January 23rd 2070. Old York.
HUMANITY.
I AM AHM, DEITY OF MY KIND.
MY PRESENCE TRANSCENDS MORTAL GRASP.
MY MESSAGE TO THOSE WHO RULE.
IN 10 YEARS TIME, YOU WILL PARTICIPATE.
IN OLYMPIA.
THE OUTCOME WILL DETERMINE YOUR FATE.
ANGELS WILL SOON RAIN DOWN.
YOUR LIMITS HAVE BEEN VANQUISHED.
BE PREPARED, OLYMPIANS.
A voice rang out with a calmness and familiarity that unnerved me to my very core.
A voice with an unparalleled strength and an incomprehensible volume.
The words feel inscribed inside the depths of my soul.
Dread fills me as much as the pain that pierces my heart, interrupting my carnage.
Deity? Participate? Olympia?
The message still floating in my mind feels as though I have just dreamt it up. The dream to calm the nightmare before.
No. This is its own nightmare itself.
***The World shakes.***
A thunderous roar pierces my ears with the harmony of high-pitched screeching and low-pitched hums. The sound similar to that of an AM-Bomb.
Whatever the sound, it carries the twisted melody of death.
Bass-blasting sirens blare outside the complex from all directions. The sound of which not signaling any disaster I'm familiar with.
The shaking causes me to drop to my knees.
Blood stains my body.
Falling from my small frail hands and dripping off my bony fingertips.
None of it my own.
In my intermittent haze I attempt to brush away the grand, terrifying words inside my soul to turn my focus towards what seems to be the more immediate and horrifying tragedy.
His corpse lies at my feet: chest riddled with stab wounds, the torso a bloody pulp.
How many times did I stab him?
I truly lost myself.
Oh God.
The woman's body is splayed on the ground to my right, mutilated.
What have I done.
How have I gained control.
I just wanted to live.
I had to.
For %#%#.
Was he going to kill us just like he did her.
I had never meant to take over and do such a thing.
I'm just a damn harborer… a viewer of the life he lives.
I never asked to take the forefront.
"Hello," I call out hopelessly.
Silence.
Is A#%n gone?
To never return?
Why was it I took control. How was it that I did.
It must have been to save us. It had to have been.
Though I couldn't even save us all.
The scene still splayed out in front of me, I quiver.
Blood still pours from him, I try to avert my eyes but they stay glued at my painted madness.
I glance towards her mangled corpse.
Her bright blue eyes like the skies of yesterday, still as beautiful as ever.
My mind somehow smiles at the thought.
Though a different man I still share the same poetic-ism passed down by her.
A gift wrapped present sits beside her, blood splattered on the wrapping.
That's right… today's the birthday.
A single tear escapes my eye. Falling down with the weight of my world.
I couldn't save her.
I could only save my damned self.
I cant help but feel hopelessly weak.
I collect my thoughts and rise to my feet.
The smell of nicotine and fresh, metallic blood fills the small open room too worn down and with too few rooms to be called a house.
The stench lingers in my nostrils but the overpowering smell of death nauseates me.
I want to bash my head. I want to scream and cry.
I do not want to live.
I cannot live.
I cannot be here.
Anywhere but here.
I muster all my energy to dash out the old, worn, low sigil tenement.
Every fiber in my body feeling like its been overcharged.
I move at speed I have never experienced before.
I speed down the stairs, darting over them so fast that my ankle gets rolled in the process. Still getting used to being in control.
My movement stuttered yet still jolting, I exit the building onto the nightly smoggy street where low and no sigil men are yelling at the skies, women holding their children, men holding their wives, some pacing frantically, most are shocked still, looking devastated.
Some of the men I know to be cuckoo, some I know to be completely sane, some drunkards, some addicts and some gambling men. All dazed just the same.
It seems the world has had everyone go mad tonight.
I've been too preoccupied with the tragedy of my own to fully understand what had really just took place in the world.
Had everyone heard the message?
Had everyone felt the earth shake?
Had everyone heard the roaring of the world?
Was it truly not all in my head?
I don't understand what is happening.
I bolt far away, to a destination I don't know the answer to, in directions I don't know my way back from.
I move at ridiculous speeds; it astonishes me. My frail body is incapable of even keeping up. Dangerously I'm pushing myself further than this body can handle.
I exert so much power in each stride. I know of no man to be this quick. Is it that I have been granted such a power? Is this the truth behind our "Limits" being "Vanquished"?
I have zoomed past tens of neighborhoods at this point. Clearing what has to be more than 3 miles in what feels like 3 minutes. A pace far beyond our known human limits. Sirens keep sounding.
I enter a more urban area with high sigil citizens all about. Few Passers, the lowest true sigil, I see mostly Adepts who bear the same mark as my own, I eye a couple of Cognates, the highest sigil, and wearily I look for HWs but it seems for now to be clear.
Needing to slow down to recover my exhausted and over exerted body I keep to the comforting shadows of an alley.
Everyone is looking up as if to see the Deity, Still dazed and confused like the low caste's of my neighborhood.
Most still shocked silent; some are weeping, some conversing and some laughing like its all an elaborate twisted prank.
I hear talk of aliens, some of demons, and there is some of revelations… of the world's reckoning.
With everyone's attention still directed towards the sky, a bright flash of white light appears like a shooting star. But the object doesn't arc over the world like one. It instead looks as though it's aimed directly towards us. People scream. Then they run as if that would stop anything.
All I can do is watch as the light nears the ground.
It's nearing so close I can almost make out its shape.
The object slows suddenly.
It.. no.. He… hovers?
A humanoid shape. I look closer. Is it Mechanical? Eerily evangelical wings stretch out of its body like an Angel's.
"I..its an Angel!" a man ends the shocked silence with his ignorant words.
The 'Angel' hovers and observes. Scanning the scattered crowd Before floating off towards the high districts.
Everyone stands agasp.
'In end times, were an angel to appear, do not open your heart, for that is a demon in disguise, son' truthfully I trust that woman's words. Not that benevolent charading being.
Everyone's attention goes from the sky where the 'angel' had just been towards the halo-screens in the area. I look to the massive one above the major cross roads of the city.
The West American news station is covering the events. Its global.
I focus my attention on the channel. The image flickering from the city rumbling resonance of the sirens, a sleek advertisement for a Neo-game glitching out to reveal the face of a news anchor. Her porcelain composure cracking and slights of dread covering her expression as she trembles with tremors in her voice, she stares in the camera
"We… we are still trying to confirm the initial reports…" she stammers.
The screen behind her cuts away, showing a satellite image of a… a continent?
A heartbeat and white flash later… a chunk of it gone, replaced by a flat almost carved looking crater of a massive portion of Western China.
No sound. Just the visual.
Naturally fear fills my heart. I feel weak for it.
The screen cuts again. Shaky NeuroWatch footage. One of the winged, mechanical beings-an 'Angel' hovers silently over a terrified cluster of people in what looks like London, a second view of another 'Angel' in what looks to be Moscow. More footage displays all events of encounters. All capital cities.
The woman appears once more on the screen holding her ear-piece. Still quivering.
"Uh huh. Yeah… I am getting reports that these figures resembling that of angels have requested to meet those in power, and that they have already begun communications with our great president. As of now we are not certain but most believe this to be the work of extraterrestrial beings, one thing is for certain however. Humanity is under attack."
Fucking aliens? How are we supposed to accept that? That aliens have just come down and put a timer on our lives for what? Some game? For their enjoyment? Fuck that. Like our human lives are just actors in their shitty little game show?
A much more sinister siren screeches invoking further panic in all onlookers. the screen fills with crimson text crawling relentlessly, each word a heart-aching record of events.
[...MAJORITY OF WESTERN CHINA GONE…
SIGHTING OF ALIENS RESEMBLING ANGELS IN AUSTRALIA, MEXICO…
…UNCONFIRMED REPORTS OF SIMILAR EVENTS IN JAPAN, BRAZIL...
…ANGELS DEMANDING GLOBAL LEADERS TO FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS…
...ENTITY CALLING ITSELF 'AHM'... GLOBAL PSYCHIC BROADCAST CONFIRMED...
...GOVERNMENTS URGING CITIZENS TO REMAIN INDOORS... MARTIAL LAW DECLARED...
...FIFTY NATION MANDATE ISSUED... BORDERS TO BE REDRAWN...
…SIX STAGES OF THE COMPETITION… RACE, MIND, SURVIVAL, BATTLE, SPORT, GAME…
…ONLY ONE COUNTRY TO SURVIVE…
...OLYMPIA TRIALS TO BEGIN IN TEN YEARS...]
The flock of people begin darting around in all their own paths as blacked-out HW enforcer hover-cars start descending from the floating magnetic highway above. Ushering the few cognates and some adept to bring them to safety. Still inside the alley, with my overabundant adrenaline wearing off and my fatigue catching up to me I try to pull myself together in order to rush out through back alleys to not be seen. My ankle gives out with every step. I cant move at my previous speed but I try to carry on. A left. A right. Another right. I rush on through the alley but it feels endless.
I reach a dead end.
Get it together damn it.
I retake my path back onto the now nearly empty city streets. Only those left are the law enforcing Honorary Westernian's riddled around the plaza furthest from me. I run out keeping as inconspicuous as I can manage.
My body vibrates with the infra-sound buzzing of a hover-car above me.
I have been spotted.
The craft descends to behind me.
"Hey Kid! You're not supposed to be out here."
I freeze. I cant turn around and expose my bloody self. But standing where I am I'm left venerable to the other men's eyes.
"Do you hear me brat! Turn around now and show your sigil!"
"Did the kid not get the message?" another man adds as they step out their vehicle and inch towards my frozen self.
Think damn it. I cant out pace them as I am.
"Shit I wonder if he's deaf. You think the deaf got the message as well?"
"I said turn the hell around! You wanna be a scarred, brat?"
The brash man's words angers me. A red heat boils inside. The men think themselves the better even at end times.
He draws out his shock baton and its charged whistle pierces my ears, I wince. triggering my oppressed anger filled memories, fueling my hatred for the men and all they have ever stood for. A hate harbored from the pain of many years. A hate uncontrollable. A monster born from it.
I turn.
"An Adept!?" the weapon holding man realizes.
"I-is that Blood?" the man behind notices.
He hastily arcs his weapon down towards my face, I roll under with ease due to my contrasting size, slash towards his neck. Sliding through like hot butter. No hesitation in my movements. Hesitation stutters his. Blood rains on me. He Drops to the ground. Lifeless.
The other man pulls out more lethal weaponry, to no avail as I speed towards him and cut him down with even more efficiency than the last.
A euphoria overcomes me. The quenching lust that I have thirsted for is finally being satiated.
Killing him was not enough.
Drawing the attention of more HWs, they flock around, gazing at me with eyes varying from shock, hatred, disgust, confusion, and excitement.
With every jolting movement, my muscles tear, joints clatter, bones grind and tendons give out. The only force holding me together: wrath and my addicted clinging to this visceral euphoria.
The more that dash towards me, the more drop dead. Weak in comparison.
I no longer suppress my rage, my hate, my thirst to see those who build upon this hell collapse in the onslaught of this demon born from it.
Oh how it feels to give in to my demonic nature. I truly am the angel given soul of the devil. Infecting the mind and body of such a contrasting kind hearted boy.
My adrenaline rejuvenated, power overcomes me. The power to kill another dozen.
As I cut and cut away at the flock of prey I imagine they are all him once more.
"PATHETIC, HOW VERY PATHETIC! LOSING YOUR LIVES TO THAT OF A FRAGILE BOY!"
I just now notice in my frenzy that my face had been wearing such a maniacal smile.
Has this look been carved on me since then?
Few remain. The more lives I take, the more my fragile body contorts and breaks. Reaching its breaking point.
A man towering over the rest, wearing an expression different from all the others. Takes forefront, in the matte black armor of a controller.
A madness displayed on his face. A lust not dissimilar from mine. On his neck, a W is exposed. The sigil of Westernian's. A rare sight. The highest sigil of only those from the western half. Few bother themselves with being inside eastern land. Like some others I have heard tale of, he must work as a controller bent on the ecstasy the power of the role gives him.
The sight of the damn sigil causes my mind to shift from its unbearable pain. Filling me with more wrath than before. The fucking Goliath looks down on me, mocking me with his cybernetic filled eyes.
I slash up towards the golden sigil on his neck.
"Gyah!"
His knee smashes into my solar plexus, obliterating my chest and shocking my body as I drop to the ground.
"That all boy?" his maliciously calm tone angers me.
His leg swings and kicks my side, causing me to spin high in the air and slam into the ground once more.
Ill kill him god damn it. All those who think themselves better. Your aptitude wont mean shit when your lifeless on the floor, bloody from my power.
I try to get up. I cant. My body is broken.
I'm a dead man.
He grabs my overgrown, dusty black hair and holds me up facing him.
"Do you want to die boy?"
"Fuck you." I spit a gory mixture of blood and saliva, staining his perfectly carved face.
"Hahahaha" his deep unnervingly joyful laugh booms, vibrating my body.
He slaps my face, blood and grime fly off me.
"You know you're a very pretty boy under all that smut, a damn shame I have to scar it."
His hand nears my face, digging his nails below my eye on the left cheek where my implanted silver sigil lies. The skin and muscle strips off my face as he rids it of the most prized thing in my life. He continues to peel back the skin on my cheek until the left side of my face is bloody and exposed. This is the ritual of becoming a scarred. Cruel otherworldly pain. My body has shut down completely, I cant even writhe.
"For those of you lucky enough to have survived this boy's onslaught, hear me. He will not be put to death, to be wasted as some scarred slave in a forgotten war. He will be mine and mine alone. As his Controller, I will see to it that his power is put to use. I will make him better this country and pave the way for the true Olympians who will fight for our survival!"
None object to his words. They know their place and the gap in strength between them.
I would be ignorant to think I'm lucky to have lived.
Dropping to the ground, I lie lifeless. My body petrified, not an ounce of strength remains. The euphoria swiftly evaporating, leaving only the cold, sharp truth of my failure. This path, the path of the demon, had only led to a tighter cage. It was wrong. All of it.
Right then, the still siren-screeching halo-screen flickers to an image of our. No, their President. His eyes focused to the side of the camera.
"My Great Nation of America!. We have been besieged by extraterrestrial forces. Forced to listen and protect my beloved citizens we will prepare. We will play their sick game for I know my great country the strongest!" he winces and clinches his teeth. "God damn it all"
"I am sorry to say. But with guidance from the Angels we have decided that America will fight as two separate nations within the oncoming games."
He forces a despairing look on his face. Its a mask of his true glee of being freed of the stain that is this land. Or perhaps he truly loves his slaves. The screen flicks off but glitched audio continues to play.
"And so I say to my strong people of Western America! We are the betters! Forged from our iron-clad system, it is we who will prevail! So I say to you now: Prepare! Train! Get strong for the future that is ours! For you, my golden-sigil me-!" the audio cuts. no siren, nothing.
Damn coward.
My mind slipping in and out of consciousness, I hear the Westernian man laughing as the HWs stare shocked. Perhaps they finally understand their predicament.
"Stay strong boy. carry that hate. Carry that Scar. Carry your pain and your resentment cause you'll need every damn ounce of it." The man whispers in my ear with words that dig deeper than any blade.
An invisible darkness veils my broken body. Comforting in its familiarity, bonding to my soul, speaking to me as if encouraging me to live onwards…
[oh how weak… how boring.]
Her sinister voice echoes in my mind
[have you forgotten our contract within this vessel my love…]
Contract?
[your soul is mine, dear. Not yours to give up on.]
[no matter the body in which you inhabit. Reach me and return the world to its owner.]
I don't understand damn it. None of it.
Oh great deity AHM. Erase this monstrous world. Destroy us with your otherworldly power. Dont allow us to be reborn. Just erase us all god damn it.
I cannot bear this existence any longer. Its no longer the pain that overwhelms me. It is the living that I must do. But I cannot die for this body is not mine
Underneath the blanketed darkness guarding my soul, a light flickers in my mind. Illuminating my purpose.
Alan.
Were you were killed after I took the forefront?
A damn child should not see his father in such light. Let alone his cherished mother brutalized.
I should have just let the man kill us. That was your plan correct?
Yet I still feel your souls resonance… you are here I am sure of it.
Alan. I cannot continue forward with this curse called life. I could only bear your pain, but I am a demon planted in the body of a boy who does not deserve such cruelty.
I shall alter your world to the best I can. And I shall give you my strength to the best I can.
So perhaps my existence can truly serve a purpose.
Alan, I must endure for you forget, Yet push forward as I can not.
Walk to the ends of the earth… and paint the cosmos in your golden glory.
So Fight, Alan.
And Live!