The Third Glance
(fan-fiction related to the "UFO: Aftermath")
I remember the first glance. Once the doors of the shelter were shut, the dim light caused a sharp pain on my tired eyes. But it was light after all, not a dungeon darkness, slightly diluted by a single crackling lamp on the ceiling, bleeding with drops of moisture. There were only few of us, survivals.
We made our first timid steps to meet the dead and the reborn world. Yet it appeared as if there was no place left for us here. But how can one who has survived death be convinced in the vainness of fight for life?
In my hands, I felt the weight of an auto-rifle. Crossing my sight was an enemy to whom what I felt or what I wished for was all the same. An enemy desiring only one thing—my death. An enemy of many faces. Of humans and of creatures of various shapes and sizes. Dangerous, incomprehensible, ruthless and alien.
Yet making steps on the dead asphalt of cities of the past, inhaling the smell of the pine forest that seemed not to notice the world having turned upside down, catching sight of newspaper scraps that no one will ever care for anymore floating in air, I began to feel...
One more day. One more battle with creatures, swarming on the outskirts of the base's perimeter. One more clip, having fallen with a clicking sound out of a barrel's bottom. Step by step. Inhale by inhale. The moment of victory is approaching. We will return the world to ourselves, we will prove that we have a right to live.
And then, it appeared. As if having been born by a planet that had made a final decision to get rid of us. The Biomass.
I saw aliens in the battle. I smashed their bones with the butt of a rifle. I looked into the inhuman eyes, aiming at me alien weaponry. Yet I still couldn't believe that they—so much like and unlike us at the same time—could have created the Biomass. How inhumane. Yet who am I to speak of humanity? Old measures are obsolete. A thing I repeat to myself each time I jump inside transport, throwing a rifle or a flinging transgenant corpse over my shoulder.
One more glance. To many of us, it seemed to be the last one. Standing on the ladder of the enemy ship, which we have branded "Retribution," memories of the last months of the war had passed through my mind. The neverending hell. Human and nonhuman blood. The dry, lonely cries and the ear-splitting, roaring shots in the emptiness of the dead cities. The still, as if asleep, bushes, derived of the sounds of insects and the chirping of birds. The overgrown bushes, spitting out new life, hostile to humans. And the buzzing, hive-like under your feet, elastic flesh of the Biomass, each millimeter of which breathing with deadly spite, every sprout and hair of which—ready to close in on your body. To choke, to burn down, to swallow...
Yet all of this horror doesn't compare with what the people in the Twilight have persevered.
And that is why I have no right to be afraid. My fear and pain are nothing in comparison to those felt by the ones whom I have outlived. And since I am alive, their souls will be avenged.
The last glance at our given Earth. Farewell, my home. At God's will, I will return to you, to see you alive and free as you have been before. And then we shall breathe with relief. You and I.
The third glance. There's happiness and there's pain, mixed with the smell of blood and smoke; the taste of curses, expelled in agony, is joined by the taste of tears, falling as if at their own will. I have survived. I have returned. Here it is, my wounded world. I place down the rifle, take off the armor and fall down on my knees. Hands touching earth. Hello, world. I wish for you, just like I do for myself, never to see war ever again. I will try my best at building your future with the rest of us. And if it becomes necessary, I will take up my rifle and will put on my armor again. Yet, I do not wish to...
20.07.2005