[b][i][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaVA6sgOpws]"We came for a new start, a new beginning for my family, I'm sure it was the same for others. Live a much better life then back home, and leave behind the bullshit, but like all good things, they don't last. The bullshit followed us, pirates, raiders, Grubby Megacorporations, pissed off natives and fellow colonists whom weren't exactly in the sharing mood.... now our homeworlds are sending in the troops. It's all the same as before....Everyone just wants to rule the world for themselves..."-Anonymous Colonial Farmer.[/url][/b][/i]

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[b][u]Dacyira[/b][/u]
[b]CANTON/ASM TERRITORY, DEEP INTERIOR[/b]
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The rain had been beating down for hours and its monotonous drumming had a way of sending men to sleep. Still, John thought the weight of sleep that bore down on him was just as well be attributed to the fact the sun had been down for nearly an hour now. The one thing nobody ever told John when he took this job was how [i]dark[/i] it would be. Having grown up on a farm on Varos 3 John thought that he knew dark, but it seemed that there in the shadow of those cities and the comfort of his house it was a mere lack of light, but here, here it was different. The dark on this planet was wild, untamed and untouched, an animal that seemed to wait until you were looking away to come and gnaw on your mind. The convoy had been silent for some time; John looked out into the vast silent forest and decided he would get them to pull over onto the shoulder for the night, he felt uneasy. He pulled the radio from its stand toward his mouth and simply stated, “Time for a break guys, get some sleep.” At that all the vast trucks that towered over the trees pulled over onto the roads shoulder, one by one their lights flicked off as John waited, the rain beating on in a way that seemed distant from inside the trucks cabin. John thought again of the dark, he turned off the headlights but decided to keep his cabin lit. Tired, but still awake, a smell from outside caught Johns nose and he moved to the door of the cabin, pulling a raincoat off an adjacent hook. He looked back at his brightly lit room before he stepped outside.

The security guards had stepped outside; it seemed they had started a fire, John took yet another look back, but the static lights of his cabin seemed less attractive than the living and flickering fire, protected from the rain by the huge forest canopy far above it, the flames beckoned from afar. The steps down were long and by the time John had reached the ground it felt he had walked a mile, though that may have just been the fatigue that had been eating at him. A walk to the fire was short enough and the sitting security guard greeted him, “Sir, you can’t sleep?”

John noticed the man had his helmet off, both of them did. Too tired for protocol John sat himself against a rock and responded, “Yeah, you ever just get creeped out by this place?”

The security guard adjusted the way he was sitting and responded, “Yeah, sure as hell isn't home.”

John looked up and asked, “Where’s that?” John thought he knew though, the guard had the distinct accent of someone from Scandinavia back on Earth, and not a lot of them ever went to the colonies. The guards face and blonde hair gave it away.

As expected the guard replied, “Sweden, on Earth. Family was one of the few that wanted to go so we left when I was little, bounced around colonies for a while, their still on Galileo 2a though.”

The other guard looked up; he was of Asian descent, likely one of the Canton settlers who ran out of work. He asked, “2a? That’s not the one that…” The look on the other guards face confirmed his suspicions. He resumed, “They lived Axel?”

The Swedish man, now identified as Axel, responded, “Most did… My mother wasn’t so lucky; the rebellion there didn’t end well for anyone once the orbital bombing started.”

The Asian man looked a bit uncomfortable and apologized, “Sorry for asking that man, it’s not my business.” Axel was about to respond when John heard the leaves rustle, it was raining, it could have come from anywhere. But something felt wrong; Axel’s silence confirmed his suspicions. They all felt the change. The fire hissed as a sudden change in the wind blew some rain on them, and Axel reached for his helmet slowly, inching his fingers along the moss and dirt. John heard a thunk, something warm hit his face that he knew wasn’t rain. Axels hand slumped, his body followed and a thin stream of blood fell from the long arrow shaft where his eye used to be. The Asian man grabbed his helmet in a hurry and pulled it onto his face, he was yelling profanities as more and more arrows bounced off or shallowly stuck into the soft parts in his armour. John was sitting there silent; the liquid on his face couldn’t be blood. Axel was right there, why was he lying down? John was confused, and then the child like confusion was stripped away by the cold reality as the noise of automatic fire from the Asian man’s rifle permeated the air and for a moment struck John deaf. John couldn’t face what he saw, what he truly saw. He stood up and ran, he just ran and ran even though the man behind him called out for help, and the rifle fire droned on. 

Before he knew it John was back in his cabin, atop his mountain of steel. The cabins sterile light caught the mirror and John looked to it. His pale face was covered in red, partially washed away from the rain. It was then the anger started, John screamed, “Fuck!” At the top of his lungs and slammed the emergency button, just before the sirens kicked in John noticed the rifle fire stopped, a louder thud this time, accompanied by the sound of metal scraping a rock. John heard the alarm blare and stepped on the gas as the horde of dark profiles swarmed the trucks. As the headlights came to life the profiles became flashes of colour as they ran past, scrambling up ladders and falling as the vast machines came to life. One after another the trucked lurched forward, and John noticed one of the flashes was too slow, it met his wheel and for a moment he saw red below him, more red, more blood. The trucks roared down the road the flashes faded into the mirror, once again silhouettes. For a moment John saw the fire in the mirror, still alive, and around it he saw slumped shapes, were they rocks? No, bodies… It was Axel’s body, the Asian man’s body, the bodies of more silhouettes than John dared count. In the next second a silhouette became a flash in the light of the fire, and the fire died, the silhouette gone. Consumed by the dark, that living night, and the shadows that dwelled in the trees.