You had never actually seen a human before.

Sure, you'd rooted through plenty of their scrap, the derelict ruins of whatever it was they used to be. But there were never any feral stragglers nestled somewhere in there, at least not hidden where you could find. A few skeletons were as close to that as you ever got. In fact, none of your crew had seen even a fairly fresh corpse, except for the Captain. And he told you'd he'd seen plenty of humans, and every once in a while, when the mood struck him, he'd tell tales. And they were interesting, captivating, at times even haunting. But that mood was a rare one. More often he'd boast about how he hadn't ever met a human he couldn't best, and kill, too. Of course, he said that about everything. Hive (you'd never seen them, either, and you're damn grateful for that, after what he'd had to say about them), Kings, bears. He really loved talking about taking down bears, after a good binge on ether. But, he could certainly best you and your crewmates, so you believed him. And, well, of course you believed him. He was your Captain, and a damn good one at that. He hardly ever cut anyone's arms off, even when they deserved it, and that mercy sure did save you once or twice. But now you're reminiscing, and you really wish you weren't.

Because one day, still painful to think about, when you were just picking at scrap, some thing went and blew your Captain's damn head off. And you caught a peak, and what you could only imagine was the thing responsible closed in and started shooting a buddy of yours. So you ran. Before, you'd have never ran. But you got lucky enough to not be number two, and that snapped you out of your shock enough to get you to bolt the hell out. You probably got all your friends killed, doing that. They probably would have been killed, anyways, but you with them.

And the thing that did it? Wellll, it looked about the right shape. It was missing two arms, but this wasn't any dreg. It was well-armed enough to take out your whole crew, and wearing some kind of armor that you'd do a lot of things to get your hands on. But, you couldn't see its face, under the helmet, not even its eyes. Frankly, you're glad. You don't want to think about what it must have thought when it killed all your friends.

But now your head's in your hands, the crew's gotten quiet, and you have to collect yourself. That was probably too much ether, making you open your mouth and tell that story like that. But it was good for them to hear, you think. It certainly didn't hurt their respect of you, even though you told them that you ran, and left all your friends behind.

Why? Because they know you're going to take them, now, carve the names of those you lost into every last human you can find, and send those bastards' souls screaming back into whatever hell they've earned themselves.

Good stuff. I really like the second-person nature of it.

Thank you!

It turned out better than I was expecting, honestly, for something I just kind of wrote on the spur of the moment.

Then you should do more spur of the moment writing. Seriously.

If there's anything I love, it's seeing the perspective from the other side, especially the "bad" one.

I'm still not convinced that the Fallen are the bad guys...