Apocalypse: The Wake
Or, What Came After
The place is the same: Khazan (call it what you will, but it is in most
respects identical to the world before Apocalypse). Repairs have been in
progress for quite some time now. LaCroix enterprises has been actively engaged
in shipping relief supplies from its Outer Rim territories, where the War of
the End Times has already been over for nearly forty years. It is not enough to
house the homeless, or comfort the grieving. It is, however, enough to feed
them. Several of the Multidimensional conglomerates have, at the behest of
Lester William DuLupin LaCroix XVIII, been shamed into providing voluntary
services to the disenfranchised. There is still a thirty-mile wide crater where
the GrimSpire once stood, and at times the temporal instability sends flashes
of the past washing over the city, and people weep as they stare into the past.
The dead, they know, cannot return. They whisper to each other an old proverb,
considering death and taxes.
Others speak another proverb, considering a variable number of footprints in
the sand.
But, had the citizens of Khazan been pressed to speak of their situation with
one voice, there is one saying they would have all agreed on: What's past is
prologue.
What's past is prologue...
And the future, of course, is the business of the epilogue. Therefore watch,
and see...
*
The JLA building, several hundred floors of it, is now a hospital. For a while,
it dealt with the wounded, and the dying. Today, however...
"Breathe!"
Angie Blackfeather gasped, her hand tightening convulsively around Three's
slender fingers. The grin beneath the midnight-blue hood remained constant,
although she knew she had felt some bones give somewhere in there. Pain rushed
through her again, a screaming convulsion, and rational thought fled from her.
She screamed, the thin white polyester hospital gown sticking to the
sweat-slick skin of her gravid belly.
"Breathe." Doctor Alvarez bent over her, the hospital scrubs covering
her pretty, concerned face, eyes staring out through safety goggles.
"Breathe."
Angie gasped, and gasped again. This time, something inside Three's hand
definitely gave, but she didn't notice, and he didn't flinch. Her voice
scratched the insides of her throat as she screamed. Inside, she felt it move.
"Breathe."
She laughed.
Alvarez' eyes dropped beneath Angies' hospital gown. "Now, push!"
She pushed. The pain... The pain was incredible. For a moment, she had a flash
of a man, his face a rectus of hurt, blood trickling from his mouth, dark hair
clinging to his forehead, eyes pleading... "Angie. Go."
She pushed. She pushed. She pushed. She felt the movement inside her.
Angie screamed once more, but this time, something else screamed with her, a
high-pitched, rising cry, complaining against the world in a series of tremolos
and chords surrounding a crystal-clear high C. Slow as dawn, she smiled, and
after a cut and a class of water, received the child into her arms. She was
small, slightly chubby, slick with moisture, and she had her father's eyes...
"Hello, little Castillae."
*
Cacus Itoryx wandered alone in no-place. The injuries to his spine had
long-since healed, for he was hardly a normal man, and only a few scars
remained to boast of his fight with War. Not that there was anyone to boast to,
here. He had been walking for some time without sleeping. He was walking
somewhere, he knew. If he went to sleep, here, he might forget that, might lose
the difference between the sleeping and the waking.
He walked, and he thought of many things. Was there still a world left where he
could return? Did Heaven rule now, or Hell? Had both annihilated the other? Was
there any point to walking? Perhaps not. At any rate, he persisted. One foot in
front of the other. Sometimes he jumped long distances for variety.
Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. He spoke to himself
for a while, of Baddel and the Tower, of the Fall, of the worlds beyond. When
he grew tired of his own voice, or perhaps remembered the sorrow of what he was
saying, he stopped.
Some time later, when he had almost forgotten what voices sounded like, one
spoke in his mind, distant, but unerringly familiar. He had last heard it in a
well-lit kitchen, sitting next to Nedarion, who was now dead. "Terribly
sorry about this."
His own voice was cracked from lack of use. "Azaquiel?"
"Indeed. Sorry, I was just passing through and noticed that you were still
around. That wasn't supposed to happen... Guess you got missed in the last
reorganization. Hold on a second." A presence, not human, shifted in the
darkness before him, and there was a faint click. "There. Try it
now." He didn't move. "Don't worry, it's perfectly safe."
Cacus put out his hand, nearly jumping from shock when it met something cool,
smooth, and round, with the feel of brass. A doorknob. With his other hand, he
felt out in front of his face, but there was no door.
"Go on."
He turned the doorknob. Light flooded his world, and he screamed. Blinding
light penetrated every pore and molocule of his body, tiny and piercing. For a
moment he wondered if Azaquiel had betrayed him, here at the end of everything,
but he figured that, compared to timeless wandering on the borders of
everything, another death didn't sound altogether bad.
The light died, and he stood in the middle of a throng of people, wall to wall,
clustered from one set of massive buildings to another, people of every race
and shape and creed, of all different thought patterns, walks, smiles... He
looked up, and knew by the single great tower where he was: the KPD plaza, at
rush hour. His smile, unnoticed until now, widened, and he walked off toward
the road.
Where would he go? He didn't know. But now, he had a great deal of practice
with walking... He might as well continue.
*
Mrs. Wilkinson was a large, heavyset woman in her late eighties, resembling
nothing so much as a well-preserved World War II tank, with the face and jowls of
a bulldog. She frowned down at the brown-carpeted room full of small children,
and they tittered happily back at her, and she was pleased. Outside, the sky
was blue, and for the most part, the air was clean, although dark clouds on the
horizon hinted at a storm approaching. "Children." They grinned, and
continued talking amongst themselves. "Children!" Gradually, the
tittering stopped, and they turned to her, looking up expectantly. Poor kids,
she thought. So many of them were orphans now... It was hard for the school to
keep up, but somehow, she knew, they would manage. It was one of the things
teachers did best, managing. "I'd like for you to meet your new teacher.
Say hello to Miss Aurora."
The slender, pretty girl next to her smiled, and shifted her feet, almost
embarrassed. "It's Aurorae, actually."
Children, especially schoolchildren, were not fools. They knew what was
expected of them. Twenty small voices peeped, "Hello Miss Aurorae,"
in a kind of cheerful monotone.
Stella beamed. "Hello."
*
There is a distant world, untouched by the massive restoration projects of the
multiverse. It is a dead planet. For perhaps a million years it has lain dead,
although there are signs a great civilization once flourished there, and still
no resurgent plants have been found, no alien life form that can survive on its
surface. It is a miracle that, after all this time spent vacant, the ghost of
an atmosphere still hugs the world like a threadbare mantle of royalty.
If a xenoarchaeological surveyor ship arrived, it would immediately chart a
landing course for the planet's one remaining mostly intact city, on an
artificial island equidistant between four continents. The city is broken, many
of its once-great, soaring buildings blackened, here and there painted with the
shadows of running men and women, in mural and mosaic. Here and there, piles of
ash remain.
In the center of the city is a palace, its great gates broken into pieces,
tapestries and rugs rotted, paintings burned, intricate electronics long since
ionized by the electrical storms which still occasionally circle the world.
Following a direct line towards the center of the palace, which someone
evidently did at one point, evidenced by row upon row of broken doors and
walls, one may come to a throne room.
The throne room has been pulverized. Statues have been smashed to dust, and
smashed again, harder, the dust stirred by millenia of wind into a single,
smooth layer over broken marble tile, stained with something that might have
been age, and might have been blood. Here and there, a smooth wall has been
grooved by mighty claws. Light streams in from shattered points in the great
dome. A lump of solid gold that might have once been a throne before it was
melted stands upon a dais at one end of the room.
Today is a special day. For the first time in a million years, the dust of ages
has been disturbed. A woman stands in the middle of the great hall.
She is beautiful, and wears old clothing that, if one looked closely, one could
see duplicated in the murals of the wall. A long time ago - a million years,
say - her face may have stopped armies, and her smile won the heart of a single
Queen's Guard, given him the strength of will and purpose to defy the Councils
of Heaven and Hell in defense of his mistress and be cursed to immortality...
Now, the skin was pale, and long ages of torture dwelled inside the quiet, dark
eyes, but the smile was the same.
A long time ago, she saw him standing there, proud in defiance of the Fourteen,
wind-buffetted, eyes full of power. She heard him proclaiming independence, saw
him rush into their midst, a cyclone of arms and legs and power... She heard
them passing sentence, on him and her. Immortality for him who would resist any
pain, and eternal pain for her, who would resist any sorrow. And so they had
been seperated.
Now, a million years later, she is free in the chaos following a defeat that
was not precisely a defeat, and he... he is dead.
Slowly, a tear rolls from the right corner of her right eye, down her cheek,
and she tastes salt. Crouching, she lays a wreath of roses on a spot she
remembers very well, and speaks. "Nedarion Aleketh Tai'ban. Rest well, my
love." A tear falls from her, and lands in the exact center of the wreath.
Rising, she leaves that place.
*
A man sat at a bar, wearing an immaculately pressed, three-piece white suit,
his chin cradled in his hand. Before him was an ash tray, upright and empty. He
was, after all, trying to quit.
Behind him, the sun beamed, the sea rushed, and children danced in the surf. It
had taken him quite a while to find this place. Occasionally, people looked at
him, and he waved back, smiling. His white hat lay next to the ash tray. Warmth
suffused him, sliced through with the beach's salt breeze. He was happy. In the
months since the Change, which he joyfully referred to in capital letters, he
had often been happy.
He felt, rather than heard, her arrival, sashaying off the sand in a tan
bathing suit almost the color of her sun-bronzed skin, sunglasses hiding her
vixin's green eyes. It was easy to know she was there. From the moment she
stepped into the shade, no man in the bar had uttered a sound. She sat down
next to him, and smiled languidly. "Hello."
"Hello."
"It took me a while to find you."
"I wasn't looking to be found."
"I wouldn't imagine that you were." She smiled, and there was a glass
of tequila in her hand. Sunlight glinted within the liquid, and whether the
light was reflection or emanation, he couldn't tell. She took a sip. "You
know, the funny thing is, I'm not looking to be found either."
"Oh, really?" He raised a shot glass to his own mouth, and drank.
"Yes. The troops fell back into line easily enough once we were all home.
Then..." She shrugged. "We've sort of taken a break. Recent events
being what they are, we all have a lot of soul-searching to do." Her
laughter mixed with the rush of waves. "Kind of a silly concept, isn't it?
Us, soul-searching?" She grinned, and took another sip of tequila.
"It's almost art."
His shoulders shrugged in a ripple of white. "Not of my making."
Behind, the sun beat down on a swamped surfer, swimming calmly for shore.
"True. And that, for once, must feel good." He didn't respond, so she
pressed on. "We know who you are. Your conversation with... her... it
echoed in our minds. Which was the point, wasn't it?" Again, a silence,
the whistling of lonely wind and the senseless roar of waves. The sun moved
behind an errant bank of cloud, streaming the shorline with shadow. "I
would thank you for your message, if I knew that you weren't actually trying to
kill me. If I hadn't gone, the others would have thought I was involved. They
would have come after me. One less Council member to obstruct your plans. Am I
right?"
He shifted uncomfortably, tugging at his lapel. "I'm not sure any more.
When you know all the rules to the game, and can predict everyone else's, it's
very hard to make a move that won't work in your favor. Even if you try."
Turning, he laid his one hand, tanned and tapering, on hers. "I wanted the
best for you. If I had let you go there unwarned in one way or another, would
you feel any differently?" Blue eyes searched her face, and found nothing
of what they sought. "I know, it doesn't work. That's the reason I left.
But, Astarte," and she grinned when he said her name, "it's
different, now. I make mistakes, the same as anyone else. The world doesn't
work the way I set it out any more. I've tried. I can lose. Not at poker, but
still..."
Astarte shook her head. There may have been traces of tears in her eyes.
"I just don't know what to think any more..."
"Then don't think. We're on vacation."
She laughed, sobbing, and he laughed with her.
After a while, he put his hand on her shoulder, looked into her deep green
eyes, and said, softly, "Astarte. I said that things were different
now?"
"Yes."
"Astarte... I think..." He broke off, for once at a loss for words.
"Don't think." She smiled, leaned over, and kissed him. After a
moment, he kissed her back. A flock of seagulls took flight as they leaned into
one another's arms.
Behind them, beyond, stretched the sea: wine-dark and rolling, capped here and
there with foam, out to the horizon and past, into the stars. It is the
ever-present sea, the beginningless beginning, the endless end... On a shore,
in the distance, a child awakes, and cries. Its mother comforts it, and
together they wait for the dawning of the day.
Somewhere, cleansing rain falls on the city of Khazan.
Fin.
Credits
The Author Was
Darth_Maxx
The Author would like to thank:
Seryph, Bryn, Three, Phil, Gigs, Austin, and everybody else for the support and
enthusiasm.
His family, for not institutionalizing him when he stayed up all night to
finish this.
Chris, for starting the Shallow Guild, which was where a lot of this began.
ThreeDark, Bryn, Seryph, Phil and all the rest for being good sounding boards.
DragonFang
Everyone who donated characters, there are too many of you to thank properly,
but I'm in all of your debts.
Media, for starting the trend.
Austin, for Victor Street
and all the rest.
The Music for the End Credits, If I had Enough Bandwidth to Post .mp3's:
"What a Wonderful World", by Louis Armstrong
The Inspirational Musics for Inception Were:
Susan Vegas 99.9 Farenheight Degrees
Pink Floyds The Wall
Thank you all. It's been fun.