A BLAST of catastrophic floods and insane asteroids wept through the atmosphere and created artificial winds that became natural horrors. The god of war would have his revenge. We had taunted him for the last time. Everyone had warned us it would bite us in the ass but nobody believed in gods anymore, nobody did really except for the people we should have listened to. And who wants to listen to that random fear-mongering? You can only ignore it for so long before succumbing to the temptation. Mocking gods is so easy.

Well we were paying the price now. Pathfinder was behind us, holding together the doors of our shitty makeshift shelter as the earthquakes and flying flotsam delivered blow after apocalyptic blow onto the destroyed landscape. This was total destruction. If I had known this would happen I would never have volunteered. The prize was not worth it.

I had programmed Pathfinder for Level 10 defense, the highest he would go, a desperate move, and the resultant redirection of resources meant his auditory sensors had to be shut down: in other words, he couldn't hear us. "GET OUT OF THERE, PATH!" I shouted anyway, unable to help myself. He'd been with us since the beginning, jeez that was years ago now when we set out, and I'd be lying if I didn't think of him as alive. A crashing bolt of lightning rent the air with a nightmarish crackle and destroyed Pathfinder without remorse. The doors of our shelter, designed to keep out even the most deadly of disasters, blew open and an eerie psychedelic howl invaded our space, hunting and seeking the blasphemers. I got a brief glimpse of the sky outside: angry red streaks like celestial magma cut through the black of the void. I had no hope of getting out of this alive but I still had to pretend. My wife would be able to replay my final thoughts in the transmission and I wanted her to think I believed I would see her again.