My name is Captain John Phillips Thompson and I am of two minds. I fought in the Great War and came home, but not all in one piece. My mind came back whole, but my body had issues. I saw things while overseas that men were not meant to see. Some things that were not made or done by other men, and some things that could have never been made by man except in nightmares. My superiors said these things should not exist, but they were real to the people that died by the thousands, and proof was found.
I spend my time in the battlefield now, my technician and brother at my side, tinkering on my mechanical enhancements and whistling marching tunes that the big bands used to play before the war. I sometimes hum jazz and blues, but he shushes me and points out how it draws the evil to us. I know evil though, and it is not drawn to music. It is drawn to its own kind. In the beginning I tried to tell him, but he would only hush me and adjust some valve on my hormone amplifier box, making me unable to talk because I need to focus on the rush as all my senses sharpened.
I watch the horizon and I can see them lumbering in their broken gait. Huge, shambling creatures hidden by the fog and smoke that gathers on a battleground. I first saw them during the death ray testing in the desert. They were the size of cats in the beginning, and I thought they were some beast that had been afflicted by man’s latest weapons. I remember those idyllic days of innocence and ignorance when I sleep. I dream of that world, and wish I could still live in it. But I can’t. One is memory, and the other is reality. One is made of sleep and dreams; the other is made of alert awareness.
The Empire researched the occult and the Federation could not let them gain an unfair advantage. Each searched for cultural and religious artifacts and explored places of power from ancient civilizations. We did it in the deserts. The plasma testing wasn’t to make sure the bombs were safe, but was to pour power into the dark things our government found, things the Dasism had hidden centuries ago after defeating them and driving them back into the black holes out of which they had crawled. We ignored the paintings, the carvings, and all the warnings that were left behind for us to find. Once these things had been released we had to find ways to feed them. It was easy. We had enemies everywhere, and no one noticed or complained when they disappeared. If they did complain, their name was placed on a sympathizer list, which was a secondary record of who else could disappear if we ran out of enemies.
Things became worse as each side began collecting captives in concentration camps and experimented on them. Each had found keys to nature and applied them to the human souls and bodies in the dark, hidden camps and makeshift hospitals. Chemicals and radiation were given to tortured prisoners. It drew out things from places inside of those people. Man has great things hidden within him; seeds of awesome beauty through art, as well as horrifying cruelty through other creative processes. I think if things had been done differently, had been done with gentle love and understanding, something else inside of man as a species would have responded and answered to the call and brought about a very different world. But it doesn’t matter. That isn’t what happened. We did not nurture anything; rather we brought it forth by blood and force. And it responded in kind.
I shouldn’t let myself get distracted with thoughts of the past though, I can see the enemy moving now. They are swarming towards us, and the mists move with them. The other soldiers are already falling to what hides in the fog, some tumbling to the ground untouched, unconscious and overpowered by whatever the haze is made of. Others aren’t so lucky. I can hear them screaming as the first wave of assault hits us and things grab them from the grey vapors that are too thick to see through. Unless you are augmented, like me. I can see through them, and I can see what lurks within them. And they can see me. They toss smoking poultices at me, trying to overpower the hormones surging through my system. It usually doesn’t work, but this time it did and I fell before I could launch my attack and fight back.
Aetheric Elements: The Rise of a Steampunk Reality Page 56
