Hey guys, just to let you know that I am still writing haha! I wrote his the other day at school while I was bored and you must tell me what you think! It is from inspiration from a movie/ book. Can you guess what?
"I specifically recall one moment, while most remain silent beneath the ashes of the war. A single man, dressed in anything convenient he could find, guided us to the splintered and fractured veranda of a home. Whether this was his home I did not ask, nor find of any importance. He wore a beige hooded jacket that was made from soft cotton from the sheep and therefore absorbed the rain similarly to the affect gravity has on the earth. He was drowning in rain water; we all were. Fortunately for me and my wife, we were handed the yellow-stained plastic jackets from the volunteer members earlier that day and a majority of the rain ran clean down our bodies, except for those droplets that sliced our face first, slugged down to the neck and dampened our shielded clothes.
"This man jerked his hand violently, side to side, in repetition. This seriously discouraged me to begin with. This movement allowed comparison between him and the machines and how they fit to routine. ‘What if it was ‘one of them’ in disguise’, I panicked internally. This thought was soon dismissed when I listened to the boom and clap of violence behind us, over the hill. Burst of orange and white light exploded the marshland from behind with violent colours which the waters reflected into our frightened eyes. The contrast of shadow and light was great yet unnatural. The moon on a magic day would not shine as bright as the machine’s menace and power. They were not subtle in their approach to mankind, so 'why start now?' I thought. Therefore, I trusted this hooded man.
"As me and my wife gained closer to our saviour, my sanity, which had previously blocked any form of pain and suffering, was forcing me to listen to the anguish, sorrow and distress that emitted from the glowing valley behind the marsh hill. The sounds of machine guns, children screaming for the mothers, fathers screaming for their sons, sisters screaming for their brothers, wives screaming for their husbands, shells exploding and the sound gravel makes as it smashes against the puddles in the mud, the sound of the machine’s weaponry: their fire scorching the earth into a pyre, their lasers destroying people into ash, their metallic tentacles clutching their victims. And worst of all, their horrific, dreadful, ear-shattering screech of a horn that warns every person in the country of their murderous presence.
"I lugged my wife behind me as she stumbled over every nook and cranny the war had scarred into the earth. Yet, most victims ran slower than us at that, so we was given an extra advantage at survival. No one else had noticed the hooded man that waved when danger was crawling up behind them, slowly, but indefinitely. We fled past whole families, and broken families. It was the cruellest thought to imagine what I did; the machines were undoubtedly going on a murderous rampage in endeavour to extinct us and wipe us from the soil beneath us. But despite their passion, they could not kill every human at once, but instead one by one, allowing opportunity for the odd person to escape the wrath that they so purposefully and viciously wrought. In conclusion, for me and my wife to escape in the general scheme of things, there had to be someone slower than us, weaker than us, to distract ‘them’ from us. I tried to perceive it as honourable sacrifice on my part, rather than survival of the fittest. Otherwise I would have gone full-blown insane.
"We finished our sprint, and scurried up the stairs of the veranda. The veranda was home crafted from oak, it seemed, but had been swollen, torn and splintered by the biased war between man and space. A corner of the roof hung like a loose door in the rain as it’s support pillar no longer existed.
"Without any verbal communication, he threw us through the front entrance and into the marshland home.
"The home was rather large, which was previously sensed from the outside. The house had at elast four bedrooms on the second floor. Wood was the main material used in furniture, walling and flooring. An occasional mud-covered rug hid this floor. Most windows were still intact, but with a series of cracks that resembled veins, ready to shatter at any moment. Sofas were tipped and tables were angled uncomfortably. The attic had already begun to cave in, and water gushed down the stairs and through the floorboards, into the ground. The house was filled with streams of water from destroyed black gutters and dents in the house’s body from explosions.
"He gestured as to the living room, where a few others resided. He then turned to face the outside world, where rain slit his face even further, desperate to save another life. I saw the goodness in this man, but it opposed the new world. This is why I believe he died right there and then. I watched as a meter thick laser struck his body, his face cracked like dried mud, then he turned gray and evaporated into dust that coated the face of me and my wife. He only had goodness in him from ignorance. I admired his holiness, but it had a price.
"Behind where he stood and out the front entrance from which we had entered, two companion machines arose over the hill from which he had just ran. Their metallic legs clawed over the earth, vibrating the ground with every step. With every step closer to the scene, they gained height, until they stood at the very top of the hill, over a hundred metres tall. It strained my neck to look up that high. They then released their signalling horn. The sound alone shattered the house windows and blew sharp shards of glass in every direction. Rain poured in from the windows immediately. All the people fleeing outside, the number must have been thousands! Like a colony of ants running from the magnifying glass of the scientist. Following the horn, these people collapsed to the ground in agony, grasping their bleeding ears. Some even hit their heads the right way on falling, and died. The two machines each had three skinny legs that could move with spaghetti movements, despite being made of metal. These legs connected to s plated robotic body shaped like a diamond. On this body stood a strong, confident, large robotic head shaped like an elongated triangle, the elongated side stretching towards its back. At the front, a bright mechanical eye, almost as large as the house, shone from a short distance at the ants below it. The tripod had many bright lights upon it, but this was the most distinct of all. It’s eye did not move like a humans, but had a human quality to it. It was unbearable to look into the eye. Not because it was bright, but because it was unsympathetic. Would you dare to look into the eyes of Hitler if you was a Jew in world war two? When you fully comprehended his intentions?
"Anyhow, from the bottom of the triangular head, either side of the neon eye, hung two octopus-like arms that swung in its gait. At the end, a powerful arc that was enlightened with fire that began to scorch the world around us. Human beings, who were once my compassionate companions, now burned in hell as the marshland became an orange wasteland of lava. The other tripod squatted low to the ground, and a series of small tentacles reached from beneath the eye and snatched us ants from the dirt itself, and swung them into a cage that hung at the back of the elongated head.
"Me and my wife crouched in the living room, with the few other residence. Some were children. With every step the tripods took, the furniture bounced higher into the air. I held my hands wife tightly in mine, wondering if it was the last chance I’d ever get to look at her face. I wish I hadn’t. It is hard to watch a loved companion cry in fear or no hope, but to look into the eyes of your wife, to find there is nothing. No emotion, no feeling, no thought. Her eyes looked yet did not see anything. She had become a blank canvas. I then realised that the burning victims outside, the disintegrated men and women, the children that had been taken by the machines and locked away in their forbidden cages, were the lucky ones. The biggest victim of all, was my wife. She was no longer something human in the eyes.
"I could not look for another second, and instead looked upon the others. I could not tell them apart. We were all gray in colours and skin, coated with the ash of human flesh and dirt. Even my yellow jacket was wet with gray ash. During this very moment, I learned my biggest moral that I hold close to my heart, even now. I was rich days before, and I ruled my way through into wealth, not caring who I stepped upon to get there. I was stripped of this, and in the presence of complete chaos, I realised that everybody was the same. There was no difference between anyone. I had won many medals in my time. The person opposite me probably not so. I could have been something wonderful, yet here we all were, finding the perfect moment to take our own lives before ‘they’ could.
"Within minutes, screams faded into the distance, or died in the fire. The tripods were directly over head, praying their legs would not swing through the house as a golf club would. With every leg movement, I heard a screech of metal. They moved in synchronization down the hill and over the house, and something was petrifying about it. Their slow mechanical routine implied confidence in their approach. Compared to the imperfect, individual and spontaneous human, they were perfect in routine. Had they done this before? On another planet, in another universe? To be so calm in violence made me fathom if earth had a chance at survival at all against the Martians. I predicted we would fall into anarchy as a population, until the final human was eventually extinguished in the future.
"The mechanical movement of routine faded into the darkness of the night, and all I could hear was the cry of the children in the house, and the rain that poured in through the cracked ceiling and upon our heads.
"I had time, then, to reflect. To reflect… on how truly scared I was. Fear is underestimated when looked in from and outsider. To imagine yourself, that your end would be from fire or ashes of another intelligent life form, stronger and more unsympathetic than any historical individual, you begin to sip the possibility in life, simply hoping for a less painful death. That was our hope; to die painlessly. Is that not a rather terrifying situation? Then I looked at my wife, and saw her gaze, and knew she was experiencing something worse than me.
