The Second Wave

I scrambled backwards and away from the creek, nearly falling back down as I ducked behind a tree. I began breathing quick and shallow as something dawned on me: I was cornered off. On one side lay the embankment, and on the other lay the... swaying trees of death, I guess. I had no idea what actually was over there, but I knew for sure that I didn't want to end up like that deer.
I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die, I chanted over and over in my head. The idea of dying was so far back in my mind that it didn't seem possible anymore. After all I've survived... I couldn't even comprehend. There was just no way that I would end up dying all alone in the woods. There was no way. And Elijah. I'd never even told him that I'd left. He was probably worried sick and frantically searching right now. What if I never saw him again? What if the last image of him I had was of him staring after some stupid helicopter?
I was quickly brought back to reality as the trees continued to crack and snap behind me, almost as if they were little toothpicks instead of an entire forest. It was a very daunting idea to think about.
Snap. Crack. Snap. Thump.
My heart beat faster and faster until I actually thought that it would burst, I was so scared. I couldn't recall any other time that I'd been so terrified.
Snap. Crack. Snap. Thump.
I wasn't sure, but I thought that I felt the ground begin to shake right before each tree broke. How big was this thing?
I brought my shaking left hand up to my neck to feel the small locket that hung there, miniature pictures of my family safely tucked inside. Not only did this bring me comfort, small though it was, but it also brought along the determination to survive. I had to survive for them. My parents. They were out there. We would find them. I had to live to see the day that I would be embraced by my mom and dad once again.
With one final, teeth grinding crrraaack, all noise suddenly stopped. I braced my hands against the rough bark and slowly began to peek around the trunk, until a noise that made me cringe stopped me dead in my tracks.
It was the perfect mix of scratching a chalkboard and a train screeching to a halt, the worst and most painful thing that you could ever hear.
And the worst part was: I knew that noise. It was something I'd heard before and will forever haunt my subconscious.
"Auslöschen," I breathed.

==-=

Aus•lö•schen /ˈʔaʊsˌlœʃən/ /ous-lō-chen/
Noun 1. a terrible machine created by other machines with the sole purpose to destroy the human race.
See also: German for "wipe out"

==-=

I couldn't believe that they actually added it to the dictionary. Like we needed to remember it.
People always would joke that machines would one day become so smart that they would create an army and try to kill off humans. A totally absurd idea of course. I mean, we're the smartest things in the universe, right?!
If only we knew how wrong we actually were.
Just like we had unknowingly predicted, they became smarter and smarter until they figured out how to create. No one's exactly sure what specific machine was able to make the first Auslöschen, but once it was there, it made more. And more. And more. And more and more and more until there was an entire army. Right under our very noses. The one thing we do know is that they first appeared in central Germany, which explained their name.
The war began shortly after their discovery inside an abandoned mine. Every nation in the world pretty much immediately forgot their differences and put all they had into stopping this dangerous new threat. Even all the trouble in the Middle East was cast aside as if it was nothing. No one even bothered with money and debt, if one country needed something, people helped them. It didn't matter what race or religion you were or what political belief you had, we were all brothers and sisters in arms. Christian fought with Buddhist. Communist alongside Republican. It was the first time in history that everyone, and I mean everyone, was on the same side.
It was also at this point that women were allowed to fight in full-on-on-the-battlefield warfare. Just one of the many breakthroughs in our society. The way they figured it, women now had just as much right as men to keep their species intact. Besides, they needed all the soldiers they could get. We were losing people left and right. For every win, the Auslöschen had two.
Things soon began looking so bleak in the Eastern side of the world that, by the two- year mark, both North and South America had joined the fight. It was because of this that the mechanical disease soon spread to our side of the globe. A plane was leaving from Britain to the U.S., carrying wounded and supplies, when one of the Auslöschen snuck onboard and had a free ride over.
Like I said earlier, one's all it takes to create an entire army of these things.
Within a few months, we were overwhelmed. But we fought back. Oh yes, we definitely fought back. All of our resources were put towards the study of these mysterious contraptions and how we could best bring them down. New weapons were made and we learned the best ways to kill them. Some got pretty good at it too. Like, crazy good. Elite teams of these self-named "Hunters" were then created. Now these weren't just random people from off the streets, these were large groups of military trained people with the knack for killing Auslöschen.
The best of the best. The smartest of the smart. And most importantly, they were very hard to kill. They were so good, in fact, that some people began to think that they were sent by God Himself. Now, even though this was probably false, it still was nice to think that someone up there was watching over us in our time of need.
It was probably around the third year of combat that the first Radicals, or Rads, appeared; people who actually thought it would be best to side with the machines in order to ensure their survival. They didn't care if they killed a whole bunch of innocent people in the process. All that concerned them was keeping their own butts intact. Now I'd never met one in my time, but I heard about some of the things they did. Capturing people, young and old, and giving them to the Auslöschen to be subjected to all sorts of horrible experiments that are just too awful to mention.
Fast-forwarding to the sixth year, a man by the name of Edward Yusuf discovered something that dramatically turned the tides of the war: the Pietra Stone, a small gray stone with carvings that we know as the Auslöschen language. It was this one, little piece of rock that allowed the robots to think and reason and, basically, operate. Edward tried to reason with everyone that the best thing we could do was destroy it, thus killing the entire Auslöschen population along with it. But the Rads would hear nothing of the sort. They cast him into a prison called Rune Hall, accusing him of a false crime that everyone believed. What it was, I haven't got a clue.
The Rads searched frantically for the Stone, but it had mysteriously disappeared shortly before Edward's arrest. No one was quite sure how it had disappeared so quickly or where it had gone off to, but there were many rumors about it. Some said that the robots had something to do with it, saying that they must've somehow taken it from him during his trip to the prison. I don't believe it. Some, on the other hand, think that it was all Edward. That he smuggled it to someone because he knew he would soon be under arrest. I don't know. Maybe. But whatever the rumors or ideas said, only Edward truly knew.
Too bad he would never tell anyone.
Well, we all soon began to think that Edward had been wrong all along about the Stone, because one year later, on November 4, 2020, we finally won. For the first time in seven years, soldiers could celebrate both Thanksgiving and Christmas with their families. Every single one of them was destroyed. Gone. Gone. Gone. The major city of each country had a bonfire made of their metallic corpses. Everyone was so happy. And now everyone in the world was getting along. Why hate each other when we had just accomplished something so great side-by-side?
But here I was.
Seven months later.
And I was in the woods with the thing that we all thought was gone forever.
Does it ever end?

==-=

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God," I said, practically on the verge of hyperventilating. I had believed for so long that things would return to normal. For so long I thought we were all safe. For so. Freaking. Long. Well, I guess I'd been dead wrong. I peeked around the tree, all my senses on alert and telling me to get the hell out of there. I saw it standing on the edge of the creek, blood covering its front claws and teeth, its bright red eyes surveying the area with deathly calmness.
Auslöschen are strange looking creatures. Made completely of metal, they have the body of a very thin, very large dog, ribs showing and all. It has no tail despite its appearance, and has four, long legs that end in sharp, six-inch claws. Sticking with the dog skeleton theme, their heads are perfect replicas of a wolf skull, a pair of laser red eyes set deep into the eye sockets. They also come in a variety of colors; ranging from anywhere between a deep black to a brilliant white. But the strangest things about them, is that they can stand erect on their hind legs, towering up to at least seven or eight feet tall. They are very adaptable. They can hold and fire a gun as well as bite and slash at you with their claws.
They are by far the most lethal thing that the world has ever seen.
Keeping all of this information in mind, I quietly sat down as I tried to think of a way to get out of this mess. I couldn't call for help, it would hear me for sure. And even if help did come, who's to say that they could defeat it? I knew that I would never make it if I tried to run. They are far too fast. There was no way I could fight it, my bow and arrows were both gone. Besides, I didn't have the skills to take it down if I tried.
So basically, I was done for. I didn't even stand a small chance once it found out I was here. I had never thought that this would be the way that I would ending up dying. I knew that it would happen sooner or later, but I just assumed it would be later. Right then, a great wave of courage swept over me. I knew this was the end. There was no point in denying it any longer. But if I was going to go, I didn't want it to be with me cowering like a small child behind a tree. No. I was going out there and I was going to face it. I was going to stand up to it as my last act of defiance. To show them that they did not own us. This was my planet. And it was something that I would always, always fight for.
My legs trembling uncontrollably, I stood and took a deep breath.
Here we go.
I stepped around the tree and slowly began to walk forward. It turned it's massive head to look at me. It just sat there and watched me. It didn't rush forward like the Auslöschen that I remembered. Like the ones that haunted my dreams. More confident, I continued forward, my hands balling up into fists at my sides.
"Hey! Hey you!"
It stood up on its hind legs and snarled, a rasping rattle that reminded me of icicles. I stopped at the edge of the water, the Auslöschen glaring at me from the other side.
"I am sick of you and your kind thinking that you control us! Well, guess what? You don't! We will fight you until we are dead or you lay at our feet in a heap of forsaken scrap metal! So go ahead. Try to get rid of us. And you might as well start with me because I know you won't let me leave here alive anyway."
I suddenly felt myself being lifted off the ground as the Auslöschen pulled me into its grasp and slammed me into a tree. Its ugly face directly was in front of me and my feet dangling several feet above the ground as I gasped in shock.
And then it did something very, very unexpected.
It talked. "Foolish little girl," it told me in a deep scratchy voice. "You do not have the power to decide when you must die. You do not have the authority to tell one of the Zerstören what it will and will not do. We do what we please! You and your pathetic species is but one obstacle on our road to absolute power. Just because I spare you now does not mean to have hope. Your time is coming. Just not today..."
I slammed into the ground as its cold claws released me from their terrible grip, the feeling lingering on my skin as I shook in awe. It had talked. Had they always been able to do that?
And what was that name it had called itself? Zerstören?
I was baffled and shocked and amazed as I sat there staring down at my hands, small cuts covering their surface. I looked up but it was gone. The only sign that it had ever been there being the bloody deer on the other side of the creek.
I pushed myself to my feet and sprinted away downstream in search of a way back. Elijah would ever believe this.