The sun rose over Solaris City like a wound slowly opening, crimson light bleeding into orange, then into a sickly, hesitant gold.
It touched the towers first, then crept downward, reaching toward the square below as though reluctant to illuminate what lay there.
But when the light finally struck the park, even the sun seemed to recoil.
This was because the beloved park where families walked in the mornings and old veterans paid their respects to fallen heroes had been erased.
In its place sprawled a landscape of absolute butchery.
A mountain of flesh, bone, and viscera rose steaming in the cold morning air.
Blood had pooled in every depression, forming crimson lakes that reflected the dawn like broken mirrors.
Guts draped across the few remaining statues like grotesque garlands.
A single arm, severed at the elbow, hung from a monument's outstretched bronze hand.
Tens of thousands of lives. Enough people to fill a stadium had been reduced to this!
