Prologue - Places that have been erased.

Prologue

The devil is the details of our lives

Emotions; the demons of our dreams.

It would be easy to say I'm haunted by a reckoning,

But no - I'm possessed by impulse

 

To hold onto these illusions I only hope exist,

...I'll always be trapped here, endless, timeless....heartless

 

 

Because mine is taken,

A demon with no heart.

*-*-*
 

                Laughable at best.  It seemed to be the only thought racing through Robert Cassedy’s mind.  The scene before him was both scattered and pragmatic.  The images began rushing through his head like the rewinding of an old VHS tape.   Everything that had led to this point was some strangely arranged and ordered form of chaos.  In most cases, hindsight is 20/20.  Just not today.  Not for Robert.

                He looked around at the cold dead eyes around him.  They were like zombies that haven’t been told they’re alive yet, or like ghosts that haven’t awoken; who could tell.  No whisper had yet come from Charon, to signal their ferry ride home.  That unmistakable odor of death still hung around and some part of Robert was intent to take all of it in.  He was staring through the smoke of the gun in his outstretched hand; just staring through an eternal, yet brief, moment.  He felt the muffled chaos from the floor below long before he heard it.  The vibrations moved up Robert’s feet and across his still outstretched hand.  He knew the peace he was enjoying would be interrupted soon.  He should leave; somehow, in some way.  But the cold eyes were still watching him, their mouths sagged and open.  He was a parasite to this place, and it was haunting him to stay.

The banging and shuddering from the floors below was moving up the echoes of the stairwell.  Robert should leave, but that exit was now no longer an option.  The chaos was nearing the door.  It was fighting its way inside and instinct took over for Robert.  The clip to his handgun was already falling to the floor as he pulled the gun back to his chest.  Robert was taking aim at the barricaded door as he slid the spare clip from inside his sport coat into the handle.  All of this he had done, before he even knew it.

“Five clips left.” Robert's instinct told him as he chambered the first round.  From the sounds outside, he knew five would never be enough.  He looked around at the judgment he had served.  It would be remarkable if he somehow survived this and lived up to his promise.  But he knew when he said it, it was a promise made in vain.  He had done his part, and he knew it was a one-way trip.  All that remained was an end to that means.

The door banged louder as the chaos on the other side intensified.  Everyone has to take a stand for something.  At some point in their lives, something comes along that means enough to risk everything.  Robert knew that if there was anything in his life that had meant enough to die for, this was it.  But he wasn’t going to die easy.  He still believed that the longer he fought them off, the more difference he made.  Somehow, each second he fought, was a renewal of his promise.  A second more of honor.  The more time he purchased within the final moments of his life, could make all of the difference in the world.  He wasn’t going to die saving the love of his life, she had died years before now.  He wasn’t going to die saving the human race, it had practically died out years before as well.  No, Robert was planning on dying for a real reason.  For a cause.  Robert’s hand was steady.  The door cracked.

“Come and get me.” He whispered as he pulled the trigger back.

*-*-*

 

Not too long before that, everything was fine; Earth’s own twisted version of perfect.  It would later be called the Armageddon that ended the world, or the Last World War.  But Robert tried not to make it out to be more than it was: the world had just had enough of itself.  It was like a bad marriage, where it was the cataclysm of hundreds of meaningless things that brought about a total calamity.  After AIDS, there was SENTRA; after Cancer came Cliften’s; the diseases were more deadly, more contagious, and more evolved.  Rapid spread of infection caused undue riots on medical facilities, then stock markets crashed, housing markets crashed, civility left the streets, and the world turned itself upside down.  Eventually it was buttons that were pushed by high-powered governments that had no business existing, let alone being pushed.  But who was the “everyman” to such things?  At the time, everyone just started watching the world die.  No one did anything about it, except move it along.

In the aftermath of the reckless button pushing, several countries were irradiated, several hundred cities were destroyed, and ninety-some percent of the human race was gone within a few months.  Between evolved diseases, nuclear holocaust, post-apocalyptic violence, and the eventuality of starvation and isolation; humanity had finally run its race.  And then the universe had one final cosmic gag to pull: the Skinsifters.  It was truly ironic that only after humanity had removed almost all of its population from the face of the Earth, did Earth finally become a beacon of interest to extraterrestrial life.  It was a sick divine prank that the aliens only found the irradiated death trap of a planet interesting enough to be used as a penal colony.

And that’s where Robert Cassedy’s story really begins: at humanity’s end.