With half their army ruined, many of the men ran for dear life.
"nuòfū!tāshì yígèrén!"* (Cowards! He is one man!)*
He waved his hand, commanding the Manticore to fire.
Missiles flew at me from all directions. "Heh-"
Like lightning I moved through the ranks, a trail of destruction leading behind me.
"tínghuǒ! tāmen shìwǒmen zìjǐ derén!"* (Cease fire! They're our own men!)*
"Chunk!" I stabbed my hand into a Basilisk. "Ngh..."
"shénme!? tā shìshénme-"* (What!? What is he-)*
I slowly lifted the massive hunk of metal off the ground; "Rgh... RAAAAH!" and with all my might, threw it into the firing Manticore.
"BOOM!" They exploded, lighting the horizon in a hellfire as the falling debris fell upon the remaining men.
The commanding officer fell to the ground, his legs shaking. "tā shìshénme rén..."* (W-what is he...)*
Moving through the soldiers I was like a plague, leaving nothing but corpses in an endless slaughter, littering the battlefield with the remains of the dead.
"Hah- Hah-" My mind was wide awake, more than ever before. What was I so afraid of? It felt amazing!
"Ah... Hah..." A scared soldier fired his weapon at me. "Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Instinctively, my hand grabbed the bullets out of the air. I turned to him, dropping them at his feet.
"qǐng- liánmǐn..."* (Please- Have mercy...)* He cried.
"Shunk!" I stabbed through his abdomen, "Gah!" He choked, coughing up blood onto me as I lifted him into the air.
I stared into his eyes as the life began to leave them. "..." emotionless.
Then, his face began to distort and warp- changing into that of a blond-haired boy.
"Danill- pochemu...?"* (Danill- Why...?)* The boy cried.
"Wha-" I immediately threw the man off me. "What was that-" I asked, a throbbing in the back of my mind. "Gah!"
I looked around not to find a desolated army, but a massacre of blood-soaked civilians on a cold winter's night.
"No- No!" I cried, pulling at my hair. "It's not real! You're not REAL!" I screamed.
"BOOM!" A shell hit me, sending me flying back; then, the world went dark, the world grew cold; and I fell into a dreamless sleep.
I awoke, the sounds of men yelling as explosions went off in the distance. I looked around...
"My arms..." I had been restrained; my arms embraced by layers of thick steel.
"tā xǐngle!"* (He's awake!)* Yelled a guard; one of many surrounding me.
"What..." The cabin shook, as if we were flying. I tried to move my arms, "Ngh-" The throbbing from before had returned, now a low continuous pain.
The men took notice, "Click!" raising their weapons to me. "méiyǒu tūrán de dòngzuò!"* (No sudden movements!)*
A man came through a door in the front, yelling; "wǒmen zhèngzài zāoshòu měngliè de dǎjī!"* He screamed; "zhǔnbèi-"* (We're taking heavy fire! Prepare to eng-)*
Suddenly we were struck by a missile, the cabin burst open as we came crashing down to the earth. "Boom!" The AV exploded as it struck the ground, leaving nothing but a burning wreckage behind.
Somehow freed from my shackles, I pulled myself from the burning heap of metal. But from what hell I had escaped from, I only seem to find another. "No..."
I looked upon the horizon and bore witness to the new age; a world engulfed in war and strife, as fire rained from the skies, fields turned to ash and the innocent ran for their lives as they were mercilessly butchered by the hands of their fellow man.
I fell to my knees; "This is what he wanted...?" I asked, as if questioning God himself.
"It's here..." I softly spoke, "The fourth corporate war..."
I watched as the sun itself was soon engulfed in a massive plume of smoke and flame; "Hah..." I stared in horror, as if time stood still.
"BOOM!" A shockwave rocked the jungle; my ears rang, "Gah!" as thousands of birds took to the sky, in fear of what was to come.
"Ngh... Hah?" I watched as a tsunami of earth and stone came rushing towards me, devouring the jungle.
I tried to activate the sandevistan but a rush of pain shot through my body. "AAH!" I fell down into the crater that had been created by the crash as the jungle was blanketed in a veil of utter devastation.
Hours had passed when I finally arose from the crater; I looked upon the once lush green jungle, now a gray barren field of charred earth. Ash fell from the sky like snow as I began to walk.
I soon stumbled upon the ruins of a home; the roof caved in as the side wall had been burned away. I made my way closer as I then seemed to step on something.
Bending over I brushed aside the ashen dirt, finding a small children's doll. That of a small girl wearing a torn and dirtied mandarin dress. Half its body burned away by the fire, what was left was ruined and misshapen.
It almost looked as if it were crying...
His words echoed through my mind; "When you wake up, the dream will end."
"And the nightmare will begin..."