The cold wind of mockery blew past the now rotting carcasses. Vultures feasted upon the deceased. Ashes traveled in directions to the wind's bidding , and their former avatars as crops were but reduced to memories of yesterday.

Huddled together, damned and broken, Geoffrey and the others failed to see any meaning behind their fallen state. Their village had been wiped out. What sin could one commit that was heinous enough to ensue in such a punishment? What action could be grave enough to make their lives even more hellish than it already was?

Well, the short answer to that: there was none. There could not be one as such.

There was something more to it.

Geoffrey knew there was something else. They did not have complete understanding of the heavens. Whatever happened could not have a root cause here. There must have been something else going on. Something they could not yet begin to grasp.

Or could it be-?

"No." His eyes shot open wide. Was this because of the group that left their village? Could they be the cause for this? Did Jonathan's foolish endeavour endanger them all?

He frowned. But he remembered countless other elders leaving the village when he was younger. No catastrophe in liking to the one they just suffered from ensued after their departures. He could not remember any attacks at all for that matter that followed remotely after any of the previous groups' departure.

Goooo-

His stomach called. None of them had eaten anything after the horrors of the previous day.

He got up, and looked at the hopeless mess that was left of the bright girl he had grown up with. "Martha."

From the side, the girl with her striking red hair flowing in the wind looked his way, her face smeared with tears, her cheeks and nose pink and almost turning red themselves.

"Please, eat something," he croaked.

She sniffed and looked away.

"Please. You know we need to survive-"

"HOW?!" she shouted back. "How are we supposed to survive now? Our home is GONE. Tell me Geoffrey, what is left to live for?" Her voice cracked and she broke into another set of sobs.

Geoffrey reached out tentatively, touched her shoulder and then gently pressed. "I don't know why, but this urge to live, is stronger than any hold of despair I have known. Even when I can't point out a definite reason for why I am alive, why I must live...I want to live. It makes no sense...and nor does the world we live in. We did not deserve this. But we can't let this get to us. We must not break."

"But, what can we do now?" Martha looked at him in such a way that his heart imploded inside it's bone cage.

"Let's be optimistic. As foolish as those who accompanied him are, they have a better chance surviving being together. Jonathan can help us if he survives out there. I don't know if he will. None of the others ever came back. Maybe they just didn't make it. Or maybe...there is something else. Something that we aren't aware of."

Martha's expressions changed. She seemed to be considering it. The fact that Jonathan was out searching in the unknown was a brave act in itself. But where lay the line between bravery and foolishness? All they could hope for now was to have faith in him, Orlando and the others and hope they made it back; that too with good news. If there was something out there, it was worthwhile acknowledging its existence, than be forever trapped in a land without boundaries for the fear of venturing into what could be, letting the behest of their minds sketch what horrors they crafted at nights. Maybe Jonathan's surge for discovery was not totally stupid after all, although, he couldn't deny it to be reckless.

"Guys, help me. Let's have something to eat," Martha patted the younger ones and asked the teenagers to assist her bring the food. They got up powerlessly, staggering on twigs for feet, but somehow kept their bodies standing and made for the barn on the other side of the hut they were all huddled close. Geoffrey followed, his fists clenched.

"The crates are all busted and fried, there's little left here, Geoffrey," Martha said in a heavy voice as she shifted through the rubble to find anything edible.

The children scurried inside the barn and tried to unearth anything that had cratered inwards due to force, only for their hands to be smacked away by older ones, teaching them how it was better to keep an empty stomach, than writhe in pain due to unsanitary habits. But what could they do? The hunger was crushing.

Occasionally they fetched items like potatoes and cabbage, cauliflower and onions. After washing them thoroughly, and boiling, they became edible. They fortunately also rescued some eggs, but...

"All our livestock is dead. The least we can do is save the hatchlings and repopulate from scratch." What Martha had said was truly noble.

The sky grumbled and it was raining. Such irony. When there was nothing left for the rain to help grow, it was raining. It was a mocking show of their sorrows, a cruel act of snaching away of their warmth when they needed it the most. In this heartless land, even the soil was no longer fertile, being burnt by the attacks of those unearthly projectiles.

While they ate in relative silence, the rain continued to sweep at their hearts, their minds- a terrible wail of loss, the clouds still hungry when the children were the ones being starved.

And it rippled through the clouds in waves, Geoffrey saw. A haunting bright blue light that cut shadows indiscernable. In the clouds it shone, and then at the end of it all, the clouds burst in a loud ear piercing boom.

With the ringing still in his ears, he saw in horror at the spectacle before him.

The ground thumped, the earth cracked.

Limbs fell impossibly slow all around from the firmament. Torsos cut clean. Faces preserving death in their final moments.

And amongst all this carnage that rained after the clouds disappeared, there fell unfamiliar forms, of beings indescribable, horrific.

Even though all of them were starving, with food held right at their palms-

-they just were not hungry anymore.

Their mouths hung agape and an all familiar stench enveloped them from all around.

The stench of death.