The Locust Horde

The blast rocked the house to its very foundations, as though it were made of matchsticks. Muse was jerked awake by the violent shuddering as it flung her from her bed and to the floor, where she lay for a dazed moment, confused and frightened and only half aware what was going on.

Then the sirens began to wail as the boom of a second explosion rumbled the ground, and the glass in the windows shattered into a million pieces. Muse covered her head with her arms as she was rained on by the shards, but the pain of the countless tiny scratches caused by the sharp glass was immediately forgotten as the terror of realisation flooded through her body. The earthquake explosions and the screaming sirens could only mean one thing.

The Locust were attacking.

Before the tremors of that second explosion had even subsided, she could hear the apocalyptic symphony; people screaming, the guttural roars and growls of the dreaded Locust, the terrifying sound of gunfire, but despite being petrified by the sounds of inevitable death, Muse scrambled up to look out of her window at the devastation below.

The Locust were everywhere; their huge pale bodies swarming so thickly in the grey morning light that it looked like the morning fog had suddenly risen up and spawned the hideous spectres from itself. Transfixed Muse could only watch in horror as the monsters trampled the humans fleeing before them, gunning them down without thought or mercy.

Hands suddenly closed on Muse's shoulders and drew her away from the window, and the shriek that almost burst from the girl's lips was silenced as she saw her mother. However Jessica's face was bloodless pale and drawn with a terrible mixture of fear and resignation, her eyes were huge with dread and the whites were frighteningly obvious.

"Get your things." She whispered in a low, urgent voice, "Get into your cubby and stay there."

Just the strangeness of the order stifled Muse's questions, and young girl immediately obeyed; quickly pulling on socks and boots, and sweater and jeans over her oversized t-shirt pyjamas, while her mother dragged the knapsack that had been packed from the moment they'd been told they were being evacuated, from under the bed.

When she was dressed, Muse went to the bedside cabinet and dragged it away from the wall, hooking a finger into what looked as though it was but a tiny knothole, and using it to swing open the hidden door of a cubby hole in the wall. She took the knapsack from Jessica and stuffed it in before crawling into the small space herself.

"Don't make a sound now," Her mother said in a soft but firm voice. Then she smiled, and the expression was tight and strained with pain and fear and sadness. "I love you, Museli."

The goodbye was clear in her voice, and Muse felt alarm and panic rise within her as her subconscious understood what was happening even as she said it.

"Mum? Mum!?"

"Goodbye, my dear." And before she could do anything, the cubby door was closed, and she heard Jessica replace the cabinet infront of it.

"MUM!"

Muse hammered small fists on the inside of the door, screaming and crying the word over and over again, despite her mother's instructions to stay quiet. But even as she called and called, Muse knew that she would never see her mother again.

Downstairs, the front door exploded in a shower of splintered wood.

Muse immediately fell silent as the pure terror robbed her of her voice, and her whole body became rigid with fright as she felt the floor beneath her vibrate with many heavy footsteps pounding as the Locust poured into the house.

The young girl had to bite down hard on her fist, tears silently streaming as she heard Jessica screaming. The nightmarish sound continued for a few agonising seconds that seemed to last forever, then was finally silenced, and Muse let out a sob. They'd murdered her mother, just like they'd killed her father a week before as he fought with the other Gears.

When Muse heard the sound of Locust soldiers charging up the stairs moments later, and the sturdy door of her bedroom hit the polished wooden floor with a deafening crash as it was wrenched from its hinges; Muse knew the end had come, and she trembled harder, curling into a tight ball, her fist still in her mouth.

However the cabinet was not thrown aside, the door of the cubby was not wrenched open, and cruel Locust hands didn't drag her out by her hair. She heard them turn the room upside down as they ransacked the house, and she heard them conversing in their rough and guttural voices as they argued over the spoils of war. She heard their huge boots stomping back and forth, but they didn't find her hiding place.

Then suddenly she heard a yell that was not in a Locust voice, but a human voice, and there were more thundering footsteps as more huge boots entered her room. The Locust soldiers roared curses in their own tongue and then the whole word seemed to be filled with the sound of gunfire and Muse squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears in utter terror.

The floor beneath her shook as the behemoth combatants fought and no doubt crumpled to the floor as they were filled with lead. There were screams and roars of triumph and agony, the stutter and clattering scream of the Lancer rifle's bullets and chainsaw, and the blast of the Locust Hammerburst, as the fire fight raged merely a few feet from where Muse crouched in fear. The noise was deafening and even when the sounds of battle lulled, the sound of the guns grew quiet and eventually faded, their echoes still rang in the air.

Finally the victorious Locust soldiers left the room, and silence settled over the house; now empty of life except that of a twelve-year-old girl. Only then, when Muse could no longer hear anything but her own blood pounding in her ears and her wildly beating heart, did she dare to crawl out from the cubby, shoving all her weight against the hidden door until she managed to push the cabinet aside.

Slowly she came out of her sanctuary, dragging the knapsack behind her, and stood in the middle of the devastation that was once her room. She looked around and saw the horrors of war before her eyes; the blood splattered on the walls and floor, the gouges in the wood made by bullet and chainsaw, the furniture torn to pieces, and the bodies of the fallen, both Gear and Locust Drone…

It was then she heard the groan and Muse yelped, slapping her hand over her mouth before her scream could maybe call the remaining Locust back. It took her wide, frightened eyes but a moment to find the source of the groan, and Muse felt herself go cold.

A man lay slumped against the wall, in his arms he cradled a Lancer, and blood poured from an ugly puncture wound in his chest. His eyes were only open to slits, and more blood dribbled from his mouth. Nevertheless he looked at Muse and managed a grim, painful smile even as she stared at him in frozen horror. He coughed wheezingly, and more blood splashed on his already blood-smeared Gear body-armour as Muse watched; hand over her mouth, eyes huge, and unable to move. But once the coughing fit subsided, the man, the Gear, looked at her again and managed to lift one arm up enough to beckon.

"C'mere kid…" he mumbled hoarsely.

Muse found herself obeying, and she slowly approached the fading COG soldier. Swallowing, the girl knelt by the fallen soldier and looked into his face. He smiled again, and Muse felt herself begin to cry, despite his smile he looked in so much pain… She stemmed the tears as the Gear gathered himself to speak.

"Take…my gun…" he rasped, his voice sounding as if every word was agony. One of his hands groped at the holster on his thigh and Muse did as he asked and slid out his pistol. "Ammo…" the soldier gasped.

Muse obeyed and took the pistol ammunition from his belt, tucking them into the side pockets of her knapsack and sweater. The soldier continued to force out instructions as his body failed; told the girl to take his grenades, cans of signalling smoke and flares. He choked out how to use them, and then with the last of his strength, the soldier drew his COG tags from around his neck and pressed them into her hand.

"Find the others…" he wheezed, "So we'll be remembered…"

Muse nodded, and for a moment his huge gauntleted hand closed over hers with surprising gentleness and squeezed ever so slightly. Then his arm fell limp and the Gear closed his eyes as the breath left his body forever.

Muse sat with the COG soldier until she stopped trembling. Then she slowly rose and searched the other bodies of the COG soldiers, trying not to look at their blank eyes and dead faces; taking more ammunition from one, a fourth grenade from another, and the COG tags of them all; looping the metal chain of that first Gear's tags around her neck next to her father's, and putting the others in her pocket.

Once she had all the tags, Muse put the knapsack over her shoulders, and then crept through the ruined and shattered interior of what had once been her home, until she finally came to the smashed door. There she hesitated, but finally, warily peeped out.

Outside, all was silent death. The crows had descended on the bodies of the fallen, and were already picking at their charred flesh with cruel flashing beaks. Muse felt the bile rise in her throat, but held it down and turned her face away, covering her eyes. Averting her gaze from the grisly aftermath of battle, the young girl crept from the house, and into the deserted streets.

For a moment she stood there, alone in the middle of a once thriving, bustling square, and shivered. It was still and silent now, save the wind that howled mournfully around her, blowing up clouds of dust and swirling them around in a haze; around the little girl, the last survivor.

Tears of fear and confusion shivered down the girl's face and glistened wetly on her cheeks as her young eyes took in the devastation of war. The buildings were damaged by the Locust's merciless attack, and some lay as crumbling ruins. The fountain in the middle of the plaza which had been cracked and dry since Emergence Day, was now broken into pieces. The smoking wreck of a gutted car hulked darkly a little way away. The smoke and the dust stirred up by the wind, seemed to blot of the sun.

It was as if the very world was dying…

Muse turned away, unable to look on the burnt out corpse of her world any longer, and wandered deeper into the dead city.