Phoenix Feathers, Part II

Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Joss is Boss, and this 'Verse is his. Phooey.

***

They came out of the Black.

It had only been one vessel, but in his dreams the raiding party became an armada of ships that lunged hungrily at the defenseless world, bent on destruction.

The first sign of the impending attack came with the massive sonic boom that tore through the sleeping town’s skies. Startled livestock looked up at the heavens as lamps clicked on and shutters opened in the houses around them. People trickled into the town’s streets, shielding their eyes from the searing light caused by the friction of the ships’ hulls attacking the atmosphere at hundreds of miles per hour.

The light from the far-off ships intensified as their engines lit off. The artificial stars seemed to waver, as if deciding between too many delicacies at a buffet table, then curved towards the village. A second later, the ships went into a hard burn, briefly turning night into day as the air behind them ignited and burned fiercely.

The explosion blinded him, although he hadn’t been there to witness it.

Then the attack came, without mercy or reason. The ships buzzed the village on their first pass, knocking people flat and bowling over buildings with the weight of their passing. Then they came back, arcing about with lazy gracefulness, and the slaughter began. They strafed the town, killing townsfolk where they stood and setting several houses afire. The villagers, at first transfixed, now fled in terror, stumbling over the dead and dying in a vain attempt to find shelter from the demons above them.

It was at this point that his father always left him alone in the forest, running back to the town to die. No matter what he did, no matter how desperately he babbled in his crude child-speech, he couldn’t change the outcome. His father always lowered him to the ground, kissed his forehead, and left him to gaze up into the night sky and listen to the screaming.

In his dreams, the horro