The Rules Of War

• Sierra Turay, Grade 7, Mary MacKillop College
• Short Story
• 2015

Excellence Award in the 'Read Write Repeat 2015' competition

Her smile, gleaming with effulgence seemed idiosyncratic among the crowd of lachrymose faces, each regurgitating the antagonistic atmosphere in coughs of ferity; the sickness was everywhere. Red pupils darted ferociously scouring the sea of doom for modicum hints of food, the very thought was preposterous that in such a bastardization of a society people would be willing to sacrifice a single crumb of intangible food. It seemed as though all hope was lost, despite being desperate they comprehended to rebuild the ruins of such an imperviously marred world would demand the work of gods. The sky exuded its routine hostility, the sun had cowered behind pernicious clouds of grey years ago leaving only the occasional dim rays that visited the surface.
She turned in rash circles, perplexed by the macabre skeleton that’s voices (slurred with malnutrition) played as a compendium of melancholy. Those who had accepted the cruel terms of life had abhorred in their beds, surrendering to more conciliatory methods of fighting the disease that prevailed in their veins, caused so much sickness and agonizing pain that the cost of breathing seemed to outweigh its miniature rewards.
They entered the dark tunnel that’s walls seemed laced with an execrable scent that assaulted her airways. She coughed horrendously unable to adjust to the wretched taste that imposed the atmosphere. She looked around her to see if anyone shared her disgust and repugnance though they all seemed well accustomed to the stench that as they moved further down the tunnel seemed to be more of an endemic land feature than anything else.
The desperation was prevalent in their eyes, whatever laid on the other side of the nefarious tunnel must have been of intangible value. She watched as people toppled over one another, there aloofness so evident their behavior was like that of beasts, neglected hands roped with veins grew claws (there use, she had no intention of discovering) that added to their outstandingly inhuman looking exterior. The ceiling was lined with cameras reversing and rotating in an attempt to miss nothing. She pictured them spinning in chairs faces creeping with sadistic smirks revealing in schadenfreude as they just sat and watched children, women human beings suffer In their agonizing journey that was destined to end very ant-climatically.
The tunnel began to conclude. She had no explanation for this no reasonable or logical theory for as to why this perniciously beastly creature pulsed before her. Adeliza was frightened to say the least, the blood so long gone from her body her complexion was kindred to that of those who pooled around her. Her reluctance seemed unseemly in the crowd still ferociously racing to the build of towering machinery and she stalled behind them, loath to discover exactly what the structure was hiding behind its thick reflecting walls.
Suddenly it became visible so high above it demanded a skillful amount of tilting, the banner.
‘FEEDING CENTER CONTAMINATED AREA’
It was then I saw them, tall malevolent beasts, Wrenthauls.