Teeth gritted

Eyes gaping with no remorse

Palms grieving, shaking steadily

An unrecognizable force

Trembling courageous power

This power

With each shake

Exceptional pride

Bone marrow into the ground

Determination unable to break

Stomach weak, rocking

Each moment slower

Effortlessly over the dessert

With incredible wings

Justified enough

His weapon sings

Marching amongst

Land and sea

Heart bursting

The inescapable fate

A prologue is an epilogue implied

Written on what’s about to be

Drenched skin expelling

Pure undeniable glory

Blood prepared to spill and fly

For that waving flag

Clearing in the smoke

Looming down, dancing from the sky

Although it may be the last time

They dress in honor

The final hour they may

Adorn their flesh in this armor

What they feel

Each second in training

Laced in sweat

Sandstorms weeping

Down their spines

The enemies are reaping

Acknowledged with courage

Drowning every ounce of their being

Engulfed in an integrity

Civilians are masked from seeing

No fear within

Their very own soul

No compassion

For themselves

In these treacherous tides

Packaging it unspoken

Into their comrades

At their fronts and sides

Signatures lost

Engraved in marble and shale

A soldier somewhere weeps

But America, she is rejoicing

This freedom she keeps

The sky becomes vacant

Sound is hidden

The earth, their vision

Their God given gift of life is ridden

The day turns to night

Blood shattered

Pooled at their very feet

Like shadows of glass in the ground

Immensely worth

These cowering enemies

Our soldiers slay and defeat

Somewhere in the fold

In the battle

There is a cry

No matter the disguise

The battle is never over

They call it “Semper-fi”

No longer in their armor

No more a brave, determined knight

Their hideous memories remain

In dreams, people and places

They’re never out of the fight

The flag torn, muddied

By soldiers, brothers outfits torn

Stained; bloodied

Whips as the fiery beast

They fell to adore

Standing today with dignity

Thousands of beautiful lives lost

To keep the anthem singing

No matter how big or small the cost

You cannot back down

Mustn't cower

An officer suggests

You fall to your knees and pray

You may not find the ability at that moment

Or the words to say

No matter the battle or the war

Believe or not

Dear god, let this glorified limitless eagle

Continue to soar

Behind a helmet

Protective gear

A Father or Mother

May surface a great fear

Their child may wander alone

Saluting their parent at a grave

With only a photograph in hand

Their one last gift being the everlasting

Ability to live safely in a free land

On career day

A child cannot bring their parent

But know the words

They are about to say

“I’m going to grow up to be just like him”

And the teacher will ask

“What does he do?”

The answer will be simple

His job is to defend this Red White and Blue

The alarms sounded in the late afternoon today. These intense, harmonic screams ricocheted through the town’s boundaries; signaling the day human kind was forced to ponder mortality. Many of us were in our cars on our way home from work, including myself. We had been briefed on what to do in the event of such a day, but most of us shoved this looming secret in the back of our minds like dirty laundry. Similar to clockwork, I set out on foot; abandoning my old life and preparing to fight for my new one. Some were too shocked to follow the distinct orders of the government, zipping their cars frantically down the street as if traffic laws were exempt, and death was imminent.

You could hear cars crashing through the streets, metal fighting metal. You can blame this on lack of focus I suppose, but who could blame them. Some people had families that were scattered throughout the town; their lead feet on the pedals of their vehicles initiating a game of needle in a hay stack. I wasn’t one of them, for I had left my family behind years ago. In some ways, I have always been prepared for this day because of it.

The government called them the “bestias” because that’s just about what they had transformed into. The word “bestia” is Latin for animal, or beast. A few years ago, word was that the government had begun testing radioactive samples from malignant ground on inmates; most of who were on death row. Like an underground secret, these test samples were confined into a vacant prison, which is known as “Inferis” or Latin for the underworld. Inferis became more like an asylum; keeping the tainted inmates alive and contained so that data could be collected. A few articles were leaked regarding the condition and apparent danger of this confinement, yet the government had done their best in covering their tracks and destroying any leaked information. I still have copies of each article. When the bestias became too powerful and uncontrollable, the scientists decided that the only way to undo their horrific mess was to lock them up inside and hope they’d eventually die off. The opposite happened, and the sirens indicated this to be true.

The radioactive chemicals infused them with enhanced, inhuman capabilities. They warned us that these test samples did not require food, so it would be incredibly difficult to ward them off to death by starvation. Line seven, paragraph eight of the last article that the government had tried to demolish stated, “they will be very hungry.” I imagine the alarm proclaiming the heinous truth about human on human crime: dinner is served.

I find myself pacing around the town, trying to avoid the hysterical paths and cries of people trying to find shelter.

The power in the town has completely diminished within an hour of the sirens. Gas stations, convenience stores and food shops now looked like empty shells; comfortless and cold. No one had the intention to help one another. The world turned into a selfish, deserted mess. Without any food, I knew I would need to visit my apartment one last time in order to survive. I couldn’t stay there; the buildings would be ransacked and the bestias would destroy anything they came in contact with. Because of their exceptionally enhanced senses, the government had described them as inescapable. Given the chance, they would find us and kill us. No one ever said how, or what it entailed.

My apartment building appeared scattered and pulled apart. Decorative tables turned, papers scattered on the carpet with shoe prints, broken glass and even money. It’s funny how the sirens created a higher awareness. People were salvaging things like family photos and memorabilia from their keep-safe. Money was now just paper. You couldn’t eat it, it wouldn’t keep you warm at night or offer you any sort of comfort. Pondering this was perplexing; that in the face of death we are shaken back to our roots and our intended predisposition. Money was never meant to be important. Suddenly, a second set of alarms sounded. This set sounded a lot like the first set; but instead of a consistent, unsettling buzz it began pulsating or flashing in strict, confined sound. This indicated that the bestias in fact were out, dangerous and killing. A shiver caressed my spine as I imagined how close they were.

I start up my stairwell, knowing I only had to keep a solid pace to the fifth floor. I didn’t think the elevators were functioning; nor did I want to take the chance. The hallways were eerily vacant, emergency lights glowing in the dim aisles of the hallways on each floor. People either had beaten me to their homes via car, or had prioritized other things in the moment and forgotten provisions imminent to survival. I shuffle for my keys in my pocket, hands rattling and unfocused. Although the hallways were cool with darkness, I could feel a brisk sweat accumulating on my forehead, just above my brows. There was a loud bang down the hallway, unwelcoming and blunt. The emergency door was slammed open, followed by heavy, rapid footsteps and a muffled breathing similar to something you would imagine a rhino conjuring deeply within its lungs. I freeze, key partly turned in my door lock. I refrain from swallowing, or taking the gasp I had strongly felt necessary. The feet trampled in the opposite direction, gate inhuman and fierce. I was being hunted.

Skidding my body cautiously across the wall, I knew that the moment I turned my back to the other side of the hallway that it would be fatal. My quivering body made silence nearly impossible, muscles shooting in random, involuntary motions from an uncontrolled amount of adrenaline. Instinctual response: run. I envisioned a delicate gazelle, leaping away from the jaws of a tiger. The simple square maze that makes up my apartment floor would come to a full circle soon. I could hear gurgled panting extending through the hallways and bouncing back to my feet; there wouldn’t be enough time to make it back to the stairwell, I decide. The elevator doors sat at the opposite corner from my apartment. I knew that if they were working, it would be my only chance to survival.

Picking up my metal plated feet, I rush my body to the elevator front; pressing the elevator button in a rapid, non-stop motion. Unsteady, trampling feet seemed to settle into a purposeful direction. They knew where the noise was coming from; they were no longer wanderers. The elevator arrived with its steady, patient rings and graceful opening doors. As soon as I could see the walls of the elevator, I slipped myself inside like a dirty bug into the side of the wall. No one could stomp me as long as I sat inside said wall, my haven. Ferocious growls and pleading cries tumbled through the hallways; the bestias were much more animalistic than I could have ever imagined.

Painful tears stung my eyes, blurring the small, insignificant close-door button my hand was relentlessly slamming into without reward. Just as the doors remembered how to close, a beast flashed its way into my view; locking its blood thirsty, blackened eyes into mine. Various, brittle, razor sharpened claws dug at the opening; crying at the force of the elevator doors. The safety feature on the elevator was overcome by the amount of times I was pleading for the broad doors to collapse. I knew this wouldn’t be the end of them. The elevator accompanied me safely to the third floor, before the lights ceased to operate and the small, hanging room was stuck like tires in Alabama mud.

Upon the failure, the elevator dropped a few inches and froze; machinery succumbed by the new world order. Just minutes later, they had found the bottom of the elevator and climbed the shaft; their claws attempting to sever the metal. The sound was reminiscent of if they were digging at a blackboard. The hellish noises stopped briefly; they had realized that they could access me by the third floor. Their stomping would become more pronounced as they continued their search around the third floor. I wondered if they could smell me; or if they really were intelligent beings.

Prying the doors open with remarkable strength and conviction, their mouths frothing at the sight of my flesh. In my last moments leading up to the eulogy of what I had already digested as the end after the sirens, I studied their hellish forms and silently cursed what the government had done. Their veins protruded from every crevice of their beaten, rash skin. It appeared that they had a skin condition of a sort; signs of a patient who had not seen sunlight for years. Their ribs slammed against their figure, draping over their skin and creating a skeletal appearance; hunched over and rabid. Hair flourished from everywhere my eyes could travel, some even had stubble breaking out from their eyelids and from their mouths. The claws were the last thing I would see on this planet, grown yellow and stained red as if they had just got done pulling a creature apart.

“What did they do to you?” I exclaimed, almost no words coming out at all.

They almost looked puzzled as if they were trying to remember how to communicate. One that appeared to be the ring leader in a pack mentality, finally spoke in a caveman-like retort.

“Sent…for…you,” it growled, showing its chiseled, intricately pointed brown teeth.

Although already cornered, they gathered around me in a closed circle as if to intimidate and further petrify their prey. Their joints popped out of their skin with each rigid movement, robotic and stiff. One by one, I felt their talons thrash against my delicate skin, inverting my being from the inside out. I thought for a second, beyond the once sturdy, familiar apartment walls that I head a cry of a third siren. This would be the final warning: evacuate the town at all possible costs. It’s too late, I thought.