Chapter Text
Dust swirls through the air, choking one. As one runs through the dry, diseased crops, one can feel one's eyes stinging with tears but one refuses to properly cry. One can not allow oneself to break down here, among the dusty, purpled stalks of wheat or one will become insensible with exhausted sobbing. One can't afford to do that for if one is to give in to the frenzied panic building in one's chest, nearly choking one, for even a moment one will be killed by Kodos' fanatics. They have perhaps one phaser between every six but they have dogs who will rip one to pieces in a heartbeat and they beat at the dry, dead crops with their batons, sending up great clouds of purple dust, flushing us out like prey. If the dogs attack one they will rip and tear and gnaw but they will be better than Kodos' fanatics. For Kodos' fanatics will beat at one with their batons and laugh meanly as they deal savage blows meant to hurt badly before they killed. One needs to get to the barn but the dusty, purple fields stretch on forever, deadly purple crops without end, poison to the soul as much as to the plants and earth and water. The howling wind that is always blowing purple, purple dust into one's clothes isn't wind anymore but the horror-struck cries of the dying. The barking of the dogs comes ever closer, the shouts of Kodos' fanatics. Suddenly, one is caught from behind by razor-sharp teeth. One tries to run but the dog drags one back, tearing at one's achillies, pain shoots through one and one's screams join the screams of the dead. As one crashes to the earth the glass bottle one is carrying smashes on the dusty ground, precious drops of water mixing with deadly purple dust. The others will never get the water now and one will never return. The second oldest boy and oldest non-injured member of one's little surviving group is as good as dead. As one is torn at by the hungry, half-wild hounds one screams a parched, agonized scream. To one's horror the cloth wrapped around one's face to keep out the poisonus dust of the purple fungus slips down and one's throat fills with deadly particles. One coughs and retches, eyes and nose streaming, one's chest fills with a dreadful stabbing almost worse than the dogs stripping flesh from one's bones. A raven settles on one's back as one tries to fight off the dogs who only tear viciously at one's hand. One screams again and doesn't stop, one's own screams and sobs and retching filling one's ears. It harmonizes with the growling of the dogs, the wailing of the dead, and the far off shouts of Kodos' fanatics. The raven on one's back begins to tear out one's flesh in bleeding chunks. One desprately manages to flip over only to find the skin of one's face stripped away at by the sharp teeth and claws of starving rats. The dogs continue to rend flesh from one's legs, ripping at one's calves. A rat's sharp teeth pirece one's eyeball and tug. A howl of agony builds in one's throat but one's body is frozen by the painful toxin spreading through one. The dogs strip away at skin and muscle like they are pulling apart mozzarella cheese, their teeth and lips dripping with one's bloody flesh. One almost passes out from the pain and horror before another bird lands on one's torso and begins to tear at one's stomach. Slivers of bloody meat are mercilessly yanked from one's abdomen until the bird reaches the entrails and tears them free, eliciting a strangled scream from one's frozen lips. The bird, one's entrails slipping down his gullet, speaks. The voice sends a jolt of horror greater than anything one has felt so far through what is left of one's frozen body. "The revolution is successful..."