i think i need to come up with a better title

Sam closes his browser terminal and begins to prepare supper.  Another job well done he thought to himself as he washes some cucumbers.  Today's job was an especially tough one.  The client asked Sam to locate some information about a certain military experiment conducted a forty years ago.  Usually after a hard job Sam would rather take a quick shower and sleep until noon the next day despite not eating anything all day.  But his sister is not the same.  No matter what went on during the day, Sylvie always wants supper at 8 pm.  So Sam fixes up a quick meal and brings it into their bedroom.  The clock display app at the lower right corner of Sam's view terminal says 19:58.  Just in time, Sam thought.

Sylvie was bedridden four years ago after a terrible accident.  When she recovered from her coma she found that she could not speak nor move any part of her below her neck.  The medical engineers found nothing wrong with her body physically or the nanomachines in her.  They concluded this was a psychological problem and psychological problems are hard to fix.  Since she could not communicate in any way with the outside world, it was slightly difficult for Sam to care for her.  Reluctantly, Sam directly connected with Sylvie.  This was a huge risk given Sam's job.  His connections are tightly secured and monitored, every packet of data going in and out of Sam was scanned, taken apart, scanned some more, dissected even further, and a deep scan one last time before it passes to its destination.  But ordinary terminals would not have such a heavy security apparatus in place.  Before a full connect occurred, Sam scanned through Sylvie's systems.  Of course, the hospital had already done that when they admitted her but Sam did not trust the hospital's security standards.  Sylvie knew what Sam was thinking.  The hospital uses an emergency protocol in the patient's system to begin their operations.  However, Sam used and ordinary connection protocol and obtained permission from Sylvie's systems to conduct his scan.  After the scan came out clear, Sam securely connected himself to Sylvie and explained to Sylvie her situation.  Contrary to Sam's expectations, Sylvie was quite lively and talkative.  Her tone was not sad or scared.  At the end when Sam informed Sylvie that they would have to direct connect, Sylvie offered to disconnect her network terminal.  This surprised and relieved Sam.  The network terminal was the way that anyone would connect to any network.  In this day and age where kids are connected to the networks as soon as they are born, to voluntarily give that up was unheard of. If this was disconnected, it meant that Sylvie would no longer be a risk to Sam even when they direct connect with each other.  In exchange, Sylvie wanted to be connected with Sam at all times.  This did not bother Sam, he had nothing to hide from his sister.  A direct connect meant that the two of them could, in principle, control and monitor the other person at any time.  This included their senses, their vitals, their thoughts, their speech, everything.  The two of them has silently agreed that they would keep out of each other's thoughts.  There should at least be that much privacy. 

Sam kept Sylvie's vitals on his view terminal at all times.  He kept track of her blood pressure, heart rate, blood sugar level, and brain activity on the right side of his terminal, just above his clock.  On the left side he kept his message inbox and a family photo of Sylvie, his parents, and himself at the lower left corner.  On the top left corner, it's a display linked to the security camera outside his front door.  Some people liked to clutter their view terminal but Sam wasn't one of them.  He kept his view of vision relatively clear.  Sylvie had less information displayed.  She did not care about the time nor does she have any messages (she is disconnected after all).  On the lower left corner she kept the same family photo that Sam has.  However, covering nearly the entire right side of her view was Sam's connection log.  The log displays everything Sam is connected to and all incoming and outgoing data streams.  This was not her trying to spy on Sam but rather to help him with his work.  Often times, Sam has to be connected to some less-than-well-respected sources and often times less-than-well-intended connections attempt to force their way through.  Sam could easily deal with them but handling both offense and defense requires more effort than focusing on offense alone.  Since Sylvie is connected with her brother at all times anyways, she thought she might as well make herself useful and help out with the defense.  On the top of Sylvie's view terminal she also has a status displaying what her brother is doing.  "Big brother is cooking" or "Big brother is taking a shower" or "Big brother is sleeping."  They were simple messages.  Whenever Sylvie wanted to see something or know something, she would ask her brother to look it up.  The asking was only for courtesy, with a direct connect she could easily open her brother's browser terminal, drag it into her view terminal and look up whatever she wanted herself.

Sylvie chats a lot with her brother.  Before her accident, she played tennis and hiked up a local hill every Sunday with her father.  At times when she feels like walking, she would ask her brother to walk around and connect to his senses.  She lives vicariously through her brother's body.  Unfortunately for her, her brother was not the outdoors type.  He dropped out of school two years ago and concentrated on his job.  He likes his job partly because he doesn't have to actually deal with anybody or go outdoors but also mainly because on the network no one cares that he is just a seventeen years old dropout.  As long as he obtains the information his clients ask for, nobody cares about his personal information.  He was also good at what he does, an opinion held widely throughout people engaged in his business.  No one knows anybody's real name or ID but everyone recognizes each others' handles and Sam's handle is known to be one of the most reliable and most expensive.  So when Sylvie wants to go hiking or running or any physical intense activity, all she could do is look at pictures and videos she asks his brother to look up.  There was no way her brother would do any of that.

Sam is quite fond of his sister.  Though he was not initially thrilled to feeding her and cleaning her and changing her diapers, he eventually grows into it and takes great pride in taking care of his fourteen year old sister.  After the accident, he handled everything around the apartment.  His income allows him to move them into a better place and even hire a dedicated nurse for his sister but he decided against it.  He feels that Sylvie wants to continue living here.  He never asked her but he knows. 

Strictly speaking, Sam's job is his hobby.  He loves tracking pieces of seemingly unconnected data and weave them into a web, a story.  Each piece of information has a past, a purpose, some of them contain hidden secrets, others are merely distractions from the bigger picture.  Sam loves digging into them.  When he learned that people pays generously for Sam to do what he loves, Sam was ecstatic.  For him, his job is weaving a story with his client's request as a guide and his hobby is weaving a story for himself with no one to guide him.  Either way, Sam was happy.

After feeding Sylvie her 8 pm dinner, Sam takes a quick hot shower and decides to dabble in an odd string of data he came across earlier in the old military server.  Generally speaking, all government code is linked with the programmer's ID.  Originally, an ID was simply a 10 digit number.  Sometime later, the government decided this was not enough and began to use 12 numbers.  A later update included letters in the ID.  The final iteration introduced the ID suffixes, 4 digit codes that usually indicated the person's occupation or some special circumstance.  A person may have as many suffixes as it accurately describes the person but they have to provide irrefutable proof that they are what they claim to be.  Sam's ID is A5237BJI001Z-0156, 0156 was the code for freelance programmer,  he hacked the system to give it to himself.  Sylvie has WX095GA23333-8977, 8977 indicates severe physical disability that interrupts normal living, only hospitals are allowed to attach that suffix.  To all government records the ID is the person, names don't exist on records.  The peculiarity for this particular string of data Sam came across is that the programmers' IDs contained only 7 digits.  Seven digit ID numbers were a relic before the time of "le lol." 

Whenever Sam or Sylvie had trouble going to sleep as kids, their parents often told them stories.  Sometimes they told the standard fairy tale.  Sometimes they picked a book off their own bookshelves and read a passage.  Sometimes they told stories about their childhood or adult life.  But one story stuck to Sam the most.  The story of the first hacker, "le lol."  Before the microchip mass production began, everyone had citizen ID cards with a 7 digit ID.  When microchips were first introduced almost 170 years ago, it expanded the 7 digit ID into a 10 digit ID.  The microchips were government mandated and allowed the government to track its citizen anywhere and anytime. Everyone knew what these microchips were for but the government sold these to the public as a counter-terrorism measure.  "The never-ending wars are pushing the government to take unprecedented steps to protect its citizens," they said.  Everyone knew that it was a bunch of nonsense but no one dared speak out.  Unbeknownst to most people is that these microchips also transmitted what they saw, what they said, what they heard, what they wrote, what they did back to a central network.  The microchips could also trigger less-than-desirable-responses on those who were deemed to be a "terrorist."  "le lol" was the first person to crack these microchips.  No one knew who he was, what he did, or if this person was a he and not a she.  No one knew if it was really one person or a group of people.  But people knew this "le lol" cracked the microchips.  "le lol" established what is known as the CommonNet, a network that linked microchips with each other at the will of the person instead of to the government's computer system.  Connecting to CommonNet automatically disabled the tracking functions of the microchips as well as the less-than-desirable-response capabilities.  Furthermore, people connected to CommonNet could communicate with each other through the network.  CommonNet had a simple login procedure.  The password to CommonNet was "disconnectme."  Through word of mouth the existence and use of CommonNet spread like wildfire on a hot dry summer day.  The next version of CommonNet consisted an engine that allowed users to upload pictures and videos and allowed anyone else to look at them.  For the first time since anyone could remember, there was unregulated information exchange.  CommonNet cost huge problems for the government.  Eventually many high ranking government officials went into hiding.  Those who remained sought to use CommonNet to restart the system.  They opened up communications with the people and for the first time since the scandal, the people felt the government was listening to them and the lies were crumbling.     

Sam remembered the story when he examined the code.  The usual talkative Sylvie became silent whenever her brother was working or in intense thought.  She opened a display and watched her brother's view terminal as Sam examined the code.  The military base that the code came from was established sixty years ago and decommissioned thirty years ago.  It served as a high security experiment center for some of the less-than-pleasant work that the military was involved in.  The server that the code was stored in was a model that began production also about sixty years ago.  In other words, this server was probably brand new and installed without prior use.  Yet, it contained a code that was written ninety years before the base was established.  The military was using a ninety years old program?  Nonsense!  Sam examined the structure and language of the code.  The code was indeed written in an arcane language that even Sam has never seen before.  He understood bits and pieces of the code's purpose.  It seemed to be a redirect code.  Redirecting what to where, Sam did not know.  But Sam did know that some of the algorithms they employed were highly outdated and inefficient.  Things you'd give students homework problems on because it's so well understood and simple, Sam thought.  They were definitely not something that he expected to be in a military code.  The code was of no use to Sam.  It was just an ancient piece of history.  Sam decided to look up the two programmers listed as authors of the code.  Sam thought that if the military was using what they made ninety years after they made it, these two people must've been involved in something pretty important.  Sylvie did not like this.  But she did not speak out.

Sam dug into old government records.  Very old.  Records that are probably stored in places that no one working in the government knows they exist.  Unorganized records that the government keeps for the sake of keeping them.  These records revealed nothing.  Next Sam dug into top security records, hoping that their contributions to the government might've been so significant that they are still secured today.  Sam found nothing about them except that the two of them appeared on a list.  Sam could not figure out the list's creation date but knows that it was edited fairly recently.  The list appears to be a simple text.  But it was not a simple list.  It was stored on an isolated server with nothing in it except this list that was masked and hidden behind layers of security and redirection.  It seems that the redirection code Sam came across was part of this elaborate system.  But why go through the trouble over a list of people?  Sam examined the list.  The list had two columns, a name on the left and presumably their ID on the right.  The IDs start out with 7 digits.  The two people in question were number 9 and number 11 on the list.  About a third of the way down the list, the IDs began to have 10 digits.  A bit further they started to contain letters, still further they began to have 12 digits, and finally there were ID suffixes.  Sam did not recognize any of the names or the IDs.  He could run a background check on all of them but that would take days.  That doesn't matter, Sam thought.  He has time.

It's already 1 am, Sam was beginning to get tired.  He decides to download the list and call it a night.  Suddenly, Sylvie screams at him.  Not only Sylvie, all of Sam's security monitors were yelling in pain.  There were about three septillion (10^24) hacking attempts per microsecond through all of Sam's connection channels, open and private.  The system was overwhelmed, Sylvie forced Sam's network to abort all connections.  Sylvie opened Sam's body temperature sensors and brain activity charts on her view terminals.  His brain is fine but his temperature spiked up to 39 degrees for half a minute.  His nanomachines were going haywire trying to deal with this threat.  When the reboot was successful, Sam's body returned to normal.  This has never happened to Sam before.  Before he could gather his thoughts and analyzed what just happened, his browser terminal pops up. 

Instead of his homepage or the list that pops up (which is possible since Sylvie forcefully restarted Sam's nanomachines maybe they reconnected to the list) the browser is a black screen with a white text box in the middle.  Sam tries to disconnect the terminal through all the means he knows but nothing works.  Sam does not know how to approach this, but one thing is certain; he cannot just leaves this alone.  Sam scans his systems and Sylvie's.  He completely shuts down his browser terminal's nanomachines.  Nothing works.  Then Sam treats this as an interpreter and tries to type instructions in all manner he knows to get rid of this.  Every time Sam hits enter, the text box clears itself and nothing happens.  Next Sam tries all his passwords to everything he has, he then tries the passwords his parents used, and when that didn't work Sylvie tries all of hers.  Nothing works. 

In his state of frustration, Sam shuts, "DISCONNECT ME DAMNIT!"  In the text box, letter by letter, the word "d-i-s-c-o-n-n-e-c-t-m-e" appears.  Instantly, Sam and Sylvie know what this is.  But why?  How?  When the word finally displayed itself, a second text box appears right below the first.  Without thought, without reason, as if by instinct, Sylvie hijacks Sam's terminal.  In that second text box, she enters A5237BJI001Z.  Before Sam could react, he falls to the ground and everything goes blank.

When he opens his eyes, he sees not the powder blue color with the various cloud patterns painted on the wall.  He does not see the Mona Lisa that was hanging above his sister's bed.  He does not see the tennis star posters that his sister decorated the room with.  The lighting in his room also seems to have dimmed severely.  All he sees is the dull grey color of the augmented holographic wall panels.  He does not see the familiar family picture on the lower left.  His sister's vitals are not above the clock.  His clock isn't even there.  He does not see the recent messages in his inbox.  He can not see the security camera's video feed either.  He then hears a jackhammer pounding away across the street.  He remembered that there is construction going on there.  His perception filters are no longer working.  He tries to reboot, connect, command, nothing.  It is as though he does not know how.  Sam gets up on his feet.  His expression gives away his confusion.  Scared, alone.  He takes his sisters hand and grips it tightly.

Big brother has disconnected.    

SHAME

Shame, 'tis but a path
A path of failure I tread
Shame, a sign away.

My feet are heavy
Each step takes a hefty toll
A toll on my soul.

The path of failure is not dark.  It is lit with the most glamorous lighting.
The path of failure is not a maze.  It is a straight path with no obstacles in sight.
The path of failure is tiled with new bricks.  But it is within a glass structure like a greenhouse.
Beyond the glass on the side are grass fields.  Nicely trimmed and green, no weeds nor pests. 
A true spectacle are the grass fields!
But the glass prevents those who walk on the path from reaching the grass.
With no end in sight, one takes the walk of shame.
At first, the walk seems normal, nothing perculiar.
As the sun's heat is captured and stored in the glass structure, the walk begins to feel heavy.
The heat makes one's limbs ten times more heavy.
The heat makes one's breath ten times more dense.
The heat makes one's steps a hundred times more difficult!
So it begins; the walk of shame.
And this is but the beginning.
Thankfully, humans are adaptive, versatile, and strong.
Soon the heat becomes ambient, it is background.
Strength returns to steps!
Pace returns to breaths!
Vigor returns to limbs!
The walk is easy now.
The walk is conquered now!
And now we have time to think.
To think!
Yes, it is time to reflect,
Reflect good.
You just got used to the walk of shame.
You got used to the path of failure.
You forgot about the grass on the other side.

Little Red Riding Hood

Why? WHY? YOU DARE ASK ME WHY?  Oh, I will tell you why, you fool, I will tell you why.  Six years ago, you humans began to invade our forest.  At first they came with just axes and shovels.  A tree chopped here, a tree chopped there.  It was nothing we haven't seen before.  But then one day it all changed.  Bulldozers.  You humans brought in bulldozers!  Over night entire sections of the forest diminished and just like that our preys fled the forest or died at their former homes.  Those who survived branched off.  We split apart.  Some couldn't abandon their homes, others saw their survival beyond the forest.  My father decided to stay.  After all this was where his wife died, this was where his father was born and his father and his father and his father.  Five days.  My father and I went on five days without food, without our pack.  My father was proud.  Proud to be a predator.  He always taught me to be tough.  He taught me the rules of the forest.  The rules of the hunt.  The number one rule, never go after the young always go for the oldest ones and only the oldest ones for they have finished their task in life.  The second rule, never go after those who are stronger than you.  But those rules didn't matter.  We didn't see any living thing we could eat for five days.  And then, we saw you.  Oh yes, I remember the glimmer in my eyes when we saw you, helpless little girl, how we could finally feast on flesh; raw, sweet flesh.  Oh I could taste your tender thighs, your smooth cheeks, your supple arms.  My father, he could sense my hunger and so he told me to stand aside.  He walked up to the little girl.  You, with your little basket and your little red hood, stood unfazed before my father.  I could hardly hold my laughter in when I knew my father was about to slaughter you.  But then you, you... YOU WITCH.  You held out your arms and said to my father: "Hug."  At that instant, I knew you were a goner, I was about to eat you.  But oh how terribly wrong I was.  My father knelt down and hugged you.  MY FATHER.  He never hugged me even once!  Be tough he says, be proud he says.  HE HUGGED YOU, ONE OF THEM, THE PEOPLE WHO DESTROYED OUR FOREST.  Did you have any idea the rage, the confusion, the sadness, the despair, the disappointment I felt at that moment?! DO YOU?  No, of course not, you are a human.  When you left, my father came back and said to me.  "We must not break the rules of the hunt."  SCREW THE RULES, your kind destroyed us.  I couldn't stand the hunger anymore.  And so that night when my father was asleep.  I snuck away and followed the trail you went.  And what did I see?  A sweet old lady, sitting in front of her house.  HA!  Just my luck.  Respect the rules of the hunt?  FINE.  I, will.  I ran towards the lady, your grandma, but everything happened so suddenly.  Suddenly from behind, something grabbed me and flung me to his arms and with me in his arms he ran back, back into the darkness of the forest.  I couldn't see anything.  But as I was being pulled back, I heard a loud bang.  I smelled the smoke in the air; gunpowder.  And the next thing I knew my father, bleeding profusely, put me down by a tree.
"Always.. respect the rules.. my boy."  My father patted my head.  He could no longer stand.  But I did follow the rules!  I went after the old!  WHY!  WHY!  ARGH!!!!!!!!!!! 

I couldn't forgive you, I couldn't forgive your grandma.  So the next day, right when she got out of bed, I struck.  I snapped her head in half.  HA!  How fragile she was.  How small her nose was.  How shivered her face was.  Oh, how sweet her scream of pain was.  Delicious.  But that is not over.  I could not forgive you.  And so everyday, I waited.  You humans destroyed my old home but no matter.  You could not destroy the entire forest.  No, and so six years.  I waited.  Sometimes days go by without a new prey.  But no matter.  I knew if I waited long enough, one day you WILL return.  And today.  You.  Did.

The wolf let out a big smile as he launched himself at little red riding hood.  But she was crying no more.  She dodged the wolf causing him to fall down.  As he turned his face back, his eyes filled with anger.  But his gaze quickly shifted from one of rage to one of fear.  Fear and understanding.  He finally knew what his father meant by respecting the rules.  He had been arrogant all along.  It was not that his father didn't want to kill her but he couldn't.  He was respecting the rules of the hunt.  This was what his father meant.  As the wolf stared in the little girl's gun barrel.  It was all too clear.  He did violate a rule that night; "never go after those who are stronger than you."  And without a shred of compassion for this beast, mankind stands triumphant as the girl stands dominant over nature.

Observers and Retrievers

Smith found nothing on the dead bodies.  The cold helped numb his nose so that the dreaded stench of the dead wouldn't disturb him too much, not that it really matters to him.  Just as Smith stands up and stretches his arms, John cried out.
"Hey!  Is this it?"
John holds up a silver-colored pen.  Smith couldn't see too clearly what John is holding up but Smith was certain John found what they came for.  John might be new but he is sharp.  Upon closer inspection Smith knew their work for the night is over.
"Good job, let's go."
John hands the pen to Smith.  The two of them changed out of their dirtied working gloves.
"Of course it's at the last place we'd look."
"Let's hurry, before the sun rises."
"Another six miles, at least its downhill this time."
John took out his pack of smokes again and placed one in his mouth.
"Want one?"
"Nah, too much of that shit kills."
Besides the rustling leaves crushed beneath their every step, silence accompanied them for the rest of their way back.  This made it easy for them to hear the stones thrown into their path.
"Smith, -"
"I know."
The stones is the signal.  Smith takes the pen out of his pocket and throws it in front of him.  At that instant, a voice that seems to come from the darkness itself spoke to them.
"Head north, retrievers."
A bag was thrown near them, indicating the north direction.
Smith picks the bag up and counts the silver coins inside.  When he was sure that the payment was complete, he motioned John to follow him.  The six mile walk downhill just ended.
"If they had people following us, they could've just gotten it themselves."
John felt cheated out of this.  He just dug in the snow for who knows how long and now, just like that, without giving them a single minute to rest they are told to do another job.
"Don't complain about it.  This is our job.  They have their job."
Deep down John knows this.  He joined the organization expecting this was how he would be treated at first, but reality is still harsh even when one is expecting it.  John took out yet another smoke and just for the sake of breaking the silence, John asked:
"Have you actually seen an observer in the flesh?"
"A couple of times."
"What was it like?"
"I had other things to worry about when I saw them."
"Hmm..."
The snow has stopped.  The grey night sky transitions into a red-orange color.  John looks up at the sky and yawns. 
"Just in time, the signal is here."
Smith points into the direction of a crackling sound.  The crackling of burning wood and leaves.  As the two approaches they could see the light of a dim fire and beside it laid a figure.
"You sure this is really a signal?"
John is cautious approaching the sleeping man.  The fire lit up the sleeping man's light complexity.  Judging by his features, John guesses that this man is about the same age as him. 
"Sit, rest.  We've got a long way ahead of us." 
The man spoke.  Had John and Smith been any other person they might have been startled.  But they are better than that.  In fact, if the man was really sleeping that would surprise them.  John sits down near the flame to warm himself while Smith sits leaning against a tree.
"Go ahead and sleep, we're in no hurry.  You two must be fatigued."
Smith closes his eyes.  There is no use asking questions.  In the organization, if someone had to ask a question then it means he's not meant to know the answer.  John takes off his hat and lays his head on top of it.  With the crackling fire withering away beside him, John falls into slumber.
"What a kid you've gotten yourself as a partner, Smith."
"We must be getting close if they are sending you out on the field."
"Go to sleep."
Smith pulls his hat down enough to cover his eyes.   

Snowy Start

John and Smith just arrived at their destination, a pile of rubble in the middle of nowhere.  The smell of fire is still fresh in the air and sadly for them the dry winter wind is blowing the ashes directly in their faces. 
"Six mile walk and we get this crap.  This better be worth it."
"Shut up John.  Lets get this over with and get out of here."
The two of them approach what used to be the east wing entrance to the three story mansion.  They are immediately greeted by two charred bodies with their abdomen and lower body crushed beneath the debris.  But nature does not care about these small details.  Already there are swarms of flies orbiting around the corpses, picking on their new food before sunrise and the rest of the forest wakes up.
"So where is that thing supposed to be?"
"They said it was somewhere in the third floor."
Smith pulls out a floor map of the mansion and lays it down on the floor.  His puts his right hand on the center of the map and holds it in place.
"Right there, looks like somewhere in the middle."
Smith points to a red dot on the map.
"Which means it's somewhere in the middle of all this garbage."  John sighs.
"Pay some respects, don't go around calling the dead garbage"   
John disregards Smith's remark and heads straight to the middle of the rubble.  He changes out of his leather gloves for some working gloves and begins to move the debris with his shovel. The two of them gets to work.
"Hey look what I found."
John holds up a burned painting by Arkmeids, a prodigy artist that revolutionized the art world with his realistic style.
"What a shame, this could fetch tens of thousands."
"Stop screwing around.  It's going to snow soon."
Smith looks up at the cloudy sky.  No moon.  No stars.  Just clouds.
By now they have moved most of the debris from the center area of the rubble to the edge and yet they still couldn't find the item.  Smith decides to move onto the east wing while John goes to the west wing.  As they uncover more bodies the foul stench grows unbearable for John, so he tosses the bodies on the flower field in the garden, hoping the distance and the flowers would dilute the awful smell.  However, for Smith this is nothing.  He has long desensitized himself to the smell of the dead.  The two of them continues to dig further into the rubble.
"Ah shit, snow."
John grunted.  Working in the cold is bad enough, now there is going to be layers of snow on top of everything.
"Quit complaining."
Still, Smith is just as unenthusiastic, if not more than John, about the snow.  He hates snow.
"Hey Smith, what if we can't find the thing?  Couldn't it have been burned to nothing in the fire?"
"If it burned so easily we wouldn't be here.  Don't worry about not finding it, just keep looking."
The prospects of finding anything are grim.  They have spread the rubble all over the estate and still nothing.  They could even see the ground now.  The three stories of unexplored rubble is no more.
The two of them gradually shifts their respective digging areas back to near the center of the rubble where they started. 
"Want one?"
John is exhausted from all this manual labor.  He holds out his pack of smokes and offers it to Smith.
"Thanks."
Smith takes a smoke and puts it in his mouth.  John takes out some matches from his coat pocket and lights the two smokes.  The two of them sits on top of a broken marble pillar covered in dust laying next to a couple of steps of stairs and enjoy their small break. 
"So what now?  Search through all that stuff we already went through?"
"There's still some left behind us.  Let's go."
Smith finishes his smoke and heads to the flower field.  He kneels down on the snow covered flowers and brushes the snow off the clothes on one of them.  Smith closes his eyes and murmurs something to himself.  Then, he starts searching the bodies.  John turns his head around and watches Smith until his smoke finishes.  Before long, John stands up and begins digging the remaining rubble that they haven't gone through.  Good thing the snow tonight is light, just enough to leave a thin sheet of white over everything.  White, it contrasts beautifully with the charred remains of everything.  That's probably what the heavens are thinking about this scenery.  John thought. 

G

"Sir, I come back with grim news."
It has been six days since Ikra and his men left Kaph's fortress.  Before they left, Ikra sent his intelligence team, fastest of all the kingdom, to Fonam so he could get a better understanding of the situation there before his main army arrives.
"What is wrong?"  White flares spark around Ikra's pale face.      
"Fonam has been sacked.  The entire city torched to the ground."
Ikra's expression is unmoved, as though he was expecting this.
"And General Coarl?  What of his army?"
"Annihilated, by the time we got there their corpses were littered across the city and its outskirts.  We also saw Bastedine's standard."
Upon hearing Bastedine's name, Elektor steps into the conversation with great confusion and discomfort.
"Bastedine?  Ikra, what is he doing in our lands."
Ikra turns his head to his old friend, his voice softens.
"The Sessinds allied themselves to Ey.  They hoped to claim our throne and offer themselves to the east."
In the east lies a kingdom under the rule of the Ey family.  When a fourteen year old prodigy, Ey VI, rose to the throne he immediately initiated plans to conquer all the lands within his reach.  And his reach is far.  Through complete mastery of strategy, geography, and weather, Ey VI tripled his kingdom's size in six years.  On his twenty-third birthday, Ey declared himself the King of Kings and held a contest.  He conscripted men from his conquered lands and split them into ten groups.  He then gave each of these groups to ten men he thought promising.  He sent each of the ten and their groups to different parts of Chasy, one of the first neighboring kingdoms that Ey conquered, and had the ten of them fight each other.  The winner would be given the rank general and ownership of Chasy while the winner's men would be given a choice of officer rank in the military or a sizable estate.  Bastedine won only losing four out of his five thousand six hundred men army in seventy days.  It took Ey ninety days to conquer Chasy.  Bastedine refused Chasy, he told Ey he doesn't ever plan on settling down to govern anything.  During the height of Elektor and his fellow councilman's power, Bastedine was the only foreign threat they feared.  Between Ey and their kingdom sat Kraton, another kingdom.  Bastedine siege Kraton's capital for five hundred days before retreating after Elektor convinced his king to send the entire kingdom's army to aid Kraton.  But it didn't matter, Bastedine controlled so much of Kraton's lands that the king of Kraton had no choice but to bow and pay tributes to Ey.  It was around this time Elektor's king died and the kingdom fell into a power struggle.  At this time, Bastedine was forced to focus his attention to the south where an alliance was forming to fight against Ey.  Unbeknownst to them, Ey had built up an entire navy for this and while Bastedine and several other of Ey's general attacked from the north, the King of Kings and his navy knocked on their shores. Nevertheless, Bastedine's feat at Kraton's capital alerted Elektor and his allies though they soon became powerless to do anything.
"So since Sessind failed, Bastedine is coming in himself."
"HALT"  Ikra's voice echoed.  Before he could continue his conversation with Elektor he is interrupted by a dreadful screech.  A pitch high and foul.   
"MEN PREPARE FOR COMBAT"
Ikra's men draw their arms, the metals cling is unison.  His mages prepare their incantations and the beast handlers prepare their companions.  The dreadful screeching repeat itself, this time accompanied by the shaking earth.  The screeching grows louder and more fierce.  The ground trembles as the onslaught stampedes closer to Ikra's army.  In an instant, Ikra unleashes a cone of white flames in front of him, completely burning down everything in their path.  The enemy is now in plain sight.
Bird-like creatures running with the might of an ox.  In between them ride their handlers, a club in one hand and a whip in the other.  Elektor retreats to the back of Ikra's army.  Bastedine's first attack is here.  The first of many waves.

F

"Fight?  With what?   Do you want me to go out there and punch him in the face?"
The invaders march on ever closer to Kaph's last defense.  His men are screaming reports of his guards falling left and right.  The undefeated general with the might of the imperial fist, seventy thousand strong, smashes through the barricades one after another.  Every inch the siege line creeps closer the fortress shakes with fear striking to its foundation.  The once pristine marble walls are now charred by the blue flames of the devil.  The orange morning sky is completely eclipsed by the flickering smoke.  None of Kaph's surrender signals have been honored.  The king's message is clear to him.  His Majesty demands submission.
"Go out, tell him I surrender.  Elektor, I have treated you well here.  I have provided you with safety from the throne's prosecution.  Now, save what remains of my men.  Joan, announce the retreat signals, he will not spare anyone who stays."
"Yes, milord."
It is too late.  The moment Joan opens the door she is incinerated.  White flames, an unearthly color for fire, sears her body from the inside.  Her body falls backwards, her mouth wide open.  They could hear her screams of pain in their heads but her vocal cord has been burned to nothing.  The fighting outside ceased, the earth shakes no more.  Kaph unsheathes his sword, ready to defend his life.  But it is no use.  Within seconds, Kaph meets the same demise as Joan.  Before Joan's body hit the ground, they were both no more.
"Am I to die here as well?"
A bearded young man, clothed in filthy brown rags, drags himself into the chamber.  He appears like a common beggar, his teeth yellow, his hair untrimmed, his nails black, his eyes dull, his back hunched. But one aspect sets him apart from a common beggar.  His every step leaves behind a patch of white flame.  White flares accompany his every breath.
"Never would I raise my flames or anyone raise their arms against you in my presence."
His coarse voice echos through the chamber.  Every word brightens the white flares around his face making his features more pronounced.  Deep wrinkles run his forehead.  His cheeks has no shine, no youth in them.
"Had those old dogs die a day sooner I would have rushed my men to your side and occupied the Castle to save you from this disgrace you had to endure for four years."
"So you are still on my side."
"I need allies, Elektor."
"He told me the military was on his side."
"On his side?  That man is cunning.  Ever since the riots four years ago, he instigated division among the upper echelon and reignited old feuds to incite the country into war.  He forced the military so thin it was impossible for us to handle any matters outside of managing our meager resources.  He broke up the entire government so he could dominate it and engulf it piece by piece.  He invited the foreigners to invade our country just to weaken our hold further."
"Then you were fighting Sessind because.."
"YES!  I had to fight the Sessinds alone because there was no one else capable.  For two years, I stood in his trap, fighting alone with no reinforcements.  If I fell to the Sessinds then the military would be easily overrun by his schemes and spies.  If I defeated the Sessinds, then a great threat to his power and this weaken country would be no more.  I attacked Kaph because I needed supplies.  He rather watch my men starve than help me."
"So what do you plan to do now?"
"Now I must go to Fonam and aid them against the savages."
"From desert to marshlands."
"I do what I must, Elektor.  I do what I must."
His coarse voice softened.  Though he emerges victorious, his voice lingers with sorrow and despair.  He speaks not like a triumphant general, but a defeated man.  He knows, it is only a matter of time before he is picked apart by the king.