U.N.E.

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Alexander stood in the middle of a massive crater, hot tears streaming down his face as his own wails of anguish rang in his tender ears. A cold wind swept in from the West and chilled him down the bone, picking up ash and dirt into little swirls that blinded his wet eyes. More cries of pain and sadness echoed through the air as they were carried by the wind, but they were quickly drowned out by the ear shattering roar of a monster that was once only in fairytales. But this was no fairytale. No, this was a living nightmare.

He had been here before many times, but it had never been this vivid. He could feel the cry crawling up his throat ripping free from his very soul and it felt like he was going to die. He immediately realized this was a dream but it did nothing to temper what he was feeling. This was one of his worst dreams, and it had been a long time since he had been forced to witness it. Until the Fall of London this had been his most common nightmare and even though it had been a while he could still vividly remember every little detail. Unlike his more recent nightmare, which was just a replay of his worst moments, this one didn't seem to have any basis in reality. It was a child's nightmare, albeit a very bad one.

Some of it was taken from his real life experiences, like the crater he was currently crying in. He knew that this area had once been where his childhood house had stood. He didn't remember very much of the day his parents died and his home was destroyed, but he did know that an UNE trampled it right before a military artillery strike destroyed what was left. If his sister hadn't decided to parade him, her 'cute' little brother, around her school friends then he would have died that day too.

He could hear a deep rumbling in the distance and it was getting closer. It almost sounded like an engine but it was too perfect, too well tuned to be a real engine. Turning around Alexander could see yellow and orange flames reaching towards the sky, flickering and roaring like they were alive. The wall of flames stood maybe a hundred feet in the air and the intense heat threatened to sear his skin, and rend flesh from bone. All he could do was hold his hands and arms in front of his face and cry as his tears were vaporized almost instantly. It was just too much and his heart felt like it was going to explode from his chest if he didn't wake up soon.

As he continued to try and protect himself from the flames he saw something move behind them. A dark shadow moved across the curtain of red and yellow heat and stopped. Even though he could barely see what it was he knew that it turned towards him, and he could feel cold hard mechanical eyes lock onto his trembling form at the bottom of the crater. Just knowing that something large and non-human was staring at him made him sob, a terrible cry wracking his body and shaking his lungs until they stung from sucking in too much smoke and ash.

He wanted to run. He wanted to hide. But he was rooted on the spot as fear paralyzed him and the heat burned him. The deep rumbling sound filled him up entirely now and he knew that even if he could run he would never escape what was about to happen next. The dark figure pushed through the wall of flames and emerged unscathed on the other side, staring down at Alexander like it had human intelligence. It wasn't a monster, or even a UNE. No, it was something he recognized instantly. He could never forget the humanoid shaped machine made for nothing but death and armed to the teeth. It was a Behemoth, one that looked eerily like the Aegis, only with slight little differences.

The Mech continued to walk towards him, towering nearly seventy stories in the air and trampling anything that happened to get caught in its path. Each time its foot fell to the ground it would shake, sending a tremor through the earth and right into Alexander's very soul, like he was some kind of human tuning fork. All he could do was stand there and stare at it as waves of heat rolled off the hard metal surface and lashed out at him.