Blood danced through the air. A scythe moved swiftly, cleanly, through flesh and through bone. A creature screamed, and fell. Blood danced through the air.
The frames of life moved slowly before blank eyes, eyes powered only by the thoughts of its parent, its brothers, its purpose. The two-legged creatures returned once more, as they have been for days and weeks, and it was its duty to teach them what it meant to die.
Several other Zerglings were with it, screeching and snarling and hissing at the retreating two-leggers. Somewhere overhead, the bloated body of an Overlord watched and relayed commands, and somewhere behind, the guttural roars of Ultralisks forced tremors through the air.
A pang, pain - something was lodged into its left hind limb. The Overlord commanded the pain to be ignored, and the target straight ahead to be attacked first. The hapless Zergling, servant of its parent, its brothers, its purpose, limped onward with the others.
Pain is but a factor of life, my child. Live with it, serve the Hive, and nothing more.
The comforting softness of the Creep was absent beneath its feet. They were in their territory now. Gentle hills that once dominated the scenery, alongside blood and mauled carcasses, morphed into jagged cliffs and steep valleys.
It noticed that the buzz of the Overlord's contact was absent as well. With a quick glance backward, it saw the familiar shape considerably smaller, far far behind them. And it was going home.
But the other Zerglings continued to run.
The canyons shrank back into hills once more. It spotted something shining in the horizon, silver tinted blue and red. Smaller things were moving quickly around it. The targets. Its fellow Zerglings shrieked and hastened their pace, with threads of saliva spilling from between their jaws.
Something erupted - sound exploded with a monstrous boom. Suddenly, several Zerglings weren't there anymore, but were replaced with bloody smears of blackened carapace. A clawed dorsal limb belonging to one of its brothers was flung into the side of its head.
Its mind was racing with fear and panic for the first time in its short life - something was wrong, something the Overlords and Overmind had never mentioned while it was still developing inside its cocoon.
But the other Zerglings continued to run.
They were getting closer. The distinct shapes of two-leggers scampering around their silver-blue shell of destruction burned into its eyes.
Blood danced through the air. A siege tank fired another shell, the deafening boom of recoil forced tremors through the ground.
Its fellow Zerglings shrieked and tried to escape, but threads of their own blood and viscera were spilling from their bodies. In an instant, the world was dominated by pain and colored crimson, then overtaken by starless night.
Nothing more.
