The veil of neon green clouds sweeps over the land, choking out the sun. All that is illuminated in its iridescent light is corrupted. Bioforms wither and die. Nonorganics are warped by the cocktail of corrosive chemicals.
Shadowy figures emerge through the death mist, following in its first wave. Black-clad figures stood far taller than any natural man, breaths rasping through masks which cast pale white light from their eye sockets.
They massacre whoever has clambered into hazsuits before the mists struck and blow apart any vac-sealed bunkers containing cowering survivors.
In days, the whole planet is scoured of all native life. A barren rock orbits its star now, and the black-clad figures crawl all over it.
Eons ago, they watched their planet wither and die. Those who were left behind in the great exodus died in droves from the fumes lingering in their own air. Those that survived adapted, generation by generation, to the toxic air, acid rain, and high radiation.
As time passed, they learned to cope with the death mist. Then they grew to revere it.
Now they spread its gifts to those that fled all those generations ago.
Paddy Dobson
18th July 2022