New York City, the concrete jungle where dreams are made of. Such a lively place with all types of people in it. A lovely place where people live their best lives, and at its heart, times square, is where all of these characteristics are exemplified. It would be a shame if there was a mass culling because of a bomb right? After all, the city changed drastically after the collapse of the twin towers to the point TSA was made (even though they can't do shit).
April 24th, 2 days after Earth day, a day to remember our planet and its oh so fragile existence. A day where we "repent" and "look back" at what we have done to this beautiful planet, even though we don't learn our lesson, do we?
Anyhow, this day will never be known as a normal day again. A masked figure with an eye on said mask. Who is he?.. Or can we even call him a "he"? Is it a person? No one knows. But that came onto EVERY screen in the square. All "it" said was to "run". So much panic and unrest had befallen onto the crowds gathered. So much fear and anticipation, they all run around like crazed flies, no sense of rationality in their trails. But it was for naught. If someone tells you to run like that, chances are that it's a really obvious trap.
BOOM! A bomb blasts in the center of all the crowds and eviscerates everything in a 5 kilometer radius. BOOM! Goes another bomb, this time in the centers of brooklyn and queens. But no, the so-called "greatest city on earth" wasn't the only victim. Beijing, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Mumbai, Tokyo, Dortmund, The Vatican, London, Birmingham, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Moscow, Baku, Karachi, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Riyadh, Jeddah, Muscat… no, there was no discrimination. Everything was bombed mercilessly.
BOOM!
BOOM!
Everything was either disintegrated, burnt, shattered, broken, cracked or broke down into dust. Everyone either revelled in the chaos or detested it. These attacks were not through hatred for one specific area or race. It was hatred for all, if you can even call it hatred.
Maybe it was for amusement or even worse, a whim of a child whose parents were strict upon them. Truly a scary sight to behold. In the end, 90% of humankind was wiped out. Those in rural areas were so unlucky weren't they? No cover whatsoever, Straight up genocide, I mean who would do such a thing??
It's dumb, outright stupid, if you cull everything, why not kill yourself then? It's foolish to live as the only living being, or rather the only one with a semblance to a sentience. Either way, I wonder who did it~~
Now we come to a little boy, Danish in nationality, living in Switzerland with his mother. The bombings really messed up Geneva, almost as if it was a place of no importance, though we all know otherwise. His head was hit real hard, but he's still up and kicking? Ooh~ it's almost like he's gonna be a main character. But let's get back on topic shall we? He and his mother are hiding from someone… oh it's the mask guy… Yeah he's much more menacing in person. 6'2", jacked and he's got an apprentice as well, he's also kinda rockin', no homo, of course. The boy's mom is visibly shaken, like she saw her baby daddy (who in this scenario would have taken the position of a very promiscuous man) come to the door to "be in the life of his son" or whatever that logic is.
"What is he doing here?" said the mother, in awe, or fear, or…both?
"Mother, I am hungry..." said the child
"Don't fret Xerdy, There's a store nearby, we need to stay for a bit longer."; replied the mother, as to comfort the hungry child.
" Ah~ There you are Christina" said the masked guy, using some telepathic force to subdue her and grab her by her throat.
The child ,watching, as all the life vanishes from his mothers eyes.
Though it was only for a moment. It was eternity for him.
Seeing her getting paler and paler, the sounds of her resistance,
her throat slowly being cracked
[it sounds like just a tea cracker to me. A tea cracker. A tea cracker. A tea cracker. A tea cracker. A tea cracker. A tea cracker. Cracking. Cracking. Cracking. Cracking. Cracking. Cracking. Cracking. Cracking. Cracking. Cracking. Cracking. Cracking. Cracking. Cracking. Cracking. Cracking. Cracking. Cracking. Does cracking hurt? It hurts right? Right? It should hurt her, so why am I not doing anything? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why me? Why me? Why me? Why me? WHY ME? WHY ME? WHY ME? WHY ME? WHY ME? WHY ME? WHY ME? WHY ME? WHY ME? WHY ME? WHY ME? WHY ME? WHY ME? WHY ME? WHY ME? WHY ME? WHY ME? WHY ME? WHY ME? WHY ME? WHY ME? WHY MY MOTHER? WHY MY MOTHER? WHY MY MOTHER? WHAT DID SHE DO TO YOU? WHY ARE YOU KILLING HER? I DON'T KNOW, PLEASE TELL ME.] The boy melts down. He doesn't know what to say, nor what to think.
All he can think is why he was in this situation.
No guilty feelings, no, the boy is too mischievous to feel guilty.
No, he feels guilty, he can't quite grasp it. He's a wreck.
He shall hate that man. But will his hate bring his ruin?
Or will the ruins bring forth his hate?
This child shall twist fate in more ways than one, all with his hatred for a single man. The child's name is Xerdan, a man who will twist fate with something as trivial as human emotion.
The 2 men with the corpse of his mother. He shall never forget, for he shall never forgive, for he shall have his vengeance. For he shall slaughter the ones who dared to take the most important part of his life away from him. Oh and that 2nd man? Don't worry about him. 𝐻𝑒 𝒹𝑒𝒻𝓃𝑒𝓉𝓁𝓎 𝓌𝑜𝓃'𝓉 𝒷𝑒 𝒾𝓂𝓅𝑜𝓇𝓉𝒶𝓃𝓉~~
About 6 countries away from Xerdan's tragedy comes another.
One all the way in Turkiye. If the country wasn't already bad enough, an earthquake hit as soon as the bombs had detonated in Istanbul.
Families are scrambling to find their loved ones, or what remains of them. People are helping each other and for once Greek people and Turkish people aren't fighting? Rare sight indeed. Surviving such a dreadful event must put some in a guilty conscience right?
Well that's quite common, along with some going insane because of losing everything they loved and some detaching themselves from society. Reality can often be not so logical after all.
The most logical people wouldn't let themselves be consumed with grief, yet it's ironic that the most logical are the most disturbed, physically or mentally.
When it comes to an apocalypse like this, all logic will be useless until everyone has come to accept reality, which, surprisingly, is quite uncommon. Some people don't want to face such a reality. Especially the weak ones of the modern age, let alone kids, who don't even have the mental development to cope with an incident even a tenth of the scale of this, though exceptions can exist.
That's right folks; our exception is an 8 year old girl; Aliya.
She's kinda emotionless. Parents? Dead, not that it made a difference for her, since they were neglectful assholes. Siblings? She has a little brother, though he's the opposite of her; he's very emotional, very kind, very expressive.
They are 2 sides of a coin. One side is cold calculation, the other letting their emotions guide them. Polar opposites, yet bound together by blood. This girl loves her brother. She wants to protect him like he's her only possession, even while being emotionless, this is the only emotion she has. Love... or rather obsession.
Only if they weren't bound by blood, or rather separated by it, her obsession would have led to something much more…disgusting. Really, this obsession is just rooted in a promise her brother made with her the year prior; that he would "always be there for her when she needed him". Promises, so important, yet so fragile, it only takes a single thought to break them, while to keep them, it can take so much labour and time it would seem a herculean task, so when he made that promise, she knew of its importance, thus, the start of a forbidden obsession, quite illogical, but that is her only flaw.
Now, Imagine the pain when she sees his remains, being eaten up by an insane man, who couldn't think logically about the situation.
The one who she lived for, who she loved dearly, her only family, her only sense of self. Gone, like it was trivial. The insane man, or should I call it a beast, for he has no sense of himself, goes to Aliya, like he is a lion on his prey…no.
He is a beast, preying upon a child.
Aliya's absolutely completely logical machine that she calls her brain tells her to run to survive. With her only illogical part ripped away from her, She runs, runs and runs and runs and runs and runs and runs until she can't.
But the beast is patient.
He preys upon her. Aliya's brain tells her to run, while her body tells her to rest.
This is where logic can be the most useful, yet it is useless.
The beast pins her down and…unclothes her. The beast intended to eat her, but it gave into its carnal desires.
Oh how the well oiled machine of pure logic that is Aliya's brain panicked and acted upon pure instinct. She kicked the former man, and ran to a shed, conveniently one that belonged to a former military veteran. That veteran hadn't survived the April 24th bombings, so his shed was empty…and Jackpot; a glock 17.
She had seen how guns are handled from her neglectful father, she remembered it, of course, it was logical to do so, since she could be cornered like this.
She turned off the safety and fired, and fired, and fired, and fired, until the whole magazine was empty. The beast was subdued. She proved her logic to overcome the brute barbaric instinct of the beast, who was formerly a man. But how did he get such monstrous abilities? She has to know, doesn't she?Her tale shall be of obsession, of treachery, of tragedy. The worst part? What shall she do to avoid such a grim fate?
Our last tale tells us of the opposite of the absolute logic of Aliya; a man of Scotland, a survivor, a beast-like man who looks frail compared to the creatures he has slain. He is tall, but lean. Handsome, but worn out like an old rug. He is young as well, about 14 years of age. He hasn't relied on anyone, not even his mother to provide him with milk, but he survived, for when his parents abandoned him, nature took him in. He knows almost nothing of humans aside from their tongue which a witch who was interested in his biology taught him. The witch was of a great height for a woman. She had skin that was pale, so pale it could make people think of her as a dead body, and her hair was as pale as her skin. Her irises were red, a striking feature, even for a woman who was an anomaly like her. The boy is the only human on earth even close to his species' primal origins. The witch bestowed him a name; Chulainn; named after the hero Cu Chulainn of the Ulster Cycle, which was ironic; this man of pure instinct was given birth to in the exact place where Cu Chulainn had become a hero, in the fort of Dun Scaith, the fact he also wielded a make-shift spear to catch his prey. How ironic; he's the spitting image of a hero, but he knows nothing of his humanity. Scars cover the man's body; bear claw marks, snake bite marks (how did he survive the poison???), deep wounds from horns, and lastly; the many trivial cuts and bruises from exploring the forest. The bombings did not affect his life; but the animals he usually hunted became stronger, faster, more…sharp, they even mutated into different forms that he hasn't seen, so he goes to the witch, the closest thing to a mother he had, for answers. "I have no damn idea" says the witch, with a chuckle at the end."However, I've seen many changes in the forests around here. Animals aren't normal now. These woods are becoming dangerous, and other humans need your help, so take this spear and go help your kind" These words were gibberish to Chulainn; he never considered that other humans were different to him or would need his help, but the truth is that he never considered other humans to be his brethren.In his eyes, other humans would detest him for being stronger; after all, that's what he saw in all the animals that he has been around for so long. But the witch, though she is of evil origins, said it in such a motherly tone, he had no choice but to accept her command and take that new and improved spear and go help his fellow sapiens. His tale is one of himself; his fate shall be his own; impermissed by him to lay a single hand on it, as to protect the only sense of individuality he has left. The witch, who taught him of his people and how to communicate with them, has tasked him to help said people. Is it a sense of duty? Or is it one's last wish? Anyhow, he shall use his nature to help others who weren't so lucky in that department.I've told you tales of 3 people. 3 exceptions of this world. They can't fit into an archetype of the survivors present. They are anomalies, destined for greater purpose, but it is up to them if they can fulfill such purpose. Each of their tales will end in tragedy or peace, It is up to their actions to decide which one. Humans are such beautiful creatures aren't they?~~ They can make such big buildings that pierce the heavens, can make ways of commanding the sky to rain…and yet they can be such problematic individuals. Obsession, Vengeance and Idealism, Oh such common things that are like a slow poison to the common man. Revel, Indulge and view in these minds dancing around seeking what they lost or already have.
Dreaming is beautiful
Vengeance is satisfying
Obsession is gratifying
Ideals are fulfilling.
But their processes are the exact opposite of their outcomes.