Fall of grimdale

Part one

Grimdale fell last night. We held on for as long as we could, shutting the main gate and barricading ourselves in. We had been preparing for winter, so we had enough food and medicine to last us a while, but we knew we'd all be on strict rations - the last of the harvest from the Farm had yet to come in.

We first began to get confused reports from the East when Romero fell. Of course, we didn't believe it at first, people rising from the dead is just a superstition, a legend, something to tell the children around a campfire, but we never stopped to think that maybe the legends might have a little truth to them.

The Mayor discounted the rumours, but he was smart enough to send a few soldiers along the Coastal Road, led by Captain Crouse. They headed toward Portsmouth to try to find out what was happening when the Eye-chatter from Camp Bell went crazy. It was only a short time later that all communication from the Camp ceased, and we just had speculation and panic from the neighbouring villages.

Portsmouth sent some of their fastest runners East to investigate with instructions to report back, but they didn't return.

When our lads reached Portsmouth the place was busy, heaving and frantic with activity. They'd had news from a young private out of Campbell, the sentries had seen what looked like an army approaching, and his squad had sent him back into Portsmouth in person to report to their commanders and beg for more able-bodied men to hold the Camp. The commanders equivocated, insisting on appealing to the invaders through the Ender-Eyes, hoping to avoid a battle. By the time the commanders began to act more decisively, it was already too late.

As the army got closer, it was obvious that it wasn't an army at all. It was far too disorganised. The troops didn't march, they shambled towards the lights of Portsmouth, slowly at first, but as the citizens panicked and fled, the waves began to pour in, sprinting and slavering, bloodsoaked and mutilated. Locked doors and boarded windows were broken by monsters clawing to get in.

Captain Crouse had planned to stand his ground in Portdmouth, but the horde of undead swept in far too quickly to do anything but retreat back along the Coastal Road while the remaining population were slaughtered. They fled back west, hoping that the desert might dessicate the nightmarish creatures enough to put an end to them, but they just kept coming, and the Captain unwittingly led them right to Grimdale. His one saving grace was that his men were able to sabotage the Grimdale Bridge, and by this action alone delayed the ravening horde for long enough to allow the rest of us some time to prepare for the onslaught.

Our barricades were a rushed affair, mostly furniture from the Inn piled haphazardly, fortified with the odd bit of webbing to slow and entangle anything that tried to get through.

We had archers lining the roof of the Inn overlooking the gate, some of the soldier lads that had been training in Yawpton - steady boys with a good aim, but not true soldiers, and they could only bring so many arrows. I stuck with them on the roof, restocking their quivers and keeping an eye out, but the supplies were soon used up on the front-runners of the horde.

When the main body shambled in, the closed and barred gates groaned and flexed with the pressure of their combined weight, but thankfully held. We were now under seige.

We watched the monsters for hours, but we watched for too long, unsure of what we could do to survive this smothering onslaught.

Panic set in, and fights broke out. Someone got hold of an unstable Ender Pearl. They dropped it on a small group of the beasts near the north-east corner of the wall, to the right of the gate - the creatures were ripped to shreds by the explosion, but it also did severe damage to the wall, and when more of the monsters surged forwards they were able to build up enough momentum to push through the rubble and breach our defenses.

They poured in, an angry tide, and it shames me to admit that I fled, others close on my heels. I was able to scramble back onto the roof of the Inn, but some of the lads behind me weren't so lucky, and were sucked, screaming and desperate, back into the feeding frenzy. Three of us made it onto the roof in time to watch our friends and neighbours be consumed, then turn their now-blank eyes towards us, the last morsels on the roof. We used the very last of our ammunition putting arrows into the heads of former friends.

The situation was dire. Between us we had only some small scraps of food, empty water bottles, and absolutely no hope of holding onto the city, so we resolved to flee.

We made our way slowly along the roof of the Inn around to the roof of the Selphun Manor. The lads and I joked about the times we'd spent inside - The Selphun Manor was a "Gentleman's club" with three floors. Downstairs was a bar for the older and married men, who just liked to look. The middle floor was usually occupied by the younger men, hoping to spend enough to get noticed by one of the "waitresses" and taken upstairs to the Private Rooms to do more than just look. "Going Upstairs" was joked about around town, and with gallows humour we realised that we were now even more "Upstairs" than we'd ever been before, but the humour died on our lips when Gina Peck, one of the more agile girls from the club, shambled by with bloody face, a broken leg, and lifeless eyes.

Over the next few hours we slowly made our way from rooftop to rooftop, trying to attract as little notice as possible from the horde, heading towards the Justice Building.

All sign of fresh food gone, the horde was milling around inside the city, and hidden on the rooftops we were out of mind as they gradually began to disperse.

Once the coast was quite literally clear, and under cover of darkness we slipped silently onto the east wall, then made terrifying ankle-jarring drops to the ground, before creeping South to the ocean to refill our water bottles - salt water wouldn't sustain us for long, but it would get us away from here.

There is still chatter on the Ender-Eyes of safety in the North, and now that the full story is out of what has happened to the Southern Coastal Cities, the Northern Forts and Cities will be able to prepare and fortify.

The plan now? Simple... Head North