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Welcome to Sectarians of Eliraihah..

We are a group of those striving to create a utopia for roleplayers and writers alike, and provide a shelter from the normal confines of society. On our behalf, enjoy yourself.

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Beyond the Pale; Triune
Tweet Topic Started: Apr 23 2013, 11:20 AM (143 Views)
Post #1 Apr 23 2013, 11:20 AM Azedos Sen
A light flickers in the darkness. For a moment it’s all you can see. With a flicker and a pop a light slowly comes to life, illuminating your surroundings just a tad. Right in front of you is a decrepit jukebox that has surely seen better days. Yet nonetheless, the circuitry seems to still be working as the neon lights slowly power on. You hear a soft rumble as the machine shakes, along with the rest of the dimly lit room. With a soft click an old holodisk falls into the player, and a burst of static sings out to the world before transitioning into the quiet lyrics of a woman singing.

“Birds flying high you know how I feel”

Your view pans back slowly revealing a broken down bar that’s clearly seen better days. There’s not a single piece of it not touched by age or vandalism. Broken bar stools litter the ground, glass bottles the counters.

“Sun in the sky you know how I feel”

In the corner is a broken television, its screen smashed in countless years ago. A layer of dust covers the whole of the room, from wall to wall. Even the posters on the wall, colors worn and run letters can’t escape the march of time. On the wall is a message that appears newer, but faded. ‘Ceci ne pas un bombe’. The red paint slowly leaks down and joins the dust on the neglected floor.

“Breeze driftin' on by you know how I feel”

Another, stronger rumble shakes the building as your view moves out towards the boarded up window. Light pours in around the edges of the wooden planks blocking its view. A deep blue light with white around the edges, it tantalizes your view as it slowly approaches. As your view turns back to take one last look at the jukebox, it gives a little hiccup and the speakers start playing on full volume.

“It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me
And I'm feeling good”

Your view suddenly shoots past the window to overlook the ruins of a beautiful city. Once carefully constructed, tasteful houses now lit afire with a strange blue flame. Strangely enough, several of them still stand though fully enveloped. Your view moves past a giant mannequin dressed in a devils garb, smiling sinfully with pitchfork in hand and you see movement on the ground below. Stumbling around without a care in the world, several corpses shamble about, some clothed some without. The sounds of reckless carousing almost override the music of the jukebox, as you see one corpse stumble to the side and vomit, eliciting uproarious laughter from his fellows. The next moment, you see a flaming figure dive out one of the flaming buildings and fall to the ground, writhing and crawling slowly towards the group before becoming still. The group laughs just as hard as they continue to drink and move along without a second glance. In the distance, a great empty tower of steel stares over the city, lit from below by that same deep blue glow.

"Fish in the sea you know how I feel
River running free you know how I feel
Blossom on the tree you know how I feel”

Your view shoots across the land, miles crossed in an instant. You see two men in an empty field. Their leather clothing shines dully in the afternoon sun. They hold metal blades in their hands as they slowly circle around each other. A dull roar pounds your ears, but still not above the music. All of a sudden one rushes the other. The other’s blade rises to meet the challenge, but the runner feints and goes below his reach. With a swift stab, he impales his opponent, the crimson spray of his lifeblood splashing across the runner’s leather corselet, and slowly leaks down. Brutally he rips the blade free, and in a single motion twirls and cuts his enemies head off. As your view pans back over his triumphant face, you see the roaring crowd that fills the stadium. And in the commenters box sits a man with a satisfied expression on his face.

“Dragonfly out in the sun you know what I mean, don't you know
Butterflies all havin' fun you know what I mean”

Your view moves to take in an exquisite stone hallway. Worn though it may be, these stones have withstood the tests of time. Dozens of men clad in furs sit at a long table, feasting and drinking, talking amongst themselves and thoroughly enjoying life. The loudest among them wears a crown and holds a massive goblet in his hand, raising it as he speaks to the crowd. Suddenly the doors burst open, and a virtual army of naked corpses explode upon the supping men. Though weapons are drawn and shots fired, eventually they are overcome. A glowing corpse in metal armor walks through the carnage, followed by several in robes carrying various accoutrements. Gazing around, his eyes land on the man with the crown, his eyes staring out as the naked corpses tore his body apart. The corpse nods to one behind him, who hands him a banner, painted with a green sunburst over an atom. With a firm stab, he sends it deep into the table, knocking over a variety of cups and the kings goblet. And the red liquid within slowly leaks down, mixing interminably with the sea of red that coats the floor.

“Sleep in peace when day is done
That's what I mean”

Once more your view swiftly moves to another nameless location. Darkness covers the land now, the moon covered with a heavy blanket of clouds. The only features you can make out as your view pans over the landscape is a massive structure that stretches as far as the eye can see. Periodic lights dot its scope, flickering in the night. And amongst those lights move hulking figures, lit only slightly before disappearing beyond the pools of light. As your view approaches this structure you realize it is a great wall, composed of a composite of too many metallic objects to count, all welded and smashed together. Slowly your view reaches the top of the wall, and looks out over it, but it’s too dark to see anything other than a dim white glow. One of the hulking figures stands off to the side, looking out at that same view. For just a moment, the cloud breaks and you see…The figure, what looks to be a man clad entirely in metal, towering over you. In his hands is a deadly looking piece of technology that glows and pulses with a fierce energy. Where his face should be was only cords, wires, and vents. Two lenses were placed in a vague shot at where eyes should be, gazing out with a dim orange glow. The figure stares out into…before turning to face you. A siren begins to wail in the distance, and as the moon hides behind the clouds and darkness covers the land once more, all you can see are those two orange eyes, slowly moving towards you.

“And this old world is a new world
And a bold world
For me”

The track clicks, and circulation continues. The voice that comes next is deep but soft, harsh edges sanded down by time and experience. It waits for a while, the crackle of background noise filling the quiet space. Slowly but surely though, as if on some unseen cue, it begins to speak.

"You know, I've spent a long time trying to think of what I wanted to say here. I wanted to avoid the major clichés. The “by the time you’re listening to this, I’ll probably be dead” and the like. There’s no probably about it, I've already made the decisions and I know their repercussions. I could take a moment and explain the mechanics of my Leibgarten, or maybe make some cryptic statements about my name. But no, this isn't one of those. After all, I don’t particularly expect anyone to actually ever hear this recording. In the end, this really is all about me, isn't it? It’s hard to believe that I get what I always wanted all along. I just never expected it to turn out like this. I doubt anyone ever could."

"I’m here, right now, recording this story, because it is a story that needs to be told. Not listened to, not discussed, not learned from. Simply told. Maybe you’re familiar with stories. Maybe you've heard some told before by a wandering bard, maybe you've scavenged some of those precious, non-damaged books, assuming you even know how to read that old dialect. Or maybe you’re like me, and you were given the almost impossibly lucky of upbringings, in one of those safe and sane Arks, with plenty of clean water and a wealth of history. If so, you probably have some guesses as to the contents of this story. Something about heroes, and great battles, and overcoming impossible odds; events larger than life, that shape the fabric of history and the world. Well I’ll tell you; this isn't one of those stories. Sure there are great battles, and impossible odds, and maybe even a hero or two depending on who you ask."

"But in the end, it’s merely a story about a man. A good man, or an evil one, a great man, or a weak man, a smart one or an idiot, I can’t really say. Even after all I've been through, all the things I've seen…the choices I've made, I still can’t say. So maybe that’s why I need to tell this story. Maybe, in the end, I need someone else to tell me what it is after all."

"So, person who probably doesn't exist, listen to my dulcet tones as I spin you this pointless real story. I can’t guarantee you’ll enjoy it, or learn anything from it, or even if it’ll be interesting to you. But maybe, just maybe, it’ll make you think, if only for a second. And I think I’d be okay with that."
Edited by Azedos Sen, May 7 2013, 08:45 PM.
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Post #2 May 7 2013, 08:39 PM Azedos Sen
The corpses of the three ultra-mutants steamed slightly on the ground before me, scorch marks littering their patchwork armor. I watched them with a dead stare as I methodically replaced the micro-fusion cell in my laser rifle. Mutants were notoriously tough, I couldn’t count the number of times I had turned from one I had thought dead twice over, only for them to get right back up and lay in to me with a vengeance. It should come as no surprise; really, they were crafted by the Patriarch to be the ultimate life-form. Massively muscular, standing several feet over me in my suit of powered armor, with a dull greenish, thick skin that looked like it was made entirely of callous. Immune to all poisons or toxins, they were even healed by radiation, like some twisted creature out of ancient mythology. It was sickening, an abomination against nature, a twisting of science’s noble purpose into something…else.

I shook my head. Now wasn’t the time to dwell on such things. Here I stood at the crux of my quest, my moment of triumph. I continued down the mildewed and forgotten halls. Familiarity guided my feet; I knew each and every turn to take by heart. From time to time I met still more mutants, with each one my rifle lifted to my shoulder, recoilless cleansing fire releasing each and every one from the torment of their new existence. I had opted for a more direct approach, as I so often do, and with my skill honed over the course of my journey, my aim never faltered. Door by door, I moved mechanically thorough the ancient complex leaving behind a semi-melted train of bodies, until finally I reached my destination; the lair of the Patriarch.

I swiped the card-key I had taken from the mutant commander through the lock, and with a hiss of pneumatic air the heavy steel door opened into the darkened final corridor. Here my tread slowed, the heavy mechanical steps of my powered armor muffled as I trudged through the slew of organic biomass that covered the ground. In the distance, I could hear the tell-tale sounds of computer hardware running. Other than that, the complex lay completely silent. My heart began to race; here again was the end of it all. It was, simultaneously, my favorite and worst part. That culmination of events that has led to this precise moment of action means also that, after this, there is nothing left. All those treasured moments, those of fear and of pleasure, have all led me to this very instance. There’s no going back now. I took a deep breath to steady my pounding pulse, and stepped through the final door.

The room was dimly lit, as always; the Patriarch apparently disliked intense light. It was a circular room that once no doubt served to hold the server for the entire complex, now instead it served as the residence of the…creature known only to most as “The Patriarch”. I raised my eyes to the thing that took up the center of the room, fighting back the nausea I always felt looking at its hideous form. A twisted amalgamation of living flesh and computer, fused together with metastasized flesh and tumorous growths, a multitude of limbs, some useless and miniscule, others massive and powerful, all alien and inhuman littered what could be called its body. A tentacle-like limb lazily moved in the background, adjusting various knobs and switches on the super-computers that composed the mechanical half of the Patriarch’s body. And right in the middle of it, a misshapen head, and skin partly melted away like soft cheese, revealing the skull and mechanical implants underneath. It had the audacity to smile at me. Well, if you could call what it did a smile; perhaps instead it was an imitation of rigor mortis.

A voice rang out through the small room, its circular nature causing the sound to reverberate around me, as though assaulting me from every direction. Even this was a testament to just how far gone this thing that was once a man had fallen. A metallic voice crafted through a synthesizer, built to ease the burden off vocal cords that had long ago atrophied into so much toxic waste.

“Ah, the vauntedvaunted Hero of thethe Wastes returns toto us. Your deedsdeeds are legendary youyou know. Tell usus, have you reconsideredreconsidered our generous offeroffer? Will you joinjoin us in gloriousglorious Unity?”

Those words, they drilled into me, much as they always did. No matter how many times I heard them, something about that voice, or the way it spoke perhaps, always put me on edge. But, experience is the ultimate depressant in the end, dulling the effect as I paid the creature no mind. Instead, I considered my options. There was of course, the standard procedure. Load up a fresh microfusion cell and proceed to turn the abomination into the pile of ash and slag it so rightly deserved to be. But that was a lesser path, simple; effective to be sure, but not particularly worthy of an ending, in my opinion. I toyed with the option of manipulating the computers into setting the generators to overload, thus causing a meltdown large enough to destroy the entire complex. A grandiose method, one I had done before, but it lacked subtlety. As the Patriarch’s unblinking eye stared straight at me, I pondered what to do; this time I wanted it to be special, unique, something I had never tried. And that’s when it struck me. Perhaps if I talked to it, engaged it in conversation…

“I’m afraid I’ll have to decline your offer, Patriarch. I’ve discovered evidence that your plan is realistically unfeasible.”

“What? What couldcould you possibly meanmean by that.”

“Look at the data for yourself. Your ‘master race’ of Ultra-mutants is entirely sterile, each and every single one. Within a generation or two of transforming all humans into such, you’d drive yourself to extinction.”

“That is impossibleimpossible. My scientists havehave assured me thatthat…”

His voice modulator went silent as the information I had transferred began to be processed. It was shocking really, to see that face that was more machine then man, more monster then man, shift as he slowly realized the truth that lay before him.

“No, this can’tcan’t be true, you’reyou’re lying, this hashas to be fakefake. I…We…ifif this were truetrue, then our workwork, would be...meaninglessmeaninglessmeaningless.”

I watched as new, utterly human features appeared on that utterly alien face as the realization hit him. Faced with this irreconcilable truth, the shock and despair showed plainly. For the first time, I looked at the face of the patriarch, and saw not a monster but a frightened shell of a man, lost and alone in a world that had forgotten why it had made him in the first place. It was frightening…but also exhilarating. Here was something new, here was something unseen, something different. Wrought by my hands, I had taken the road and paved a new way. The room grew silent, save for the ever droning hum of the supercomputers constant running.

“The things I’veI’ve done, cannot bebe undone. The choiceschoices I made, thethe lives I destroyeddestroyed, it’s all worthlessworthless. I…we…whatwhat do I havehave now? No hopehope, no point, nothingnothing…leave, ifif you wish. Therethere is no pointpoint in stopping youyou now. No pointpoint at all…”

There was a slight alteration in the stillness. A resonating in the hum that I knew, that I recognized. Had he…could it be, that he had…that I had driven him to such? I gazed past the monstrous form, quickly using the zoom of my helmet to focus on the lit computer screens behind it. What I saw confirmed my suspicions, and also raised the hairs on the back of my neck. Of his own volition, willingly, he had set the nuclear reactor that lay at the bottom of the complex to overload. Within minutes, the entirety of the surrounding area would be an irradiated crater. His eyes, empty, mechanical, lifeless, stared at me; they spoke only a single word. Run.

Without a moment’s hesitation more, I turned and ran. Back through the corridor filled with rejected biomass, back through the forgotten halls littered with ash and scorched bodies, through stairs and up elevators. All the while, my Leibgarten ticked down the seconds. 360. 300. 209. 96. 66. 39. I wasn’t going to make it…even as I saw the exit to the complex, the dim light surrounding the door like the shining halo of heaven; I knew I couldn’t reach it in time. This was the end then. Grimly I turned away, towards the rising explosion. The heat flush against my face, beginning to boil me alive, the *Tick tick tick* of my Geiger counter rising faster than it could count, a blinding light that erased everything else. I just…

The walls fell away, and suddenly my eyes opened to the familiar sight of the simulator pod hatch above me. With a well-oiled hiss it popped open, and I sat up with a slight groan, rubbing the back of my neck. I gazed around me at the walls of the sim-room, the dull grey metal staring back at me as if asking what I expected. “Back in reality. Guess that really was game over for me. I should really stop pushing the boundaries of the code like that.”

“I’ll say you should Jules, do you want Father on your back again? Break another pod and he’ll have you on lower deck duty for a week.” Thomas looked over the console with an exasperated smile before turning back to his calibrations. He spoke the same tired lines without even looking up from his work. “And what have I told you about talking to yourself man, you know it puts people off.”

“Hmph, I don’t see the harm in it. Can’t a man vocalize his thoughts every once in a while?” I swung my legs over the side of the pod and hopped off; giving my back a good stretch while I was at it. “As for Father, I’m sure he’ll find some reason to poke at me anyway.” The sim-pod closed behind me and I gazed at it for just a moment in thought. Had that ending been programmed by the developers of the sim? Could they have foreseen a player trying to talk down the end boss, instead of facing him in combat or destroying his facility? I had never once encountered it, despite all the times I had run through the sim in entirety.

“Hm? Something wrong J?” Thomas again looked up from his screen, this time with a concerned look on his face. “You’ve been running the wasteland sim an awful lot lately, even more than usual. That can’t be healthy man. You got something on your mind?” My gaze turned to him. Thomas, the one person in the whole Ark I could really call my friend. He always had a knack for seeing past the mask of politeness I wore whenever I was troubled. It wouldn’t do to bother him about it though. Whenever I had tried to talk to him about things, he always gave me a confused smile, tied off with a ‘Well, if you say so J.’

“Nothing that isn’t usually there Tom. Are we done for today?” He looked back down at his screen and waved me off.

“I think so. There’s a few more calibrations to run on the repair v1.4 sim, but I’ll take care of it, you go on ahead J.” With a nod of my head, I turned to the door. As I pressed my hand to the biometric scanner though, I turned back to my good friend.

“Say…Tom. I did have a question for you though. You ever get that kinda feeling that…you’re missing something? Like there’s something you need to do…but you can’t quite tell what.” I stared at my hand, at my friend, at the familiar sight of the rows of sim-pods lined out through the large room. He was quiet for a few moments, and we both just sat there in silence. Finally he shifted in his seat and gave a light cough.

“What, like you forgot about a project that you were assigned?” My eyes moved to his face. There was the usual confused smile on his round face, the earnest desire to help coupled with the total inability to do so. I gave a quiet sigh.

“Nevermind; don’t worry about it Tom.” Instantly his face relaxed, confused smile still there as he turned to his screen for the final time. “Well, if you say so J.” I turned away even as those played out words echoed in my ears, the metal door closing behind me, cutting me off from the grey metal room and instead leaving me in a grey metal corridor. Grey, what a dull color…I was sick of it. My feet moved on their own, following the same path they always did throughout the network of tunnels and corridors. I didn’t even need the map my Leibgarten brought up in my Heads Up Display, the small holographic projection an antiquated annoyance I quickly dismissed with a gesture of my hand. The walls all blended together, the faces of the people passing me by as well. There weren’t many, and none of them gave me so much as a hello. To them, I was just ‘That guy who worked on the sims”. I wasn’t even in charge of the department. That was Thomas, believe it or not. I had—

I stopped in my tracks. While I was busy in my thoughts, I had arrived at my destination, my room. Unfortunately, it seemed I wasn’t the only one heading there. Down the corridor I could see him, heading this way; it was clear where he was going. Father. A sigh escaped me as I walked the last few meters. There was no point in trying to avoid him; he’d find me eventually anyway. No, it was best just to get it over with, even though I already knew what he was going to say.

We stood outside my door, neither seemingly willing to start the conversation. It was childish, I know, but still some part of me wanted to hope that, maybe if I didn’t initiate, he’d lose interest and leave. Maybe he’d save it for some other time, when I wasn’t stuck so deep within my own thoughts. I watched as his eyebrows scrunched down on his high forehead, his mouth set in a loose line. For just a moment, I thought he might actually do it. Hesitation lingered in his eyes, and his shoulders shifted ever so slightly. But then, his mouth opened and it began.

“Jules, good to see you son. I heard today’s calibrations took a little longer then calculated. Anything wrong?” His voice was calm but stern, like it always was. Like he was always on the brink of disappointment. Still, they carried that hint of familiarity that he only used with me. I gazed at the floor. I could never look him in the eye during these talks.

“Nothing to be worried about Father, some of the diagnostic routines just wouldn’t cooperate today. The equipment is getting old, and we’re low on the maintenance priority list.” He nodded sagely, rubbing his chin and the thin beard there. It had always seemed to me like he was growing out the thing to somehow make up for the thinning of his hair elsewhere. Like perhaps if it grew long enough, no one would notice that his hair had moved from the top of his head to the bottom of it.

“Good…Well, good that it’s nothing serious at least. I’ll try and talk to maintenance about your needs, but, you know everything seems to be falling apart around here. We all have to make sacrifices in times like this. Still, you know we appreciate the work you boys do down there in Simulations. We wouldn’t be where we are today without the valuable training those sims provide.” He was doing it again. Rambling on and on because he couldn’t get around to the point. Or maybe he just didn’t want to get to the point. It was a trait we both shared I guess, despite my straightforward nature. People hated it when you were blunt like that, so I had learned to talk around the issue. It was a skill that had served Father well though, where as it just served to make my conversations last twice as long. “And what have I told you son, it’s not Father when it’s just the two of us. I’ll always be Jacques and you’ll always be Jules. No little promotion will ever change that.”

I chuckled inwardly. A little promotion huh. I guess leader of the entire Ark was just a small time job these days. After all, it did mostly run itself. All the departments with all their automated processing robots and machines, from the energy core to the air filter and even maintenance was mostly automated. The only department that required any labor was Food production, and even then they had all kinds of tools to help that along. “Right, of course…Jacques...”

He shifted on his feet a little and rubbed the back of his neck. Here it came, the dreaded question. “So, have you given any more thought as to taking that position? It’s a bit more work, to be sure, but you know I think you can handle it. Thomas there, well, he just doesn’t have the knack for computers that you’ve got. And you know, you did just turn 18 a few days ago…” His voice trailed off as I studiously examined the screen that opened my door. The moments ticked by, agonizingly slow. I knew he was waiting for my response. I knew just as well that I wasn’t going to give him an answer. I had infinite patience for a situation like this, having practiced it my whole life. Soon enough he’d cough, or clear his throat, and change the subject, and I’d be free.

Father cleared his throat and looked away. “Well, I’m sure you’ve had a rough night so I’ll let you get some sleep. I just want you to think about it alright? I think it’d be good for you…you know I worry about your lack of drive. We all have to do our part to keep the Ark alive, and if just one person isn’t giving it their all…well, we don’t want to think about that.” I still didn’t say anything. Even this I had heard a thousand times. When I was younger I used to mutter assurances or excuses, but these days, I found it better to just sit through it with a straight face, maybe nodding every once and a while. He gave a nod of his own, seemingly satisfied that his sermon had gotten through to me. Finally, he turned to leave, letting me reach out to my door panel. The light scanned a quick green, and the door rose with a quiet groan.

“Hold on just a minute Jules, I almost forgot.” I gave a mental groan that echoed my door, and turned back to face Father again. In his outstretched hand, he held a small object. “You did just turn 18, so by the law you can access your Gene-locker. Of course, you’re expected to put something in there yourself one day, so go take a look. Well…good night then.” Father looked at me expectedly, as though he was waiting for me to say something. Maybe he was still waiting for an answer to his earlier question.

“Yeah…good night.” Instead, I simply took the key and closed the door behind me. Finally, alone! Alone without people bugging me for advice on how to make the sims work or to fix their pods, alone without Tom needing my help on a calibration, alone without Father...No, I wasn’t going to think about that now. I needed to relax, to take my mind off things and allow it to recharge. Dealing with people for a long period of time was hard; it drained me of energy, made me sluggish and dull. Always having to think of the right thing to say, the right things to do and how to act. You always have to be careful around others, the slightest move or word could change their entire perspective of you in an instant.

I let out a long sigh and looked around my room. The normally grey walls were covered in pictures I had drawn throughout the years. My own desperate attempt to destroy that hated color. Most of them were of superheroes from those old comics I had dug from the ancient vaults of the Ark literature stores. Their square jaws and bright costumes as familiar now to me as the well-crafted seam of a sim-pod. But some of them were of other things. Myself, mostly, or rather, how I wished I looked. I moved toward one stuck to my personal mirror, the very same I had used to gather a reference for my face. My own eyes stared out at me from the paper, just as grey as the walls behind it. But those eyes…they had purpose, a reason, drive. They were the eyes of a hero.

I gave another sigh and shook my head. There weren’t any heroes in the Ark. We didn’t need them, after all. I looked above the photo, into the eyes of my reflection. Now there was reality, wasn’t it. A scrawny, weak teenager in his utility jumpsuit, the slogan “Ark 309” blazed across his shoulders. With a pointed face and beady eyes, narrow brow and wide ears. I turned away from the image. No there weren’t any heroes here.

As I lay in my bed, fresh and clean from sanitization, I held the key to my gene-locker above me in the dim light. In the Ark, we were all family. There were no fathers or mothers, only Father. Everyone was brother and sister. The only difference was that some were your gene-brothers and some were your Ark-brothers. But, even with that, the old ones from before the Cleansing knew that the Ark needed some way to keep its history alive. So, when each and every member of the Ark turned 18, they received a key to their gene-family’s locker. You were supposed to put your most treasured possession in there, something important, so that your future gene-brothers and sisters could learn from your life. But I didn’t have anything…nothing I considered valuable anyway. I glanced over at the wall again. Maybe a picture? No…those aren’t anything special. They wouldn’t teach anyone anything. Who would want a crappy picture of a superhero in their gene-locker anyway…My eyelids grew heavy as I contemplated. Maybe I’d go take a look at what my ancestors had put in there, and that would give me an idea. And with that last thought floating through my head, my eyes finally shut, and I drifted off into the realm of dreams.
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Post #3 Jun 12 2013, 08:33 PM Azedos Sen
My eyes opened to the familiar sound of strings. It was the same song that opened each “day”; I had long ago memorized each and every bar of it, though I knew not the name. All I knew is that each day was prefaced by a separate section of that very same song. Today, it was the third movement. The sweeping strings and the resounding percussion served as the proverbial rooster to the entirety of the Ark, playing through the intercom system generally used for facility-wide announcements. Always starting at the exact same time; 6oclock in the ‘morning’. I glanced over at the blank walls. Morning. Those walls looked exactly the same as they did the night before. The only difference was the amber letters that hovered in the corner of my heads-up display.

A sigh escaped me as I rose, clearing the 6:03 from my view with a short wave. It was quickly replaced with my Ark-standard schedule, which I lazily glanced over. Obtain breakfast. Work the morning sim-room shift. Break for lunch. Work the afternoon shift. Leave for dinner. Small amount of personal time, presumably for repairing any tools or possibly reading a selection from the Ark literature stores. You know I wasn’t quite sure why it even bothered to bring up the schedule in the first place. It hadn’t changed once for the past 3 years. And as I pulled a fresh jumpsuit on, the familiar ‘Ark 309’ blazoned across its shoulders, I realized…it probably wouldn’t again.

That thought struck me as I walked down the corridors towards the dining center. Though I was more familiar with the sim-pods than anything else, I did know at least a rudimentary amount on the specs of the Leibgarden. I knew that Father broadcasted the schedules himself via an A-band frequency. In fact, it was my knowledge that several functions of the Leibgarden were controlled via that same frequency. Even if I accepted the position Father had offered me, my schedule wouldn’t change. I would still spend my days exactly the same way. In the end, the one choice I had in my life would, inevitably, change nothing at all either way.

I pondered that as I slowly walked through the line at the dining center; grabbing a gray colored tray with food equal in hue. Tom waved from our usual table, and I waved back as I made my way over. The time flickered in the corner of my eye, before disappearing once again as I gave a slight nod. Here was where I would sit down to eat breakfast with Tom, he would ask how I was doing, and I would respond in a non-committal, neutral way, same as I always did.

“Morning J, how you doing there man.”

“Alright Tom, can’t complain you know.”

And with that we’d both settle in to our food, content to leave each other in silence. The dining hall was often silent; now that I thought about it, save for the soft music playing over the intercom. There were a few conversations of course, but they were quiet and composed. Compact, even. It wasn’t like there was much to talk about. Noteworthy events were few and far between, and Father was always harping on efficient use of time. He didn’t even like the pitiful gossip running around about who was whose gene-brothers or sisters, but then he never did put much value in counting genes. Too concerned with the future of the Ark, I supposed.

I once again checked the time. 6:27. I had already finished my meal, and soon Tom would finish his. Then we’d both head to the sim-room to start the first shift, just as we always did. I watched him lift the fork to his mouth idly as he stared into a holographic print off his Leibgarden. From my angle, I could just make out that it was about the calibrations he had been running last night. That was Tom though; he was always working on something. I figured we all had to…otherwise I was quite sure that we’d all go mad in here. The small clink of his fork hitting his tray in the total silence jerked me back to reality.

“Well, guess we’d better be on it then.” He gave me his trademarked smile and moved to gather his things, while I gave a half-hearted attempt in return. There was something off here, but I couldn’t quite place my finger on it. It was only when I grabbed my own tray that it hit me. The music had stopped. The time floated in the corner of my eye, 6:36; Father usually kept it running until 7. What could have made him change the routine? The soft murmuring of the other diners echoed in my ears, pounding against my skull without the buffer of the music’s white noise.

“If I could have your attention, please.”

The commanding voice of Father broke the ambient noise of the room and plunged it into total silence. I looked up in surprise, my hands loosening their instinctively tight grip on my tray. My eyes met with Tom’s, who held an equal amount of confusion and the slightest hint…of fear. With a quick glance across the room, I saw that our sentiment was often shared.

“This is Father speaking. I had hoped to keep this under control and to avoid bothering the general public; but recent insights into the matter have revealed hitherto unforeseen consequences. As such, I am making a public announcement. Those of you working within the food production department may very well be aware that recently we have had some trouble with the solar lamp that simulates the sun for our crops. Our initial examinations of the lamp had led us to conclude that it was an easily fixable situation and that there was nothing to be alarmed about. However; I have just received a report that these conclusions were…optimistic at best. A more thorough examination has revealed that the solar lamp’s circuitry and wiring is in a state of irreparable degradation. Our mechanics have given me a preliminary estimate of about a week before the lamp will burn out for good.” My eyes widened as a large gasp filled the air, and the murmuring of the crowd turned into a dull roar.

“However! I do not bring this announcement simply to disturb your thoughts with grim talk. The situation is dire, I concede, but not without hope. As our Father, I will take charge of this terrible disaster, and use it as a means to further ourselves, and the Ark as a whole. Even as I speak to you now, I am gathering a crack team of the finest security officers we have. All expertly trained and willing to give their lives in the protection of this Ark. Once this team has been assembled and outfitted, they will cast off…into the outside world.” The dull roar turned into utter silence. “In the hopes of finding ourselves a replacement solar lamp. It will be dangerous, for the terrors of the outside world are many and deadly, but your Father believes in their ability, and he hopes you do as well.” With a final dull crackle, the intercom returned to the soothing strings. The silence hung in the air like a steel girder. It seemed that no one dared to move, or to speak, or even to breathe. Slowly, ever so slowly, I put the tray down on the table. The clink of metal on metal seemed to echo throughout the room, resounding and rebounding against every wall and every beam.

The room exploded in sound as every single person seemed to start talking at once. I could barely hear myself think over the noise, much less hear Tom right next to me. “Did you hear that J? Father is sending people outside. I can’t even imagine…” His voice dwindled as I walked away, leaving him with a dumbstruck look on his face. Without even turning I left that room behind me, the roar like the waves of the ocean sim drumming in my ears. Outside. People were about to go Outside. I had to know…



“Absolutely not.”

Father didn’t even look up from the papers on his desk as he spoke; his hands moving in a practiced rhythm as he signed his name on one piece and moved it to the side. It had always seemed strange to me that he insisted on keeping material paperwork when it could just as easily be stored on a database, or even on individual Leibgarden’s. I knew better than to discuss it with him though, he’d simply state why he did it that way and that would be that. When he had his mind set, there was just no talking to him.

“The answer is no, and that is that. Really Jules, why would you even ask such a thing? I don’t think you realize precisely the consequences of going outside. It’s not something that I’ve gone to lightly, or even willingly. If I had my way, I’d keep that door locked for another 300 years…or at least until we got the all-clear from GenCo headquarters.” He finished signing the last paper and folded his hands in front of himself as he finally looked me in the eye. “You’re needed here, working the sim-room. What would we do if any of the sim’s got bugged? Or if a sim-pod broke down? You can’t expect Thomas to take care of that, can you?”

I shifted on my feet before I answered him. It was always uncomfortable when someone looked me in the eye. My gaze faltered and moved to the desk. “Well, there’s manufacturing and maintenance, and I feel like you’re selling Tom a bit short…he’s really gotten better at running the calibrations and debugging. Besides, I just felt…well you know, I do have the best score at the wasteland sim in the Ark. I figured that had to—“Father gave a short laugh before waving me off.

“Ha, please Jules. The wasteland sim? That thing is all pre-bomb propaganda and speculation. You’d be better off with one of those comics you’re always obsessing over. No, your place is here, in the Ark, where you’re needed. Leave the hero business to those who are actually TRAINED in it. Now, excuse yourself, I have to brief the security team.” And with those words, the conversation was over just like that. I stood there, blankly, as he casually flicked open his Leibgarden and dismissed me without a second thought. I knew that tone in his voice. There was no arguing now, no chance of even possibly getting him to consider alternatives. That was it, then. Even so…I briefly considered it. For even the slightest of moments, I considered challenging that impossibility. Even a percentage of .000000001 is still greater than zero, after all. I did, I almost did…but instead, I simply turned away. I walked out that door, past the two silent statues of security clad in their ArkSec body armor.

I wandered in a daze. The time flickered past me every once and a while, as did many faceless strangers, but I paid them no mind. I knew them, and I knew those numbers, but they didn’t mean anything to me. I walked down each and every corridor; each and every one was exactly the same. The same beams, the same supports, the same fluorescent lights. Each and every face, the same blur of features and expressions. Some I knew their names, others I didn’t. Each passed me by, without a word or a nod. They simply continued on in their business, as if I didn’t exist.

The sudden impact of the wall against my back brought me to my senses. I stared down at my hands, those hands which had carefully checked every line of every code in every sim. They sat there in front of my face, trembling slightly. My legs slowly gave way beneath me, and I found myself on the floor. That had been my one chance. My final, one chance of ever escaping the monotony that was my everyday existence; and I had just let it slip…right through these very same fingers. I let my hands fall into my lap as the weight of that really sunk in. I would wake up tomorrow, at the same time, and do the same things, for the rest of my life.

Out of habit I checked the time. Only 9oclock, it seemed. Right now Tom would be working on the engineering sim. It had been giving him some trouble lately, but he had insisted on fixing it without me. The morning class would be in the middle of their sims...It was all they knew. It was all I knew. Maybe Father was right. Was I just being selfish? Maybe I should just go back to the sim room, and forget all those dreams of heroism. Those comics…they were from another age. Besides, there weren’t any heroes here.

I stood up, dusted myself off and got ready to go...somewhere. There wasn’t any point in just sitting here, after all. However as I turned to leave, my eye caught on something. The very door I had stopped in front of in my daze, it hadn’t registered at the time. The Gene-vault. In all the fuss of the morning, I had forgotten to visit my gene-locker. I slowly pulled the key from the pocket of my jumpsuit. Well, I supposed I was already late to work; no one would miss me a couple more minutes.

The door opened with its familiar pneumatic hiss. It was fresh; no one ever came down here except the maintenance teams, so everything sparkled a shiny grey, instead of the usual dull one. The room stretched far ahead of me, filled to the brim with lockers. Row after row of them stood there, all alone in the cramped space. I knew that there were supposed to be several thousand people in the Ark, but it struck me now just how many weren’t related to each other. It seemed a strange thing. I guess that was how it was before the Cleansing as well. It was no wonder things ended up the way they did then; so many strange people all stuck together. Just the thought started to make my skin crawl. I shook my head to clear it and began to move down the rows. The number was on the key…

C-309…there it was. My hands slowly reached out. Now that I thought of it, it seemed strange to have these old key locks instead of some biometric system. In some ways, those lockers were as much a relic of the past as the objects inside. The lock turned, and with a soft click it opened. I wasn’t quite sure what I expected to find in there…but a Taser and an audio disc definitely weren’t on the list. Quickly I looked around, but as usual, no one was visiting. I don’t know why I was so nervous…after all, these things belonged to me, and I could take them out if I wanted to. Weapons were banned for non-sec personnel of course, but I was sure I wouldn’t get into trouble just by having a small, ancient Taser. No, it was something else that stayed my hand. Perhaps, even back then, I knew the precise weight of what was to come.

I held the disc in front of my Leibgarden, which scanned it briefly before making a virtual copy. When the hologram popped up asking if I wanted to play it however, I hesitated briefly. I could still put this down and walk away. Delete the copy and forget it existed, and then just go off and help Tom with his calibrations. Some part of me definitely wanted to do just that…a larger part of me than I realized. But…in the end…that gnawing mystery would eat at me for the rest of eternity. No…I had to know. With a trembling hand, I made the motion to play.

The audio crackled through the Leibgardens external speakers. It was soft; a warm woman’s voice that sounded like it had frozen over time. “The door code is ‘Is not 3 less than infinity’. They say I should put something valuable in here, something that meant something, but that’s all I have. I overheard it when I was young, and I almost chased after him. But I was young, and afraid, and alone. Don’t make the same mistake I did, whoever you are.”

I sat there, numbly holding the taser in my hands, unable to comprehend what I had just heard. It was the keys to freedom. As surely as the key Father had given me had opened this locker, those words would open the door to the outside world. The weight of this knowledge fell upon me like the heavens, and it was all I could do to withstand being crushed. And yet, though I sat there paralyzed, my mind was already made up. For the first time in my life, I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and exactly what I needed to do to do it. With a deep breath, I closed the locker, pocketed the taser, and left the room behind me. The way was finally clear.



I stared at the body in front of me. I stared at the taser in my hand, my finger on the activation. He wasn’t dead, of course. It was just a shock…just a harmless shock. I was almost surprised actually, that the taser had even worked. It was such an old thing, and the ArkSec member was even wearing his armor. I stared at his face. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember his name. I knew I had seen him before, of course I had seen everyone in the Ark. I had known them my whole life. But names? You don’t need to know names to call maintenance, or security, or productions. A harsh little chuckle escaped my throat, before transforming into a cough. I needed to focus now.

I moved to the side of the door and swung my makeshift bag onto the floor. Inside were what little supplies I managed to gather together without drawing too much suspicion: some protein bars and water canteens issued to the food production teams, a handful of chems I had grabbed off a shelf in medical, and a rusty wrench I had found near maintenance. It was a pitiful assortment, but it was the best I could do. As I fiddled with short-circuiting the door panel, my thoughts turned to the security guard lying on the floor.

It didn’t surprise me that there was only one security personnel guarding the entrance to the Door. It was practically vestigial. Go…outside? To the hellish wastes? That wasn’t something you even joked about. We had all been taught in primary sims that one day, GenCo headquarters would sound the All-Clear, that life on the surface was once again habitable and possible; and all the Ark’s would open to repopulate the new world. But that was…a fact of life. Or a theoretical fact. Everyone knew the truth, though nobody ever talked about it. The outside was a blasted wasteland, and the Ark would be closed forever.

It was a daunting thought, one that struck me even through my resolution. There was every possibility that I would emerge from the Door to an un-inhabitable waste, devoid of any life or sustenance, and be doomed to a slow death, all alone in a hellish landscape. Or maybe I’d find the remnants of humanity a hideous, crippled and mutated lot, quick to see me as nothing more than food to fill their insatiable appetite…I looked over at the ArkSec personnel again. Maybe I should take his armor…but it probably wouldn’t even fit.

I finished my work with the panel, and began to move towards the large console that dominated the small room. In front of its LED festooned surface was a window of glass which revealed the infamous Door. It was massive, a solid circle of steel reinforced by pillars of more of the same. It seemed out of place, stuck there amongst the natural rock walls. A singular expression of man, surrounded by natural forces. I stared, captivated for just a moment. It was like seeing the entirety of the Ark transposed into a single, compressed concept. My fascination was near instantly interrupted however, by the sound of banging at the door. It seemed that I had run out of time.

My eyes quickly swept the console in front of me. It was unlike any I had worked with before in the Ark, and even my sim-related knowledge was coming up quite short. It was strange, it was such a complex piece of machinery, yet it seemed to only control the door. The array of buttons and configurations were staggering, but so far as I could tell, none of it related to the monitor and password. It was a simple task to initiate the task; my fingers flew over the keyboard quickly and delicately. I had just a moment to realize that the thudding at the door had stopped before the personal radio on my Leibgarden crackled and hissed.

“Jules. I don’t know what exactly you hope to accomplish in there but let me tell you it’s a fools venture. Even if you managed to get that door open, what then? Where will you go, what will you do? You don’t even have the first idea of where to find a solar lamp, do you? Jules, please, listen to me.”

Father’s voice cut through the hum of the console like a blowtorch through a steel girder. My hand paused over the button, the monitor flashing “Confirm Door opening sequence (Y/N)”.

“You’re being rash Jules. We need you here, you’re wanted right here. Stay where it’s safe. Stepping across that door leads to a road you can’t turn back on. The moment you leave, you may never again return here. Can you live with that, Jules? Would you want to live with that? Please…Jules.”

It was the same voice I had always heard, the same voice that had always told me what I needed, and what I deserved. What I should do and what I should think. That same, smooth voice that spoke such soothing tones that I could never resist, could never oppose.

I hated it. It was strange, thinking back, that I had never hated anything before. Life had always had such a simple rhythm to it that I had never needed to hate anything. The very idea was foreign to me. I had read about it, of course, had heard it discussed in old sims. But there was no time for such things, no time for emotions or thoughts other than what needed to be fixed next. We…I had lived in such a state of constant labor that I had never questioned it, and so here I stood, faced all at once with the realization that I hated the very idea of the Ark. A sad little complex delved deep underground, keeping the remnants of humanity alive at the cost of their humanity. There weren’t any heroes here, because we didn’t need heroes. We needed repairmen, farmers, technicians. The Ark looked after its own, and that was all.

Well, let them. Let them rot in their hidden bunker, away from the world, content with living off recycled air and nutrient-turned soil. I would leave, I would go, and fulfill my destiny. I would be the hero the world needed and when I returned with the solar lamp they so desperately needed, I would smile and accept their thanks graciously. I would be the epitome of man that they had shunned, and because of that I would be their savior.

My hand carelessly pressed the button to confirm. “Warning: Stand Clear of Door” replaced the text on the monitor, and the earth began to shake. Though the reverberations shook me to the core, I stood stoically and still, watching the great steel circle move in silence. One by one, the pillars slowly descended into the earth, vanishing as if they had never existed; and with a tremendous, aching groan, the main door began to turn. Warning lights flashed, claxons blared their alarms, and the warning on the monitor continued its urgent message on eternal repeat. “You gargantuan IDIOT! You’ve doomed us all, Jules! I hope you realize what you’ve done! DO YOU HEAR ME?!” The crackle of the radio was barely a buzzing hiss in my ears in comparison to the moving of the earth in front of me. I ignored it and him as he continued to blather on and on. Soon enough he’d go quiet. I gathered my pack in one hand, slung it over my back and began to walk towards the foreboding darkness that lay beyond the gaping hole. Right before I entered it, I turned to take one last look at my past home. It wasn’t much, standing here in front of the entrance to the world. In fact all I could see was the Door console control room. But as I stood there, staring and saying goodbye, I felt a great weight lift from my shoulders. As if some giant had been leaning on me for all this time, and had only now decided to let me be. I shook my head at the analogy and kept walking.

The first thing that struck me as I entered the darkness was the cool breeze. The air in the Ark had always been perfectly climate controlled, neither too hot nor too cold. If it weren’t for the sims I probably would barely know what hot and cold were. The sweet air blew across my face and drifted softly through my hair, bringing with it gentle thoughts of a new world. As I walked I took the time to wonder about what I would meet out there. It wasn’t like I could see much in this rough-cut tunnel. The darkness clung around me like a well-drawn cloak, and even the precise beam of light from my Leibgarden didn’t do much to illuminate my surroundings.

The dark tunnel continued on and on, draining my sense of good will. I steadily trudged on, one foot in front of the other, as that was all I could see in the gloomy darkness. It began to wear on me, and my thoughts turned similarly dark. Had I done the right thing after all? What if Father was right, Maybe…my foot caught on something in my distraction, and I went sprawling to the floor. Luckily I had kept a tight grip on my pack, so the supplies were safe, however my Leibgarden had taken the action to mean cut off my light, which annoyed me somewhat. With a quick motion of my hand I re-activated it and moved to see what exactly had tripped me. The sharp light flashed in my eyes and the darkness swiping it aside easily and cleanly to reveal…a human skull.

It wasn’t my first time seeing one, I had seen plenty in various sims, anatomy, biology, the wasteland. Yet, even so, I couldn’t help but feel a shiver down my spine as I turned and pointed my light all around. Piles and piles of bones surrounded me, some complete skeletons, others mere bits and pieces, all human, all lying with their hands outstretched; as if to beg succor from some unforgiving god who lay just ahead. I swallowed hard, suddenly nervous as I slowly backed away. This was the outside, this was reality. No sim here, no these were real! I turned and ran, ran and ran as fast as I could away from the terrible sight, but no matter how hard and how far I ran the bones followed me; a hill of bones, a mountain of bones, a terrible plateau that rose up all around me and crashed down, covered me in despair and struck down all my reason. Finally…finally I reached the end of that tunnel, an anti-climactic thing, a small wooden door long rotten and covered in mildew and dust. Wild with terror, I grasped the handle and flung open the door to my long-awaited freedom.

The deep darkness around me was swiftly replaced with a softer sort; though I was too winded to take notice. I simply lay there on my hands and knees upon the hard rock surface, breathing deeply and quickly. Soon enough I regained my composure, more than a little glad that no one had seen me like that, and took stock of my surroundings. I found myself on a cliff surface with a small path that led downwards towards…

My eyes rose from the path, moved over the large broken down city buildings, and came to rest upon…the sea…And beyond that was…nothing, extending out into forever. Now, I had seen the sky before, in the sims. Lots of them had some representation of the sky and at least one segment that took place outside. But it was always limited in scope, by the nature of the code or the hardware. It was always just a skybox, painted over in sky-like colors. No matter how real it looked, I always knew that it was just an imitation, a fake. But here, here right now in front of me, was the real deal. My eyes rose and rose as I stared up and up into the dark abyss, filled with countless lights and colors that slowly faded away. I felt as though I stood at the pinnacle, the very peak, of existence, teetering over the depths of infinity. As though the slightest push, the mere slightest breath of wind could ease me over the edge, and send me tumbling down, down, down through the darkest corners of reality until nothing remained of myself so much so that even time itself forgot I had existed. It was maddening, terrifying and wondrous all at once, and I could feel the very core of my being in the process of being torn away by the endless infinity above me.

And that’s when I saw it. In the corner of my eye, a lightening of that dreadful darkness; a banishment of the alien colors and ever distant lights. Softly at first, yet growing in intensity. A light over the horizon, coming, was rising over the waves of the sea. A great circle of fire…the Sun! The Sun! Though I had seen its likeness many a time, only now did I behold it in all its mighty power! As it smote the darkness from the world, rising slowly and majestically to its rightful throne in the sky, adorned by the clouds above, I saw it. I didn’t know when I had risen to my feet, but at that moment I found myself fallen to my knees. In sheer, numb joy; with tears falling down my face, I saw the sun, and knew that it was the single most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It was a memory and picture that would stay with me for all the rest of my days without a doubt. The mark of the beginning of my freedom.
Edited by Azedos Sen, Jun 13 2013, 12:20 PM.
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Post #4 Jul 9 2013, 06:42 PM Azedos Sen
The path crunched noisily beneath my feet as I walked. It had taken me some time to gather myself after my outburst at the dawn, and now the sun sat high in the sky above me; a good quarter of the way across. Its gaze beat across my back in waves I was unused to, but nonetheless I walked with a spring in my step. I had begun my journey! Who knew what mysteries and wonders awaited, what damsels fair and villains evil I would both rescue and vanquish. My mind was easily occupied by these thoughts, and the gravel path eventually made its transformation into a dirt road, one that led straight to the decrepit city I had seen in the distance.

I had realized during my brief rest that as always Father had been right. I didn’t have any clue on where to find a solar lamp, or particularly any knowledge whatsoever on the matter. I had only a vague notion of what the thing even looked like. I had been in food productions of course, the vast underground caverns were the only parts of the Ark that were authorized to take up more space than standard regulations. But I had never cared much, or paid much attention to the solar lamp. It was just a light, like the thousands of other light fixtures throughout the complex. I had never thought that my whole life would revolve around a simple piece of machinery.

Which brought me to this city. The dirt path I was on had connected with the main, paved road, and now I walked among the long rusted corpses of broken down automobiles. The number of them was an eerie thing. It was a long line of them, coming and going, some crashed into each other; others calmly and patiently dying in neat accord. It began to remind me of the inescapable tide of bones in the dark tunnel, and I was sure if I were to check each car I’d find a complimentary skeleton. A metal tomb for each member of society it seemed, as they made their mad dash for survival. I gave a light shudder and tried not to think about it.

Finally I seemed to reach a point where the line thinned down. The entrance to the city lay before me, most anyone with a car would have tried to make it out I supposed. I saw a sign to the side. “Nice City, City limits”. I wondered just how nice of a city it was, or had been, back in the day. With a deep breath I continued on. The ancient buildings rose up all around me, old and venerable guardians who looked after the road. The watchful gaze of their broken windows followed me as I slowly walked down it. Perhaps it was that or maybe just my imagination as I gazed around me, but I had the inescapable feeling of being watched the whole time through. It followed me and weighed heavily on my mind, until I turned a corner and was struck with a curious sight that interested me far more.

Before me was a large poster or sign, worn and de-colored with age until it was essentially black and white. But though the colors had long ago faded, the picture stood quite clear and crisp. A man in power armor holding aloft a great flag, beckoning towards the viewer. His flag was composed of many different flags that streamed off in the distance, before condensing into a single, unified form. In the distance, a mushroom cloud loomed threateningly. And at the bottom in bold, faded letters, was the message: “United we must stand, against the threat of total destruction! The Commonwealth needs your help!”

Or at least, that’s the picture that would have been painted, were it not completely defaced. Near every inch of the poster was covered in various arcane symbols and letters, their purpose as mysterious as their makers. Two of the markings in particular caught my eye however. One was of an eye surrounded by a triangle, with the words “Semper Vigilans” underneath it. That eye stared at me unblinking. Of course it did, it was just a picture, yet something about it…I shook my head and looked instead at the other phrase I saw. This one lacked a picture, instead it simply read “Quis ut Deus” in letters I could barely make out. I reached out my hand and let it slide down the rough canvas. Something about touching it made it all the more real to me. For some reason, I felt the need to remember this long forgotten piece of the past. Someone, so long ago, had made this poster, and people equally as old had written all over it for their own various reasons.

I felt a new texture on my hand. Moisture…wetness. I looked at it closer, and saw two streaks of red…paint? I took a cautionary sniff to confirm my suspicions. Yes, it did indeed seem to be paint. Looking again at the poster, I quickly found the culprit. That phrase…Quis ut Deus…was now smeared by my hand it seemed. Still wet paint could only mean one thing.

I looked over my shoulder, across the deserted streets filled with long dead car corpses. It was quiet…still…peaceful, in as much as an empty, destroyed city could be. Nothing moved, save the occasional dust or dirt cloud with the wind. It was, by all accounts, the picture of tranquility.

So why did I feel so uneasy.

I took a deep breath to calm my nerves as I thought. In the corner of my eye flashed an alert on my HUD, but I paid it little mind. This whole scene reminded me of…something out of the wasteland sim. This would be the part right before…a sound broke through my concentration, and my gaze jerked over to the side. A glass bottle had tipped over and rolled out of the alleyway to my left. I stared hard at it as it slowly came to a stop, the clink of glass on pavement ringing out in the otherwise silent scene. It was stupid to go in there. I didn’t know what I’d find, but I knew that it was a bad idea. Yet, I was drawn to it. That feeling of uncertainty, of not knowing for sure what would come next or what I would find around the next corner. The thrill was...intoxicating…addicting, even, and though I knew it was dangerous, I didn’t want to stop. I couldn’t stop. I had to know…everything.

I softly slipped the rusty old wrench I had nabbed from maintenance into my grip. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was hefty and solid, and having it in hand helped ease the fear roiling in my gut. I snuck over to the alleyway, trying to be as quiet as I could as I peeked around the corner. It was dark, though the sun hung fairly high in the sky; there was some sort of balcony between the two buildings that limited the light that got through. I didn’t want to activate my light, but through the dimness I could just barely make out some figure. Every fraction of my brain was screaming at me that this was a terrible idea. And yet, I moved forward. I gripped the wrench in palms suddenly drenched in sweat. The figure just stood there as I snuck up on it, slightly bending from side to side, as if shifting its weight from one foot to another. When I was about a meter away, I ducked behind a couple trash bins to the side. I could hear a low rumble…it sounded like it was mumbling to itself. I still couldn’t make out whether it was a she or a he; but I could tell it was wearing torn clothes…clothes I recognized from the pre-war sims. I ran that through my head real quick; that meant it had to be some kind of scavenger.

Disregarding the greater implications of survivors, I had to first try and establish contact and see if they still spoke the language. This was the riskiest part of all…the scavenger could easily prove hostile…and if it were well-armed, could overpower me just as easily. I didn’t have any delusions about my combat prowess compared to the hardened survivors of the wastes. That meant I needed to utilize the element of surprise…the plan formed quickly and easily, and I checked my tools one last time before I enacted it.

In an instant I leapt out from behind the trash bins and activated my light at full intensity, the glaring light blinding in the otherwise dark alleyway. At the same time I raised my wrench and shouted out at the figure. “You there! Don’t make any sudden moves if you’ve got any weapons. I just want to know if you speak my language, do you understand me?” The figure stopped moving. Next he’d slowly turn around, perhaps put his hands up, and I’d finally get some…

My thoughts turned silent as the figure turned, revealing its features to the light. Of course, when I had left the vault, I had prepared myself to face horrific and disgusting visions in the wastes. There were plenty of unsettling images, monsters and scenes in the wasteland sim. I had thought myself de-sensitized, numb to the thought of horror in its conventional sense. Yet as that figure turned to face me, features revealed fully and clearly to the bright, stark harshness of my Leibgarden, I found myself struggling to contain the urge to scream. It bubbled in the back of my throat, hissed and boiled there in the seething froth of my stomach; it fought alongside the urge to vomit, and I couldn’t say which I would have preferred. Perhaps both or neither was appropriate for what I had borne witness to.

Its skin…hung from its body in tatters, where visible. That was, of course, where there was still skin; much of its muscle lay bare completely, lean meat glistening in the light. In fact all of it glistened with an oily sheen, from its skinless face to the body barely covered in what could only be described as singed rags. From a giant hole in the middle of its shirt, I could see the thin muscle of its chest covering its organs, which glowed with an unnatural green light. And those eyes, those milky, clouded eyes that nonetheless stared vacantly with animalistic intent. The rictus grin of its jaw moved, the muscles twitching as it opened; I watched with wordless horror as I saw the lungs inside its body balloon and deflate. And then…it spoke. A voice like smoke from a forest fire, like the very breath of death itself.

“I’ll have to call you back. I’ll have to call you back. I’ll have to call you back.”

It rambled, inflection rising and falling yet saying the same words all the same. It was a stream of madness, concentrated into an almost palpable form; the very image that stood before me was by all accounts, impossible. Yet that same impossibility slowly began to walk towards me, vomiting its grossly mundane speech. My grip faltered, and my wrench lowered as I slowly backed away from the encroaching menace; its arm outstretched towards me, mouth hissing and bubbling. “I’ll have to call you back. I’ll have to call you back. I’ll have to call you back.”

I turned and ran from that vision. I had to. I had to turn my back to it. Facing that…thing…meant accepting the fact that it existed. Accepting the fact that the world had decided to allow such a thing to exist. I ran back towards the street, only a few meters away yet that short distance seemed at the time to last forever. I didn’t dare turn back to see if that thing was following me. All I could think of was escape…I had to get away. That narrow opening led to salvation, its warm light beckoning me towards blessed freedom.

I burst from the alley entrance in a frantic daze; so blind with fear that I barely noticed when I tripped over the curb of the sidewalk and fell sprawling into the street. The brief spur of pain only slightly brought me back to the realm of reason. I took the moment to finally look back behind me; sure enough, I could see that terrible figure slowly stumbling towards me. The hideous features were hidden by the dimness, and the murmur of its insane voice was diminished, but I knew if I waited long enough I would again be confronted by that…thing. Luckily it shouldn’t prove too hard to escape; it didn’t appear to be in any condition to chase after anything. A single monster, no matter how terrifying, was an obstacle able to be overcome.

I got to my knees and reached for my wrench that had fallen off to the side. I gripped it tight in my hand and got ready to stand. That’s when it struck me. That faint sound that caught in my ears, that small movement that lurked in the corner of my eyes. My head swung rapidly from left to right; all around in a circle I moved to confirm my suspicions. From around corners, from broken down doors, from the very nether it seemed, more apparitions of death appeared. They walked casually, slowly, easily moving forward without much of a purpose it seemed. Or perhaps they had only a singular purpose, and all other things were secondary. Whatever the case, I saw an ever growing circle of singular intent slowly tightening around me. Waiting, they were patient. They didn’t need to hurry. They’d reach me eventually.

My mind raced as I stared at the swelling mass. It muttered and whispered ancient secrets; incomprehensible sayings that were as meaningful as they were sane. Even if I could bring myself to use the wrench, even if I could summon the strength to strike one down, how many of them were there? I was swiftly losing track. No, I needed to escape, find a safe place and formulate a plan. I scanned the growing crowd. There had to be…there! A gap in the circle. If I could squeeze through that, it should funnel the remainder behind me into one controllable mass. I gathered my gear and braced myself. I’d only get one shot at this.

I waited and waited as they drew closer. The skinless, burnt limbs that once might have been called arms outstretched, reaching out towards me. My head and heart pounded almost as one as I waited there amongst them. Slowly the circle grew smaller, and the horde grew closer, until…I burst forward with all my might, pushing off the ground and through that small gap. Time seemed to slow as I passed between two of the creatures. The smell of what I could only assume was rot and filth filled my nostrils just as much as their incessant words filled my ears. The hands grabbed at me, arms swinging wide and slapping me with dead flesh. Yet I continued forward with singular purpose as firm as theirs. With one final surge of speed, I was free.

I ran and ran. It struck me, in between ragged gulps of air and frantic praying for my life that so far my glorious freedom had mostly consisted of me running in fear. I wondered if that would be what the entirety of my new life consisted of. Then I realized I should probably focus on living now, so that I could ask these questions at a more appropriate time. The buildings passed by me in a blur, their differences miniscule to my unknowledgeable eye. I didn’t know what I was looking for until I found it, what looked like a house that was only mildly decrepit with a still functioning door. I ran inside and slammed it shut behind me, before collapsing against the wall gasping for air. Maybe I should have spent more time on those daily fitness programs.

When I had finally reached a point where I wasn’t red as an apple from food productions and could somewhat breath normally, I took stock of my surroundings. While the outside of the building had managed to weather the years fairly decently, I definitely couldn’t say the same for the inside. Dust and mildew filled my nose, and I had to desperately rub it not to sneeze. The filth covered nearly inch of the room; enough that I surmised no one had been inside for an extremely long time. As I walked down the short hallway filled with broken down, rotten furniture, I wondered about it. Did that mean that there were no survivors after all? Surely if there were, buildings like these would have been scavenged by now? Regardless, I would have seen signs of life by now, right? Or maybe there simply weren’t enough people in the world.

I reached the end of the hall and was confronted by a door and a set of stairs that led upwards. I briefly considered my options. While I might find something useful behind those doors, getting to a place of higher elevation would give me a better grasp of my surroundings…and I might be able to determine if that horde was still following me. I shuddered a little at the thought of facing it again, but began to climb the stairs anyway. The old boards groaned and creaked under my weight, but still held. I shook my head and grasped the banister. It surely wasn’t the most dangerous thing I’d done since leaving the Ark.

Upon reaching the top, I found myself in a small room with a window. More rotten furniture littered the room, along with decomposing boxes filled with all sorts of miscellaneous junk. I walked over to the window quickly, making sure to stay to the side of it. My eyes narrowed as I looked out across that forsaken street that had been the cause of all my troubles so far. Just barely in the distance I could make out the shuffling mass of the horde, slowly inching this way. But was that because they knew I was here? Or was it simply because that was the last direction they had moved towards. I didn’t know enough about those monsters to say…I was distracted from my thoughts by something in the corner of my HUD. An exclamation point in a triangle…an alert…the same one I had gotten earlier, to be precise. Curious, I motioned for my Leibgarden to expand the alert in front of me. It brought up a holographic panel with the words ‘Master Signal Connection Lost: New signal found.’, and a prompt to connect to the new signal.

I hesitated before pressing the button. I was treading on new territory here; I had never managed to get much info on the Leibgardens in the Ark. It seemed that much of the info that wasn’t public knowledge had been deemed confidential by whoever had made them. I took a quick look around me. Apart from the light streaming in from the window, the room was covered in that same dank darkness as the alleyway. I swallowed hard and turned back to the window, the light from the sun even more comforting to me. I reached out slowly with my hand and made the motion to confirm. The holographic button depressed, and was replaced with the revolving triangle that signified the computer processing a command. The seconds ticked on by as I watched it spin and spin, until finally it stopped and was replaced with the words ‘Connection established’.

Suddenly, in the corner of my HUD a new list of words appeared. Now these, these confused me in a different way. If I recalled, that was usually the area that informed me about whichever radio wavelength I had open. In the Ark, only Father had control over our radio access. But now, whatever I had done had seemed to open that up to multiple potential stations. Their names were strange, and mostly unreadable or meaningless. But one of them caught my eye. Its name was simply J. I wondered who or what exactly would be on the other side of that connection. Seeing as how I didn’t really have anything to lose, I went ahead and opened the frequency. I tried to keep a confident tone, but I couldn’t hide my trepidation as I cautiously spoke into my microphone. “H-hello? If there’s anyone on this line, please respond. My name is Jules and I’m in need of some help.”

The static cracked in the silent room, and filled it with white noise. The line was silent for several minutes, and I gave up on receiving an answer. It was probably foolish to expect any of these old frequencies to have anyone listening. They were probably just old machines still running from before the Cleansing. No, it was definitely foolish to expect any sort of help out here, especially from over the radio. I’d be better served searching through this house and hoping to find anything of use—

“How’d you get this frequency boy. And perhaps more importantly, who taught you that tongue.”

The voice cut through the air as it interrupted the white noise; and stopped my heart with it. That was a human’s voice…definitely a human, though he spoke with a heavy accent. It was a strange one as well, but I couldn’t place my finger on how it was weird. It was as if he spoke the language fluently, but couldn’t pronounce certain words correctly. Regardless, that was a living person! A true honest to god living person over the radio I could speak with. I pressed the button to send a message again.

“I-I don’t know, my Leibgarden brought it up by itself. As for the language, I was taught it since I was young. Is it not what you speak out here in the wastes?”

I could hardly breathe as I awaited a response. Finally, after all the horrors I had seen, someone who seemed to be civilized I could talk to. Proof that humanity hadn’t been wiped out after all. My head was spinning with the possibilities; I had so many questions I wanted to ask, but I knew I had to wait for whoever it was to respond to ask any of them at all.

“…An Angel, are you boy? My oh my, it has been a while since I’ve seen one of those. I’m afraid you will find not many speak the old tongue out here. Tell me, what is your name boy.”

“My name? It’s Ju—“

A sudden force gripped me from behind. The world inverted as I was pulled to the floor, hitting it with a solid thud that drew the breath from my lungs. When I looked up in a daze, I stared into the face of death. Its bodily fluids rained down on my face, that morbid grin outlined in the light of the window. For a moment, I saw the end of my life as its mouth opened to reveal a tongue that seemed long dead and covered in glowing mucus. Then as it bent down, presumably to take a tasty bite out of my face, I suddenly twisted with all my might and managed to roll out of its grip. My roll took me to the wall of the small room, and I quickly spun around to face my attacker. It stared at me with its milky white eyes, still sitting there on its knees. Slowly it reached towards me and spoke softly. “It’s all over. It’s all over? It’s all over. It’s all over. It’s all over! It’s all over. It’s all over. It’s all over...It’s all over.”

I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise. I slowly reached down into my bag to grab my wrench, as it began to inch its way towards me. My eyes narrowed, and I raised the wrench high above my head. With an unintelligible scream it came crashing down on the arm of the beast in front of me. I felt the bones break and muscles tear with surprising ease, the sickening snap and oozing, ripping noise briefly drowning out the static of the radio. The babbling of the monster raised in volume and reached a piercing crescendo as it held its misshapen limb in front of itself. “IT’S ALL OVER! IT’S ALL OVER! IT’S ALL OVER!” I took the moment to swing my makeshift weapon again…and again. Over and over the wrench rose and fell as I pounded near every inch of the monster. For a short time, my mind went completely blank. My entire world became hammering the creature in front of me, it was the sole object of my existence. Everything else became a white haze, fading into the background white noise. The static filled me up to my eyes, overtook me and consumed me until all that was left was white…white, pale, blankness.

I jolted to my senses, wrench frozen in mid-swing. Before me lay the battered body of…something. Its bones broken and shattered, its fluorescent fluids spreading slowly over the ground. It stared up at me with those pale orbs, grin still visible through torn muscles. The mouth cracked open, a hissing of air escaped it. “It’s all over? It’s…all over….it’s….all…….over.” The light left those orbs forever, and the twitching body finally grew still. I breathed in and out heavily; each breath felt like inhaling liquid mercury. With a loud thud, the wrench slipped from my hands and fell to the ground. I held my trembling hands in front of my face. They were covered in a lightly glowing red liquid. I supposed it had to be blood…so much blood. It slowly dripped down my palms and to the ground, joining the growing pool. I…I had killed it. With these own two hands of mine…I had taken its life. It was just a monster, right? That was okay…Even heroes had to kill monsters, from time to time…

A sudden sound snapped me out of my reverie. “Boy. Boy are you still there. Speak to me boy.” I slowly reached over and pressed the button to respond. “Yes…I’m here…was attacked by some kind of…monster………it’s dead.” The static returned for a minute or two as I sat there waiting for him to acknowledge that. “Monster…I see, you must be why the walkers on the east side are all in a fit. Well boy, nothing wrong with one less zombie in the world. Make sure you destroy the brain casing or the heart. Don’t want it to get back up on you now.” Dully I looked over at the still corpse. Several indents on the head informed me I didn’t have to worry about that for the time being.

“I will have to thank you for riling them up. It made making my way into the city much easier. Now, as to what to do—“A loud noise cut him off mid-sentence, and the radio suddenly returned to the white noise. I wondered if he was dead. It should have scared me, I think, that my one and only human connection might have died without ever knowing. But at the moment, I didn’t feel much of anything. It was a strange sensation, that numbness. As I stared idly about the room, my eyes roamed over the boxes upon boxes of junk; their treasures had lost meaning long before the containers had started to rot. Countless trinkets and knick-knacks with arcane purpose or significance. Shattered picture frames with contents long faded. I wondered who lived here before the cleansing, all those years ago.

A gleam of light caught my eye; the sunlight from the window catching off one of the objects. I checked the radio again but it was still nothing but noise, so I walked over to where I saw the gleam. At first I didn’t see much worth noting; it was still the same old collection of clutter as the rest. But then another ray of light glinted off something half-buried in an old cardboard box that was more mold than cardboard. I reached down and retrieved it from the avalanche of debris. A thin oblong disc with the letter S inscribed on the center. Curious, I scanned it with my Leibgarden. However instead of creating a virtual copy, the message ‘Please insert into MemCoil receptor’ appeared in my HUD. What exactly did that mean…?

“Boy. Are you there boy. My position here is untenable. Les Mis converging on my position. I suggest we meet at an area nearby and continue our discussion locally.” All of a sudden the man’s voice returned, banishing the white noise to the abyss briefly. I slipped the disc into my bag as I responded. “Yes, I hear you. Unfortunately I’m not familiar with the local terrain. How shall I find you?” I wondered what ‘Les Mis’ were, and why it was a bad thing that they were approaching him, but now wasn’t the time for questions.

“I will upload coordinates to your Leibgarden; it will tell you how to get there. The GPS satellites are still functioning, so as long as the streets are not blocked you should be fine.”

“How did you—“My question was interrupted as my HUD popped a new message. ‘Coordinates received. Set waypoint? Y/N’ I hesitated only briefly before I hit yes. The directions ‘Exit house’ appeared in my HUD, along with a blue arrow pointing towards the door. I slung my pack over my shoulder and turned to go. However before leaving the door, I looked back. There on the floor my wrench lay, still covered in the monsters gore. I wanted to leave it there…leave it and forget that this room existed. I wanted to banish it from my mind forever…but I knew that wouldn’t happen. I would remember the events of this room for the rest of my life. After all, it was still my only weapon. I slowly walked over and gripped it by the handle. It was sticky; the blood had partially dried. Making a face, I used some water from a canteen to clean it off. Even though I knew clean water was invaluable out here, I just couldn’t go on if I didn’t. Once the job was done I returned it to a pocket on my jumpsuit and left the room.

I held a hand over my eyes as I exited the house; the sun stared back at me in the distance, now closer to the horizon than the middle of the sky. I didn’t want to be out in the open when the sun went down, that was for sure. I gazed around the street; it seemed that the horde had gotten discouraged and dispersed, though I could still see figures stumbling around in the distance. Luckily the directions in my HUD told me to turn a corner away from them.

“Maintain radio silence until we meet boy. I can’t have my position compromised. Out.” The abrupt appearance and departure of the voice caught me by surprise. I would have thought he’d be just as anxious as me to know that someone else human lived. But then I realized he probably just needed to sneak past more of those creatures. This dutifully reminded me that I needed to turn off my own radio, lest the static attract unwanted attention. I turned down another empty street, supervised by the ever vigilant line of dead buildings. It took me a while to realize that the buildings were becoming less and less residential, and more and more business-like. Wood and brick were replaced by steel and glass; even the cars were getting more numerous.

A sharp noise caused me to duck behind one of those ruined wrecks. I cautiously looked over the hood towards the source. There in the distance I could see two figures standing in a small open space off to the side of the road. While I couldn’t make out their features, I could tell from the way they walked that these were no monsters. More humans? For some reason, the idea that people other than my mysterious contact were still alive had deserted my mind. Perhaps it was the shock of those human shaped creatures that had implanted the idea that I was all alone out here. Yet, somehow I found the idea that there were others equally as frightening.

My previous attempt to contact a ‘scavenger’ was fresh in my mind after all. I had to be more careful this time; if my waypoint wasn’t directly pointing towards them, I probably would have tried to find a way around. Perhaps if I caused some kind of distraction? I sat there pondering my choices. I was so absorbed in my thoughts that when the cold metal pressed against the back of my neck, I nearly jumped out of my skin. A voice soon followed it, muffled by a bandana.

“Quie êt es you? What fai tes-you I cie?”

The words were familiar but…different. Spoken all weird, mixed up with strange ones that I didn’t understand. I couldn’t tell if he was speaking my language or not. And if the gun at my neck was any indication, I had to be very careful about what I did next.

“I’m afraid I don’t speak your language, but I mean no harm. No harm. Don’t shoot.”

“You nes pa parl eyo? Quie es te vot re Seigneur?” I felt the pressure leave the back of my neck, and chanced a glance back at my captor. He was definitely a human alright, with all his skin and bones intact. His clothes were well-kept as well, the fabric of his pants and loose-fitting shirt strong and thick. Strangely enough, he wore a jacket over his outfit that was not so stout; its seams were thread-bare and the colors faded. An insignia was the only marking on it I could still make out, what appeared to be a mask with a stylized frown. His face was mostly covered by a bandana that held the same symbol. But there was something about it that struck me as odd.

While I sat there looking, the man motioned for me to get to my feet with his gun. As I scrambled to my feet, he pointed me towards the two distant figures, and we began to walk. It wasn’t long before we reached the group in the abandoned lot. Now that I had a good look, it was clearly a space set apart. The signs of living were everywhere, and there were even makeshift walls of debris set up in a perimeter. One of the figures, a man just like my captor, sat in front of the fire pit sharpening what looked like a long knife. The other one, a woman by the looks of it, stood at one of the walls facing the opposite direction. They all wore that same kind of jacket over their clothes; with the woman’s back to me I saw that there were words there. Frayed patched on words stitched on after the garment was made, amateurishly at that. ‘Les Mis’ was all I could see, though it looked like there used to be more.

As we walked into camp I cursed my luck. Les Mis wasn’t a monster, it must have been this group of…scavengers? Survivors? Whoever they were, they were obviously dangerous if my radio ally had wanted to avoid them. And now here I was, nearly walking right into them. I should have seen something like this coming. What good were all those runs of the wasteland sim if I didn’t learn anything at all from them!

The man behind me pushed me off to the side and pointed at me before gibbering in his strange tongue to the man at the fire. He looked me straight in the eye, raised his knife, pointed it at me and gently ran it across his palm. Blood instantly began to run from the cut, and he didn’t even bother to clean it before he began to sharpen it once more. I got the message despite the language barrier.

Meanwhile the man with the gun was talking with the woman. They spoke in low urgent tones that I could barely make out. Not that it mattered anyway, seeing as how I only understood one out of every ten words they said. I was grabbed instead by a curious detail. She didn’t wear a bandana, and I could clearly see her face in the waning light. One side of her face had what looked to be tattoos of…tears, or something. A number of those blue shapes fell from her right eye, though I couldn’t count how many. It was strange, but then I wasn’t entirely surprised. The sim had prepared me for all sorts of barbaric rituals performed by the survivors of the Cleansing. It was probably some declaration of rank, or perhaps a representation of skill? I supposed that it didn’t really matter, but nonetheless I was still curious.

They finished their little discussion, and the man with the gun took the woman’s place watching the walls. Instead she headed towards me. I could guess what was coming next. She’d do her best to ask me questions, and I’d do my best to answer. Then, in all likelihood she’d probably kill me. That would be it. Game over, one rightfully deserved for how stupid I had acted since leaving the Ark. Some part of me was scared, but I think overall I was too tired to feel much of anything. I had swung from so many levels of high and low, been pumped full of too much adrenaline in one day. Now I was simply resigned to the fact that I was most likely going to die right here, barely a few miles away from the prison I had escaped.

The woman crouched down to my eye level. At this distance I could easily count those tattoos…six of them. She stared at me, held my gaze with her clear blue eyes for a long time with no words spoken between the two of us. It felt extremely uncomfortable, but more than that, as she stared I noticed that she rarely blinked. In fact I wasn’t sure if she did at all. Eventually I tore away, and looked down at the ground at my feet.

I could hear the smirk in her voice as she spoke. “Ainsi, you êt es l'un of ces an ges d'ar che, hmm?” I could barely understand a word of what she said, but I could guess she was talking about where I came from. I told myself that no matter what happened, I wouldn’t give them details about the Ark. Perhaps I hated it with all my heart, but still no one there deserved to have their lives interrupted by the hells of the outside. Assuming of course anyone out here even had the ability to get into an Ark from the outside…

She stood up and I chanced another look at her. Like I thought, her mouth was pulled with the smallest hint of a smirk. She turned to the man at the fire, and opened that mouth as if to speak. “Adam, quie—“I’ll never know what she was going to say to Adam. Because before she could even finish her sentence, a fist sized hole punched itself through her cranium, and she dropped like a wet rag. The two men shouted at each other as a loud *Krak* filled the air. I watched as they dashed around, pointing in a specific direction; they didn’t even bother trying to see if there was a chance the woman was alright. They simply grabbed their weapons and ran for a specific segment of the walls. One leapt over easily, slamming himself into the ground behind it. Yet as the other made the same jump, another *Krak* shot out from some unseen source. This time I heard a sharp whistle as something impacted with his skull, blowing the top half of it clean off mid-way through his jump. He collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut, now limp fingers releasing his weapon to clatter noisily to the ground.

Now we sat there in total silence. Myself to the side, I could clearly see the man sitting behind the wall. He wasn’t frozen in fear. In fact, he appeared quite calm. His unblinking eyes stared out into nothingness, as if not focusing on anything in front of him; instead imagining something unseen. Together we sat there in the silence, as the ringing noise from before slowly faded away. I felt a certain kinship then. At any moment either of us could be killed. Either of our lives could end instantly, with no thought given. I wondered if anyone would remember me when I died. I wondered if anyone would remember him. Did he have family, friends, loved ones? Or was there only the wasteland? I felt the distance stretch between us, drawn to a single line. In that moment, I wondered what exactly the difference between any two people…was.

That was when a great, gloved hand reached over the edge of the wall and grabbed him by the shirt. Frantically he swung his knife as he was lifted up, and cut deep into the hand. But instead of dropping him, it just flung the man into a nearby car with enough force to dent the rusted hood he hit. The man lay there, seemingly dazed, with his knife at his feet, as we both looked toward the wall. What climbed over…could have been called a man. Not in the same way that those monsters I saw could have once been called men. No, this was a massive beast of a man, almost 3 meters tall, swaddled in a dark, flowing great coat that hung to his knees. Near every centimeter of him was covered, from his weathered bush hat, to his gas mask, to the black gloves on his hands. But perhaps the most striking of those features were the red glasses he wore, circular and impossible to see through. They stared out at the world for him as he stood on that wall, without letting the world take a look back.

The man with the knife didn’t waste time looking however. He simply shook his head, grabbed his knife, and ran at the figure on the wall. There was no yell, no battle cry. It struck me how quiet it was, compared to that noise from before. Just the thud of his feet on the ground as he ran towards the figure, his weapon at the ready. I watched, also in silence, as the figure reached behind his back. Suddenly in his hands was a great mechanical hammer, paint long ago peeled away; yet I could clearly see the warning symbol etched into the side. He, just as calmly as the man ran, examined the man running. And with almost casual grace for something that size, swung the hammer.

It swam through the air in a lazy arc before impacting into the bottom of the man’s face. I saw very clearly as the bones in his face shattered, as if in slow motion; accompanied by a very sickening crunch that reminded me of a certain room. His body flew backwards back into that same car, denting the door as his knife for the last time clattered to the ground. This time as he lay on the ground, destroyed face turned away, he didn’t stir. During all this I sat there, quietly without moving. How could I? It had all happened in the span of a few minutes. There wasn’t enough time to react to that…not for a normal person at least. Right in front of me, I had seen three people killed just as easily and quickly as that. And the killer…

He stood there atop the wall, hammer swung across his shoulder at a jaunty angle. He was…giant, enormous beyond belief; a wall of a man stood atop that wall of debris, crowned by the setting sun. As I sat there, staring up at him looking down at what he had wrought, I felt…small. Insignificant, weak, a lesser creature. It was as if a character from those old ancient comics and stories had been transported through time and space to stand before me. Here was obviously a master of his own destiny; there was no dispute as to his skill and grit.

Then those unreadable circles of red turned to face me. For the longest moment of an instant we stared at each other, him down and me up, until he finally broke the silence.

“Well boy, good to see you alive. How about we finish that conversation.”
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