Prologue
It is said when you are staring at death for your final moments the full horror of past haunts and grips you coldly its icy grip making you numb and losing all feel of respect, honour and hope. When Vlad and his men looked upon death Vlad just smiled and kept his cool. But his twin looked straight at death and saw the full horror of what he had done and it didn’t let go, not until the last pocket of air was crushed out of his lungs and he flopped lifeless in front of the helpless Vlad. “Past experiences” Vlad thought, “I wish I knew what was going on then.”








                                         
                                           The Factory Of Smoke.
A great surge of power coursed though him and he lost all breath from his lungs. He stumbled backward a few steps, after which he fell silently to the floor. He was not missed amidst the chaos of the battle raging around him. After a couple of seconds of pain he slowly wincing with shear agony and closed his mortal eyes for the last time.
More of the men around him had met a similar fate as this first comrade, but as soon as the fifth man fell silent, the platoon of men found themselves surrounded by beings of light. The men, seeing these apparitions dropped their weapons hastily, disturbing patches of dead dust that circled almost dancing in the air before being taken away by the severe wind. They surrendered, but the apparitions just whispered softly to each other, melancholy tone, which had an air of anger or harshness about it. The apparitions suddenly became silent, turned to face the shattered platoon, and the leading one glided eerily forward. “You may leave with your lives and take your dead,” came the ghostly whisper that seemed to originate from no particular direction, still with the same soft, slightly harsh tone.
Those men that fell that day, never to wake up again did wake up, but into nightmarish world of gaping darkness, the afterlife. They all tried rubbing their eyes with astonishment and disbelief, but found they were just phantoms.... ghosts.... monsters... with translucent bodies... stuck forever in this nightmare. They saw nothing but blackness around them… surrounding them… enveloping all light, matter and space around them as they plummeted downwards towards… more dark… never-ending dark… that carried on for an eternity. Some men wept in anguish, others began laughing in fits of hysterical maddening laughter; several more fell silently believing they would wake up, and escape this horrid, terrifying new place that they were all trapped in.
The survivors of the ordeal buried the bodies of the dead platoon, and set up camp to mourn the loss of their comrades who had been departed to the afterlife, and rest before a new days travelling. When they were rested, they carried on walking higher towards the summit of the gigantic precipice, which loomed over the battleground that they had fought on. It overlooked the surrounding area, and was the highest peak in the western hemisphere of the planet. In that desolate side of this crippled and lifeless barren land, they saw bright lights and steam billowing out of some sort of factory. What this factory was for was unknown to these few brave survivors, but still they slowly and cautiously moved towards the column of steamy light, which seemingly emanated out of no-where.
When they got close enough to the factory to see at least what might be guarding this factory they saw something so horrible and terrifying that many of the men had to sit down to remain conscious. For what shocked and scared the men, was a man made of steel and flesh that towered over the small opening in the factory wall. His eyes could pierce the very soul and cause it to flee in terror. These men had been in many wars, scouring and destroying cities and life as they went, but they were unprepared for this terrible "beast"; it appeared so distorted from reality, it took their breath from them.
This “beast” looked around at the surroundings, gave a scornful look of such malice and evil that it seemed that the reason why this world was like this, because of his hate. But it wasn’t totally him that destroyed this part of the world, it was mostly his creators and people controlling his movements from the moment he woke to the moment he slept. This creature that used to have a name until he became the remorseless killer and destroyer of all life that he is at this present moment of time. And after checking the surrounding for the signs of any life bent down to the lowest point his mechanical structure could reach and with a ghastly creek and moan of his joints he went slowly through the door.
The men, after seeing such an abomination, gathered their courage and faith and walked even more quietly towards the factory door. Listening ever so closely to the heavy clanking of this beast’s massive mechanical structure and making sure they knew where to run if he ever did come close to them. They each picked a position where they could at least damage him slightly and hold on to dear life for as long as possible knowing full well that If he caught them they would be going home.

Each one of these men had heard tales of how different groups of men had stood up to the tyranny set on by this diabolical creature and how each group had failed so they knew that they wouldn’t survive the encounter if there was one and that their group would become a tale for other people to tell. But at least their tale would be a courageous and brave one, but as they thought about it they realised that the other tales and folk legends were the same and how each group must have thought the same as they did before confronting the creature.

When they finally got to the factory door, which took about an hour because of their speed trying not to make any sound what so ever, they peered in through the dirty dusty window on the small door and seeing no-one, walked through silently and kept their wits about them. They explored the factory to see what they could find out about what it was doing and to find out why it was built in such a remote part of the world and why the most diabolical creature was guarding it or at least visiting it. Then after thinking that he was visiting it, an idea went into all of their heads, which made them stop and think for a while, if he was visiting this factory there must be more than one. Now as eager as ever to find out what this factory was doing, they sped up their search of this dingy, dark factory.

After half an hour searching, they heard the one thing they all dreaded, the coughing mechanical sounding beast that had been put aside from their thoughts of at least a good thirty minutes. This was the first time he had heard this being of metal and flesh speak, he spoke in a dark mechanical sounding voice made you wish that you couldn’t hear. “This factory is in good condition commander” broken by coughing then regaining his former strength carried on “But this factory could be in a better condition, since what you are doing here is of such a high priority” yet again the being coughed for a minute or so afterwards and sped off towards the door at high speed.

After seeing this creature leave and finding out that what this factory was doing was of such and importance to whomever this creature was working for, they went to explore the remaining part of the factory which was blocked by the creature just ten minutes ago. As they all moved silently into this small room only fitted with small swinging light bulbs, they saw what he was on about, what was of such a great importance.

It was a small device about the size of your palm that emits a yellow light from an opening in one side of it. On the other side were a couple of buttons and a gauge. Looking at it and at first thoughts the men thought nothing of such a small thing but, then remembering it was of great importance picked it up slowly and tentatively and placed it carefully in one of their satchels and set off for the door.

They were close to door when they heard a loud shout and lots of orders coming from a man. They all turned round to see the commander dressed in complete black and with a short cap on tilted slightly to the right hand side of his head. The commander then pointed and the men and said something in a different language and about 20 men poured out of every opening around this commander and pointed rifles at the men. Guns shots from the soldiers, killing more of the platoon, three men jumped and ducked behind a big piece of machinery that has clanking and making all sorts of weird noises more guns shots, which racketed through the machine and made it stop completely a screeching groan.

Each of the three men pulled grenades out of their bags and threw them in the general direction of the armed soldiers, apart from one of them who threw his at a large machine next to them which rebounded and made smoke emanate from the small round grenade. The three men dashed towards the small door and hearing all the cry’s of anguish and the orders going unheard in the background ran back up the summit to the precipice and ran back down into the battleground in which they met those apparitions, they were still there, parts of the them being taken away by the wind before returning, and reforming them.

One of these beings spoke before any of them men had caught breath. “You must hand over the device it could turn the tide of this world, and the war which is soon to follow.” The leader of this small group of men put his hand into his bag and pulled out this small device, thought for a moment or two and handed it over without question. The second being clicked his fingers and everything went dark.







“Help, help me please help.”
No one could here their solemn cries echo through out the never-ending darkness.
“Please, please someone save me, save us. Please someone hear our calls.”
But they were left unanswered and unheard, although they thought they could see flashes of light in the shape of men and women and whispers, whispers in the deep dark that…