Shattered

Merlin

Merlin clenched the silent radio in his hand with enough force that the military-grade plastic began to give. His grip grew tighter and tighter as the gunfire rang out around him as if subjecting the inanimate object to such torture would somehow make it cease its silence.

"Fallback!" he heard one brave marine call out, before an intense wave of heat hit the old man.

His grip loosened ever-so-slightly when a familiar odor filled the air. It was a smell that he had thought he'd never smell again, and he wished with every ounce of his soul that it would have remained true. For one whiff of that sickening smell of burning flesh transported him across the sea and nearly eighty years in the past. He wasn't Merlin then, nor was he Jeremiah Arthurson, but a small, malnourished boy named Jeremiah Aarons who had given up on life. Day in and day out he had watched people be worked to death while others were rounded up and fed to monsters only he could see.

"Shoot him!" a voice called out over the fog of memories, only to be silenced by a flaming sword lopping the soldiers head off. The body dropped to its knees before collapsing only a few feet in front of the Big Apple Island founder, triggering another wave of memories.

Merlin could still feel the splintering wooden shaft of the shovel against his blistering and bleeding palms, feel his feet stinking into the hot, fetid material that had once been human. He could feel the bile well up in his throat every time he found a bone fragment, or wore, a whole bone that had belonged to someone that should have been far too young to experience such horrors. Worst of all, was the fear he felt every time his body was ready to collapse, knowing that he would be the next victim if he proved too weak.

It had been a reality void of hope.

"Run little mortals! Run!" a booming voice cackled over the gunfire.

That voice was also jogged a few unpleasant memories. Memories of a time when the camp was under inspection from the so-called high brass. Two men, a boy, and a girl, dressed in black leather trench coats and hats adorned with skulls and lightning bolts that marked them as Schutzastaffel. The bearded man and two teens paid him no mind as they walked by him, but the other man, a huge, muscular man wearing dark lensed glasses laughed at him and made a quick motion along his neck with one finger. But the young boy didn't shrink back, instead he glared at the officer in defiance. The man's eyes then quickly flared from behind the dark lenses, making Merlin fall backwards in fear, to which the man only laughed.

And Merlin never forgot that day.

That was enough to snap him to his senses, leaving that dreaded camp behind and bringing him back to the ruins of Mount Olympus. The old man looked at the ruined path before him, bodies of minor gods and humans alike strewn about at random. Flying all around the peripherals of the floating mountain top were an untold number of the strange black creatures that had emerged from below only hours ago; the strange creatures seemingly held at bay by an unseen force. The ever-moving mass of wings blocked off most of the light of the early morning sun, bathing the ruined divine city in an artificial night. What little light there was came from the few magical scones that remained, tracer rounds, and of course, Ares himself.

"Run away!" The god roared with laughter as he swung his fiery sword down, cleaving the street, and a marine, in two. The god of war stood four times taller than the average man, his sword nearly half that in length. The blood-stained armor he wore somehow made him seem even larger than he already was. His eyes flared as brightly as the sun from behind his helmet, which truly made him look like his title.

"You think your puny little weapons are going to hurt me?" Ares bellowed, as gunfire from every direction bounced harmless off his glowing form. "You forget who you're dealing with!" The god heaved his sword up over his head. "Allow me to remind you!"