The scene was horrific, the blood soaked the sands and the sky had been dyed black. The Druin gunner looked around before finally looking at his hands. The once pristine black scales that covered his hands now had pieces of sand covering them. He looked closer and noticed the sand was red. His legs were caked in the blood sand, his whole body was.
The bodies of his kin moved but clearly they had died here. He moved closer to the smoke stack that blackened the sky.
"Please, someone, please be alive" he pleaded with something unseen for his brethren to be alive as the origin of the smoke came into view.
Bodies piled high on fire; it was his brothers, sisters and people he had pledged his life to protect.
"What can I do now? Is my father still alive?" he dashed the thought from his mind quickly as he remembered when he had last seen his father, valiant he was as he ran into battle to defeat the poison bloods, but there was no way the outpost would be like this that they could do this to his people.
He moved closer and closer to the bodies as he replayed the actions before he fell unconscious over and over in his head. He had run, he had let this happen, he had one job and he had failed it.
When the bodies were within reach he saw a small girl's hand sticking through the pile of larger bodies. He ran to it. He had seen it move, someone was still alive in the pile.
"She must have hidden from the human soldiers" he said as he started to climb over the bodies of the dead Druin, making his way to this small hand covered in ash.
"Hold on, I'll get you out. Please just hold on" he yelled as he reached the hand and started throwing bodies off the pile trying to get to the girl. The only survivor of this massacre apart from him.
"I knew I wasn't the only one" he said as he moved a bigger body then the rest, an Elite. He took the time to look into the wide open eyes that pierced his soul, he saw his father in these lifeless eyes.
He moved the elite aside and grasped the hand "Don't worry I have almost gotten you out, just wait a little longer" he said as he pulled on her arm, which came out from the pile with a single pull.
"Shit. I am sorry, sorry" he said as he dug through the pile to find the now dismembered girl. He could already hear her wails as he had hurt her.
"I am sorry, I am" he said as he finally moved the last body out of the way only to find a girl long dead, dried blood covered her cold face. As he held the dead girl he wept. She was long dead. It had to have been hours since she died and her body was stiff.
The weight of everything finally set in and the Gunner weeped with the girl in his arms. Everyone was dead, the land would never be the same. He would never be the same. How would he continue?
He looked around the pile and through tears he remembered the face of his father as he died. He was almost happy. Was he happy for protecting his people with everything he had?
"I am sorry dad, I am such a failure. I think I am the only gunner in history to run. What am I supposed to do now?" he lamented into the black sky as the fire got closer to the side he was on. If he did not move he would die.
"Maybe it is better if I die" he said as he watched the flames move towards him.
His fathers face flashed in his mind, this time, however, someone else was there with the poison blood. His face filled with hate and rage as he cut down his father. The way he killed the Druin around him as if cutting down something that was lesser than him, something disgusting.
He did not know the language of humans but he knew that face as it was what every human looked at him with.
He laid down the girl in front of him " I am sorry I hurt you. That I let you die, but I will not let those poison bloods live. I will hunt them down and avenge you" The girl in front of him could never answer. He knew that but he had to tell her how sorry he was and what he would do to make it right.
The fire licked his legs as the girl was engulfed in the flames. The gunner sat there, the flames harming him, burning his scales. The pain felt good, a way for the internal pain to be justified.
"Move, do not die here son" he heard his father's voice.
He looked around to see where it came from but he saw nothing, just the dead Elite next to him that was not his father and the flames.
He snapped out of his stupor and grabbed the elite's body, climbing off the pile of bodies.
"This too shall pass" he repeated to himself as he walked away from the fire. The physical pain may have made him feel better for the time but in the long run would harm him and not allow himself to heal.
"If I perish here, who will stop them from killing more of my brothers and sisters?" he said as he got to the bottom of the pile. The flames had fully engulfed the girl as he walked away to find a way to get back at the poison bloods. One step at a time.
...
He laid down the dead elite's body on the blood covered sands. He closed his eyes and using a knife he had found pierced the chest of the elite Druin.
Inside the chest cavity of the elite Druin was a spore of their fungal tech "A way to preserve our civilisation, they said" he muttered as he picked up the spore and placed it into the blood soaked sands. Cutting his hand he soaked even more blood into the ground