A Vile Past

{picture} 

 Upon a fate weaver smile, the birds that have yet to turn, hide within the shadow of the train! Observing and waiting… and planning as the sky turns to dusky brown! With winds rushing like a storm with no rain! While a train leaves behind a jungle eating itself… for a mountain passage covered as a plain field! Which is as beautiful as its local cows! 

But the atmosphere was as dull and gray as the girl's attitude…. 

{Mary let me explain…} was all Layla could squeeze out before taking a right hook to the chin! 

[Explain! Explain WHAT! You made a deal with an alien! How are you going to explain this to the order? You think they won't find out! And better yet how could you?] yelled Mary in exuberates with tears and jumbling her words. 

{I... I didn't have a choice! It was either take Miss A hand or die there with the rest of the corpses! What would you have me do then? Watch us die?] replied Layla heatedly 

[Miss A! Oh! You're friends with her now! Shes' your buddy! Your chum! She… she hit me! I could have died! Doesn't that mean anything to you!] replied Mary angrily 

{well…one you didn't die and second, you were overreacting…} replied Layla mistakenly smugly 

With another punch to Layla's face, Mary continued: 

[have you forgotten… Layla! Answer me honestly! Do you really not remember!] screamed Mary 

While rubbing her face, Layla replied: {remember what?} snarky 

[how could you…how could you forget… your just like me… an orphan of the same incident yet you… act like nothing happened… how… how could you…] replied Mary 

{...} replied Layla in silence 

[who… who are you? You're not the Layla I know! The Layla I know would never forget what happened!] replied Mary visibly shaking 

[sigh, Layla your mind space is filled with such disorder! Their memories in here don't make any sense... It's like… anyway here I think this is what Mary is talking about…] whispered Miss A, as she studied more of Layla's memories curiously through squinted eyes. 

With Miss A whisper came an assortment of memories that were locked away deep within Layla's inner mind. 

Layla memory: 

[Layla…. Layla…. LAYLA! GET UP!] said a voice 

{ugh, what… just five more minutes…Mom} replied Layla half asleep. 

[No! Get up! It's your 10th birthday! Your father will be here any minute and your brother has been working hard since dawn!] replied Layla's mom 

Hearing her mom's call, Layla opened her eyes with a stretch and locked eyes with a dresser mirror. Causing her to yelp in fright as she thought: 

{what the hell! Now I'm 10 years old! What happened? Wasn't I just on the train? Shit don't tell me this is another psyker thing! Ugh! I don't have time for this!} 

[Layla come down now, or I'll send your brother to come get you!] continued Layla's mom. 

With a defeated expression and downcast shoulders, Layla reluctantly accepted this incident as a psyker thing, and without the knowledge to stop it. She figured it would be better, just to ride the memory through and hope for the best. 

{fine, I'll play along… beside this could be a good opportunity to learn of Mary's past… just maybe I can learn something to BS my way out of this situation.} thought Layla 

 But as Layla went downstairs to play the role of a child, the outskirts of the village she was living in was being spied on…. For when the drums beat, and the town folk cheer in the streets, they came walking in… with praise and song, the metal titans walk in their glory! With shields and guns beyond their understanding, left behind from a greater time. 

Hearing all the commotion outside, Layla took a peek out the window to see the knight wardens to Gallants and a mixture of all in between! It was a parade that boggled her mind! 

{I'm from a knight world! Oh! No…please tell me it's not one of the dead ones! Or worse... A traitorous one!} screamed Layla in her mind 

But as Layla was having her mind blown, by Knights, were only those of noble birth from the golden age of man, had the right to pilot! In which those who fail to be chosen by the machine spirit that dwells inside, meant death or worse…but mixed with beauty and savagery, seeing them could only mean two things! 

Either something was going to die, or they came out hunting for new blood to fill their failing house! 

Scared and concerned, Layla continued to study the appearance of the knights… she saw gorgeous reds and slivers, with symbols she could not recognize, but it was adorned in yellow with a skull and gears with half a face covered in red. With an odd symbol with the number 17 that sat below the inner symbol. 

But while she studied the knights, they were having their own debate: 

[Baron Dyrok are you sure this is the place?] 

[Quiet squire! You doubt the machine spirits! The numbers they have given us cannot be false! The geography is as predicted as is the!] replied Dyrok but stopped mid-sentence 

[Sir! I don't doubt the spirits but] replied the squire 

[silence! What is it… my Ignis…] said Dyrok to his machine, 

But while he listened to the words of his machine, the shadow of the sun turned black! The dust in the desert flew in a tantrum! While the ground shook in their wake! With red-tipped sails, they came ramming their blackened ships! 

[Baron! It's... it's…a Drukhari raid!] squealed the squire in fear as he was blown to bits by cannon fire! 

Dark ships that are crewed by scandalous women and men, with pointy ears and minds lost to pleasures. A species lost in servitude to Slaanesh! They came in black tights and fish nets ready to catch men's souls! For their games! 

To see them here on Aurous IV was rare, but even more so ready to pick a fight with house Vulker! This attempt on their world was nothing more than an insult to the house! One that the baron could not stand for! For as he watched his citizens screamed as they headed inside their homes, while his knights ready themselves for a battle to the end! 

So, with the sun as a witness, the battle began in earnest as both sides exchanged fire at a rapid pace! As the knight-maintained solidarity, they fired their canons and ready their swords! While the dark Eldar charged in with smiles on their faces, as they took pleasure in their death! 

With ships sinking, and others being sawed in half by giant chain blades, the Drukhari still outnumber the defenders by mountains of margins! They planned from the beginning to lose more than what they had to gain. 

With their numbers unaccountable, they stormed into the small village! Men, women, and children, they captured all they could! While they dropped off a gift for house Vulker! A gift that went unnoticed in the chaos of the fight! 

With the sound of gunfire drowned by men screaming, Layla quickly turned from the window and ran to her mother asking if they had any weapons of some kind to fight! 

[fight! Are you crazy Layla? Since when does a crybaby like you know how to fight!] replied Layla's mother in fright, as she quickly grabbed Layla by the arm and headed into the basement. 

Layla tried to fight from her mother's arms, but with the body of a 10-year-old, her strength failed her, and with saddened eyes watched as her mother locked her away under the floor! While she kicked and screamed! 

[Layla! Stop screaming! And look at me! Listen… bad people are coming to take me away, but they won't get you! Now promise me you won't leave no matter what happens or what you hear! You got me! Now promise me!] demanded Layla's mom 

Unwilling but with no choice, Layla reluctantly agreed as her mom sealed the door shut! Now unable to leave, Layla could only hear what was happening around her! As her house doors were busted into by pointy-ear freaks! Her mother screamed as the Haemonculus monster took her away! While her brother lay dead on the street! Impaled and tortured by bizarre devices. While her father disappeared in light! 

It was then that her house came crashing down, from a knight that took much damage! It was then that she saw them! Men with grotesque faces, that screamed Blood for the blood god! For this was the Drukhari Bomb! 

Scared, Layla hid in the shadow of the floor, waiting and waiting for silence to come! But it never did, people screaming and men chanting, with explosion and blood! The Village was no more! What was once a peaceful outback, was now nothing more than a burned husk! But as those fires quenched themselves and noises cooled down, Layla mustered up the courage to squeeze her way out! 

But as she opened up her eyes from the dust, she looked at a sight that crushed her! A house gone and a family dead! Her brother's corpse was displayed in dishonor, while the family painting lay in ruins! And a house crushed under a mighty war machine and a mom nowhere to be seen! 

A memory that was hard to keep for any 10-year-old to bear! Let alone a man in his later years. Sadden, Layla looked around her former neighbors… only to see much of the same… death and desuetude were all that remained… But then... She heard it... In the back alleys surrounded by wood and rock… a girl screamed for help as she was trapped under some debris. 

Rushing to help the girl, while forgetting her own situation, Layla pulled her out just in time as the rock above fell to fill in the hole! As the girls looked at each other, they were about to say something, when they abruptly heard the sound of a man hyperventilating the word 'blood', over and over again in the mist of the fog. 

But while the soft light peaked the man's shadow through the mist, the girls could see the shadow twitching and murmuring… until the man reached the edge of the fog… 

And like a man possessed, he quickly turned his head to look at the girls while his hands were on his ears and with a mouth with no lips! With an insane smile and scars raining down his bare-naked chest, the man yelled while pointing: 

[BLOOD…FRESH BLOOD FOR OUR GOD!] 

His words caused a commotion to form all around! As more people joined him in chanting! The chanting and the stomping were as if Layla could hear the drums beat again! 

The girls, scared for their lives, ran with all they had through a ruined village where dead horses stood in the way of the road! Were collapsed houses and machinery blocked their direction! With nowhere to run, the girls huddled together as mad men rushed at them like starving wolves! 

But just when they were about to get them, a man all dressed in gold fell from the sky! Cushing the madness under his foot! And with a golden spear and a shield that weighs a ton, the man began his slaughter! It was beautiful! The tapestry he painted with his skill with the blade! 

A sight that engraved itself into Layla's mind! And just as the fighting was ending, a black boat came swimming in! With nets at the ready, they tossed them at the girls carrying them away from the golden knight! 

Layla screamed for the knight, but the knight didn't budge from his spot, he only looked at the fleeting boat through the visors on his helmet and smiled! For with his smile came the downward strike of Dyrok's chain sword! With a boat cut in two and falling from the sky, the girls were lucky to fall on the nearby rooftop which saved their lives! 

But while Layla looked for a golden knight that disappeared with the wind, the girl next to her looked at the Baron machine with wonder eyes! It was only after a little while that Layla turned to the girl and asked her name. 

[Mary… my name is Mary...] replied the girl as the wonder of the knights left her, leaving her with only the feeling of emptiness inside.