That night I had the worst nightmare I'd ever had. I think it was around three in the morning. I woke to several humans entering our room, all of whom were carrying AA-12 shotguns with 30 round drum magazines. I rose as quickly as I could and stood over my mate and cubs to protect them and attempted to expel the shotgun carrying humans with a cloud of white hot plasma, but some how, a muzzle found it's way onto my snout before I could lose it. I the attempted to slash and claw at the humans, but heavy chains, like a net, suddenly closed around me and no matter how much I fought it, they didn't budge. One of the humans walked up and bashed me in the the chest with his gun, knocking every bit of air I had right out. Because of the muzzle, I was unable to even catch my breath.
The humans threw Adelind and the kids into chains and dragged them outside. Val, Vez, Taro, Shadow, everyone was laying outside, muzzled and chained. Shadow, Taro and I were fighting was hard as we could to escape our restraints, but we weren't going anywhere.
“Yes”, the human said in a evil voice, fight it, it will hurt more.”
That was when I noticed the humans had no faces, eyes, nose, ears, they were completely devoid of any and all facial features. Adelind and my kids gave me fearful looks, they were looks of the most pure terror, looks I'll never forget. I fought with everything I had against the restraints, but the harder I fought, the tighter they got. It came to the point where I had to give up or get crushed by the self tightening chains.
The second I lay still, the sound of a human racking a Remington 870 filled the air. The sound of the gun going off filled the air. Then came Shadow's scream. At first, I'd thought they'd shot him, until I happened to glance at Nina. They had started with her. The human had placed the shotgun to her back knee and shattered it. There was almost nothing left of her leg and she was now pale, trying to open her mouth enough to get air into her lungs. The human worked through Nina, shattering her knees and then came to Shadow. Shadow managed to knock the faceless human onto his back. In retaliation, another drove a combat knife into his back, twisting it several times before ripping it out.
“Feisty little bastard ain't ya?”, the human with the gun asked, “let's fix that.”
The sound of the Remington racking again filled the air. Shadow gritted his teeth and closed his eyes tightly as he waited for the gun to go off. The slug ripped through his kneecap and set his blood and bone all over Taro.
“FUCKER!”, Taro shouted, even with the muzzle on, “I'LL KILL YOU FOR THAT!”
“Calm down you old shit”, the human said kneeling in front of Shadow, who was know crying, “I still got plenty of slugs, so you can have some too,.”
The human worked through Shadow and then came to Taro. Taro took a nasty swipe at the human after managing to get his paw free. The human somehow managed to stop him, pin his paw and blow off the kneecap. Taro shouted from the pain as the human worked through his legs. One by one, the humans shattered my friends knees, Sozenn, Cora, Fireclaw, Tala, Syralth, Tess, Val, Vez, Rolland, Ator and Mark. Soon it was our turn.
“Guess whose next Tyro?”, the human asked.
Everything seemed to slow down. The man with the shotgun bent over little Kayel, who'd been crying the whole time, and shattered her head. Basic abilities, such as hearing, left me as he cocked the shotgun and the shell landed right in front of my nose. The fire inside of me burned so high, so quickly, the chains melted and the muzzle vaporized. In less than a second, I was up and gave the human a nasty, five clawed rake across his face, drawing only a black, vaporous mist from, the deep gash I'd left. The man left and knocked me back before shattering my front right leg. I fought it, no way was I going down, not this easy. The man fired another round, which struck my chest and bounced off. I pushed forward. It was impossible to walk on my shattered leg, but he wasn't going to get away. The man fired another shot, ripping my back left leg clean off and sending me to the ground.
I roared from the pain and spit a four foot wide ball of plasma at him, watching in horror as it turned to steam as it impacted my target. The man cocked the shotgun again and finished shattering my joints as I collapsed, right beside Adelind.
“I love you”, Adelind said.
“I love...you too”, I said weekly as the human put the shotgun to my neck and severed my spinal chord. I knew that I should have died, right then and there, but I didn't. I could feel my throat filling with blood and I could feel it running down the back of my neck.
I felt myself freeze as the human bent over Tyson.
“No!”, Ace shouted crying from fear, “please don't kill Tyson! Please don't kill him!”
“Your wish is my command”, the human said as he shattered Tyson's knees.
My little boy's scream filled me with a hate and a rage that was so pure, I was sure in that second, Satan himself had given it to me. This evil human worked through my cubs one by one, Helix, Dusk and then Ace, who looked like he was trying to be brave despite what he knew was about to happen to him. Tears of rage and agony were rolling down my bloody cheeks. My family and friends were being butchered by psychopaths and I was powerless to stop them.
I looked at Adelind as the bloody reality set in, we were done. We were dying here, weather we wanted to or not.
“I love you”, I said weakly.
“I love you too”, Adelind replied.
The sound of the shotgun came again, “awe that's sweet, you can love each other in hell.”
The man placed the shotgun to Adelind's back leg and pulled the trigger. My mate's blood and flesh was splattered all over me, numbing every inch of my body, her scream killing my brain. Once the man was done with her, he handed his shotgun off to one of his buddies and drew a machete from it's sheath. More skinny, faceless humans arrived, laughing hysterically. They grabbed our wings and held them out just enough to expose where they met our bodies. They started with Nina. The man that had been responsible for our torture so far sawed through Nina's wings and tossed them aside. Shadow was screaming at him the whole time to take him instead, but human ignored my friends pleas. Shadow was next. He struggled and fought the humans with everything he had, but it wasn't enough. They cut his wings off and moved onto Taro, who didn't have any wings. Taro smiled weakly as the humans passed him over. They went down the line again.
“You know something Tyro?”, the human said rubbing the blade on his pants leg, “I'll make an example of your little girl first.”
“NO!”, I shouted, “Don't touch her if you value your life!”
The human ignored me as he sawed through Helix's wings, laughing at the pain he was causing her.
“Your turn”, he said kneeling beside Tyson and started hacking through his wings. Each time the blade landed, my son let off a horrible pain filled yelp that made me want to shut off my sense of reason and tear these humans apart. Once he was through with Tyson, he pointed the blade at Dusk.
“Your turn.”
“No!', Dusk stammered as he tried to get away, “please don't kill me!”
“Oh no!”, The human laughed, “I don't kill kids, that would make me not nice!”
The man grabbed Dusk by his tail and pulled him in before starting to saw into Dusk's wings. It took all of four minutes for him to cut through Dusk's large wings. After he had he moved onto Ace. Who swallowed hard and closed his eyes tight, trying to be brave for his brothers and sister.
“Oh look at braveheart!”, the human laughed as he began the cycle all over again. After he was done with Ace, it was Adelind's turn.
“Don't touch her!”, I begged, “please don't touch her! Let her live!”
The human laughed and started to saw into Adelind's wings. She cried through it all. My seeing her like that made my fire die. I gave up. Now it was all I wanted, was to go. I was going to die anyway. Even if the humans just left us, we'd all bleed to death within the hour. It took the human an entire half hour to saw through Adelind's wings with the dulling machete. Once he was done with her, it was my turn. The human plunged the blade into the thickest part of my wings and started sawing, determined to make me go out painfully. It took an hour before my wings had been removed. Our wings were now laying in a pile behind us. I hoped that the torture was over and that they would leave us to bleed to death in peace, but there was still worse.
More faceless Humans came out of the barracks. They were carrying Galzra, Inioth, Ator's and Shadow's eggs. Again, they started with Nina. They unchained her right paw and placed the egg about seven feet in front of her. She and Shadow started using their shattered legs to pull themselves to the egg.
“Too slow!”, the human laughed kicking it. The shell and the egg yolk splattered allover my friends faces. The looks in their eyes, it was one of indescribable horror. They did the same thing with Sozenn and Cora, unchaining one paw each and placing the hurt Galzra and Inioth in front of them. When they failed to reach them, they split their heads with the shotgun, sending their cubs blood allover them. Ator and Vanlith weren't even given the chance to save their kids, their eggs were crushed in front of them.
The familiar sound of the shotgun racking filled the air. Shadow screamed. Nina, the left side of her face, was just gone. Her skull had been split in half and where her snout met her face was hanging by a few grizzly fibers. She choked for two seconds before falling to the ground, her blood spilling out on the grass.
“KILL ME!”, Shadow shouted, “DO IT!...DO IT!”
The man cocked the shotgun, shoved it up under Shadow's neck and pulled the trigger, shattering his head and sending his blood in every possible direction.
“NOOOOO!!!!”, Taro shouted, “NOT AGAIN!”
The man stared at Taro and set the gun down.
“Go ahead old man”, he said, “kill me or off yourself, guns right there, cocked locked and ready to rock.”
Taro reached for the small, stock less, short barreled weapon, but it was just out of his reach.
“Give up?”, the human asked kneeling down.
Taro looked up, his gold eyes filled with tears, “Faline”, he said, “I'm coming home.”
With everything he had, he sized the shotgun and placed it to his own head, pulling the trigger. I didn't blame him for doing what he did. The human picked up the shotgun and cocked it, moving onto Val. He worked through my friends one by one, Vez, taking her cubs with her, Sozenn, Cora, Fireclaw, Tala, Syralth, Tess, Rolland, Ator, Vanlith and finally Mark.
Now it was me, Adelind and the kids. I felt my heart stop as a dragon arrived, he too, was devoid of a face. The human said something to the dragon and then pointed at Tyson. The dragon rolled Tyson on to his back,and ripped his throat out. My little boy then choked to death on his own blood. Next was Helix, then Dusk, then Ace. Now it was just me and Adelind. We looked at each other.
We were both covered in our own blood, wingless and unable to do anything, except await our deaths. I did, however, take comfort in the fact that we would all be together again, very soon. The dragon that had arrived rolled Adelind on to her back and ripped her to shreds. Her blood flying in my face as the humans held my head and my eyes open, forcing me to watch every bit of it. Finishing my mate, it was my turn. The dragon rolled me onto my back. I made no effort to resist, what would be the point?
Adelind,my kids,Shadow,Val,everyone I cared about,was dead, killed right in front of me. Why spend another six, seven hundred years on this Earth, with no one to love, or care for? The dragon sank his teeth into my neck and yanked, tearing me to shreds. The sound of my tearing flesh was like a ripping piece of paper. The dragon released his grip and I went limp.
With what little strength I had left, I turned to face my dying mate. She was looking at me, tears streaming down her face from the pain.
“I...love you”, it took every ounce of what I had left to get the words out.
“I love..”, Adelind was not allowed to finish her sentence, the human put his shotgun to her head and pulled the trigger.
I jumped awake with a scream, startling Adelind, the kids and everyone in the barracks awake.
“Tyro?”, Adelind asked with worry in her voice, “what's wrong.”
My chest was heaving and I was sweating so badly that it was dripping int my eyes.
“They killed you”, I said, “you, Shadow, the kids, everyone.”
“Oh honey”, Adelind said wrapping her wings around me.
The door clicked open and Syralth walked in, “what the fuck?! I heard Tyro scream?”
“He had a nightmare”, Adelind said, “a bad one.”
Syralth stuffed his .45 into his boxers, looking somewhat relieved, “what about?”
“I don't wanna talk about it right now”, I replied.
“Hey Syralth”, Adelind asked, “will you watch the kids, were gonna go out for a bit.”
“Sure”, Syralth replied, “come on guys.”
The kids yawned and followed Syralth out of the room. Adelind and I showered off and then we walked out to the cliff that over looked the harbor and lay in the grass. The lights from the Resistance ships sitting in the harbor reflected off the water and gave a beautiful night image. The waves crashing against the cliffs and the mist spraying on my face soothed me. The wind swept grass between my claws and on my abdomen gave me a feeling of freedom, reminding me of Tacoma,of home. I warped Adelind with my wing and pulled her as close as I could, wishing still that I could pull her closer. The light and the image of the water reflected off her beautiful blue eyes, I saw myself in them.
“Do you want to talk about it?”, Adelind asked.
I sighed, “it was three when they came for us. They chained us up, dragged us out and spent two hours torturing us to death. It started with bone breaking, then they cut our wings off, then came the executions, first Shadow, then Nina, and then Taro killed himself. Watching you die....”
“It was just a dream”, Adelind said.
“It was just”, I started but she stopped me.
“If you don't want to go on”, Adelind said, “don't.”
I lay my head on Adelind's shoulder as I listen to the waves hitting the cliff and the ships out in the bay. The night was lit with thousands of stars, the moon was full and it illuminated the area.
“I love you Adelind”, I said, “and I will do anything I have to do to protect you and the kids.”
She smiled, “I love you too.”
We lay together in the breezy night. The cool air rushing up and over my scales reminded me that spring was quickly on the approach. The lights of the ships reflecting on the water was easy on my strained eyes. I closed them,and listened to my mate breathing softly beside me. I could feel her body rise and relax with each breath she took. The slow, steady beat of her heart calmed me. Adelind had the ability to make me zone out like nothing else. When we were alone like this,when it was truly just us,a feeling would come over me. It was the feeling I had gotten when each of the kids were born,and when I had first met Adelind that snowy winter night all those long years ago. Adelind placed her head on my paws. I licked her just under her eye and then placed my head on her's. She wrapped her tail around mine. We lay like that for a few minutes and then walked back to the barracks. Syralth met us with the kids. Ace, Dusk and Helix were still awake, but Tyson and Kayel were asleep, Syralth was holding Tyson and Tess had Kayel.
“Thanks' guys”, I said taking Tyson and Kayel from them.
“No problem brother”, Tess said, “get some sleep.”
I laughed quietly, “sure thing.”
Adelind and I walked back into the room and placed the kids in their beds, falling asleep as soon as he hit our beds.