Trillionth year of the terrestrial calendar.

A year of respite, a year of good intentions. We had convinced ourselves it would be the first truly happy chapter in the chronicle of this universe. A story that would otherwise remain at the mercy of interspecies cosmic conflicts, or the collapse of entire ecosystems due to artificial interference.  These plagues were meant to be a residual image of our past — ever so present, yet never to be exhumed again. Bringing down the curtain on those ill-fated millennia was not the work of a divine plan or a chain of providential events: there were the means, thus the responsibility to change things. We did so; but it wasn’t enough. It’s as if our reality were bound to submissively follow the plots woven by the cosmos, except that each thread of the vile tapestry leads to ruin. As of now, the Myrmekonid Invasion is the scourge that makes hope veer astray and feeds it to oblivion with no hesitation.

How it all began is difficult to ascertain and, in any case, of doubtful interest. Whether they slithered out of Satan’s rectum or from a laboratory, it does not matter. We merely yearn for that peace to return, which, albeit stagnant and verging on hypocrisy, we chose ourselves, for ourselves… By virtue of this, millions upon billions of lives set out to stand up to the threat, to cement a fragile ideology of good. They attempted to deceive fate its tormenting road which is always, damnably, one-way. The tally of the dead? Millions of billions. The weapons unleashed against the enemy? About double; and yet it was still not possible to scratch the exoskeletons of those titanic, towering beasts, much less their primigenial form: the Megapede.

The first sightings of the Megapedes were reported when it was already too late on the planetoid of Ehb, located in the remote Cepheid Jungle. The local scientific community did not give proper attention to the data concerning the anomaly in the firmament, which showed several variable stars emerging from one day to the next. Conversely, the military branches were reluctant to draw the same, indifferent conclusions, partly due to their predisposition toward distrust, at times dogmatic. They instead relied on their state-of-the-art monitoring equipment, ground and satellite, yet the screenings always yielded the same results: “No foreign inorganic material detected”. Ultimately, they accepted the idea that such bursts of light were nothing more than the radioactive residues of orbital mines—mines that had detonated upon reaching their pre-set life cycle… Against all expectations, it was the people, thanks to their primordial instinct and their unfiltered perceptions, who first grasped the truth. Those emerging in the sky were eyes. Myriads of eyes in rapid approach. And when this became clear to the entire population, evading the worst was like shaking water off a tidal surge... Pathetically futile.

As twilight stole yet another ordinary day, the clouds turned a rancid green. Thick humps of giant chitin loomed over the roofs of burning shacks, and through the ashen shroud of smoke, a swarming mass of hairy legs gradually became visible. The segmented colossus had just finished crushing two cities under its own weight: Gorda in the southern hemisphere and Dyna Town in the northern hemisphere of the planet were wiped out together, and not even a second elapsed between the downfalls. The evacuees were incredulous, helpless, and utterly terrified. Such devastation… A single culprit? Absurd. But when the rest of the raiders landed on the unfortunate Ehb and obliterated it from the stellar maps, the absurd turned into brutal reality.

Unfortunately, that episode was not an isolated case, but rather the springboard toward a daily occurrence. People are tired. Only the children remain to take up arms. The animal rights activists and those who used to kiss trees in the name of pacifism have already done so, and have become shadows of themselves. Soulless shells, who, even if the war were to end, will not be able to have their future back, since they’ve already sold their spirit away.

A change is necessary… You.

Teach those Megapieces of shit who’s in charge.