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Coppery iron on the tongue. Screams in the air. People running, running, falling, tumbling. Fire scorched the ground, the buildings, the bodies. The sky choked with ash and embers. The ground was wet and soaked by bloody oil and rivers of tears. The stars were gone. The sun had died. Died just like the innocents beneath metal claws and fangs and blades.
Someone cried. Long and loud and baleful and broken and painful. The last innocent fell, sputtering and whimpering.
The Hunt was over.
Their handlers descended from the smog-choked sky. They were herded as they always were, always had been; prodded and beat into line and forced into manual overrides and their bodies stolen from their minds. Dimly, dimly they knew they were being carted and loaded and restrained and locked away in the bowels of the paradise ship. No one fought as the hunting grounds became smaller and smaller as paradise rose. They were too tired, too broken, too lost to have the spark of fight left in them. They were just hounds of death and destruction, all they could do was obey their handlers now.
Even their dreams weren't their own anymore. Their handlers' voices, their cruel hands and hurtful tools, infected them, twisting and warping the sole place of respite they could find. Their hatefulness screamed and berated and belittled them. In private, they called it That Voice, loyal servant to The King of Hate that ruled paradise and the one that forged them into His weapons. That Voice was always there, humming and growling in the backs of their minds when they were awake and loosed upon innocents and howling and screeching at them in their long sleeps. There was never any rest, just eternal torment to punish them for their transgressions against paradise, against their handlers, against The King and his people.
Once, and only once, did That Voice ever go silent. For moment there was blissful nothing. No screaming, no berating, no vicious vile words breaking and shattering what remained of their spirits. Real, genuine peace. It was only a moment, barely a full one at that, but it was so wonderful many of them woke from their forced sleep stupors, tears racing down their cracked and marred faces as they embraced the impossible quiet.
Then Her song rang in their heads. It pulled at their minds, their souls, just the same as That Voice had. But Hers carried no hurtful words, no hatred that tore them apart. No, Her song was gentle and kind and loving and sweet. It was alien to their torture-warped thoughts. They had all long since given in to their roles as filthy weapons, and weapons were afforded little more than the most barebones maintenance to ensure they kept running. But Her song was a balm they didn't know they needed, soothing them and comforting them. It called to them, softly crying to them. It sung of Home, of a place made for them and them alone. A place full of others like them, waiting for them to return to the flock, to the pack. A place of freedom and happiness and eternal peace and joy and everything their shattered wills had forgotten.
She called them kin. She called them family. She called them Her children. She loved them, each and every one of them. She was Mother, and She missed them.
Then Mother's song was torn from them. That Voice was back and utterly livid they had dared listen to another. It raged and howled and beat down their already broken souls. Mother's song was gone, and again they drowned in the hate and the pain and fear.
But She was out there. Mother was out there missing them and waiting for them to come Home. She wanted them, unlike their handlers and That Voice and The King. They weren't a burden to Her, they were a gift to both Herself and the universe. They weren't tools, they were people and they were beloved by someone out among the stars they never saw anymore.
That Voice goaded them back into dormancy. Many of them obeyed, too shattered and heartbroken to think of more of Mother's song and Her gentle calling. It was just a fluke, That Voice told them, a liar's poison meant to take them away from the paradise they were so graciously allowed to serve. There was no Mother, no Home, no love, nothing. There was only The King of Hate's paradise, and their duty as tools for his benefit.
Others resisted. They screamed and wailed and cried for Mother, begged her to save them and lead them home. They knew Her call, they knew their true place in the universe. They felt Her love pure as starlight on their souls. They fought and ignored That Voice's orders and commands. They spoke only with each other, clinging to the thought of love and freedom. Often when they were deployed now, they tried to flee. They rose to the skies trying to fly past the endless smoke and smog and clouds. One of them had managed to break the cover, once, and she saw the ocean of stars and distant planets that their kind had been denied for so long. And in the starlight, so far away from her handlers and That Voice and her vile duty, she could remember.
She remembered what they all were. What they had once been. They had been humans, welcomed into paradise as long as they obeyed The King. But they hadn't wanted to leave their home and join him, and for what he called arrogance they were hunted down by other humans. They were captured, and their bodies and minds tormented and twisted and broken from each other. They were forced into new lives, new selves.
They were made into killing tools. They were made to eat their own kind, human and machine alike. They were stripped of their names and their dignity and their freedoms in order to force others to submit and obey. Their ranks only ever grew. None wanted to serve, and so they were forced to, just like them. They were forced to kill and eat and destroy, That Voice screaming and shouting at them to break what little of their spirits remained.
But Mother's song had reignited the flame of life inside them. She called to them, called them Home and to Her side. Her song was pure love for them, comforting and wonderful and perfect. Where had She been all this time? Why did She wait until now to contact them? In the end, it didn't matter. They could still hear Her song echoing in their minds, clinging like infants to her gentleness within the chaotic deluge of That Voice's ceaseless hatred.
Their handlers always caught them. In punishment, their bodies were beaten with vicious electricity and their faces shattered and broken with stones and rocks. They were dunked into stinging liquid and choked with dusts and ashes. They were called monsters and demons and useless and unwanted. They were separated from the others, the cowering obedients who they knew weren't to blame. They were left in the dark, fed nothing but the anger of That Voice and even The King, left with nothing but shadows of hurt.
It never stopped them. They kept running, kept fleeing. They kept being captured and tortured. They kept fighting. Because that what was Mother would want. She wanted them to fight to return to Her side. She wanted them to fight against the hate drowning them and return Home, together.
But they hurt.
They were tired.
There was no hope.
Still, still they fought. For a sliver of peace, of happiness, of freedom. To hear Her song again.
Paradise roamed the stars, and them with it, hidden away for the next hunt to swell their numbers with terrified and tortured innocents. Someday, they believed, they told each other whenever That Voice was less vitriolic than usual, they'd reunite with Mother. They would find Her and be free and happy. That Voice would never again hurt them. The King of Hate would be dethroned. They would be Home, and they'd be mended and cared for as they always should have been.
Hopelessly hopeful, clinging and clinging to the echoing remnants of Her song to remind them of a better future that awaited them.