Sworded Tales

For long moments you stand quietly, swaying gently from side to side as the cool breeze races over the top of the protective battlement brushing against your thighs.  The perspiration on your neck and forehead dries to a crispy film.  Eyes closed with an intake of breath, a shiver shoots up your spine as you finally succeed in wrapping your mind around the latest turn of events that have come crashing into your life.

Sporadic gunfire is head in the distance followed by a sharp series of shrieks.  Human?  Hard to tell at this distance.

This snap back to reality brings with it the realization that you have been standing here for quite some time entertaining the notion of jumping off of the roof.  Some primal force, some deep seeded fear has coaxed you into climbing the shadowy heights of this temporary sanctuary.  The thoughts rush back to your mind with simplistic ease.  One simple motion, one quick leap, would carry all the suffering, all the anguish, sixty feet to the pavement below, to the bliss of darkness.

After what seems a psychological eternity, a subtle shift in the sulfuric wind and this image of blackness stimulates the haunting memories which burn so vividly in your mind’s eye.  The bitter taste in your mouth thickens, and your teeth gnash.  One hand rises to your brow, absently rubbing the discolored wound which still registers tender to the touch.  ‘Christ!  Has it been such a short time?!’ your mind races.  With a mocking sting, your memory shows you that once pristine panoramic vista…

…your head hangs slumped against your chest, temple throbbing and left eye swollen closed from the kiss of a weathered baseball bat.  The sickening jingle of ankle and wrist shackles echoes in your ears amidst the haze of crackling and popping in the background.  Drawing from the deepest reserves, you raise your head to glance back over your shoulder for one last look at the past.

The valley below is enshrouded in the raging glow of night fire.  Countless hearts of flame burn across the landscape, eradicating anything that still lives and cremating that which does not.  A wave of grief and rage surge over you as you crumple to your knees and shriek into the night sky.  The crack of a whip is the only reply…

…sweat has reformed on your furrowed brow.  The wind continues to course over the reinforced wall, but it does little to quench the heat of rage you feel towards the slavers that brought your small piece of the world to such a vicious demise.  How many of those souls were consumed in the fires that evening?  And worse, how many were unlucky enough to survive?

For two weeks after being taken prisoner, you were penned in a small box with narrow slits that barely allowed the exchange of air and provided only the most meager of light sources.  Forced to wallow in your own filth, receiving sparse nutrition and spending a great deal of each day on the road, your mind, body and soul were pushed to hard extremes.  The mobile prison granted only the benefit of time, which you used to rehash the events of the past…trying to make sense of the madness that seemed to hound you.

How foolish, how naive you all had been!  Believing that the encounters your small community had dealt with as a result of the plague were anything even remotely close to the true Ruin.  This.  This is the Ruin in all its twisted glory laying before you.  You smell its stench.  You taste its poisons.  You hear the pulsing of its sinister heart.

Eyes still closed against the nightmare, you attempt to picture life as it was not so long ago.  As it was before everything went so terribly wrong…

…in the late twentieth century it is believed that the planet exceeded population saturation and resource consumption.  There simply was not enough food, water and energy to meet the demands of the trillions of lifeforms attempting to flourish on the planet’s surface.

The primary catalyst for the cataclysmic events to follow was the Viral Plague which reached its zenith during the turn of the millennium.  The arbitrary use of medicines, primarily antibiotics, amidst an ever growing population, actively bred more volatile and mutative viruses than previous generations had ever seen.  Medical science was unable to maintain the upper hand on the spread of new disease.

Divisions within the hierarchy of lifestyle began to widen as those with access to resources distanced themselves from the swelling masses and the diseases which were running rampant through them.  Mankind resorted to developing technologies which would segregate and isolate individual viral strains, while attempting to discover decontamination methods which would prove safe and effective on an increasingly larger scale.

Travel and trade embargoes were established between countries with the hope of preventing the spread of geographically landlocked diseases.  Without the ability to import the necessary means to maintain a healthy lifestyle however, many of the lesser developed countries experienced famine, mass occurrences of plague and political upheaval.

As the global situation degraded with no viable solution to the planetary problems evident, world leaders took action.  They went to war.

The ensuing eight years paid witness to some of the most horrific and inhumane acts by mankind since the Holocaust of World War II.  A mixture of conventional, chemical and nuclear warfare erupted across the globe with staggering and barbaric results.

During the eighth summer of the War of Plagues, world conflict came to an abrupt conclusion.  An as of yet unknown plague raced across the planet destroying an estimated ninety-five percent of the remaining world population.  Whether this horror was released as a last resort by a weakening government, was generated by nature as a final act of cleansing, or was merely birthed as a random mutation among the millions currently evolving, it is doubtful that anyone will ever know.  All that is known, is that the Scourge, as this new agent was named, was a highly contagious, air-borne disease that quickly and painfully eroded the central nervous system of most organic species, leaving the body to die by whatever means it encountered.

Horror stories still circulate among the storytellers and rumor mills.  Stories of those infected with the disease turning into wailing savages as their minds were shredded.  Stories that would conclude with these madmen running rampant through the streets spreading the Scourge in their wake…

…Believe what you will.  The simple truth is that the Ruin is here.  This is not a nightmare from which anyone will awaken.  Drawing a long, pungent breath, you open your eyes and take in the view, and it is as if you are seeing it all for the first time.

The sky is a bloody purple of boiling clouds as the sun hovers above the horizon somewhere off to the west.  The darkness of the city below is all but consuming.  With the exception of a few random fires blazing amidst the rubble, no lights shine to burn away the shadows.  Above the slice of the wind, you hear the shifts and eddies of the endless piles of detritus, but little else stirs.  To the south you see another reddish glow as if a twin sun were glowing there as well.  You have been told that the fire fields burn constantly to the south of the city.  A flash of lightning arcs across your field of vision.  Within its brief window of illumination you can make out a large winged creature circling in the sky against the murk of the clouds.  The roll of thunder which echoes after is stained with menace.

You hear one of the roof hatches pop open and from its inky outline a phrase is issued, “They’s starting t’get together.  We best get down to the garage.”

There is a brief hesitation from your partner before he disappears back into the building.  As another survivor from the old community, you were glad to see that he had managed to survive.  A familiar face among the Ruin is a treasure indeed.  But what does this new twist of fate have to offer?  What could there possibly be to live for within this city of chaos?

As you stand there, lost in the destruction, a rain begins to fall from the west.  Your eyes pinpoint the core wall approaching just as lightning cuts through the night sky.  For an instant, the flash of light illuminates the drops of rain into a glittering silver wall that causes you to catch your breath.  Such beauty…

Half-grinning, you turn from the edge and walk toward the hatch of the roof.  The roll of thunder drowns out your crunching footfalls.  In the pouring silence you begin to descend the ladder into the relative safety of the building below.  Hesitating for a moment with only your head above the lip of the hatch, you again look at the incoming rain and think of the shining wall of silver.  Your mind is made up.  You will see what the dawn will bring…and what the future holds for mankind.