The Legacy: The World After the Silence

The war is over. There is no winner. No loser. Just the boundless silence and the legacy left behind.

About: On world’s touched by the aetherial blight and corrupted by the horrors it brought forth, one solution to the problem is to activate the Anathema Array. The Black Spheres would relocate to the world and fire off a singular charge. Depending on its strength, the populace either collectively dies to a blinding light or loses their collective memories while the scourge born of the mind is purged. On latter such worlds, rebuilding is never easy. All they have is ruins and the legacy of what was.

One such being, a Kentarak soldier named Gren awakens moments after an Anathema Sphere is fired. He has no memory of who he is or what he was doing. All he has is his gun, rations and boundless curiosity. The world he knew is dead, the Aether horrors purged but the worst of it, has only just begun.

---

The flickering light and electric hum brought him out of his slumber. It took a few attempts before he could even sit up. The dizziness was not helping either. Eventually, he managed to take stock of his surroundings. When he did, he first noted the storage units and shelves, then he saw next to him, a rifle, no longer charged and a damaged helmet; cracks showed on one side. He reached over and struggled to put it on. It still fitted well enough. Next, he checked the rifle over and noticed its cracked rail. He suspected it wouldn’t be usable.

What happened? Why am I here? Who am I?

He looked down at what he wore, some brown armour plate with thick protective gloves. A soldier, then perhaps?

His eyes blinked, and he looked at the partially ajar door. After a minute, he rose to his feet. He tried to walk, but soon lost his balance and fell into a shelf. He used it to hold himself up. It was like he didn’t know how to use his legs anymore. I can still think - but it’s instinctual. It just feels right. I just can’t remember anything else.

He took some careful steps, and soon enough, reached the door. He used it to keep himself standing and used this moment to inspect its metal frame. Some of it had been charred black and crumbled into fragments in his glove. Whatever was behind this had not stuck around. He pulled off a glove and reached out. The black substance felt like acid on his scaly skin. He jumped back to put the glove back on. Why would you do that? - Wait I remember now.

“It’s too late, there’s too many, we won’t make it in time. Not while this storm spews out those things. The planet has been completely overrun. I don’t think turning it off will change anything!”

“We still have to try, Gren!”

“Then it’s your mission to fail. We need to get underground. We’re sitting ducks out here in this swarm.”

Gren, was that my name? With his glove back on, he forced open the door so he could slide through the bigger gap. The ominous black stain continued along the floor, guiding him to a corner and as he rounded it he recoiled at the sight of dead charred bodies. There was nothing at all recognisable of who they might have been. A smoke drifted from them and he hesitated to even approach. He definitely didn’t fancy touching them, but he didn’t need to. It was all coming back. Like remembering a terrible dream.

His knees wobbled as he took slow, heavy steps to the dead bodies. He managed to get down to one knee and placed a gloved hand on a barely recognisable forehead.

“Keep moving, it can’t kill us all!”

The visceral hissing as the manifested aetherial shadow penetrated one soldier after another. Their armour was not built for this type of combat. They were all doomed. It took all of Gren’s willpower to keep himself ahead of his fallen comrades. Not even their plasma-based weapons could stop the creature as it bled its way through them. By the time he was around the corner and in sight of a lockdown room, the decaying stench of rancid decay was on his neck. He held nothing back as he threw himself into the heavy door. It budged just enough for him to get inside. He had no time to help his fellow men, though, as their strangled cries gave way to a long, profound silence. He was too exhausted to even close the door as the shadow loomed in the narrow gap. If it had eyes, it would be looking right at him. Instead, he did the only thing he could and backed away, spraying hot plasma at the door. The creature slunk through the gap with ease and loomed over him.

Everything went black. His senses became dull and the last thing he heard before the ringing pounded against his ears was the creature’s death throes. He must have hit the ground by this point because his whole body ceased to function. He had no sense of where, when or who. All he could do was sleep. And so he did.

He considered divine intervention as one means of saving him from certain death, but he had never been particularly pious. He knew of sects and he had considered the life of faith, but he just could not settle on the idea. No faith did not save him, but intervention did. Strong enough to erase the monster and put me to sleep. My people possess no such technology - but what were we trying to stop again - what was it called?

He tried to recall a name, anything that could bring the present into context. Nothing came, only more questions, as he staggered down the endless corridor. Bodies lay all over the place. Did no one else survive?

A very real fear of being the one left crept into his mind. He pushed it down. No! There has to be others. I can’t be the only one spared whatever this was. He reached a set of stairs and began the arduous climb, struggling to maintain his balance as his body fought against him. He might as well have been a newborn baby, directionless and barely able to do anything. He used the railing to pull himself up to the ground level. No bodies just endless, droning silence only occasionally broken by his raspy breathes. He pushed onward until finally he reached an unlocked and pushed it open letting light spill onto him. Using his hands to shield himself a little he stepped out into a world of ruin. Now I remember.

We were playing catchup when it came knocking and with it; they brought empty promises and a scourge of untold horrors: the Great Blight and endless nights. A people divided in a war they didn’t ask for. Those from the heavens brought justice, though we fall. We were their pawns. And now… His brain struggled to fill in the rest. He couldn’t see anyone else. The great city he found himself in was full of wreckage and the aftermath of war. He should have felt joy that it was over, but the peace only unsettled him. It became overwhelming when he reached one of the main streets.

Nothing but carnage with ruined mechs, weapons and charred bodies.

Their war brought us to ruin. I cannot save my home, but I can avenge it. That’s the least I can do. I won’t rest until they get a taste of my boot. Until it’s their worlds - their blood!