Author's Note: To anyone that thinks it's more… I don't know, right, poetic, fitting, that Muse and her group of refugees are killed by the Scorched Earth policy, feel free not to continue reading. For those who wanted them to survive - well, carry on. ^_^

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Proem

…For -static- ose citizen -static- cannot make it -static- Jacinto, the Coalition -static- your sacrifice. Please forgive -static- only way…

Somehow, we survived the day they burned Sera.

The beam of light struck right in the centre of the city across the gorge, and yet it didn't reach us, though we felt the shockwave so strong it made the building beneath our feet tremble.

A solid wall of dust like a huge tsunami wave came at us, and we instinctively threw ourselves to the rooftop. But after a couple of seconds of being stung by sand, deafened by the roar, and blinded by the dust, it passed us over and we rose, more or less unharmed…

After the shock of realising we had made it when we had been so certain our time was up, I convinced the others to hold with the plan and return to the city. Even though the Coalition had used their orbital beam weapons, it was not completely annihilated, and I was sure we had the best chance of survival if we went back.

Four of us died on the way.

Angela was fatally injured by Wretches after we got within the city limits. Jacob fell into one of the seemingly endless cracks created by the Locust. Michael was taken by Kryll one night a few days after we reached the city. And Samuel… little baby Samuel caught a vicious fever as we searched for a place we could rebuild as a base camp. Despite everything we did to save him, he died soon after…

Their deaths will haunt me for as long as I live. No matter what anyone says, no matter if I find a place where the others will be safe and I spend the rest of my existent protecting these people; those four children under my care were killed because of me, because of the decisions I made, and I will always feel responsible…

And then, eventually, we found it. After all the sorrow, the fear, and the uncertainty, we found a place where we could build defences, where we would find a source of clean water and food, where we could form a refugee camp until someone came and rescued us. We were certain of this in the beginning; certain that the COG would send someone to look for survivors, and we would be rescued.

Even as the days turned to weeks and then months, we still continued to hope, but all in vain. They didn't come to find us, and finally we realised that they weren't going to. We realised that we had been hoping with children's naivety, and children's faith that the adults wouldn't abandon us.

But they did. And it was that day we stopped being children, we stopped being refugees.

We became 'the Stranded'.

I remember that my father always used to say that the Coalition of Ordered Governments had a code, a set of guiding principles that were the backbone of the organisation. He said them so many times that I still remember them.

Order, Diligence, Purity, Labour, Honour, Loyalty, Faith, and Humility.

And with these eight moral values that the Coalition so highly prized, was the belief of Unity. Unity, they said, was the key to triumph; pulling together to defeat a common enemy, working together, fighting together…

If Unity is so important, then how come the COG left us, a group of children no older then thirteen, to fend for ourselves?

No food.

No shelter.

No protection from the Locust nor the elements.

How was that Unity when they left us out here while they scorched Sera?

Unity is a joke. The COG's so called 'moral values' are a joke. I saw the chaos when the Locust first appeared; there was no Order, there was only blood, and death, and madness. Diligence? Purity? Labour? Honour? Loyalty? They were all discarded as soon as it became too hard for them to help the refugees that hadn't reached Jacinto.

Faith… I had once had faith. I had faith that the COG, that no-one, could leave defenceless children to the Locust. They did. I had faith that my father would come home, and Dominic would come and find me, like they'd promised. They didn't.

I had faith that the COG would try to rescue us. They didn't. Instead they threw us to the wolves.

Humility. I'm not even sure if they know what that word means anymore. We managed to find a working radio, and we heard all the grand speeches of the COG brass. We heard the promises they made, the rallying words… But to us they were all lies… the words of proud men safe from the Locust in Jacinto.

They didn't know what it was like to be afraid every waking moment that the Locust would come out of the dark and brutally slaughter us all. They didn't know what it was like to have to work every single day to get water, enough to eat, to just see tomorrow.

They didn't help us. They didn't care we were out here fighting to survive. They left us when it became too much effort and we were just unwanted baggage. They simply forgot us because it was easier that way. They sacrificed us for their own peace of mind…

We weren't Stranded…

…We were Abandoned.