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Beginings of my NaNo entry. |
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It was chaos.
The air was thick with the screams of people, buildings collapsing and the very ground ripping apart. Huge fissures opened up, swallowing people are objects alike. In those few short hours, all past problems of humankind seemed insignificant. Racism, homphobia, and religion didn't exist; everyone was facing the same problem at the same time, all over the world.
Animals ran wild in the streets, escaped from zoos and homes. They too ran for their lives, the domesticated dogs and cats all reverting to natural instinct and heading for whatever safety they could find. Seaside cities and homes were all but decimated by tidal waves and flooding, almost completely submerging them.
Thousands, maybe millions died that day. A measly few million survived themselves, but nothing was ever the same. The Great Cataclysm, as it would be called in later years, had changed everything. The lands and continents that had become so familiar had vanished, separating and crashing into one another and creating all new places.
Humankind, for all its innovation and technology, could do nothing to keep the forces of nature at bay.
But humans are also notoriously hardy, adapting and changing whenever they needed to. Small tribes, groups had sprung up, living in the ruins of their cities or out in the wilderness. Some succeeded, some didn't. It's a hard life but there's no other option.
With the Great Cataclysm came other changes, in the people. Some started to develop...abilities never before seen in anything but movies and comic books. With that mindset, these people were both feared and respected, their reputation carved out by that bothersome problem humans have about fearing things they don't fully understand.
And so The Faction was formed. A group of radicals who promised to keep mankind safe from those who were different, those they called 'The Changed'. A mass genocide of the Changed began, the propaganda saying it was 'For the best'. But that was far from the truth. Whole families had been torn to literal pieces in the hunt for the Changed.
The Faction grew in strength, stretching to all corners of the globe, built upon it's bloody and terrible crusade. Led by a man simply called Otto, the Faction soon became the most powerful organization in the history of the world. The Freemasons, Knights Templar, Illuminati and the Nazis paled in comparison, unable to even hold a candle up to the terrible deeds done by the Faction.
15 years later
Hidden behind an overturned car, Arcadian made a hand gesture for his crew to follow. The four others followed, huddling on either side of him behind the car.
'Arcadian, how many times do we have to do this?' asked Tom Summers in a worried whisper, peeking through the broken windows of the car and sinking back down. 'We're going to run out of luck one day and get caught!'
Arcadian sighed and dropped his head. 'Tom, why do you always have to be so...negative?' he asked, lifting his head again and giving a small smile. 'We're not going to get caught.'
'I'm not being negative,' Tom pressed, more forcefully than he had been in the past. 'I'm being realistic. Remember what happened to Ryan's crew last month? That could be us!'
A hand dropped gently onto Arcadian's shoulder on his other side and he met the eyes of the only female member of his crew, a girl named Jess. 'Arcadian, he's right. We can't keep going on like this.' she told him, shaking her head a bit.
Arcadian frowned and turned to the other two members, twin boys named Alex and Jon. They didn't talk much, their silence made enough noise for anyone to hear. They didn't nod or shake their heads, only staying quiet and stoic.
Arcadian looked between the four of them, meeting each of their gazes. 'So you're all thinking the same thing?' he asked, his heart sinking at what the answer would be. They all nodded and he sighed.
'Why?' he asked simply, sitting back against the car.
Tom shook his head, not believing what he was hearing. 'Arc, are you kidding? Why? Because it's ******** dangerous, man! If the Faction catches us swiping stuff from a supply depot, we're dead meat!'
'Tom we've been doing this for four years. Why have you all of a sudden changed your mind?'
'Arcaidan, I haven't changed my mind. I've said doing this was a bad idea from the start. I only agreed to any of your crazy schemes because I know you'd get yourself caught or worse if I didn't watch your back. We all did.'
Arcadian looked around at the other three. He had always thought that they were in it for the same reasons he was, because they were tired of the Faction's tyrannical rule. Arcadian and his crew had been nicking things from the Faction's supply depots in the area for the last four years. Small stuff, like food and other such essentials. The several small tribes and gangs living in the ruins of downtown Ottawa had rejected them and had thus struck out on their own, little more than petty thieves and not the hardy rebels Arcadian thought they were. All four of them were orphans their family's lost in raids by the Faction's personal army.
Now it seemed that Arcadian was the only one who truly believed in what they were doing. He raked his fingers through his tousled brown hair and blew out a breath. 'This isn't just crazy schemes, Tom; this is survival. If we stop, what would we do then? Try and join one of the many tribes that have shunned us? Good luck with that,' he scoffed.
'We'll start our own tribe then,' Tom replied, raising his voice. 'Find more people like us, who have nowhere else to go.'
'And what about food, huh?'
'Arc, you know that supply drops and doled out every few weeks or so.'
Arcadian shook his head. 'No, Tom. That's the Faction's way of winning you over, gaining your trust. If you want to get ahead in this world, you've got to make your own way.'
He peeked over the top of the car and shrunk back down as a military transport with the Faction's insignia on the side rumbled past.
 Pamplemousse Grenouille · Sun Nov 01, 2009 @ 11:35pm · 0 Comments |
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