"Ugh!"
In the remains of a house deep within a small village on the outskirts of London, a man awoke on a sofa. It was Martin. He had a small bandage placed on his forehead. Sitting up, groaning, he looked around the room. The front room he was in was mostly destroyed. The walls had either collapsed or were partly damaged, the ceiling had holes in it, with the rubble from it scattered across the floor, a large cabinet filled with fancy china lay smashed, along with the china, across the floor of the front room, a rug was burned in half, the scorch marks visible along the sides, and the remains of a table and chairs and a pot of plants were scattered everywhere. The curtains behind the windows were also ripped and torn.
"W-where…where am I?" Martin groaned.
"Relax, my child," a calm voice said and a man with brown hair, small glasses and looked to be in his thirties and was dressed in black robes and black shoes with a necklace of the cross around his neck, a priest, entered the room through a doorway on the left end of the wall the sofa was placed against. In his hand was a glass of water. He walked over to Martin's side and handed him the glass. "Drink," he said. "You've been out for some time. Two days to be exact."
Martin drank the glass quickly in one gulp and drew for a deep breath when he withdrew the glass from his lips.
"Where am I?" he asked the man.
"You're just outside London," the priest replied. "It's nearly dark now,"
Martin coughed and touched the bandage on his head with his hand. "What happened?" he asked.
"I rescued you from the river," the priest told him.
"And where's the Godwinson Bridge and the town near it?"
"Gone! The Martians have begun an attack on London with its streets jam packed with fleeing people! They have begun gassing the population and taking them! There is nothing that can stop them! They are unrelenting in their attacks and destroying and killing at will! Nowhere is safe!"
"But I have heard the sea was safe, where they were evacuating people to the mainland continent of Europe?"
"I am afraid not, my child. The Martians seemed to have made their machines masters of travelling underwater as well as over land. The Thunderchild was leaving the mainland, escorting several vessels with several hundred survivors, but it was attacked." The priest explained "It fired on the enemy machines," his voice rose a little, a sense of hope and elation within. "One, maybe two, I cannot recall, fell, but alas-" his voice turned sour and sad, said event being like the fall of the hero against impeccable evil. "- even the ship and its guns were useless in trying to stop the Martians. Within the blink of an eye, the ship fell and all on board either perished or were taken by the tripods!"
Martin listened to all this with wide eyes. He could not believe what he was hearing. Even the sea, which Great Britain had dominance over was but a graveyard for its people and its inventions! It looked…it looked like it was all over. It probably even was over.
"And we are not alone in our struggle!" the priest continued, his voice turning into terror as he looked up through the hole above them at the sky, which was starting to turn dark.
"What?" Martin asked him, his head turning around so fast he heard it click. "What do you mean we are not alone?"
"Great Britain is but one country suffering under the Martian invasion," the priest answered, turning his head to look at Martin. "I have heard that all over the Earth, reports have flooded in that panic is gripping the country sides of France, Germany, Russia, America, India, Spain as green meteorites have been seen in the skies above them. Also, there have been sightings in Mesopotamia, Palestine, Egypt, China, Brazil, Italy, southern and central Africa and many other lands across the world," he looked back up the sky, breathing heavily and his eyes turning wide behind his glasses. "It is all but over for us. God has made this year the time of our end. We have sinned greatly! We are but finished and God has decided to punish us for our sins!"
"Please, calm down!" Martin said urgently.
"But this is not all the Martians are doing. They are doing something else, something that is choking the very life out of the trees and turning the grass grey!"
"What?" Martin asked the priest, making him turn to look at him. "What do you mean?"
"Come, I shall show you," the priest said to him, helping Martin to his feet.
The priest led Martin out of the room and into a short corridor which looked as though it had been smashed apart by a giant. Huge holes were in the ceiling and floor, a flight of stairs behind them had been broken and smashed, part of the banister along the side dangling down, picture frames lay smashed on the floor and the front door into the house lay on the floor, broken in two. The priest led Martin outside and Martin gasped.
It was like he had entered a whole new world. The houses and shops and even the village church a few hundred feet away had been either completely or partially destroyed. Cars and horse carriages lay crushed or overturned, some burned to a crisp, no doubt having been done so by the Martian heat ray, several trees had been uprooted and lay in the road, the dirt, branches and leave scattered everywhere. Some buildings and other nearby trees were still burning, but there were two things that had shocked Martin. One: the fact that the entire village had been abandoned, and two: what was on the few remaining trees around the village.
On a tree nearby, and on the grass and even the sides of some of the buildings and even cars and carriage remains, was a type of planet, but it was nothing like Martin had ever seen before. For a start, it was not green, but red, blood red. Secondly, it had no leaves at all, in fact it just looked like a weed, but what really caught Martin's, eye as the priest led him over to the nearby tree covered in the weed, was that it was growing. It was still growing, much faster than anything he had ever seen before. It was as if it was growing itself. It was stretching even across the road.
"This is not of God's creation!" the priest said. "This is what they have brought with them from their world!"
"B-but how?" Martin said. "How could this come from Mars, or even them? It … it's a dead planet, nothing can survive on it,"
"Well, we have been corrected, my child," the priest told him. "God has created other life in this universe and now because we have sinned, they have come to destroy us for our blasphemy!"
Martin shook his head slightly as he stepped towards the tree, not taking his eyes off the weed as it grew over it. The tree was completely bare of leaves, branches; even the colour of the bark had changed to a grey colour. It looked as if the very tree was dying, not shedding leaves like it would do in the winter and then grow them back in the spring, but actually dying!
Martin lifted his hand and grabbed a piece of the red weed and pulled it off, having to pull quite hard to do so. The red weed at once stopped and turned a grey colour, much like the colour for the tree. However, as Martin looked back up at the tree, he saw that the weed was still growing; having quickly replaced the part he had torn off.
"My goodness!" he whispered.
"We are defeated! The spirit of man is fallen!" the priest said, getting onto his knees and placing his hands together and began to pray. "Oh, mighty Lord above, please forgive us for our sins and save us from these beasts!" he cried loudly. "I apologize to you for my and for the sins of our people!"
Martin was about to say something to the priest when….
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
He and the priest looked over to their right down a road. About five hundred metres to their right down this road was a huge mound of earth more than double the height of a normal two-storey house within London. The remains of several houses were scattered up and down the sides of it. A bright light green light was coming from the other side of the mount of earth. That was where the booming noises were coming from.
Martin dropped the dead piece of red weed and ran down the road towards the mound of earth. The priest cried after him but Martin did not hear him. Something in his mind was telling him to go over there and see what was going on.
When Martin reached the mound of earth, he saw it carried on in both directions and then curved in away from him, forming a kind of outward shape size of a bowl. The noises from within the bowl were much louder. Martin began to climb up the side of the mound of earth to the top. The priest followed him up.
When Martin reached the top of the mound, his eyes widened more than ever before, so much so he was afraid they would pop out of his sockets.
Spread out for about half a mile in front of him was a huge kind of landing zone. A huge metallic structure shaped like four tentacles stretching out of the top of a sphere driven deep into the ground stood in the middle of the bowl, standing at a height he knew not. Scattered around the ground around the structure were many half-crescent moon shaped craft with large exhaust holes on the back. Three thin metallic legs descended from the bottom of each of the craft, holding it up. Several tripods were moving about in the landing zone and with them were many of the silver dragons that Martin recognized as the Martians.
Suddenly, a hand grabbed him and pulled him back towards the remains of a small upper floor house room a few metres below the edge of the mound. It was the priest.
"What are you doing?" Martin hissed as the priest, pushing his hand off him.
"I have seen what the creations in there are!" the priest told him. "They are craft they could use to fly. Though we have no air force capable of fighting them or even withstanding their might, it the air that have not been able to use against us, until now! When these craft become operational, hundreds more shall perish!" the priest's voice began to break again. "We must pray my son!" the priest cried. "We must pray!"
"You must calm down!" Martin told the priest. "Please, you'll bring them here!"
"Oh, Lord, above, spare us all from this apocalypse that is destroying our world you have created!" the priest cried, getting onto his knees and clasping his hands together tightly. "Please, we beg for forgiveness for our sins!"
"Calm down, man!" Martin half-shouted to the priest, seizing his arm, but the priest swung his hand and slapped Martin back to the ground.
"The Lord above wishes for us to pray for forgiveness! You should be praying with me for forgiveness, child! We have sinned and we are paying the price for doing so!"
The priest resumed praying madly. Martin lay on the ground, his eyes wide as he stared at the priest. He had gone mad! He was completely crazy! He had to calm his down or he would draw the Martians to th-
A silenced him, his eyes widening to soup plates. He silently gasped and looked back up at the edge of the mound. That growl…it was from one of the Martians, and it sounded close! If it was close, then that could only mean they were coming up to investigate! What was he to do!
The priest was still crying and praying madly. Martin grabbed a small wooden beam and, crouched, moved towards him. He raised the wooden beam and swung it at the back of his head. The priest was hit and, with a groan, fell forwards onto the ground, out cold. Martin stared wide-eyed at the wooden beam and his hands and then at the priests' motionless body. He could not believe he had done that. Never before had he ever been so violent towards someone else, but…
A louder growl came from behind and Martin dropped the beam and ran towards the remains of the room. He frantically looked around the wooden floor and saw that part of it had risen up above a deep hole. A few fake teacups, tea pots and a few blankets and soft toys were scattered around it. He dived to the hole and turned to look outside.
A second later, the body of a silver dragon rose up from behind the mound and ambled down the side of the mound on its arms and legs. Three others followed close behind the first, each of them dripping dark green saliva and growling and grunting to one another as they saw the body of the priest and approached it. Martin watched as they reached the man, revealing that their size was only about 5ft 5, and one of them prodded him with its hand. The other Martians grunted and growled at the first, probably speaking in their own language, and turned the man over. One of them grabbed him around the shoulders and dragged him towards the mound, no doubt towards his fate.
Martin looked down at the ground in front of him, a feeling of relief and guilt filling him. He had survived, but…but he had knocked out the priest and made him be captured by the Martians. It was hard accepting the fact that he had let someone else die for him and it was his fault it had happened, but then again the priest was going mad and if Martin had knocked him out and then dragged him over here, the Martians would have found them eventually because they had heard the priests' voice and they would have attacked them, or fled and alerted them to the tripods, who would have then burned them into ashes. Even so, he could just not get the guilt out of his mind.
"Survivors guilt," Martin muttered.
The last of the Martians turned its head, the black colourless eyes staring directly at him.
Martin gasped and moved back into the hole, though he was quickly stopped by the earth wall behind him, as the Martian, followed by another, ambled over towards the hole. As they approached, he saw the dark green saliva dripping off the sharp teeth of the creatures and the black, colourless and evil eyes looking into the hole. Then, the first Martian that had begun walking towards the hole and reached out its arm, its fingers open as if they were ready to grab something. Martin's wide eyes followed it into the hole, tensing himself for a struggle.
The hand of the Martian moved down and grabbed one of the soft toys, a small brown teddy bear with beads for eyes, and took it out of the hole. Martin watched as the Martian sniffed the toy and bit into it, though it made a retching like sound and spat out a mouthful of now dark green cotton and threw the teddy bear to the ground just in front of the hole, revealing a tear on the face where the Martian had bitten into. The Martian grunted at its comrade, who was looking at a fake teapot it had picked up from the ground, and they, the second Martian throwing the fake teapot onto the floor, ambled away from the hole to the top of the mound and disappeared over the side.
Martin breathed a quiet sigh of relief. That had been a close call, but he had to be careful now. It was unlikely to be the last time he would get close to the Martians and next time, he might not be so lucky.
Quietly, he moved towards the hole's entrance and stuck his head out, looked around to make sure there were no other Martians nearby, and pulled himself out of the hole and ran down the side of the mound and disappeared back into the village.
Author's Note: This scene mentioned regarding the T.C will be explored more in an upcoming expansion chapter in this Fanfic.