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Rated: 13+ · Sample · Sci-fi · #1297977
Sample of short story where the character is named after the famous Italian tank.
The desolate city stood in the distance like an ominous sore that had been picked at many times.  Many buildings stood out with massive gashes and gnaws as if a giant had mistaken them for food.  The city had been built again and again just to be destroyed and thus we get the picture of a sore that is picked again before it has time to fully heal.  Once this city had been beautiful and had housed many millions of souls in its comforts.  Some people used to say nothing could ever bring this place down they had the mistaken dreams that they were safe.  That is what a city does it gives us a feeling of togetherness and a feeling of warmth and safety.  And this city was no different until the war of wars when even this great city bowed down to the weapons that society had so aptly engineered. 
In the distance the clouds seemed to hover half way down the massive, once beautiful, ruins of skyscrapers.  It would probably rain later in the day, but unlike the rain that little children would play out in on warm days nobody would want to be caught out in this rain.  For this rain had a little extra additive due to many years of chemical warfare, and this little additive would peal away a human being like a child could peal off the skin of a banana.  A bolt of what looks like red lightening flashes briefly in the distance and our attention is again brought back to the outlines of tall buildings.
The skyscrapers look like jagged teeth that were poorly kept and had blackened and started to rot.  This was not the type of place you would find joy and laughter but a place of death and destruction.  As we move down the streets of this lovely tourist attraction we see down the dark alleyways and our eyes catch nothing but waste and waste of waste.  No people live in this city anymore and if they did you would not find them lurking about the streets or alleyways. We would most likely find them in the deep places of the city huddle in corners next to burning barrels or laying in pools of waste.  They would probably not even look like people that we see every day but oddities that one might find in a touring carnival someplace in the backwoods of rural America.  They probably would not be the best sort to entertain you in fact if they met you they would probably get the pleasure of a meal with meat which is so hard for them to come by.   
One thing that we do notice in the streets is the ghostly presence of the million souls that once inhabited this bustling place.  A million souls that enjoyed the bounty that life had to offer.  They got up to go to work and came home to loving families and the convenience of the technology they had so aptly achieved.  One reason we notice this is the piles of bones that seem to line both sides of the street.  It looks almost like a massive medieval dungeon long since uninhabited by its tormentors and their prey.  In the distance we can hear the sound of many footsteps which almost sound as if only one person was walking due to the cadence of the march. 
We see what appears to be several armed men dressed it some type of grey uniform with a black cross embroidered on the chest.  These men appear to be armed with some type of rifle that looks just a little bit rusted and outdated.  They also have little packs on the their back that does not look like it could hold a little more than a days worth of food and maybe another change of clothing.  We would probably guess right if we thought they were some type of soldiers but we still doubt in our minds.  Soldiers were usually well built with the rugged look of lost innocents.  These men though they look hard and without innocents they are not well built; in fact, they look as if they have missed not just one but several meals.  Their faces a knout and tight and so are they stomachs.  They have black circles under their eyes and in some of them you can clearly see their outline of their skulls through they ragged starved skin.  It gives them an eerie look if it were not for the fact that they were moving they would probably fit in nicely with the scenery of scattered bones of the men that once inhabited this land. 
As the men walk down this vast expanse of road leading right down the center of this city you can sense in the air the tension that is mounting.  As we have guessed this is not a normal day and this sickly group of young men are not out on a picnic enjoying the scenery.  Instead, they are getting ready to do a horrible deed.  For on the other side of this wasteland lies a small village inhabited by simple men and women trying to revitalize the ground with their various crops. Trying to fool themselves into the blissful peace that once inhabited this land, but as we now know that is not going to be possible not with a small army heading their way.  An army that has not eaten in several days and will do anything for the pleasure of gorging their hideously small stomachs.   
         Leading these men we see a handsome man who stands out front and looks to be in his early 20’s.  He has glistening blonde hair and blue eyes that seem to reflect the dark landscape.  He would have been quite the poster child for Hitler’s youth regime, and not because he fit the physical bill of Hitler’s Arian model.  His heart was arrogant and filled with hate for anyone or anything that was different than himself.  One could picture him as a child torturing little animals and pushing the occasional little old lady out of his way.  In school he would do anything it took to succeed even if it included cheated or stabbing his comrades in the back.  His mother even had hated herself for producing such a bane on humanity.  If he had grown up in our time he probably would be a gang leader or worse a politician.  But in this time he was a bloodthirsty warmonger who had no joy other than the pain and suffering of others that he, through his power and might, had conquered. 

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