Survive

FWAMP!

Desdemona, as she fell to the ground, could remember being a very young girl with her cheeks damp with tears as she struggled to clump heaps of sand on top of each other. The dirt felt rough between her fingers, but she could see the promise of a glorious monument within the grains. She cried loudly, but it was a mystery as to how her father heard her over the gasp and grind of the nearby pistons and gears.

With just enough effort to make a strained grunt escape from between his lips, he had picked her up and held her to his frail body. Still, she would not be calmed by the usual things: the steady beating of his heart, his easing breathing and cooing voice only served to remind her that she had disappointed her father by failing.

“No more, Little One. You've done enough,” he had said with easy whispers that caressed her cheek like sea-foam lapping gently at the shores of their home.

CRUNCH!

As she held her arms up to defend herself, she could remember the sorrowful gaze her father had as they both stared at the horizon where the sky, golden with luminescent Anima, blotted out the stars. She could barely count the number of automatons clanking as they shuffled colossal memorials back and forth from an already cluttered coastline.

He had been leaning upon his staff. Unlike the others, (and herself), he had forgone the augments that promised immortality. His lungs expanded a little slower, his heart strained a little more to get the blood pumping and his voice crackled like dried autumn leaves.

“No more, Little One. You've done enough...” he had said with chapped lips that admonished her efforts at aiding their global expansion.

KA-CRACK!

Barely, as her arms snapped like twigs underneath the gargantuan fist of the Super Soldier, she could remember watching rows of battlecruisers drift into the distance. Much to her disappointment, her father hadn't approved of her glory-seeking, but he had been there to soothe her while their world came to an end. It was an exercise in futility.

She had to watch their skies darken with twisting tendrils and the air thicken with the screaming smog of insanity's despair. Oh, how she wished to hear her father's words, but as they had once been drowned out by Atlantean technology, they were then devoured easily by Those That Ate Stars. In his place, he heard the Hunger whisper:

“More... We want more!”

THWACK!

Her arms lay limp across her bloodied face as the Super Soldier's fist came down again. It let out a guttural roar that made the walls tremble and the ceiling buckle. As soon as it felt flesh tear and bone crumble beneath its knuckles, it drew its hands back and so it could finally cave in Desdemona's skull.

This 'man' that towered over her was a monument of dedication and a memorial to twisted ingenuity. The mark left by red hands was slathered over every crooked muscle and bulging vein. Decrepit idealism hung on its voice like a blood-thirsty wolf that gone demonic with hunger. There was a desperation like hers in his eyes. She didn't see it, though.

Instead, just beyond the Russian Super Soldier, she saw an outline of her father. She couldn't remember his face anymore, while he etched in black, but she could feel his presence. She could see him reaching out to her with black tentacles that slowly worked their way around the juggernaut. His eyes had once been a calming, ocean-blue. Now they were a crimson that stared at the fallen Atlantean with ravenous desire while the Soldier swung down again.

“More, Little One! You haven't done enough!” he wailed in her mind.

Desdemona, fueled by an ancient rage, couldn't remember pain as the nanomachines reassembled fleshy sinew and jagged bones. She couldn't remember the despair she felt as Atlantis was flushed out of the world against a terrible symphony of screams. She couldn't remember the price she'd have to pay, (as she fed into the Filth clawing at her mind), so she could strengthen her muscles. She couldn't remember the millions she let die in dreadful agony while she casually walked between the swastika, the hammer, and the for the cross.

As the the cancerous monstrosity let out an echoing laugh and Desdemona caught the Super Soldier's fists in her hands, all she could remember was the word “survive”.

Surviving would have to be enough.