long knife. The two climbed down over fallen rocks, stepping carefully atop the smooth stones into the caves interior, and Slayer cleaned the troll in the clear running water that bubbled up from a compressed stream many lengths below the ledge, hidden and secret from the eyes of men. He showed Fuz, bowing to the foam rushing out from a stalagmite built up over a geological half life, and Fuz mimicked his father, sputtering from a noseful. Slayer laughed and thrust the boy in again until he coughed and drank. 'Not too much now, your belly will burst,' cautioned the man and he knew from experience, for the drink was effervescent and potent. Few knew of this place, and now they feared it - the Sullen - and refused to stray too near, even under the urging, glowering mutter from Factions feared and misunderstood.

The flyers displayed their colors and pranced amid the watery striations, but as they soon took to the gray without the caverns they hid their bodies under a cloak of dearth; and death. Any of the enemy who erred in moving too close were left with a ruddy smile below their chins, and the blood soaked into their skins as they lay drying upon the scree. Skulls littered the valley and the Sullen sought out the enemy in safer places where this reddening water of death refused to flow.

Emerald ruled and her steed bobbed on currents of the echoing dome, threading arches in the cavern and dodging razor sharp stalactites. It recorded new memories, for the cave was akin to galaxies in its beauty and diversity. Fuz straightened under the tutelage of colorful mentors, but his face remained pale like the half moon of that forgotten satellite. They accepted him. Emerald took him as her mate, promised to host a fresh race in the dawn of a new civilization. They grew strong despite their numbers but little did the flyers know that below their feet, in vast reservoirs, churned an answer to their pleas, the salvation of a world choking on its own vomit.

They prayed to the One, and He had led them to the promised land. They needed only to open their souls to hear, instead of relying on wide eyes that were for now shut out from the heavens.

part 7