If a decade of war can leave a country in ruin, then two centuries will leave the world bathed in blood. For nearly two hundred years, mankind had fought. Sons, fathers, brothers, husbands; Countless families were torn apart over the centuries. The fighting continued for such a long time that there was no person left alive who knew what had started it. When humanity was at its absolute lowest, when extinction looked to be the only reprieve, a new threat emerged. A threat so utterly omnipresent that the world halted its own destruction as if the switch had been turned off.
Even with the ominous darkness clouding the sky, humanity was still able to crawl itself back from the edge of destruction. Every nation was left in disarray. Boarders crumbled and lands shifted. Still, the remaining population united to face the new threat. With all semblances of borders long since removed, the people became one united force.
The sheer volume of explosions from the two-century war had forced the tectonic plates to accelerate their natural shift. Eventually, all land was rejoined into one large mass. Countless countries were wiped from existence. What remained was the scarred craters, caked in the dried blood of the innocent. The planet itself was reshaped.
The cause of the land shift was debated for decades. Some argued that the rapid heating of the oceans, due to the repeated explosion, were to blame. Most pointed the blame at the explosions themselves. As if weapons created by man, no matter the quantity, could reshape an entire world. The masses fully believed the explosions of man were powerful enough to physically push the land.
If either side refused to concede to the other, they would all agree on one thing. If there was truly a God above, they would never have allowed for this to happen. Thus, the concept of a higher being has been erased from every person's mind, willingly. Mankind now took their lives into their own hands.
Lives that, even to this day, were being threatened by an outside force. The force that had ended the conflict. The Jinai, a humanoid race from some distant galaxy. Their intentions were clear from the moment their ships descended from the sky; they were here to take.
Miraculously, what little remained of Earths armed forces managed to push back the threat. The captured technology fueled the industrial revolution that followed. With many of the natural resources either spent or lost in the fighting, the knowledge gained from the Jinai proved fruitful in reforming everything from metallurgy to energy transmission.
However, all was not well. The radiation that permeated the air was also reforming. Before man could use their new technology to purify the land, they faced new threats. The land had become incapable of sustaining life. The water scorched one's throat if swallowed. Once passive animals doubled in size before baring their fangs.
In the decade following the great war, half of humanity's remaining population perished. Those that remain had changed on a cellular level. Their bodies learned to filter the radiation. It purged the toxicity while storing the energy. A new age had begun.
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Staring up at the dim sky, Joe closed his eyes one last time to remember. Four years had already passed since he walked through the door to his family's little, rundown house to find his mother lying in a pool of her own blood. Gashes were littered all over her body and dried tears had covered her face. This day gave Joe a goal, revenge.
His father lost in battle a year prior. Joe had to watch silently as his mother wept daily. He was still too young to help her in any way that mattered. The death benefits from his father never came. Eventually, they lost their home. Joe was old enough to understand the short time between becoming homeless and finding a new, although tattered, roof over one's head was unnatural.
Still, he did not question his mother. She always ate last, ensuring her children were fed before she would satiate her own hunger. Despite their situation, the most was made every day. That was, until that fateful day. The day that changed everything. The day that turned a kid child into a vengeful killer in the making.
With only his younger sister left in his life and nobody to provide for them, Joe struggled to survive. He would always prioritize Sarah's well-being before his own. Stealing food and fighting just to have a spot in the mud to sleep became his daily life. Every grueling detail of those days was etched into his memory. Still, he failed to remember the one thing he desired most above all else. Something that could reshape his life if he had simply not forgotten it. His and Sarah's last name.
Middle names were a concept long forgotten to time, but a last name carried weight. Simply by sharing the last name of a diplomat, would open doors others did not even know existed. Having a grandfather who had served honorably and climbed slightly higher in rank than average could set up a family for generations, so long as one of the descendants didn't tarnish that name.
Having failed to recall this information once again, Joe returned his mind to the present. Before him was a door he had searched for since that tragic day. For over an hour, he stood before this door waiting. With one final breath to calm his vibration nerves, he entered the residence that certainly was not his own.
Without making a sound, he moved his feet decisively across the hardwood flooring. Moving from room to room, searching for the one reason he had come here tonight. The home was by no means a mansion by the standards of the day. Still, it was larger than the family home he vaguely remembered. It was luxurious in comparison. Of course it was. After all, even being near the bottom tier of scum this city held, would afford one comfort others could only dream of.
Fifteen minutes, that is all the time, it took Joe to reach the final door within the residence. He had checked every other room just to be certain. Most were empty except for furniture. One house a child roughly his own age, likely the daughter of the man he had come for. This discovery stalled his resolve. Could he truly do to another what he had suffered through already? The answer was a firm, resounding yes.
Silently, opening the final door, Joe was greeted with an expansive master bedroom. Nearly double the size of the other rooms he had already searched, with a plush bed located directly in the center. On the left was a woman. Joe paid a single glance before turning his attention to the right. To the reason for all his suffering. Suffering that had come full circle and brought him here tonight. Micky Jordans!
A low-level gang leader and loan shark. His rise to power was nothing exceptional. His biggest claim to his self-proclaimed fame was his charismatic nature. He was not exceptional in leadership or strength as were other gang leaders of the same level. The only thing he excelled in was instilling fear through cruelty. Those beneath him would obey not for what he would do to them, but what they had seen him do to the families of those who had disobeyed.
"This ends now."
Drawing a rusted and chipped dagger from his waist, Joe threw caution to the wind and charged the bed. Just as his feet left the ground, Micky's eyes fluttered open. The blade caught a sliver of light bleeding through the curtains as it descended towards him. Panicked, Micky could only scream before a sharp, burning pain erupted in his chest. His final breath escaped his lips with a gargle of blood.
After releasing the breath, he had unknowingly been holding within, Joe was thrown back to reality when a new scream assaulted his ears. Looking to his right, he was reminded of the women he had ignored before.
Gorgeous by any definition. Her long, chestnut, hair a frazzled mess from her pillow cascaded the right side of her face. Her ocean-blue eyes conveying her fear effortlessly. She attempted to back away from this unknown intruder. Forgetting she was in bed, her back connected with the floor with an audible thud.
Having witnessed not only the fall but also the fear, Joe rose to his feet. Micky's warm corpse below him, he turned to the woman. He witnessed the color drain from her face. In its absence, he saw a fresh bruise covering her right eye. Hidden by her hair before the fall.
"Please don't kill me. Who will look after my daughter?"
A plea and a question were all this women could muster. Her entire body was vibrating from fear. Joe took a single, steady, step towards her before her back slammed into the wall. She had run out of room to back away in an instant. Still, he continued forward one slow, decisive, step at a time.
She watched in horror as this boy, no older than her own daughter, came to a stop before her. She trembled as he slowly came to a squat. Tears streamed down her face as his small, unwavering hand drew near her face. Feeling all energy leaving her body, her eyes clamped shut and awaited her perceived fate.
A fate that failed to manifest. In its place, a gentle brush swiped slowly below her eye. Allison's eyes shakily opened once more. Confusion covered her face in response to the bizarre scene unfolding in front of her.
"You will be able to look after your daughter yourself. He will never be able to harm either of you, or any other family, again. I would never wish another child to go through what I have the last four years."
Seeing new tears begin to fall from her widened eyes, Joe again wiped them away being extra careful not to press to deeply on the bruise she had undoubtedly gotten from that pathetic excuse of a man. He repeated this just for several minutes.
Once she had settled enough, Joe rose to his feet and slowly made his way to the door. He had accomplished what he had come here for. His pace halted to the shaking voice that came from behind him.
"I don't know what he did to you and I don't have a right to ask but thank you. Thank you for freeing not only me, but my daughter as well. If there is ever anything I can do to help you, just ask."
Looking back, Joe nearly stumbled off his feet. What was before him was no longer the terrified women who had awoken in the middle of the night to find her husband with a dagger in his chest. Nor was it the sobbing mess of a woman he had just turned his back to.
He was abashed when greeted by a radiant smile that had bloomed across her face. Saying nothing more, Joe simply nodded in recognition before making his way out of the room and exiting the house.