THE LAST DAY

***muffled sounds of fumbling and clattering, indistinguishable curses***

‘How do you work this… accursed, damned… end of everything and… just want to…. Is that so much to ask… there, there… alright, I’m… it’s alright…’

***something that might be a sob, quickly choked off***

‘…my name is Shevyn Thale. I’m… I’m a manufactorum logisticus adept third class in the Forge Endurance. On Nemendghast. If you find this servo-skull, if you access the recording, I’m on Nemendghast and… well, what am I doing? Why am I even bothering? I suppose because I have to believe that something will come after this, that our suffering isn’t the end of everything. The Emperor has a purpose for all of us, doesn’t he?

Of course he does.

Of course he does.’

***background distortion, something that might be screams, something else that is very definitely an explosion***

‘Oh Emperor, oh please… you can hear it, can’t you? The beginning of the end? I am recording this so that someone, one day, might know that we stayed loyal. We fought the rising tide, the cults, the doomsayers and the… things… that they conjured up to hunt us. Do you hear this clearly, whoever you are? Do you understand? Nemendghast stayed loyal to the very end!’

***more distortion, closer. Another sound more difficult to pin down, a background hum and whine that at times seems almost to become vocal in nature. Several moments of muffled rustling and thumping that may indicate movement***

‘Soon there won’t be anywhere… anywhere safe… oh Throne… come on, come on, just… this nightmare began… Emperor, just weeks ago. It feels like lifetimes, but there it is. Weeks, sidereal. First there were the dreams, and the mutterings in the administrative sanctums and the halls of signatories. A handful of adepts stopped showing up for their shifts, just one here, one there, but it got so that after a while you noticed. We didn’t say anything, of course, not during duty hours. The adepts second class were always prowling the aisles, and no-one wanted their ration dockets stripped. But on the processionals before and after shift, in the queues for nutrient packs, people whispered. About nightmares they kept having, of our world falling into shadow, of flames consuming the skies, of the hungry things with the too-wide smiles that hunted them through their dreams.

The disappearances got worse. Then came the proclamation of martial law. That was the doing of the cults, the first time they tried to rise up. Heretic filth got what they deserved, in Sutter’s Sump, in the Forge Indomitable, even here in Endurance. But still, you got to wondering, how could heretic cults have flourished at all, and what had prompted them all to rise at once the way they did? And so, the proclamation. Curfews. Bans on gatherings numbering more than three people outside of places of toil and labour. Unenforceable of course, but they tried. Things got bloody, and still more people were turning up missing every day. I… Throne, what was that?’

***sounds of fast, shallow breathing. A slight vocalisation that might be a whimper. The murmuring and whispering grow louder until individual words are almost legible. Another sound joins the background distortion, a low rumble that slowly builds in volume***

‘… I think they’re gone… those… things… are everywhere now. I won’t name them. The Preachers said that to name these things is to attract their attention and to give them power… it hardly matters now, I suppose, but blessed Emperor I don’t want to die… I don’t… Why is this happening to us?... alright… alright before the storm front reaches me…’

***the rumble is growing louder in the background. More screaming. The dull and now unmistakable thump of explosions. Gunfire. Repeated cracks that might be lightning strikes***

‘It was when the skies went sour, that was when the tech-magi and the Arbitrators lost control. They issued edicts banning citizens from looking skywards on pain of immediate execution, but how could you not see? Waves of fire, clouds transforming into screaming faces… the shadows went bad then, dangerous. People who walked into the dark didn’t come out again. Word spread, Throne only knows from where… the planet was travelling right into the teeth of a warp storm. Oh, the details differed…’

***the rumble increases with sudden violence, the recording becomes distorted***

‘…details differed… we’d sinned too much as a people… the Emperor had forsaken his realm… Terra had been destroyed… the galaxy was tearing in two… I still don’t know why this is happening, even now at the end… but it is happening… Order broke down entirely after that…. militias burning heretics in the streets… ships shot down as they tried to flee… cults rose up again, only this time… utter carnage… The tech-magi shut themselves in their sanctums and slew… who attempted to seek their wisdom or their aid…’

***the rumble is ferocious now, sound distortion becoming ever-more pronounced. The whine and moan has become a chorus of voices, chanting, gibbering, wailing and howling in a language painful to hear. Screams and explosions mingle and the lightning-crack sound comes again and again***

‘Oh Emperor… face horrors of the darkest sort and… preserve your humble servant and… oh Throne, this shrine is coming apart, nowhere is safe from the storm… It is sweeping across our world, it is devouring us… Daemons! It does not matter… name them, Daemons ride upon the storm’s bloody winds and… to our damnation! If you hear this, know that… fought until… Nemendghast remained loyal, Nemendghast remained…’

***recording ends, servo-skull machine spirit diagnostics warn of potential spiritual corruption, power cell shuts down***

PRODUCED BY GAMES WORKSHOP IN NOTTINGHAM

The Last Day © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2019 The Last Day, GW, Games Workshop, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world. All Rights Reserved.

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