1. The beginning

The cannons lined up on the wall, and soldiers wearing orange war uniforms and black gloves with their fingers cut off, stood next to them with their weapons on their shoulders, placing their left knee on the floor of the wall and resting on their right foot... while a person in a green suit was in the centre, also carrying his weapon on his shoulder and not moving his eyes in any direction, while a person in a green suit was in the middle of them. A circular fence with a perimeter the size of a small city is barely visible from the top, while the sun, which had risen only minutes before, shines on them, and all they hear is a profound silence in which they can almost hear their own heartbeat. Six hours passed, waiting for the arrival they had been preparing for for years.

-They're late, Commander.

One of the soldiers whispered to the green commander, sweat pouring down his face.

-Silence. This is the moment we've been waiting for so long, it doesn't matter if they're late. The commander said, his eyes not moving left or right, and then followed his words:

-This is the decisive moment, the people behind us, their lives depend on us, everything here depends on us, and we have to do it for once.

He narrowed his eyes in anger and tightened his grip on his weapon:

-Just once!

The soldier looked at him with eyes mixed with hope and fear, looked back to the front, swallowed and said:

-We hope so.

Minutes passed and the soldiers were in the same state, some showing a longing for revenge for what was to come, some showing fatigue and despair, while others were silently shedding tears behind their weapons and trembling with fear. All of them woke up to the sound of a shell coming from one of the directions of the wall, heading towards the sky, followed by the commander's voice shouting:

-Death or life, both freedom

He was followed by the voices of all the soldiers, saying in a voice that reverberated strongly throughout the giant wall

-Death or life, both are freedom

Then the shells and weapons aimed their ammunition in rapid succession at their target. The target was soldiers on horses as fast as the wind, masked and dressed in black as if they were a mirage of bats, with only their angry eyes visible, carrying shells on their shoulders, led by one fighter wearing a red suit and black cloth, and riding a horse that stood out with its great body from the rest, each fighter carried a shell on his right shoulder and held it with one hand, while the other hand held the horse's halter... Except for their red leader, he carried a sword in its scabbard behind his back.

The shells continued to come at them as the commander shouted in frenzy:

-Don't stop, don't ever stop, keep hitting them. They won't do it this time either.

The shells and rockets from the wall continued to fly violently at the black soldiers coming on their fast horses, and it was clear to the soldiers of the wall that they were failing, not a single black soldier fell, as they approached at a tremendous speed...

-Sir, it's no use. One of them shouted next to the commander, who after his sentence dropped his weapon from his hands, and his face was filled with terror, he threw his body on his knees, bowed his head in surrender and started crying loudly:

-What are you doing?

The commander shouted at him.

The soldier continued to cry like a child who had lost his mother while others stopped targeting the masked soldiers.

The commander realized that at a moment like this, he could no longer convince the soldiers man by man to fight. He could only continue to fight until his last breath, accepting the outcome of the battle and surrendering to it no matter what.

The black army was within meters of the wall, and another shell rose into the sky from behind them.

-The wall to the south was shattered.

The commander whispered to himself as the feeling of defeat began to set in.

The black army began to attack the wall with their shells, each one penetrating the meter-thick wall, and the commander knew that the wall would be in ruins in a matter of moments.

-Everybody, fall back... fall back. Get down quickly.

The commander said in a loud voice, hoarse from the pain of screaming.

The others took turns telling each other as they began to descend one by one, each pulling their ropes, which were tied to small sturdy stakes in the ground, attached to the bottom of their stomachs... The wall began to crumble stone by stone. Parts of it were completely demolished while the soldiers were still trying to get down and retreat, and the stones fell on some of the descendants and knocked them dead, who would think that such small shells could demolish such a great wall?

The feet of some fell to the ground and they took off their armour and heavy belts and fled in fear of the battle, others were killed by falling stones, and a few remained standing at a distance from the wall, waiting for the black soldiers to come to them. The commander's feet hit the ground and he signalled to the soldiers to retreat as they looked through the wreckage of the fence at the black soldiers coming towards them at an alarming speed, the commander tightened his grip on his weapon in a final attempt to hold on, as did the others behind him...

-At least we tried.

He said in a harsh voice, his teeth clenched together and rage dominating his features:

-We may have failed. But not the others, not the future generations in front of you, They will not fail.

The ammunition of the black soldiers' weapons rushed towards them, leaving in the blink of an eye a powerful scene of destruction... of everything.