All Things Must Come To An End Eventaully (20 & 21)
Invisible (22 & 23)
Still (22 & 23)
Think, Say, Do (24)
On Duty (25)
Haunted House (26 & 27)
Tire (28 & 29)
Une lettre à l’amour. (30)
“_ _ _ _” (31)
Little Girls in Glass Houses Shouldn’t Throw Stones (32 & 33)
Block, Unblock (34)
Bathroom Mirror (35)
Wrong Idea (36)
October (37)
To the East (38 & 39)
Not a Person, Muse. (40 & 41)
Drown. (42 & 43)
Great Expectations (44 & 45)
Untitled (46)
Past, Present, Future (47)
Thick of it (48 & 49)
meaningless conversations (50 & 51)
Spook (52 & 53)
A Thousand Times (54)
Pride (55)
“An Idiot’s Idiom.” (56 & 57)
Porcelain (58 & 59)
Horrors of the Dreadnought (60, 61, 62, 63 & 64)
Awe (66 & 67)
Playground (68 & 69)
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Dear Readers,
Thank you to all the artists and writers who submitted their hard work for this semester’s edition. We could not do what we do without your submissions, and I know it takes a lot of courage to send in work you hold close to your heart, so from the bottom of my heart: thank you.
I would also like to thank my staff, I would not have been able to put together such an incredible edition without your hard work, and I cannot wait to see what next semesters edition looks like.
Lastly, I would like to thank our advisor, Dr. Swann. Your steadfast support of us and readiness to address any needs is greatly appreciated and I’m honored to call you our sponsor.
Now, I won’t keep you any longer, thank you for reading my words, and now thank you for reading Rhyme & Reason.
Grace Roche Editor-in-Chief
THE TEAM
Grace Roche, Editor-in-Chief
Ollie Courts, Assosiate Editor
Cate Wassenaar, Assosiate Editor
Catherine Busch
Margaret Reynolds
Caroline Tucker
On behalf of the whole team, thank you for reading and enjoy the 24th edition of Rhyme and Reason!
I want to stand on the edge of a cliff, and jump.
Bungee Jumping Anonymous
Just to free fall, fall, fall
And right before I hit the ground Stop.
Feel the spring slow me down Then pull me up, up, up
Not being in control
Trusting the rope won’t break Just me, giving over
control.
Are you ok? She asked me. A dark face streaked with purple. I don’t think you realize that your words are very hurtful. Yes, I’m fine, Please leave me be. You say we’re friends, like it’s a plea Please don’t leave me here alone in this empty room I can’t help but think of you Down there, Down in that darkened tomb
Carnival Funhouse Ollie Courts
What is this noise?
This buzz in my ears, pounding and whirring and spinningSets my teeth grating, my fists clenching.
Who is this figure in my mirror?
I recognize your every figure, every shape, A perfect copy of myself, mimicking my every move.
What are these words you are saying?
I hear you but fail to assign meaning to the sounds. Spins my head in a circle, owlish.
Why Can’t I understand you?
This math equation is just symbols to me, this chart makes no sense. It’s like you are speaking a different language altogether.
Can you hear me? Why are you looking at me like I’m the problem?
Like I’m the one who is alien? Who are you?
You look like me, move like me, but you lack life.
You’re not real, you are a mirror image, a copy, some cliché evil twin. Why can’t I move?
I am trapped here, in this world of glass, pounding on reflections.
Twisting and turning in the maze of mirrors, this carnival funhouse, I’m the copy, not you. Aren’t I.. I’m not real…
Margaret
Green striped lights Leopard thighs Trembling wheel
Teary eyes
Please just stop I know you feel But believe your “me” She isn’t real
Your Predator
Predator
Margaret Reynolds
I wish that you could realize How much I wish I could excise Your leering eyes and too close touch You are completely way too much
You’ve idolized a fallacy Every part of this Then you stare and make that face You make me want to hiss
Pilot Anonymous
Lonely Pilot, Lonely General Ollie Courts
What is this place?
So far from home—so desolate?
This station, abandoned, out in space.
Running out of energy—is this place heaven-sent?
Who is he?
This hunched figure, splotchy and green?
Hands clasped, lips moving, almost a plea, On this lonely outpost, the first soul that I’ve seen.
Tell me your tale, friend. Tell me it well, no matter how long. I’ll nod my head along till its end, And once you finish, I’ll tell you you’re strong.
I’ll ask you, new friend, “What is your name?” Your answer, not entirely differing from my own. In this battle we fight, our side is the same, In our world without a planet, maybe you can be my home.
My heart is a mechanical organ That runs on fire and coal
And drips shiny, blackoil when an artery does burst
My ventricles And my values
My veins rumble horsepower
Car Crash Grace
Heartbreak Grace Roche
ventricles are full of gas values leak exhaust rumble with an intense horsepower
As bolts tighten my heart aches
You twist the key in my engine And our parting leaves me in a car crash heartbreak
Fresh-Cut Flowers
Margaret Reynolds
The air is warm and heavy with the sweetness of plums. Plums and cherries are swinging from the trees, perfuming the meadow around me. I have no eyes, but I know the sky is golden today. Gold and shining; I am so wonderfully warm. Even after night falls, I am still warm, wrapped in the sun’s protective glow. The sun rises and sweet dews collect atop my petals. I am startled into the morning blue.
Pain. That’s the first thing I feel. Ripped up out of the ground, soil crumbling down and away; I’m lifted higher by strong hands. Dirty, sweaty hands that carelessly crush my leaves beneath their fingers. Then I am tossed onto a cart littered with my fading siblings. I land near the bottom of the cart, quickly covered by my sisters and brothers. Pain.
My leaves snap and bend under the pressure of my family’s corpses. The mound grows heavier and heavier. It’s dark under the pile of flowers.
Then the pressure is gone, instead replaced by a bright, blinding light. Pain. My broken limbs are torn from me, and my stem is clipped. Terrible, unending pain. I am stripped naked and bound to my sisters. A bouquet of corpses. Then something wraps around us, binding, constricting, suffocating me.
There’s a steady chatter, a hum, the next time I feel awake. The sun is here too, but it’s covered up by something. My sisters are quiet around me. Are they clinging on to life the way I am?
In the meadow they used to whisper and hum, but now they are so silent.
I’m lifted again, this time by different hands. His are cleaner, but just as rough. I am gripped by the hands, and I feel a cousin pass me by. Tree. A dead one. It’s gone in seconds, and I am afraid. Where am I going, this land filled with dead things? The air smells of smoke and grime, and for once, I am glad for the thing that is smothering me. There’s an odd knocking noise and the grime is overwhelmed by a sickly-sweet smell that’s reminiscent of my field, but nothing like the real thing. This is a mockery of my home. I’m transferred into smaller hands, clean ones that smell like something I do not know. The owners of the hands murmur to each other and I hit the floor with a crinkle and a thump. It’s cold on the floor, and my petals are smushed into my sister’s.
The sun is back. It’s faint, barely reaching me.
My roots are submerged in water, stuffed into a cold container with my siblings. I don’t know where I am, but my sisters are dead. I am alone with their bodies.
The sun is back. It’s here for less time, and shines just shy of where I am. I’m so cold.
The sun has come back many times, and each time it inches further away. I am so, so cold.
I’ve started to wilt, and I know my time is coming. The hands already took my sisters away.
Where is my meadow? I miss the plums and cherries; I miss feeling warm.
The sun is back.
The sun is back.
I’m so—
If My Red Was Your Blue Ollie Courts
What if my red was your blue?
If my sea was crimson to your eyes? Would you still look out and enjoy the view, And smile when you saw the green sun rise?
Could we ever truly notice, Would we ever even care?
About this world no one had shown us, With your purple braided hair.
Still
| Catherine Busch
Can you see me?
Not my body, my face, my hair.
What would I actually be conveying, If I said my favorite color was blue? What would my heart really be saying?
Can you see me?
Am I just invisible?
“My favorite color is you.”
Just some side character, background shot, some halfbit piece of clutter?
All Things Must Come To An End Evenually Ollie Courts
All good things come to an end eventually. Eventually even the most steadfast monuments fall. The purest hearts become corrupted. And the knees of the strongest soldiers give out.
Atlas, holding the sky on his back, crushed beneath the weight.
Did you know the weight of the sky is only what you can bear to hold, At that moment, in that second, without it killing you. Hold the weight or be crushed beneath everything you know and love.
The blinkers of cars at the intersection sync up eventually.
Raindrops fall in unison, drip, drip, dripping. The temperature must stop rising, the Earth burnt beyond recognition.
Even the most experienced professional actors forget their lines.
When War sounds his trumpet, and armies move into position. And Death comes riding in on her chariot. The outbreak of Armageddon, and rulers are stuck down by Conquest’s scythe. Crops wither, flowers shrivel up, and the cold reigns under Famine’s cruel grip.
There must be a breaking point somewhere, authorized personnel only. Some line drawn in the sand, do not cross. Surely someone is bound to press the big red button, do not press. In a dream in which I fall forever, I must hit the bottom eventually.
All bad things must come to an end eventually, Nuclear stashes lost, and mankind’s worst abomination is rendered useless. Hate-filled eyes see the tear-stained faces of children and let go of the trigger. Surely someone must stand up.
Invisible Ollie Courts
Am I invisible?
When I talk, no one listens—no one hears me.
Can I speak? Is my mouth stitched shut, pulled tight by strings no one can see?
When I wave my hand in front of your face, is all you feel a slight breeze?
Can you even feel that much?
Still Anonymous
Can you see me?
Not my body, my face, my hair.
Can you see me?
Am I just invisible?
Just some side character, background shot, some half-bit piece of clutter?
Think, Say, Do
When you have suppressed the voices of the youth, That they now speak through spray-paint,
What will you think?
When you cross the Styx, Their souls reaching out to you, asking why? What will you say?
When you look back regretfully, Everything is clearer- hindsight is 20/20, What will you do?
Haunted House || Grace Roche
My love has become a haunted house once a home filled with warmth and excitement but now abandoned, condemned, and dusty a mere broken-down, shell of who they used to be. I walk the halls of their empty house running my fingers along the wall – remembering our brighter and happier younger days but I trip on the rotted floorboards – the sharp pain of rusty nails bringing me to the present the present where I am so helplessly alone. The skeletons in their closet snap and crack their bones at me the ghosts in the attic cry my name through the night the werewolves in the yard howl when I near the haunting chorus of my love’s words.
I find ghouls under the porch who reach for my ankles and sirens in the bath who sing my name a mummy in the basement even tries to wrap me up all the creatures painting an eerie portrait of my love. The vampire bares its bloodstained fangs at me and the zombie in the garden digs his nails in the dirt near my shoe the kraken in the pond pulls my paper boat under the waves with its tentacles when it dawns on me that these monstrous wounds are all that’s left of my love.
My love is long gone I realize now
These empty halls, full of mythical beasts
Are all that remains
Of my haunted house love.
Tire Anonymous
Tire Anonymous
Une lettre à l’amour.
Anonymous
Je déteste le fait que j’aime tout de toi.
Je déteste que tu connaisses toutes mes pensées.
Je déteste la façon dont tu me regardes.
Mais mon amour le plus cher,
Tu m’entoures de tes bras et je suis entière.
Tu me racontes de doux mensonges et je t’écoute
Vous racontez des histoires sur un avenir que nous n’aurons pas.
Mon amour le plus cher.
Ma douce menteuse
“ ----” Anonymous
I don’t need drugs to finish me Or alcohol to get me on my knees I don’t need your words Like a knife that pierces my heart Nor shame and guilt
That turn my world dark
For everything I ever loved And everything I gave a damn about Tore me apart Little by little Piece by piece
Until I was nothing Nothing at all
Little Girls in Glass Houses
anyomous
I sit here being watched; the walls of my house made of glass
A young boy walks by and, I put my hand to the wall
He sees me and judges I am a girl in a glass box
They all judge, they all look Whispers everywhere I go They judge even if they haven’t heard me speak
They laugh when I fall
They laugh when I can’t get up
Two girls in white dresses walk by Smirking at me, all alone
They begin to throw stones, small pebbles at first, then more
“I see you!”
“I feel that!”
“I heard you!”
“Please stop.”
Houses Shouldn’t Throw Stones anyomous
Is all I wish to say
Just because I’m in the box, doesn’t mean I don’t understand.
I have feelings, you know I pound my fists on the glass Stronger, until a crack forms and the wall becomes a web of fractures
I stand back and a crowd forms around my box Then, the wall comes crashing down. And I’m the one holding the stone I’m the one with the words now, staring at the shocked people
They turn away, there is nothing to see anymore No house, no strange thing inside it I am alone, it’s better this way I’m so alone.
I guess girls in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones
Block, Unblock anyomous
You like me, I like you
You say you hate me, I say I hate you
You block me, I block you
You say you’re sorry, I forgive you
You like me, I like you
You do something stupid, I go along with it
You say it was a mistake, I agree with you
You block me, I block you
You say you never could hate me, I could never hate you
You like me, I like you
Block, unblock can we talk?
Bathroom Mirror
Margaret
Reynolds
Mirror mirror on the wall
We parry back and forth We toss emotions ‘cross and I reflect for all I’m worth But now you’re sending warmer tones Colors tinged with red But I’m not ready I’m not cool
With being more than friends
Wrong Idea anyomous
Don’t get me wrong, I like this idea
But it feels like putting a desk together from Ikea
I won’t say this or that You get irritated in a snap
Your friends are crazy by the way I have to throw all my rationale away
You make everything seem fine
But I know you’re wasting my time Make no mistakes
You can think you have what it takes In the end, I know what’s coming.
Don’t pretend you know that something.
October anyomous
The cool air slipping through my fingers I’m in California now Staring at the Santa Barbara coast You could have followed me here You could have let me hold you This silence and the waves anger me You should have come
What am I supposed to do without you Come to me, let me hold you October isn’t the same anymore
To the Anonymous
the East
Anonymous
Not A Person, Muse. Ollie
Courts
I used to think that Apollo was the most romantic. Who doesn’t think poems, songs, great displays of affection aren’t?
To be the muse of a God. But Apollo doesn’t love. He destroys. Takes all that blazing love, And burns everything down. Hyacinth, so beautiful.
Playing with Apollo in the sun-kissed fields. It was all fun and games, they said, Until he got hurt. Daphne, never wanted to be loved. Ran and ran and ran, till her feet bled. Would rather become someone—something else, Then be ‘loved’ by Apollo.
Icarus, who loved Apollo too much. Who whooped with joy, soaring on his wings. Even he got too close to the warmth. Wax is ever so delicate.
Coronis, a princess, but a queen to Apollo. Being loved by a God must make you feel invincible. Invulnerable enough to love freely. And all she earned for those actions, was an arrow between the ribs.
Cassandra, beautiful enough to attract a God, A priestess of Apollo, nothing more, nothing less. Was brave enough to say no. Cursed to have her truths sound like lies. One thing these stories all have in common, Is not love. Nor is it hate. It is obsession, strong enough to destroy everything it touches.
Drown. Ollie Courts
It’s cold, so so cold
Like usual I don’t want to go in I do it anyway and it shocks me until I can’t feel
The chemicals intoxicate me
Makes me forget Where, who, and what I am
It’s better this way I can’t hear anything, I don’t have oxygen
What if I don’t resurface
What if I just…
Great Expectations
Ollie Courts
Sometimes I think I don’t even have my own name.
That even the word people call me is just another way of drawing a line,
Of dragging a stick across the sand and saying:
This is where you should be. This is where everyone else is.
Why aren’t you here yet?
Sometimes I think my name doesn’t even matter,
That all people take to mean anything are the numbers,
Floating around my head. 100, 90, 89, 72.
Sometimes I think that what people tell me doesn’t matter.
If someone says: You can be anything.
If all I hear is: You have to be everything.
Am I just another number, Another statistic?
Another point on the graph whose lines keep
Up And Up
And Up.
Am I even a real person? Do I even have my own name?
Am I just the “Great Expectations” of the people before me,
A combination of all their wishes, hopes, and dreams, Like a snowball rolling down a hill, picking up speed and size.
See?
Even this poem doesn’t have its own name.
Untitled Margaret Reynolds
This girl to this girl Our friendship lasted
Now I am that girl Time ran past it
Used to be so easy So much simpler
Life was new Nowadays I sit around just Really missing you
Thick Anonymous
Thick of It Anonymous
i’m sick and tired of conversations.
the “how was your rant no real other than “fine”’s
i want something i need something give me something give me flesh, not
i need to sink my teeth something of substance. something something to keep my stomach something— so long so long touch give me something i beg you.
conversations
conversations
Courts
i’m sick. these meaningless conversations.
your day”’s, which warreal response “fine”’s and “good”’s.
something real. Need. something real. something raw, honest. not skin and bones. teeth into something tangible, something to fill my stomach. stomach from tumbling, grumbling. something— anything. as it’s real. long as I can touch it, see it, smell it, taste it, hear it. something truly genuine.
Spook Anonymous
A Thousand Times Anonymous
No matter, if its spring or fall. I will stand, go through it all Cause without you, my soul is not complete I would die a thousand times
a thousnds times
Give my life, so yours could thrive
Cause you’re the thing that makes me feel alive I would fight the winter storms
Use my love to keep you warm
No matter what’s the situation
You’re my love, my hearts foundation
Theres nothing that’ll keep me from you I would die a thousand times for you
P R I D E A N O N Y M O U S
“An Idiot’s Idiom.”
Ollie Courts
What is my life but one big metaphor? Some reluctant idiom?
How else am I to describe this feelings other than I look around, gaze at my peers, all shiny, polished, All I see for myself is dusty, useless, simple coal. And if pressure is applied, I will simply crack and I will sooner sputter and burn up than shine. I am not sweet like honey; I am the flies helplessly Trying- and failing to break free.
My heart of fool’s gold will never be satisfied. Can I am always looking for greener grass.
A bird in a cage, wishing to fly with my friends, my But this bird of a feather can no longer fly. Shot down with a stone.
My closet is full of skeletons, desperate skeletal hands They say curiosity killed the cat. So, am I the box or I would say I am more like the vial of poison. Toxic, gets near.
Once in a blue moon, I suppose, I am not so bad. But blue moons don’t occur often enough to make
like a fish out of water? polished, sparking diamonds. break.
caught in the trap. never be satisfied. my flock. hands reaching from every corner and crack. or Schrödinger? Toxic, forced to hurt everyone I touch. Everyone who make me a good person.
Porcelain Anonymous
Porcelain Anonymous
Horrors of Anonymous
I’ll never forget the day I faced the Dreadnoughts. It’s etched into my mind like a scar that will never heal, a wound that itches beneath my skin.
I was part of the Western Realm’s 12th Infantry Division, stationed at Point Hostel along the 300 Mile Trench. An endless defensive line fortress of mud, metal, and misery. The landscape around us, meadowy grasslands with a large forest behind. Our entrenchment section was in two parts. There was one lane of trench ahead of my position by around fifty meters, and my position was on the main line, holding the stronger units.
We’d heard rumors from the frontlines of Tarturna’s new war machines, whispered tales passed between soldiers over dying campfires during the night. But nothing, not even our darkest imaginings, could’ve prepared us for the nightmare we were about to witness.
The morning was silent, unnervingly so, as if the earth itself was holding its breath. A light fog covered the field ahead of us. There was word of an enemy advance on our region. We fortified our positions, rifles clenched in sweaty palms, eyes scanning the haze that hung low on the horizon. The silence pressed on us, thick and suffocating, until the ground beneath our boots began to tremble in a cadence of walking. At first, I thought it was just the pounding of my own heart, but the tremors grew, vibrating through the earth, rattling my
Then came the hum.
A deep, throbbing sound, not like any engine l’d ever heard. It wasn’t just a noise, it was a presence, crawling under my skin, twisting in my gut. Every breath became a struggle, as though the very air was being
the Dreadnought
crushed by that pulsating hum.
Through the fog, they emerged. Monolithic, towering machines, marching from the shadows like gods of death. The Dreadnoughts. Near a hundred of them. They hold a human like form, but all mechanical. They stood like monuments to destruction, five meters tall of pure war machine, their matte black armor and angular, designed not just to protect the pilot inside, but to inspire terror. The sun, feeble and distant, seemed to recoil from them, its light swallowed by their hulking forms.
The cannons mounted to their forearms jutted forward like monstrous appendages, and the shoulder-mounted grenade launchers were poised to rain hell, and large wrist mounted flamethrower presented painful destruction. Their very presence distorted the world around them, making everything, us, the trench, even the battlefield, seem insignificant.
“Hold your positions!” our commander shouted, though his voice wavered with fear, “Artillery open fire!” Our sum of around two hundred F-96 tanks fire upon the oncoming Dreadnoughts. The ringing of the tanks cannon fire filled the air, and the explosion sound of the shells landing could be felt. The shells landing on the legion of Dreadnoughts created a cloud of smoke concealing the enemy from our eyes. But the vibrations of their footsteps did not falter. The enemy force emerged from the smoke, looking like they had only slight weathering on their frames. It was like the tanks barrage never happened. Our commander roared out, “Raise rifles and prepare a constant barrage! We shall hold this position and the enemy—“
It didn’t matter. His words were swept away as the Dreadnoughts’ voices rose over the battlefield. They didn’t just speak, they roared. A symphony of hatred and doom that shook the air and our resolve.
“YOU WILL BURN. YOUR ARMIES WILL FALL. YOUR REALM WILL SUFFER.”
The sound of that voice, it was as if the gates of hell had opened, and every demon inside was speaking through the Dreadnoughts, driving nails of fear into my skull. My body froze, my heart racing against my chest like it was trying to escape. I tried to lift my rifle, to follow orders, but my hands trembled, useless. I was a soldier, trained to face death, but this, this was something else entirely.
Then, their cannons opened fire on our position.
The sky seemed to split as shells whistled through the air, crashing into our lines with devastating force. The explosions were deafening, turning men into mist. I watched, powerless, as the bodies of my comrades were ripped apart, limbs flying, torsos torn to pieces. The tanks were no better off either. Each being picked off one by one. I saw crews crawling out of the tanks, on fire, falling onto the ground, helpless and burning alive.
Blood, dirt, and shrapnel rained down, painting the trench walls in crimson streaks. I couldn’t hear the screams over the blasts, but I saw my comrades faces, twisted in agony, eyes wide with terror, mouths open in soundless horror.
As the Dreadnoughts approached the first line of our forces, about fifty meters ahead, they engulfed the landscape in flames, spat out from their wrists. Melting the soldiers ahead of me. It seemed that the horizon would be in flames. I don’t remember when or how it happened, but my feet moved on their own. I abandoned my post, scrambling through the chaos into the expansive forest behind our lines, hoping to find safety, all while slipping in the blood soaked mud, tripping over the bodies of the fallen. My mind was a haze of panic, my only thought to escape, to survive.
But the Dreadnoughts were relentless.
As I fled, their voices followed me, echoing through the forest and the carnage, their words pounding in my head like war drums:
“DESTRUCTION WILL BE BROUGHT. YOU WILL PERISH.”
I fell, my legs giving out beneath me as I collapsed into the dirt. My hands dug into the earth, clawing at the ground like a desperate animal. I hid and sat behind a large tree in desperation. I could still hear the screams of my comrades, the roar of the cannons, the wet crunch of bodies being obliterated just a hundred meters behind me, but worse than all of that was the voice. The Dreadnoughts voice that seemed to slip into my mind like a serpent, curling around my thoughts, squeezing.
“YOU CANNOT ESCAPE.”
I gasped, spinning around, expecting to see one of those monstrous machines looming over me, its cannons aimed directly at my skull. But there was nothing. No Dreadnought. No soldier. Just the smoke, the fire, the now destroyed Point Hostel, and the shattered remnants of my sanity.
The voice wasn’t coming from the battlefield. It was in my head.
That was when I knew. I was broken. They had shattered me, not with their weapons but with their presence, their voice. The Dreadnoughts didn’t need to destroy me physically, they had already hollowed me out, left me a husk, haunted by their words, their power.
Many others in my division had retreated into the forest, hoping for safety, but safety could not be found. When they came for us, there was no resistance. I, along with what remained of my unit, threw down our weapons.
The Dreadnoughts didn’t stop. They marched onward, unrelenting, unforgiving, leaving us behind with the Tarturna ground soldiers as nothing more than prisoners of our own failure. We were walked back to what remained of our so-called, “Impenetrable Line”. The fortifications, the buildings, the vegetation, all destroyed and most in dying flames from the Dreadnoughts wrath.
As we were herded away like cattle, I looked back at those machines, their black forms cutting through the landscape like specters. I caught a glimpse of a few Tarturna Dreadnought pilots that were outside their suits of armor, eating the ripe fruit that we had just been sent a day earlier. Their faces were obscured by their helmets, but their eyes... their eyes glowed with something unnatural, something far beyond human. They weren’t just men piloting machines, they were something else, something darker, something that had become one with the destruction they wielded.
They were the harbingers of our end.
We were a force totaling of five thousand troopers and 2 hundred tanks, put to slaughter by just a hundred of those terrors.
I’ll never forget the Dreadnoughts, those infernal machines that crushed not just our bodies, but our very souls. They haunt me still, their voices echoing through my dreams, whispering the same words over and over:
“YOU AND YOUR REALM SHALL BURN.”
(Western Realm Soldier, 12th Infantry Division, POW held by Tarturna Forces)
