Timelines Collide

Chapter 1: Sapphire Sunset

For starters, I liked to only think that organics had the ability to bleed. It took only a year to realize that metal can bleed too. It is a concentration of human blood mixed with a thick, wretched, soulless black fluid. It surrounds this valley like a mist. That has now, thanks to The Great Terror, been split into four huge quadrants as if it was a square. 

Many thought it would help make restorations easier. Though time finds a way to still lurk in every broken-down building left in its path. It's no different staring at it all from the third floor of the Solis Station. The only outpost wrapped underneath a layer of red sand that's stationed right between quadrants one and two, the border between us Resistance Fighters and The Legion. 

Watching the thin layers of mist block the red sand below my sight line reminds me for the hundredth time why a commoner can never understand. They'll never understand why the mist surrounds this place like elegant green grass used to before the sand took over. 

They'll never know why this place has red sand instead of brown and dusty. They'll never know how much pints of blood bleached the sand to be so. Still, in a way weird way, it's quite a beautiful sight, knowing that only I and my unit have the privilege.  

Even more beautiful than this mist itself is the dreamy sunsets that flare in the station's background pasted the mist and sand. My eyes can't seem to stop glaring as the blue leaks its way onto the yellow and orange, having them sway along to the song of the sapphire sunset. It's like staring into the eyes of the deep sea.

However, the land below all that beauty stretches for miles of Legion sandy territory past this place. That's why we're here, after all, to defend this cake of a building. It's responsible for lighting the candle of communications that makes its way among all The Resistance Fighters. The red sand has dried up well while in our hands.

That only makes the strings of my battle-ax slowly and silently play a tune of a western showdown, picturing the Legion's bots' limbs crunching upon the red sand, trying to ambush this place, with the last remaining sunlight acting as my only alarm. My mind is betting on it.

Sometimes I wish my mind wasn't so focused on these lingering ideas. For what purpose? Because of fear? Failure? If only my mind could wrap itself around like a vine to a singular and easy answer. It's to the point, I live for nothing else. 

 It's to the point that the only time my eyes dart away from the window is to peek at the rest of my squadron and see their actions seep in alleviated pain. Regiment 115th, A subset of the 104th Battalion, The Ragtags, that's what we call ourselves. There are six of them, not including me. Buzzard, Hardcase, Cliff, Joltxs, Heavy, and Silverback who I and a few others call Ethan.

My eyes can see through the window's reflection a film of Hardcase's and Cliff's arm-wrestling on a metal table in full display, while their radio station starts to pick up right beside them. The female broadcaster speaks with rhythm and dulcet. So sweet I can taste her words from where I stand.

"You're listening to the Wildcats Broadcast, the rootin tootin voices from the valley of ashes. This one goes out to those young tigers who are blowing up a storm near the mountains. Keep your heads up and hips tight, boys."

The music that plays after is jazz and pop, yet it's upbeat and soothing. With those rhythms, comes out a figure slowly fading in the back of my mind. Brings up a faded memory and a haunting reminder. Now, I have no choice but to stare promiscuously into the sapphire sunset.

'Hmph, she would have loved it.'

I can just imagine her hips inside a deep blue swan gown, always finding a way to sway with the song. How her hair, so smooth, neatly curled, and soft can dance to it like it's fighting in the wind. No wonder my eyes want to blind themselves. The sunset's beauty always reminds me of those moments. My mind's mere punishment for a failure that is crucified to my hands.