The invasion of the Red Men began without warning. The morning they arrived it was impossible to believe that our lives would change forever; I remember it every red dawn. It was an ordinary day, I was on my way to the university on the train, checking my phone and writing to Tinny to stay together at a friend's apartment.
When I arrived at the university I lit a cigarette as usual, greeted my friends and we were already planning how to copy each other on the history exam we would have later. There was a girl saying goodbye to her fifty-year-old boyfriend. One of my friends was surviving his hangover and there were bets being made on who would be the first to cry during the studies by the end of the next month. The usual everyday university life. The morning went by normally, after the exam and Tinny saying yes, some of my friends wanted to go downtown to buy some things... Today, you don't know how much I regret that.
We were not soldiers, nor super humans with incredible abilities, we were just a group of twenty-year-olds who liked rum and who aspired to have their own office with that typical graduation photo where at least one was drunk... but none of that will be possible anymore.
The signal interference began shortly before the opening of the portals. Much later I learned that it was like this all over the world. I was talking to Tinny. I was asking him where he was and the call began to fail for no real reason. When I felt the earth vibrate, my phone went black, and then something like an explosion threw everyone close to me to the ground. A great shock wave was unleashed and behind it the televisions exploded, the cars were turned off and all electronic circuitry became totally useless. I didn't know what was going on in the rest of the world, nor did I really care, but at the moment when the smoke cleared I could see that where there used to be a churro stand, there was a portal at least ten feet high and four feet wide floating close to the ground.
I was frozen. I didn't understand what was going on but Adrian was always a curious person, he was the first to get up and one of the many curious people who approached that portal. I still remember how his hair was getting messy because of the wind coming out of it. I also remember the moment when the first red men came out of that portal. They stamped out, no matter what was in front of them. They were the size of a normal person, their skin was different shades of red and they wore iron and leather armor. The most surprising thing was the weapons they carried. I cannot spend a night without thinking of the moment when one of them threw his spear and ended up in Adrian's chest. His face full of surprise and pain, the speed with which those damned started to kill without mercy and that my legs were only good for running.
My friends and I fled as best we could from the massacre that was forming in the square. The last time I turned around I could see that not only those red men were coming out, but bigger and yellower ones, along with other red men riding four-legged creatures, with the size of a horse and the face of a hyena. Maria wanted to go to the nearest policeman and he pulled out his gun without thinking, pointed it at the nearest red man and when he fired, I understood that not only the electrical devices no longer worked, but the firearms were also history. Both she and the policeman were run through with swords and axes before we could do anything. We ran as far as we could, got as far away from the square as possible and after crossing a park overlooking the neighborhoods, I realized that this was bigger than I thought since there were red men and workers facing each other in the construction. I could see one of those damn beings getting his head smashed in with a hammer.
Among many things that I could notice was the fact that while the men in the plaza had armor and their colors were duller, these ones here had a more noticeable shine on their skin and their armor looked like thin leather and that they were not as good at using those weapons as they used to be... We did not stay to see how that horrible confrontation ended, I remember that I threw up, that Ana cried again and that Richard said "my dad works there" before running off to that construction site, I don't feel proud but, we neither stopped him nor went after him. The next six days we were separated, each one went where he thought he would do better or with his family, I left the city to look for my parents and after seeing how a modern society was collapsing around me and how those red men were taking control of everything, they were killing many and those who were left alive were turned into slaves, they did not speak Spanish but they had some little blue men who did understand our language.
The arrival to my neighborhood was a welcome full of blood and death, I was being chased by several of those red men through the streets that I knew so well and I thought that was the end of me, until when crossing a corner an arm caught me and the next thing I knew was that those men were crossed by sharp iron beams. The one who had taken me was an old acquaintance who had several blocks following my trail and as he guided me between the houses in the neighborhood he explained to me that the different gangs, the police and the honest neighbors we had at last made a truce to keep those men away from the defenseless civilians, relations were tense but... functional for the moment. We arrived at my neighborhood where my saviors were also arriving with the weapons and armor they had collected from the red men eliminated "spoils of war" I thought, I saw the woman who always had coffee with my mom in the afternoons sewing the side of the boy who used to steal wallets on the avenue and the policeman who stopped me once for driving fast taking the hand of my old chemistry teacher to accompany him while the wounds finished killing him.
When I found Mrs. Buitrado, I did not ask her about her husband or her garden, but approached her to ask for information about my parents and my sister. She left her little daughter in her sister's arms and asked me to follow her, her voice sounding muffled and distant as she told me... "From the first day those men killed without mercy, but, you know that these neighborhoods have never been easy for anyone to tame and it wasn't going to be easy for them either, even though the firearms didn't work, our machetes, shovels, irons and even the kitchen knives did... And they worked well. They didn't take it well, and although they have tried to come and take over these neighborhoods, they always return to their base wounded and battered by the very damned. Only once two days ago they were able to come in and take many people, including your parents and your sister... They put them there to make fun of us son, we couldn't do anything and they did it just to make us feel less" I didn't understand what he was saying, but my eyes gave me the answer before I asked.
There was a part of the neighborhood from which you could see the old art school, which gave space to a big field where there used to be activities for the people here... Now in that field there were more than a hundred people with stakes driven into the ground. I didn't have to be a genius to know that my parents, my sister, my neighbors and many others were there. My legs were shaking and they didn't hold me anymore. The tears came out by themselves and the sobbing did not stop for a long time. Mrs. Buitrago stood there in silence, looking at me not with pity but with understanding in her eyes. When part of me felt calm, she hugged me and said "They have taken everything from us, son; our lifestyle, our friends, our family... Now they want our lives and we will not allow it. We are going to fight with everything our hands can hold and I don't want to know that you will ever feel sorry for them. They don't deserve it.
This is an image of the protest in Honk Kong for the recort in the university budget. I juts use this photo because i can introduce you in the story with the content, not images
I never thought that such a kind woman could say things like that but, at the same time, nothing was like the life I used to know. It has been six months since that evening, I have seen many people I used to know die, I have also taken the lives of red, blue men and I have not felt compassion once since the day I decided to take up a sword. Today those bastards are patrolling outside the prison camp and we will be the distraction, making noise and killing as many as we can while the other team rescues the prisoners. We managed to recover a few smoke bombs and now I use a protective suit to defend myself, a shield and a short sword that always accompany me. Dalton's men throw the smoke bombs and at that moment I advance towards them, towards the red men towards... The enemy.