Shrapnel pinged against the armour, as dirt, rocks and corpses were all crushed with brutal indiscretion beneath the tracks of the great iron behemoth. Yet perhaps they were kinder than both those in the country of Norterra that Magran had fled from, and those in the country he now called home, Brimtar. At least they held no specific prejudice.
Now, he had returned from whence he came, yet this time in uniform, a minor (and the only expendable) component of a horrifying, metal eviscerator of men on tracks. Yet this time, he was helping to eviscerate his own countrymen. Sure, that country had been hunting him down since he was a native of the land before they had conquered it. Yet there was a nagging sensation in the back of his mind that what he was doing was wrong.
Sitting in the belly of the beast, assisting the actual mechanic, he winced as another fist slammed into the bag of his head. His head swirling from the combination of the sudden impact and the intense heat, it took him a second to process the verbal abuse now being spat from the chief mechanic’s mouth. Stifling tears, he continued his work amidst the steam and boiling metal of the engine that thirsted for blood and oil.. Was this any better? He’d escaped the Norterran massacre of his people, ethnic Aklans, only to encounter more hate.
Panting. Gunshots. Fear. Magran’s knees had been bloody, yet he had too much adrenaline to worry about that. The searing heat of the fires behind him had burned the back of his neck; blood had dripped from a gash in his arm drawn by a merciless bayonet; bile felt as if it would violently leap from his throat. Yet the only thing he could do then was run. So he did. He had taken one last look as the fierce rusty flames consumed the camp he had once called home. Then his legs had carried him until he had collapsed. It had all been a blur.
On the machinery his eyes were fixed, and any noise at all was overpowered by the track’ thrumming; completely drowning out the other tankers’ conversations.
“Dirty Norterran.”
“Useless.”
“Do we even need him?”
Overstimulated, he felt his breathing judder, and desperately attempting to hold it, he did not notice the tears slipping out of his eyes. Nor the continued conversation.
“Dirty Norterran.”
“Useless.”
“Do we even need him?”
What he felt, however, was the cold metal of a wrench crashing into the back of his head.
Magran rubbed his eyes, exhausted. Almost delirious, he felt his hands repairing the invisible machinery of a phantom tank; an apparition of the chief mechanic gave him a hallucinated kick. The only actuality was the bore of a Norterran .44 at the back of his head. “Please,” he begged in Norterran – hoping the use of their language would ignite a little mercy – “spare me.” “Disgusting Aklan,” came the only reply.
BANG!
