Muh shitty scifi setting writing bs

Narrator: It happened when I was no more than seven years old, when they came and destroyed the town, I was born in. It was late harvest season back then, the grease tubers had mostly been plucked from the fields, and the blophids of the village’s herds were all fat and bulbous with ripening ichor waiting to be milked, and trade with the outsiders, the city folk that first arrived from down river some years before I was born had been good as well this season. The cityfolk had set up their port outpost down the creek on the east side of the town, and their “refinery”, whatever it was, up in the hills to the north, and our little town had become essentially a waystation, and an impromptu storage house for the cityfolk, as they ferried their cargo between their port, and the refinery on the hills. This arrangement had become so lucrative for our little town, that the town elders were even willing to look aside some of the abuses and blasphemies to the gods the cityfolk, in their ignorance, committed, for the elders did not want to drive away visitors, that had brough such wealth to our little town.

There was a verifiably festive mood in the air that day, which I remember so vividly. Most of the villagers were preparing for the autumn festival that was to come within a fortnight. Villagers and cityfolk on leave, or otherwise visiting our little town, were both in happy spirits, some even drinking and reveling as if the festifal had already begun, when the first signs of trouble whiffed through the air, in the form of a biting, stinging stench being carried to the town by the north winds. That foul odor, that brough to my mind the smell of burning flesh and fat, seared itself to my mind to the point that I still, in my elder years, remember it. It was coming from the hills, where the cityfolk had set up their refinery. As the winds carried this vile odor through the town, its people, me and my parents included, began to congregate on the northern ramparts of the town, to better gaze at the hills, and perhaps bear witness to what was causing the foul stench to begin with.

At first, the only thing we could see in those hills, and the craggy, twisted growths of fleshy and green foliage and softly swaying ivory trees, covering them, was a faint grow red and orange, that almost seemed like sun was setting over those hills, which of course, was impossible due to their geographic location. Then, one of us first spotted the faint pillar of smoke rising from those hills, which seemed to be growing thicker, stronger by the moment, and next, a keen-eyed observer spotted the first figures fumbling out of the twisted woodlands that cover those hills. cityfolk, the first ones riding on their steeds, both living, and the strange nonliving things made from living parts, that moved on round feet that didn’t require them to even take steps on firm and flat ground. After them, came larger mass of cityfolk running and scrambling down from those hills as fast as their legs could carry them, clearly fleeing from something. It was then when we began to hear the sounds emanating from those hills. Sounds of battle, faint screams, the roars of the weapons of the cityfolk, weapons that spit death at ferocity unmatched by any bow or spear. Our town guard had acquired few of such “guns” themselves during the past years trough trade with the cityfolk, but they were still seen as very exotic and powerful weapons. It was perhaps this, why the sight of the cityfolk, some of them clearly still carrying their gun staves in their arms, running owards the town, away from the hills and the battle going on there, was so disquieting, and even disturbing to me, and my fellow villagers. What sort of monsters could send so well armed warriors fleeing like spooked blophids? This was what I was pondering, but in hindsight, I think, that many of the older towns people around me, already suspected the answer to my pondering, an answer what I would only moments later, truly learn to fear.

As the sound of distant shots from some unseen battle in the hills and the forests crowning them, began to cease, the first person to scream the collective fear of the older observers out loud was Anga the Eldest, the wise woman of our town: “Those damn fools! They have angered them. They have gone to the nests of the watchers, the keepers of the world, and disturbed their slumber. Those greedy, cursed fools, they have brought the doom of the old days on our necks! The devil’s dancing flowers are on the move, look! You can see them already! Their shiny shells and bodies glisten on the hills!”

As the old woman screamed, I gazed closer at the hills, where the mazelike, twisted and craggy forests broke into open ground, I saw what she was referring to. Truly, something glistening was moving there. In fact, a whole bunch of glistening forms were positively swarming trough the undergrowth, into the open, catching the straggling cityfolk that had been left behind the main body of the fleeing mass of people, whose outriders had already reached our town’s gates. The poor bastards were buried under the mass of glistening, swarming, forms that kept pouring out from the woods covering the hills, before I could tell what their ultimate fate even had been. It was like a torrent of flood waters had simply swept them under before they could as much as cry for help.

The vails of the wise woman had rapidly elicited panic among the observers, which I only grew aware of due to my mother pulling me away from my transfixed observation of the ever growing, ever approaching mass of glistening bodies. “Come! We need to leave now!” I remember her yelling at me. I saw my father, who served in the town guard, barking commands, desperately trying to bring some semblance of order to the rapidly deteriorating mass of town and cityfolk alike, among which panic had begun to spread. In the confusion, it seemed that the guards of the northern gate had opened the way to the cityfolk fleeing from the hills, and their now most certainly lost refinery, the pandemonium within the town only increased.

Incoherent screams and babbling about how sudden, and overwhelming the attack of the things, that I had only known referred to as simply “them” “shinies” or “watchers & keepers of the world”, but whom the cityfolk seemed to refer to as “cytes, had been, further spread fear and panic among the denizens of the town. I remember hearing scattered accounts of “the damnable things bursting through the walls and the ground” and how they apparently could fly around in impossible to track paths in the air, before striking you dead, or how some of them flung arm long venomous spines at people, that could paralyze a man with even a single scratch. Descriptions of their forms that I managed to catch didn’t illuminate the nature of these being all that much either, floating orbs with stinging tendrils, four lobed flowers with teeth inside their pedals, that danced on their rope like tentacles, masses of worms, that merged into agile beasts that spray paralyzing goo, flying, winged creatures that spit poison fangs, multi limbed, armored monsters whose undersides were nothing but fangs and claws and so on. These snippets of stories and descriptions, that I managed to hear while my mother was pulling me away, to the east, away from the masses of people and pandemonium of crowds, only served to heighten my looming fear.

Only after we left, or more accurately, pushed our way through the chaotic mass of people congregating in the northern square of the town, whose ramparts had formed our vista of viewing the hills, did I hear my mother’s soft mumbling to herself. “We can’t wait any longer...” she muttered, “Why must he be so foolish? Why didn’t he listen? He can’t command a mob overwhelmed by fear and panic! We must save ourselves first, the town is already lost...”

“Mom, where are we going?” I asked meekly, to which my mother answered with a stiff, worried smile, that tried to masquerade confidence, which even at my young age, I was not fooled by. “We’re going down to the river side dear, the cityfolks have a ship there, a big canoe do you remember? It can carry us out of here, to safety”.

“Out of here? Where?” I insisted, though dreading her answer, part of me both dreading the notion of leaving my birth place to places completely unknown, the other angry at my mother and her seeming resignation to her fate of having to leave her home behind. “Shouldn’t we fight? Dad is in the town guard! He can fight the shinie-”

“NO HE CANT!” my mother snapped at me. “Not that many!” You saw them yourself; they were uncountable in their number! We must flee!” her outburst was cut short when we emerged from the twisting streets and alleyways my mother had pulled me trough to the main eastern trough ware of the town, which was filled to the prim with people. Apparently, my mother had not been the only one who thought of fleeing towards the river in the east, and presumably on the ship of the cityfolk, away from this unfolding calamity that had struck their little town.

Cursing under her breath, my mother dragged me into the crowd with her, trying to push herself as far as he could to see why such congestion had developed in such dire time. The answer became apparent from the cacophony of angry shouts and arguments that emanated from the eastern gates of the town, way before my mother was able to see what was going on there. The gatekeepers, were refusing to open the gates, as they had not received orders that would permit them to in a situation where the town was at such peril.The tone of the arguments had clearly become openly hostile by the time my mother dragged me into the mass of bodies, and we had not been stuck in that crowd for more than few minutes at best, before we heard the loud, roaring bang of a cityfolk gun, a sputter of shouts and screams, and then, suddenly, the creaking of the gate doors which began to open.

As soon as the gates even as much creaked open, the mass of people stuck in the eastern wayfare began to pour out, violently, to the foot path leading down to the river creek, and the dock, where the lifesaving ship of the cityfolk rested. Such was the force of the congregation of desperate refugees, that it was enough of a struggle for me to stay on my two feet, and for my mother to keep her grip on my hand. It felt like we were haplessly caught in a riptide of moving, breathing, vailing bodies, that cared not whom or what they stampeded underneath their feet, in their desperate rush towards the dock by the river.

Trough some miracle, we did however, survive this mad dash towards the river, badly bruised, and shaken, but alive, unlike some of the more unfortunate ones in the ranks of this refugee mass, who were trampled to death as the masses, desperate to flee from near certain death, paid no heed to the cries for help of the unfortunate, weak footed beings, who were lost under the trampling feet of the mass of desperate people. However, when we did reach the port, I saw a shift in my mother’s face, before now, she had shown mixtures of fear, desperation, and determination, as we had struggled out way down to the port, but now, her face had become a mask of growing despair and dread. She saw something that I, due to my young age, and short stature, could not see, but her face, and the murmuring all around us, was able to deduce rather quickly. “Will there be enough room for us?”” The ship is full!” ” Please make room for us!” ”Move it, make space!” and so on, were the shouts and murmurs spreading through the crowd. An expression of terrifying madness of desperation, had fixed itself on the visage of my mother, as she grabbed me under my arms, lifted me up to her torso and started violently pushing us both towards the ship, trough the few remaining ranks of people clamouring against the ship ahead of us.

Before I even fully understood what was happening, I was lifted to the air, and realized that I was looking at the helmeted and masked face of what I recognized as a warrior from the city, a mercenary most likely, in hindsight, that kept shouting for the people to back off, and that the ship was full and about to depart. My mother practically leaped with me in her arms, and showed me to the breast of the warrior aboard the boat, who fell back with me in his arms. Dazed and confused, he pushed me aside, just as shaken by this boarding experience myself. From what I was able to gather at the moment, the ship was indeed full, everywhere around me, people, both faces from my town I could recognize, as well as faces of the cityfolk, were cramped close enough together to almost rub their cheeks, not to mention the scant personal space left for rest of their bodies.

I am not sure what the warrior was about to do, as he first began to approach me, an interloper on the ship that was shown to his arms, but whatever he may have been thinking, faded away when he glanced at the town from which we all had fled. His wayward glance, and pause that followed it, did not go unnoticed, and quickly other heads turned to view in the direction he was inspecting. The town was in fire, the same orange, and red tinted glow rose from it, along with pillars of smoke, and now, as the sun was setting to the west, the glow that I had first seen emanate from the hills where the cityfolk had built their refinery, was all the more terrible in this dimming light.  In addition, I, and everyone else who had followed the gaze of the warrior on the ship, to whose lap I had been delivered, saw the dancing, erratic reflections of the light from the flames eating trough my hometown, flicker in the dawning twilight, on the countless, glistening shells and bodies of the swarm that was beginning to pour from the town, towards the river and the port.

Utter panic spread through both on the ship as well as on the pier, cries to both get the ship going, and pleads to be let on board both formed a symphony of wailing, terror and desperation, but all of it was dull to me. For all I saw was the tearful face of my mother, her face a curious mixture of sorrow and relief, as the ship began to drift from the pier. I was transfixed on her face, even as it grew smaller and disappeared in the mass of bodies, still stuck on that pier, some ow whom in their terror and fear, jumping into the river to swim after us, or away from them, all the while our ship gained speed. In that moment, a burning hatred towards them or as the city folk call them, the “cytes” was ignited in my young heart, along with a hatred towards my own weakness and inability to protect even myself.  A desire for vengeance towards those monsters, whom I had barely even glimpsed, for the wanton, unprovoked attack and destruction of my home, and all of those whom I held dear and near to my heart. Under the rising, crimson moon of that night sky, I swore, in the name of all the gods the wise women of my town had taught to me, and even the gods of the cityfolk, that I would rid these world of the cytes, the devil spawns, them no matter the cost.

This terrible, wrathful vow I made at the tender age of seven, would lead me to walk a path that was destined towards tragedy and disaster. It is this vow, that made it so easy for the propagandists of Chot, to lure me in to ranks of their warrior-kinships, for they promised reclamation of lands lost to cytes, as well as the opportunity to wreak terrible vengeance on those devil spawn who had stolen from me everything in that dreadful day. If I had only known then, what I know now, for I would have spit on the faces of those liars who lured me, and so many of my comrades to pointless battles, that claimed so many of our lives, for no other reason than to enrich and fatten the grotesque bastards under whose banners we were fighting.  Unfortunately, only age, experience and chance encounters in later life, would reveal me the terrible truths of the path I had already been walking at that point for decades, where which so much of me, and my friends had been lost, that the only energy I had left in me, was to resign into becoming a recluse, in bitter anger at this cruel world.