J. M. Thompson

The Last Mission to the Vandals

I swallowed the heart-shaped locket without a sliver of hesitation. The Vandals encircled me like grotesque effigies, sunken eyes gleaming within druidic headdresses of petrified flesh and bone. They rifled through my possessions in silence – the Southern Vandals had long lost their capacity for speech in the Great Undoing. Speculation ranged from industrial solvent abuse to mass vaporization of the vocal cords via atomic shockwave. The truth, however, remained elusive. Even voiceless, they were a people dreaded for their wanton brutality.