3 White Light

Undoubtedly, we were very late.

Nobody was boarding the ship any longer when we reached. A man in military uniform was blocking one of the passageways, shouting and waving his semi-automated handgun around hysterically. There was a hideous scar, white, cut across his face. He, like many of the retired soldiers, was hired by the captain of the space shuttle to guard the entrance with their lives in exchange for secured seats for the departure.

"There are simply not enough spaces left for the rest of you lot, now get the HELL out of here before I blow the face out of each and every fucking one of you!"

His voice was hoarse and sounded out-of-breath, but the message was loud and clear. Yet the idea of being abandoned was hard to swallow, thus people did not perceive it well and restlessness grew among the crowds. Many of the still ignorant ones were perplexed by the lack of progress, and thought there was only a delay.

"Back off! I said back off you cocksuckers!"

Shots were fired from a distance, possibly from the other gates.

The masse of evacuee went wild. All forms of civility (if there was any in the beginning) were lost without a trace, and in the darkness dementedness and chaos remained. The outburst of indignation, from what I could observe, was initiated by a drunkard who was also a fool. He had found a way to improvise his bottle of liquor to an incendiary weapon, and stupidly staggered towards the scarred militia guard with the Molotov cocktail in his hand.

In the midst of chaos, he tripped. The ragged bottle flew from his hand and landed on an old man nearby, setting him ablaze. Everyone's gaze immediately turned towards the orange glow, and the shriek and rasping of the poor elder cut through the silence of the night. Surrounded by helpless crowd, the old man toppled onto the ground and twisted and rolled into an inhumanely grotesque shape.

This specific incident, however unfortunate, created a period of distraction for the scarred soldier. It was not long until someone realised that the entry to the ship was guarded by one strand of chain, and that a scrawny military guard was no match for the overwhelming size of a thousand men. I did not know whoever took the initiative, but soon the scarred soldier was pinned to the ground, disarmed, and shot in the face. When the murder was done, with the scar no longer visible, the crowd charged into the abandoned gate.

"ROURRRRRRR.." They bellowed, some sort of war cry. And the tragedy begun.