EPISODE 1

- FLYING BELOW THE CLOUDS -

[BLACK]

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The clock ticks’ echoes in its small chamber on Fenik’s right side chest while he looks down with his elbows supported on the metal handrails of the walkway.

A strong cold wind sweeps through, making his silver-blue hair messy, but steadily goes back as it was before.

Fenik is young, this year he becomes 18-years-old. His face is emotionless, with a tint of preoccupation, as he moves a coin-shaped metal on his hands.

His clothes are of a black camouflage military, equipped with a protective thin vest with a lot of pockets, and a big combat knife upside down kept in its sheath in his chest.

He looks to his left, a big tiltrotor aircraft is landed, right after the walkway end and a couple of steps to its platform.

It’s today.

Suddenly, a big explosion swifts Fenik’s attention, in front of him on lower ground, a big war machine just shot a cannon round. A two-legged robot-like figure, it’s far away, but Fenik knows how big a Taurus is: nine meters of height. After all, he studied it for years, he knows how powerful it is. He sees a man in a white coat and protective glasses near the war machine screaming something while annotating on his clipboard.

A hand lands on Fenik’s left shoulder with speed, making him startle.

“One day I’ll be piloting that!” Larry boasts.

Larry is always with a smile on his face, having the same clothing as Fenik, with a orange hair that makes split ends spikes, he’s a bit taller than Fenik.

Another strong wind makes both their hair and uniforms to move. It’s too cold.

“That’s something I want to do since I was a kid” Larry continues, now looking at the mecha transforming itself into a tank, making ready for another test round. “You know, it’s so amazing! Look at that! The feeling of power and the responsibility to be in one must be great!” he takes his hand off Fenik’s shoulder to close his fists and place them above the handrail with emotion.

He waits for some kind of response, but Fenik stays quiet.

“One day, my friend, I’ll show you around on one of those, then I’ll finally pull off a smile in your face.” He says with pride, looking at the tank to fire a blast against a testing wall.

Fenik continues to move the metal coin in both his hands.

“Being a Taurus’ pilot isn’t easy, you need to know how to control its balance and weight just to walk.” Fenik’s voice is cold, talking like a teacher’s soft scolding. “Besides, you can’t leave the fortress because it’s too heavy. And it’s so rarely used that you might be a pilot and never actually use it besides in the testing grounds.”

Fenik lowers his head, to the metal in his hand and continues, as Larry keeps looking at the war tank.

“It’s used only on an invasion or against a tier five or above ground creature.” Fenik gradually presses the metal coin with the thumb against his fingers. “Also, they might look tough, but there’s a lot of creatures that can bite off the armor or use acid to weaken it, and the fusion reactor has a defense system that prevents it to explode after receiving too much damage, turning the machinery off completely.”

A cannon blast can be heard in the background, that doesn’t stop Fenik, as he gently changes focus to look at it.

“So, if you are being attacked by a horde, you would be in a small cubic cabin in pitch dark. Just hoping for the things outside to not find you.”

A silence remains after his last sentence, until two pats on Fenik’s shoulder makes him look at Larry’s face; that has a big genuine smile. He turns showing his back, going for the airplane to enter. Leaving Fenik confused.

What was that?

Fenik turns to see the Taurus going back to the garage. He looks at the coin-shaped metal in his hand, hesitating for a moment and tossing it out with his thumb.

The metal coin falls to the testing grounds before it sparks the reflection of the sunlight and disappears out of sight.

I decided.

He starts going to the airplane, which has a blue-dark color and a small stair on the side for people to enter it. Before going in, he stops at the entrance, looking back. The fortress is huge, and we are in the center of it.

It’s possible to see the garage’s gate closing, while the other on its side is opening, another Taurus ready for tests. There are about half a dozen people in white coats on the large testing field. To the other side of the walkway, it’s the community’s area. A city, where people walk on the small stone pavement streets, there are no cars. We can’t have the luxury of that, nor there’s the need for them.

After SAE, humanity is below 0,1% of what once was. In three months, it’s going to make 210 years that humans are not on the top of the food chain, weapons are not as useful, nor our intelligence. The only thing we could do is to hide behind giant walls or underground, either way, it’s our fate, to be killed by the natural selection.

However, people still laugh, get angry, are caring, build lives, and fight. Humans aren’t going to fall for something like this, that’s what all of us need to believe at least.

As the plane starts its engine, the air trembles with the heavy cutting noise, speeding the helixes, as that giant metal bird leave ground.

“We are going to be flying for four hours and thirty minutes to reach fortress Liberty,” Giles, a strong and tall man with a well-made beard and a black-grey short hair, he could be seen as the personification of a veteran military on duty. “so, I want you kids to behave here and when we get there. Just because we aren’t in the academy anymore, it doesn’t mean you aren’t soldiers from Windcut! Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir!” The group of young soldiers reply, everyone’s seated on their coached chairs, just like a bus expedition. The majority have smiles and are very excited, talking with each other while one of the soldiers differs by sleeping, covering his face with a black cap on the back of the plane, only showing his dark-red hair on the sides; a guy with squared glasses reading a book on the front; and Fenik who’s alone and emotionless looking at nothing, only thinking.

“Fenik! We are really going to Liberty!” Zack pops his head from the front seats, laughing, still not believing what’s happening.

Zack is a radiant person; he always looks at problems as a way to improve himself. He has red soft-spiky hair and has a kind and confident look in his eyes.

“That was the plan, wasn’t it?” Fenik replies in a cold tone.

“Damn, why so serious, Fenik?” Vincent shows on the corridor’s side near Zack. “But I guess it wouldn’t be you if you were happy about it.”

Vincent has blue short hair, and his eyes are of someone smart who observes the surroundings for small details.

“I am happy… I just don’t express so intensely as you.” Fenik replies, still untouched, with some irony.

Differently from Fenik, the uniforms of Zack and Vincent are without the vest, and the clothing is like there are plates of protective metal on the fabric, making them look heavier.

“Sir!” Larry raises his hand to Giles that is still at the cabin’s door, which nods for him to continue the question. “Why do we need to be in our combat uniform?”

Giles looks to everyone that stopped to listen for the answer, realizing that they all have the same doubt. His eyes transform into more seriousness, making more evident the concern and tension he was already having.

“Look, kids. We are outside the fortress.” Just those words were sufficient for the grins and excitement to disappear. “This isn’t a party trip.”

“But aren’t we safe in here, sir?” Larry asks with a confident grin before Giles could finish.

“Theoretically, yes,” he looks to everyone, “but out here is territory of the SAE, they could evolve to anything that could kill us in an instant!” He pauses, trying to calm himself. “We need to be alert, there’s just us here kiddos, there are no guards or scientists monitoring the walls.”

After he said that, everyone realized, below the clouds of that airplane, there’s the thing responsible for the destruction of the human supremacy, and the one that is bound to overtake us.

The group of sixteen young soldiers, trained in the academy for years to fight, no matter how different their personalities and backgrounds were, they are in this moment, all afraid.

“Damn, that’s what I call confidence,” An old man gets out of the cockpit with his hand on the top corner of the door’s entrance, he’s in a dark-blue and white suit and a glossy cap with some stars on the sides. “Don’t worry soldiers, I’m your pilot, you don’t need to panic about my baby falling.”

Everyone, including captain Giles, had a shine on their eyes, and laughs broke out, Fenik was still quiet, thinking; the one who was sleeping straightened the cap on his face, and the guy with glasses flipped a page on his book. They might not look like it, but they’re still kids, and a senior talking to trust him, made a weight to come off their backs.

“BUT WAIT! If you are the pilot, who is driving this thing?!” Larry shouts scared.

Everyone stops, and starts laughing again.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to be attentive so nothing happens.” He grins going back to the cabin.

“I’m going in the cockpit to rest a little, don’t you kiddos make problems.” Giles salutes and closes the door.

And that was the flight to Liberty, besides the talking, strange games and singing, it was pretty normal.

That is, until a strange loud sound echoed through the entire ship.

“What was that?” A blonde girl asks.

And again, now with the silence in the room, everyone could hear it clearly. A sudden strong blow-like noise coming from the cockpit.

The squared glasses kid, who was already on the last pages, puts the book down, with seriousness on his eyes.

“Did something happen?” A red-haired girl mumbles, holding her own hands from trembling.

“SAE?” Vincent speaks taking his small knife off the uniform.

“Shouldn’t the alarms go off?” A blond slicked-back hair boy asks shivering, with his hand on the grip of his sword in its scabbard.

“If the alarms didn’t get off, that means it’s even more dangerous,” Fenik says going forward.

Fenik goes fast, not making noise as he walks. Other two consecutive noises are heard, now together with the sound of metal and a quiet and muffled whistle.

Fenik looks back. Everyone’s ready, each one with their weapons. Besides him, only 4 others have the same outfit, while the rest has the metal plates uniform.

Another sudden loud noise is heard. Fenik can listen better by being near the door, it’s from inside, but nothing more is coming from there, no fighting, no talking, nothing besides a constant whistle.

“It’s locked,” Fenik says, as he goes back a few steps.

He dashes forward and kicks it, but nothing happens. The door is way too thick.

“Let me try.” Zack readies himself, but now, his uniform is being illuminated with a blueish color, making a sharp line between all his torso to his legs, until it radiates brighter. And he goes for the kick, kneading it, making the door lock to break.

He does it again and the heavy door opens to the side, being hanged only by one of the hinges.

“What the…” Zack, the first one to see, and for the first time Fenik saw true despair in his eyes.

Fenik enters the cabin and everyone follows, just to get blood on his boots and realize:

That the airplane is going down steadily. A thin whistle is coming from a crack on the airplane window. As the multiple controls with dozens of buttons and screens are dark or blinking red.

The old man is leaning his head on the controls to the left, with a hole in his head, making a pool of blood that constantly drips to the floor.

Another man, the copilot, also dead with a big hole on the back of his head. And Giles, their teacher, which they spend so much time training with, is now looking down seated on the side near the door, motionless, with no life on his eyes.

The blood on Fenik’s boots, are his.

The red-haired girl only looked to the pilot and copilot, and already covered her mouth to not vomit, backing away.

All these kids, soldiers that never have fought SAE on their lives. It doesn’t matter that they have different personalities or backgrounds. All of them, are afraid now.

There are no more clouds.

All of them need to endure this.

The green mix starts to take form.

All of them will prove a taste of what made humanity fall once.

Each tree is now differentiable, each one being unique in their own way, but still being the same.

And certainly, all of them will die, that’s what all humans are bound to, after all.

The airplane crashes. The noise of that powerful machine moving through the sky makes its apex on a single thud, being engulfed by what man calls: the nature.

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