Young, old, happy, sad, none left the slaughterhouse. Not alive.
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Info
WAR FEAST
Author:Strange Matter
For GOIcon 2026
⚠️ Content warning: This article contains a content warning: Suicide ideation, Suicide, and Gore.
GOC SANTA FRANCISCO AIRFIELD
SOUTHEAST OF QUITO, ECUADOR
Julian Fernando fought hard and failed to hold back his yawn. It didn’t help that he would often rub his eyes; that made his eyelids heavier as the night went on. He glanced over his shoulder to see his two friends, Carlos and Augusto, knocked out from working themselves to death on the new game they’d all been working on. Monitors that showcased the entire surveillance of the airfield crowded his workstation. Nothing usually happened, so the only screen he fixated on was the one on his lap that held the game's code.
The hope was that this new VR game would rake in all the money he could dream of since the GOC was hardly doing anything for him these days. Julian thought that by enlisting in the army he would be financially covered; same story when he was picked up by the United Nations. Both failed in his eyes, but at least he met some like-minded friends along the way.
As he typed away on his keyboard, he could see the bright future ahead of him. A big house with an even bigger yard. A pool filled with people popping drinks. Red sports cars all neatly lined up. A beautiful family.
Most of all, his three companions who stuck with him through thick and thin, watching everything from a balcony, smoking a variety of expensive cigars.
One day, soon.
He glanced at his watch and then over at Carlos and Augusto, sound asleep with their heads lying on the table. There was still another ten minutes or so until it was Augusto’s turn to take over. He glanced back at the perimeter camera monitors. Julian leaned in close to the lowest bank of the camera screens. A once-over scan to convince his chief that he was awake and always ready for duty.
He pushed his glasses up to his nose, then rubbed his itchy eyes again. Suddenly, Julian felt his goosebumps stood up underneath his uniform. He quivered, thinking there was a draft in the room. He looked at the window, and just for a moment, from the reflection of the glass, he barely made out the appearance of a pale, disheveled woman behind him.
Then a shock, a burn, pierced through from the back of his neck. He could only make out a blood-stained blade that ran through him. He coughed, and his throat burned hotter than before. Tears escaped his eyes and blurred his vision, barely made out the face of his assailant. Her eyes and cheeks were sunken, every strand of her hair flowed freely from gravity, and through her translucent body he saw the metallic bone structure inside her.
She pulled her blade back. Blood leaked down his throat and covered the laptop in red. He bled out, but slowly enough that he watched Carlos and Augusto meet his fate. The woman cut them up so well that they died in their sleep.
As he died, he wondered if she had wanted him to watch.
Nana Ruiz and Mia Santiago grabbed their Light Traffic Batons and slipped on their reflective jackets from the waiting room. They checked their radios and batons for battery life and headed down the runway to await the pilot's call that he was ready to pull out. Nana couldn’t stop making sneaky glances to Mia on the way.
They’d been friendly since they met a few months ago. They were both in charge of marshalling duty, simultaneously the easiest and hardest job at an airfield depending on weather conditions. Tonight was windy but nothing to be concerned about when directing the planes to and fro the runway.
In their downtime, Nana and Mia would often have many talks on a variety of topics. Mia sounded like she knew everything, so informed and articulate that Nana would mostly just listen to her ramble for hours on end.
Four weeks ago, Nana got into an accident with the cargo; her ankle sprained but nobody had the time to help her because everyone was in a rush. Because of that, a fuel truck almost ran her over, but thanks to Mia, she stopped the vehicle in its tracks, shouted a bunch of swear words at the driver, and carried her to the infirmary.
Mia was smart, strong, and beautiful. Her hair caught every shade of brown. The brimming joy of her smiling full lips and dark brown eyes. Her head always possessed a slight tilt, adding bemusement to her cheery moods. Lithe and sharp, her body would sway like a willow.
Nana often wondered if Mia felt the same way. And it's that wondering that convinced her that she didn’t. Mia often talked about how she’d been trying to find a way out of Ecuador. Start a new life somewhere, either in America or Europe. Anywhere that’s not here. Nana’s heart ached at that. Not just for the idea that Mia considered leaving her, but also because she held this country close to her heart. It was her home after all and she wouldn’t dare leave it.
Maybe that’s something we can talk about.
Nana glanced at Mia's right profile, and she was already looking back at her. Nana straightened her gaze forward, her face burned hot from embarrassment.
She thought she may have seen a smile from her, so she glanced again.
Mia's head had vanished in a blast of blood.
Time felt so slow, and it seemed to Nana that Mia's body took forever to tumble to the floor.
Mia's warm blood splashed her face. She started to scream when something hit her left side and drove the breath from her. Raising her left arm to protect herself-
There was no arm. A surge of pain had replaced it. She tried to scream, but nothing came out. So she slumped to the ground. Giant wings flapped above her as she sank into darkness, looking for Mia's face while her neck continued to spill into the ground.
Roberta Delgado fantasized how she would die. She could jump in front of the engine of a plane, or of a moving fuel truck for that matter. Maybe she could hike to the mountains until either starvation, dehydration, or a bad fall took her life. Or just turn her rifle to herself.
None of it would bring her baby sister back from the grave.
She had heard the news this morning from her mom over a phone call. Her sister, Patricia, was out at a club with some friends. Her mom further explained, all while still trying to keep herself together, that a drunk driver hit her when she pushed one of her friends out of the way.
After that, Roberta felt her soul leave her body. The body walked, ate, did its duty, but was never present in any of it. It was replaced with something heavy, and yet something empty at the same time.
All she could do was just move, and move, and move as more memories of Patricia flooded her mind. From the first time she held her in her arms, to her first words, her first steps, her first day at school, her quinceañera, her first boyfriend, her first heartbreak, her graduation, to her getting accepted into a university in the United States.
People often mistook Patricia as Roberta’s daughter. They weren’t entirely wrong. Roberta, by and large, raised her just as much as her parents did. She was her little girl.
All that time, energy, the beautiful moments and the ugly ones. Gone.
“Oh shit!” That shout pulled Roberta back to reality. “We got an intruder!”
The four of them ran to the body. It was a pair of women wearing green reflective jackets. One of them had no head. The other one looked like something had punched a clean, round hole through her left side.
Roberta aimed her weapon up in case the intruder was still close. From a distance, she thought she saw someone.
“Who’s there! Come out!” She barked.
At first, she couldn’t make out the appearance of the intruder, only that they looked pale. When they approached the guards, the first thing Roberta noticed was that she could see through her. When the ghostly-looking woman got closer, Roberta could make out its metallic ribs and its long blades protruding from its forearms.
Roberta and her crew fired upon her. Some of the bullets struck the chassis, bursting sparks from its chest, while some flew right through her with no sign of blood. The phantom woman rushed toward them and let out a blood-curdling screech that pushed them to the ground.
Her ears rang, muscles ached, and the taste of blood rushed out from her mouth. Roberta’s vision fluctuated as she witnessed her peers putting their own barrels in their mouths or below their chins, and the back of their heads burst in red rain.
The ringing in her ear was then overshadowed by another sound. Patricia's voice. She screamed for her sister. To come and help her with her broken bones and torn muscles, with stopping the blood, that she abandoned her, that she hated her. Roberta couldn't hear herself shouting, “No, that’s not true!” Over and over again, but she knew it didn’t matter.
Patricia’s voice went soft. She told her, “But we can be together again.”
Roberta’s fingers brushed the stock of her rifle. The hollow weight she felt earlier lifted as she held the gun tight. She pressed the barrel against her forehead, closed her eyes, exhaled, and pulled the trigger.
Martin Nuñez hoisted the third-to-last garbage bag into the trash with all of his strength. The chief petty officer reprimanded him from his normal duties and instead had him clean the whole airbase by himself throughout the day for his poor performance. He wanted to cry, but even he got tired of tears.
He recalled his cousin, Eduardo, who was more like a brother to him than anything. They were both the only children in their respective families. Eduardo enlisted in the Ecuadorian Army not long after high school and made a solid enough career out of it. Martin admired him, so much so that he tried many times to emulate his looks, his behavior, the way he dressed, everything.
One day, Eduardo visited; he told them all very lukewarm stories of his time in the army. Sure, he shot massive guns and drove tanks, but besides that, nothing much happened. Martin didn’t mind. The fact that he was able to do any of that at all lit a fire in him. Even if it was under false patriotism.
When Martin told his family that he’d be enlisting too, Eduardo quickly pulled him to the side and asked him, “Why?”
“To be just like you,” Martin said, “a badass!”
Martin vividly remembered the dark expression Eduardo gave him. He’d never seen anything like it from his cousin. A mixture of exhaustion, grief, suppressed rage, and numbness.
“Martin,” Eduardo said, holding his shoulders, “the army doesn’t make you a badass. It makes you a bitch.”
Now, he finally understood what he meant. After his service in the army, he needed to find work fast; luckily enough, he met someone who could hook him up with the UNGOC. He thought it sounded fancy enough; surely it would make Mamí and Papí proud.
It didn’t seem to impress Eduardo one bit.
Martin recalled it all. The berating from his superiors, the humiliation from his peers, the exhaustion from boot camp and the tours, the paranoia of someone or something coming to kill you when you least expect it. He didn’t feel like one of those big and powerful superheroes like the ones he watched on his small, boxy television. He just felt small. Smaller than he’d ever been in his entire life.
He hoped that if he did a bad enough job, the GOC would just kick him out and send him home. That’s the only good they can ever do for him now.
His back hurt from all the labor he’d done. Stretching it felt like pulling his spine apart. So he slouched his way back to grab the rest of the trash. At the corner of his eyes, he thought he saw something, a pair of wings that glided through the runway.
A bird or something?
But it was no bird he'd ever seen, not as large as that one. Martin looked to his left, then to his right. He looked up and saw nothing but the evening sky, glittering with stars.
I need sleep.
He hunched further back to the building, only for his feet to no longer feel the ground. He was in the air now at super speed. His arms were restrained, and he couldn’t hear himself scream at how high and fast he went. He looked up and couldn't make out what held him.
He scrambled his arms and legs as best he could, but the monster didn’t show an ounce of struggle. He was begging for it to let him go. The monster looked down at him, and Martin could only make out the LED lights that accented its head. It cocked its head, seemingly in response to his plea. For a moment, Martin felt relief that it understood him.
Instead, the creature flung him up in the air, and he was left with the vast expanse of space. Every little star greeted him with a twinkle, as did the black moon, before the monster split him in two, and he fell face first on the ground.
Ania Vidal pressed her back flat against the wall as she shivered. She had nowhere else to flee. Her only option now was to point her pistol out, pull the trigger, and pray that her shots landed.
Moments ago, she was helping with loading the cargo into one of the planes. She was on autopilot for most of it and managed to snuck in an earbud to listen to her music. None of her other coworkers were going to rat her out. It had been a long day, and a long night, and they all just wanted to be done and go to sleep. So she pushed through, tuning out the world to at least have some peace and pass the time.
Then her other ear heard a scream. She flicked her head to the noise, thinking someone got into a freak accident. What she saw instead was a massive metallic bat that carried a man by his throat. He twitched and gurgled as his limp body swung. A single shake from the monster's giant head tore apart the man's head from his body before it leaped onto its next victim.
The guards riddled it with bullets, but the man-bat continued its feast without any care. Out of nowhere, five more of these mechanized bats flew through the opened gates and climbed across the walls and ceiling, only stopping to glance at their next target.
Ania ducked for cover under a plane wing, hoping they wouldn't spot her. Ania watched as the large bats blasted holes through people's abdomens and torsos. If not that, then their heads and limbs would pop and they would plop onto the floor and gush blood all over.
Some of the bats would dive with their wings extended out, and dice up any guardsmen in their path, or snatch them up with their claws and rip them up while they scream in the air. Ania couldn’t stay where she was; she needed to escape, NOW. She bolted, slipped on blood, and feverishly crawled as more and more of her clothes soaked up all the red from her people. She turned her head back and spotted eight barely visible women with long hair, long faces and longer blades protruding from their arms.
They handled whoever the bats weren’t paying attention to. Effortlessly hacking away of runaways with blood phasing through their bodies. People rushed out in an attempt to stampede over the ghostly women, but they stopped dead in their tracks when the eight phantoms let out an awful, agonizing wail. Some people leaked blood from their orifices and dropped to the floor. Others took their own weapons and turned them on themselves.
She found herself now holding a pistol, likely lost from a now ripped-up guard. Soon enough, she was surrounded by piles of shredded body parts and mangled corpses. It was like a flood of red poured into the cargo bay and covered every last dry spot of the floor. The mechanized man bats and ghost women eyed down the last of their prey.
Her quiver wouldn't keep the gun steady. She could miss and they would all jump on her and rip her apart piece by piece. Her breathing was short and erratic. Tears, whether water or blood, ran down her cheeks. The creatures stepped aside and made way for a man in a black parka, black cargo pants, an oxygen mask, and what looked to be Kreister sunglasses.
He must be their leader.
Without hesitation, she squeezed the trigger. She realized too late that one of the bats covered him with its wings. It opened its wings and the man continued to walk to her. She still pulled the trigger over and over again. It was the only sure thing that gave her any sense of safety. He stopped just in front of the barrel and gently pushed it down.
He took off his mask and his sunglasses, revealing his long, boyish pale face with green eyes and light brown hair in a Caesar cut. But the most notable thing about him was his long, horizontal scar running under his eyes.
“It’d be a waste if you died here. Why don’t you come with me? I promise I'll take good care of you.” He said, extending his hand and giving an innocent smile.
But the stench of copper and fresh meat flared her up in a rage. She raised her arm, still holding the gun, going in for a hammer fist to his face. He caught it and palm-struck her nose with his other hand, shattering it. She dropped, vainly holding back the squirting blood rushing out from her nostrils.
She made a mistake. She should have taken his offer. This time, she reached out, but in a pleading, begging manner. His smile was long gone.
“Too bad,” he said. Then he turned around and walked back to the bat that saved him. “She’s all yours.”
“Wait-” The bat lunged at her neck and, in one swift motion, decapitated her. Her head dropped. Her last moments were those of the monsters disappearing into the night.
Jandro Navarro held his wife under the thick covers. His five year old son, Antonio, crept onto the bed, double knee dropped on his arm and jolted his father from his slumber. Antonio bolted out of the room with a giggle. Jandro rubbed his tricep feeling out the soon-to-be bruised muscle. He was sluggishly walking out from his bed, too tired to chase and spank his boy. Especially after the night he had.
He cooked twelve chocolate chip pancakes. Served four on each plate with a glass of passion fruit juice and waited until his wife, Rayana, sat with them. Her hair was messy and tangled, still dazed from her own long day of work. Antonio only seemed to calm down when he got to eat and watch his cartoons on the flatscreen attached to the wall.
After breakfast, he’d open a glass sliding door to the balcony, lit a cigar in his mouth, and gaze upon the concrete jungle that was Manhattan, New York. To Jandro, the penthouse was worth no more than a couple dollars, all things considered with the kind of take home pay Valravn provided, as well as giving him the adventure that he’d trained and yearned for when he was discharged from the Army.
He puffed smoke to the breeze and mused on how amazing a moneymaker war can be. Then again, it probably wouldn’t be any different from his tours in Iraq or Afghanistan. He smiled and realized the absurd amusement in how he knew it would all play out. He was confident that Valravn wouldn’t be held accountable, for how did one define the jurisdiction that actually governed them? It wouldn’t be the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And it surely won’t be the local laws. He gave his thanks to this legal grey area that continued to be leveraged by Valravn’s clientele.
Then he was reminded that he needed to write up an after-action report and a performance review of the La Llorona and Tzinan Models after the GOC airfield sabotage to Norberto. The thought of it made him take a long drag on his cigar and exhale the smoke through his nostrils.
Jandro always thought that he had a stick up his ass. But Norberto was right: these models were among the finest Valvaran-Zotz ever produced. Loyal too, but that just may be the inhibitor that made them tame. He shrugged; all the same.
His phone rang. He pulled it out from his robe pocket and opened the notification. Another job, this time in Mexico. Las Víboras was making way towards villages and trying to sway them to their side against CALMECAC. The surrounding villages needed to be made an example of anyone who would oppose their own government.
Jandro dropped his head with a heavy sigh. I just got back!
He didn’t respond right away. He’d do that later. He put out the cigar and flicked it out of the skyline. He went back inside, plopped on the couch as he pulled his son toward him, and punched his arm as a way to get back at him. Antonio giggled, Rayana snuggled up with them, and he tuned in to a streaming site to watch a movie together.