No Bodies

Until about five months ago, the Last Refuge was a model military base with fifteen hundred well-trained soldiers and weaponry capable of taking down any enemy army in no time. Today, after some reflection, Colonel Cleaner concluded that what led to their defeat was overconfidence.

The enemy that reached them was superior to anything they were accustomed to fighting. Initially, the official information his soldiers had was that they would be combating some fast and deadly animals. But no one had any idea what was coming or what the enemy would be like. All they knew was that it would be a creature the size of a dog or slightly larger. They were probably enraged creatures that, for some unknown reason, attacked anything and everything in their path, whether man, woman, elderly, or child.

The news, in itself, made no sense. There was no time to confirm what was happening, as communications ceased almost immediately. All Colonel Cleaner could do was wait for the enemy, still without the slightest idea of what this encounter would be like. His superior, Mizian Batraia, quickly organized a squadron and took some helicopters from the base. Using the excuse that he would speak with the president, his personal friend, he left in a hurry. Unfortunately, he never returned nor communicated again.

The Last Refuge was known as Pride and Defense until the day of the fateful attack. At the time, Colonel Cleaner was powerless, and only when his superior succumbed, taking more than half the soldiers with him, did Colonel Cleaner assume command. He still had not seen the enemy, as they only attacked at night. The colonel realized they were facing something not of this Earth when, in a brief encounter with the enemy, he unloaded all his ammunition, yet it did not fall.

Realizing the danger they were in, he ordered everyone to retreat to more protected areas. The casualties were not greater because the battle lasted just over 10 minutes, and in the end, there was not a single enemy body in sight... not one. This continued for 30 consecutive nights, and the battles always occurred around midnight. Since the retrieval of soldiers' bodies always happened the following morning, not even a wounded or fallen soldier left behind was found. There was no sign of where they had been taken, except for the bloodstains left at the attack site, like a final farewell from his troops.