Keep running, even though your chest feels like it’s going to explode and your heart burst through it. Keep running, against all the very sound advice your body is imparting to you. Don’t dare stop, don’t rest, don’t slow down and whatever you do, don’t look back.

But this last piece of advice he couldn’t ignore, and even though he knew it was the wrong thing to do, like Orpheus climbing slowly up from Hades and worried that Eurydice might not be after all following him, that the Lord of the Underworld had cheated him, he had to turn and look. Was Grant behind him? To his immense relief he saw that yes, he was, but then in almost the selfsame moment that relief turned to horror as a huge shape arose behind and above the other man, skimming low over the trees and coming in on an attack vector. A white line of fire spat from the thing, striking Grant in the back and pitching him to the ground, a thin scream issuing from him as he collapsed, face down, into the grey, stunted grass.

Imitating his friend, and hating himself for it, Tennyson dropped to the ground, flattening his body against the sharp needles of the carpet of grey which, though they cut into his skin and made him grit his teeth in pain, hid him from his pursuers, being fully six feet taller than he. Hard to run through, yes, but ideal to hide in. From his vantage point he watched the craft, low and flat and shaped something like his great-great-great grandfather(could be a few more greats added on there, he wasn’t sure of anything at the moment, least of all his heritage or parentage) had once shown him a picture of in a book, and which was called, he believed, a surfboard. Apparently, men used to use these devices to ride along the seas, long long and long ago. He couldn’t imagine such a thing? Seas? They said that once, long before even his great-great-great-whatever-grandfather had been born, there had been seas. There weren’t, of course, any more.

He tried to imagine the great, majestic, rolling blue oceans painted by his imagination and the stories he had heard, or even the quiet, tranquil smaller seas they called rivers, streams. He failed. He couldn’t even imagine water now. Once, it used to be the substance that kept humanity alive, one of their most precious resources. But he had never known water, would not recognise it were he to see it. These days, everything was synthesised, and handed out and controlled by -

His ruminations were interrupted by the sight of the craft - which looked, and was, much bigger now that it was on the ground and in almost the forefront of his sight - landing noiselessly beside the stricken Grant, who moaned and turned, obviously in great pain. Tennyson wished he could rush forward and help him, but he knew this would only result in his own death. So he watched, helplessly, feeling like a coward (but a live one) as a cloud of hissing steam issued from the craft and it disgorged its passengers.

He knew them, of course, who did not? They called them roaches, due to the slight similarity to the insects his people had so often crushed underfoot. Now it was they who were being crushed. The roaches were tall - huge, even - standing at least twelve feet tall and unlike their earthbound distant relatives (if they were indeed any relative at all) walked upright. They had the hard carapace of the insect, the hairy thin arms tipped with feelers, but there the comparison kind of ended. The thick, armoured shoulders ended in fat, slick, bulbous heads with wide mandibles filled with razor sharp teeth. Large, oval compound eyes surveyed the ground as the creatures approached Grant, and Tennyson tried to flatten himself even closer to the ground.

A thin clicking sound seemed to be the roaches’ primary manner of communicating, and they certainly were intelligent, working together, one much larger specimen seeming to be the leader, or certainly directing operations. He counted four of them, and assuming one was piloting the craft, that made five. Even if he did break cover and try to attack them (or even run) there were more than enough of them to take him down. They were huge, and so their strides were longer than his, not to mention that they were armed and really wouldn’t need to even break a sweat (if those damned things even sweated, he didn’t know) to put an end to him. He had no choice. He had to stay where he was.

A part of him, a detached, cold, logical part of him against which the rest of his mind rebelled and recoiled, had to admit that the roaches were efficient. Whatever they were saying to each other in those clicking voices that set his teeth on edge till he thought he must after all jump up and make a run for it, they all knew exactly what to do. He watched in fascinated horror as they used their awful weapons to literally strip the skin from Grant, one of them hoisting it over its thick shoulder while another hunkered down, its back to Tennyson. When it straightened, he saw what he knew he would - it wasn’t as if he hadn’t been warned about this before: Grant’s corpse was now missing its head, and the insect held it in one of its thick furred claws.

A trophy.

Damn them. Damn them all to hell. Didn’t they have any regard for a man’s dignity?

Of course, he knew the answer to that, too, and watched in horror as the four of them set to ripping the muscles, the organs from what had once been a human being, cramming them into their wide, fanged mouths with the same relish as diners at an exclusive party consuming the finest caviar. He turned his head away, his stomach rebelling, but found his eyes drawn back to the scene in fascinated revulsion as the roaches proceeded, their clicking of a higher and faster pitch, which he took to be laughter, to kick the skeleton of what had been his best friend into its separate bones, then trampled further on those bones, grinding them to dust so completely that for a moment even Tennyson questioned whether there had ever been a man in that spot.

Suddenly, the twitching of an insectoid head in his direction froze the very blood in his veins. Not even daring to breathe, he lay as still as he could, willing the ground to swallow him and hide him from the roaches, but he already knew it was too late. Pointing in his direction and gesticulating excitedly, the one who had looked over at him began to move towards him, followed by two of its comrades, their weapons hefted in big thick furry claw-like hands. He could not run; they would shoot him down before he got six paces. He could not fight them; he was unarmed, and much smaller and weaker than they. And he could not reason with them, if only due to the fact that they did not speak the same language. And yet, sometimes you can tell a lot about someone by their actions, and the actions of these roaches (well, all roaches if he was honest) spoke of arrogance, cruelty, savagery and a wild kind of exultant bravado. Even if they understood each other, he knew they were not in a mood to talk.

So this was it. At the tender age of seventeen, Robinson Tennyson was going to die. He couldn’t really blame anyone but himself. They had warned him, they had told him, they had pleaded with him to stay inside the stockade, but no: he had to be the big man. Suzy would think differently of him, he had thought, love-crazed, stupid teenager that he was, when he returned having successfully made it out beyond the compound, came back with tales of adventure, daring and bravery.

Well, he wouldn’t be returning, he told himself savagely, and neither would Grant, his rival for the girl’s affections. Best friends they may have been, but a woman can come between the closest of buddies, and the one snag in their long relationship had been Suzy. A horrible, hissing voice whispered in his ear, reminding him that Grant was dead now, and that if he, Tennyson, were to somehow manage to get back, she would be his. There was no rival any more, and he would be seen as a hero. How could she resist him?

He almost smiled.

Just one problem with that plan, of course: Suzy would have to find someone else to moon over her long chestnut hair and clear green eyes (to say nothing of her other attributes), because he wasn’t coming back either. The slow but purposeful and inexorable tread of the roach coming closer told him that: there was no stopping the insects, there was no escape. He was destined to end up as Grant had done. He wondered if it would hurt? The roaches weren’t renowned for their humane treatment of their captives, and he fully expected they might skin him without bothering to kill him first. Of course, he wouldn’t last long, but he was sure it would seem an eternity.

Like every man and woman in the last extremity of fear, as they face certain - and in this case, very unpleasant death, he suddenly realised that maybe believing in a god might not be the stupid idea he had always said it was, and found that he knew how to pray. Not that it would help him, but desperate times and all that. Besides, he was rather surprised to find, it gave him an odd sense of comfort and calm.