Neodymium Betrayal--edited beginning.

Roz sighed.

He still saw them, in his mind's eye--several hundred pre-adults in thick yellow camouflage, huddled against each other in the dark, strapped to the humming metal floor by simple safety belts. He'd watched the littlest ones laughing, playing with the screens on their wristbands just before he sealed them into their transports; the oldest children sat in silence, probably trying to figure out where they would find themselves when the light came back. Roz knew they wondered if they would ever go back to the embattled fort they called home--he'd wondered the same thing at their age.

He'd gotten used to it.

The four transports bearing the children sailed across waving flaxen grass far below Roz's look-out hill, piercing like four giant black bullets through rolls of fog. Roz wanted to plop into the grass and collapse--the evacuation had taken all night--but he stayed on his feet, his fingers drumming on the short bamboo staff suspended from his belt. No sleep until the kids escape. I promised. Mist wisped about Roz like breakers against a rock; wind tousled his flaxen hair. His faded tan tunic flapped, tugging as if it had a life of its own and only his still form kept it from seeking out adventure. 

 

His tired mind played picture-games with his vision. A bright blue-eyed spectre in a black jumpsuit had tormented his dreams for two nights now. Diebol.

The torture-nightmares would stop if he just died. Monster.