Hope Beyond the Sunset

The industrial wasteland opens before him, barren, burnt, and battle-scarred, a blight long before the wars, nowadays lifeless instead of just soulless, with empty factories and dead machines littering the deteriorating asphalt. A hot gust of sulfuric wind ruffles his red hair and wretched clothes. The dying light bleeds the sky crimson. He skulks in shadows today, perhaps his last, as he waits for night and skirts the mechanized death dealers hovering above. They loom close.

Freedom is not meant for him.

He slumps against a broken wall. His fingers clutch a tattered backpack, the straps missing. He ponders giving up. Death is almost preferable to this. His child face belies the scars beneath. He wants to cry but no tears come.

Standing, he scans the horizon. There is hope beyond the sunset, the red orb matching his flaming hair, even as it runs from him as he pauses. He is young but he possesses the patience of a lifetime. He needs to linger but a bit longer.

Fate abandons him. He feels the hum before he hears it. He rushes out from hiding as they converge, black things, mechanical, towering things, swooping down upon him like ravens upon a corpse. They are faceless ogres, their arms fitted with guns, the bodies vaguely humanoid. He runs headlong, his fear carrying him. His legs move fast, but the bullets fly faster.

He lies on the ground, his fingers still intertwined in his backpack. The light dies within the day and then, within his eyes.

* * * * *

In the last of twilight, they stand around the body, their humming, hulking forms alighting upon the ground. They scan the immediate area, their guns ever vigilant. Finally, one grasps its own head, a hand at each side, and with a twist and a hiss, pulls upward.

The act reveals a man's face. His lips turn upward in a smile. "Quick little bugger!" he says with a laugh.

One by one, the other ogres remove their helmets. They exchange jokes and congratulations. Below them, the circuits and pieces of their quarry lie strew upon the concrete. Its face is of a boy, its eyes locked forever in fear.

"Call dispatch for clean-up," says one of the soldiers. "One less automaton for humanity to worry about."

Another, a man with probing dark brown eyes, kneels down and examines the torn backpack. "I don't think this one was a combat unit."

"Well, I know what it is now," says a nameless soldier. "Spare parts."

All laugh except for the man with dark brown eyes. As they depart, he stays behind for a moment longer as darkness covers the land. With his armored hand, he pours out the contents of the backpack. He gazes upon the stuffed rabbit, the sketchbook filled with crude drawings of things seen and hopes imagined. He sees the worn copy of Pinocchio. He shuts his eyes and whispers, "Why would anything ever aspire to be one of us?"

He quells the emotion bubbling within him. Rising, he remembers his duty. He is a soldier. He is a soldier. He is a soldier. He places his helmet back on.

He rises into the air, his black armor melding into the night.

Find more by Jamie L. Elliott in the Author Index.

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