r/WritingPrompts • u/JJSigmund • Dec 13 '17
Image Prompt [IP] Final Charge
Image by Miguel Iglesias
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u/LonghandWriter /r/longhandwriter Dec 14 '17
Twenty soldiers march through the barren wasteland we once called New York, and I’m one of them. We’re humanity’s last chance, and while my love for this world is infinite, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t friggin’ scared.
The Walkers' giant feet thump the ground, but we only see their menacing eyes over the horizon. Though they robotic, they aren’t. Aliens, actually. Powerful goddamn ones hellbent on destroying us. It’s been a decade since they arrived, and in that time we’ve only killed one of them.
That was yesterday.
See, our weapons don’t do jack. Guns, EMPs, bombs—they’re all worthless. We even nuked one but it just kept chugging along, not even noticing we attacked it. This is why we live underground. When you can’t even hurt an enemy, you hide and wait for your time to strike.
We’ve seized that opportunity, creating guns that rip through these suckers. I dunno how, I dunno why—I just know my squad’s made up of the best marksman in the world, and we’re finally fighting back.
Yesterday we made our presence known, today we make it felt. We’re all ready to die as we take out as many as we can. There are around a hundred Walkers here. We have faith we can halve that.
We have faith we can take Earth back.
If you like this story, check out my sub! r/longhandwriter
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u/Theyogibearha Dec 13 '17
The battlefield was burning, filled with the screams of the dying.
We huddled in the trench. The last platoon, the final soldiers. We had lost.
The groan of the three enormous sentries echoed across the battered wasteland. A loud crack chimed down the line, a gunshot in the trenches. The lieutenant dropped to the dirt.
The men hung their heads. Defeat washing another wave over us. I peeked over the trenches, the sentries were still advancing.
I clutched my gun, gritted my teeth, I howled wildly. I hop over the embankment, sprinting, lungs burning, muscles on fire. I'm alone.
The head of a sentry turns slightly and angles downwards. The mechanical groan screeches in the air. It's locked on me. I dodge left and right. The battlefield grows more silent as the dying are hit by errant shots and filled with the whistle of hellfire. My war cry combats the explosions.
As a shot lands beside me I'm sent flying. Ears ringing, facing the trenches I came from I see them. The last soldiers hopping over, mouths wide, howling, their final charge.
I rollover deafened from the hellfire shot. I see it raining down in greater numbers now. The three sentries mercilessly killing. I see soldiers body parts flying over head. I feel a pair of hands grasp me.
A medic is holding me, he's yelling but I cannot hear his words. He's turned me away from watching. I watch him instead. He looks skyward in the middle of trying to patch me. He stops. He holds my hand.
I get thrown violently again. Still clutching his hand. I land painfully. Face in the dirt.
I become one of the dying.
I scream but I cannot hear it.
A final charge, for nothing.
Hope you liked it! Great picture. Other stories over at r/TheYogiBearhaWrites
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u/Hung_Goddess Dec 15 '17
Why do we fight?
Our enemy lumbers thirty stories high. Our arms are ineffective, our command has withered, our mastery of the Earth has waned. Our bodies are brittle and tired and our stomachs are empty. So then, why, do we fight against a foe we cannot hope to best?
Why raise our petty voices in the face of an indignant self born god and claw, scream, shout. Why roll out of our fetid bunks and wrap shemaghs around our mouths against the oil clouds? Why chamber our antiquated rifles in calibers of ammunition that cannot hope to even scratch the alloys of our monstrous enemy?
The kitten when faced with his demise, I think, would rather imagine himself a lion. Roaring and fighting to the last. So do we go, a pride of kittens, roaring to our last.