She hid behind his fathers desk, now a broken ruin, trying to hide her sobs with her mittens.
The mittens her now dying mother knit. Her mother was soaked in her own blood, her killer, the massive machine-man was now stalking through the room, butchering the rest of her family. His gore red armour was lit poorly by the swinging light in the hab room and he gurgled a laugh within his mask after slaying the last alive member of her family. He raised her fathers head, chopped it up with a quick blow and....
Heard the howl.
A long howl of a monster, a killer, a creature of the night, another massive form now entering the room in a full sprint rammed his giant horn at the red warriors body. She watched them in amazement as the newcomer raised the red warrior high upon his horn and split him in half using his massive fist. He removed the now dead god and turned against the rest. There were two more of the red warriors, with different very scary helmets, shaped in things she couldn't even begin to comprehand. The second fight was quick and brutal, and was over within three seconds, one of the red warriors now headless and the other was generally around the room.
The horned warrior stood straight and sniffed the air.
She held her breath.
It slowly walked upon where she was hiding, Its giant steps crushing everything, men and machine under him. It crouched with a whine of machinery, and stared at her with two unblinking red eyes.
''Hello young one''
His voice, as now she knew it was a man, was a sonic wave hitting her with the full force of a winter wind. She struggled to crawl backwards, but there was no room.
''No need to be so scared, come on out young one'' He said, his voice now lower. ''What is your name?'' He asked, as she climbed under the broken table.
''Matilda" she whispered, staring at the dead bodies of her family. The gunshots and the screams were all muted out to her, distant and ignorable. ''What is yours?'' she asked, phased out.
''I'm called Neshorn'' She asked what it meant. ''It's an animal with a giant horn from old terra, now extinct.'' he answered. ''Now you stay behind me and keep up, and find a safe place if things get ugly, okay young one?'' He said. She simply nodded, tears in her eyes and not understanding anything. She was just five years old.
They walked outside the hab, her small village now ruined, with gunshots and smoke and screams everywhere. He led her through rubbles and barricades while fighting a couple of times, she found a place to hide in those times, trying to see what was going on. She also saw his friends, grey-armoured gods, moving towards them, through them, into the smoke. There was still howling in the air. She didn't see much of the red-warriors, they were either gone or lying on the ground now. That made her happy.
They made it outside the village and stopped, she saw some more gray warriors, some with their faces visible. They were against a massive vehicle, all staring at a dataslate, their serious stares filled with a curious mix of anger and boredom. There was also another man, shorter than the gray gods, with a sculpted armour and a hat that Matilda found very intimidating. She picked out the letter I on this very hat. This man stood quite far away from the gray-gods, looking quite unhappy. When he saw Matilda, he scowled even further, his hand went to his sidearm and he asked Neshorn something in a language Matilda couldn't understand.
''Over my dead body'' Neshorn replied.
He said something else, his voice now louder.
''That's over your dead body'' Neshorn said, growling.
One of the gray-gods, a venerable man with a massive white beard overheard the dispute and approached. There were shouts, and gestures, and while Matilda didn't understand any of it, she was scared of this new man with the hat more than the red-warriors she saw earlier. Neshorn put himself between the man with the hat and her, then after a while, he picked her up as gently as he can, put her in the massive vehicle, and closed the doors. She could still hear the dispute outside, but apparently she was safe now. She sat on some animal pelt she couldn't recognize, the panic and the adrenaline of that days events finally taking a toll on her fragile body. She cried herself to sleep.
