It was enough...
The protesters only now saw how hopeles the situation was, caught between the Under Appreciation Day and those dominant in said city. Their brothers had warned them.
The mournful few. A splinter faction in the lamenters trying to band together. THey who spoke against a pointless protest from the hopeful slew, larger in numbers. Both picking up on the men assaulted at night and left to their devices.
The mournful few and the hopeful slew had a quarry towards what to do. The former, radical on a permanent plan, had clashed ideals with their latter brothers. Despite this, they cared for their brothers under fire. Shared their plan with them, should their attempt at peaceful protest fail.
Hence why a change made manifest toward the date of their protest, as a gamble, among them. What was to occur once the under world enthusiasts clashed with the common mob of the city. Would there be a carthasis? An epiphany? A heel-turn?
What happened killed the hope of the hopeful slew. Many men identified as the more submissive kinds toward the ruling caste had subtly been placed in the front, efforts provided by the mournful few, as protection for those with fading hope, the dying light in their eyes. They dove out as the under worlders struck, alongside with the rest.
They accumulate around the remaining men, taking a grab for their soft bodies. The hopeful slew, who by then vacated the immediate surroundings, watched in horror as the surrogates were pulled around. The struggle depicted not the contest among ladies into who could please them in the short term, with promises of lasting happiness. No, instead, they were as toys, to be used first then second, then third.
Seeing this lack of consideration, even for those who glow under such conditions, shattered the remain of their hope. Their name, at that time turned to tearful remains, forever lightless, as their brothers were. Brothers, who join them in empathy, a vial and a mask in hand for their deillusioned comrades. A blank mask, well representing the state they were left in.
This cithy was lost to them, but still they loved it. Unable to fully depart from this place they used to live with, a projection was formulated by the mounful few, to depart, but remain.
Soon enough, the monsters, with heightened senses as they were, noticed a severe lack of what used to be a grouping. Those with their prize wasted no time 'introducing' themselves to the willing few. The rest scattered to the winds, looking for wht was essentially half of the city in males. They soon found them, under the evening, watched by a orange sky signaling the course of midnight to come. All bore masks, white, featureless.
The ladies, exposed to this strange behavior for the first time, are somewhat hesistant, unsure of how to act, until a few bold ones come through and grab the first ones, who adhere without resistance. Or so they thought...
The moment the dark elves, demons devils, minotaurs or otherwise made contact with the motionless men, ashes poured out. Out of the contact area, resulting in the men convulsing, almost as if they were sucked out of life before falling against the ground, lifeless, bodies slowly decomposing into ashes. An unheard shriek seeps out of those who stood in the very first rows to see. Then the other joined in, falling to the ground and turning into ashes.
Reports of men all across the city going lifeless overwhelmed the news outlets, almost all of them adorned with a mask. The population of males in its utmost entirely, save for those who saw life under the monsters' heel as favor, decomposed. Monsters everywhere panicked. Some tried to hold on to the decompositing held in their hands, unresponsive to their words, their touch. Others went for the scattering ashes in the wind, thinking it could serve to reform the one deperted in such fashion. None worked
And then, as the city was starting to cover itself in a festival of ashes, paper sprouted among it. Paper falling like raindrop as opposed to the ashes all departing to the east. Of course, in the madness of things, some were admant in grabbing a few to read. A bleak message for their hearts:
We now depart from this place. Left to our own devices, by your hands or apathy. So long have we tried building a bridge between us and your kin, ony for it to be broken.We depart from this place, our heart left sobbing in the gutter as you left many of us at night, laughing, mocking. Our attempts at a compromise, countless. All of them, failures. This last stand, a vision of our fate under your heels. We depart from this city, though it served to bring us such happiness in the time. SInce none of us had the heart to leave it completely, we depart from this place, the only way we can...
One with the ear for proverbials could hear the metaphorical hearts breaking, one by one. Their acts had pushed their gender opposites to a mass burial of their own volition. The ashes, an eternal remainder of their sins. The mayor herself, once thought spared from this fate, shrieked at her arrival home. To see a lifeless husband, sitting at the table, his face adorned with a mask and halfway thorugh ashes and dust. A paticuliar letter for her...
Some ashes, defying their betheren, seep deep down the darker corners of the world en masse, hidden by grief and darkness. They swell well underground, to what looks like a hidden city, a dark mirror of the surface world. The ashes shape back, spawning thousands of men, all in their departing attire, all standing before a singular one, who's eyes flash died down.
Hundreds of thousands of televisions strapped to the ceiling open as they walk toward, to watch as their molts scatter across the town. The crying, the miserable, the enveloping darkness. Though they were in a similar darkness of their own. This was their home now. They could never truly leave their beloved city, so, they live in its dark mirror...for now, until death...