Chapter One: Falling Into Nothing (Nicoli)A Chapter by Tsukin Archangel Told from Main character 1's perspective Chapter One: Falling into Nothing Nicoli I remember the day the world ended like it was yesterday. The loud shrieking in my head, a horrible incessant agony, a stabbing unstoppable pain like a thousand shards of glass entering me. I remember watching the sky break into a thousand pieces--the residual fear I felt when I saw that...oh god, dio misericordioso, it was awful. How I had wanted to cry, to hang onto my family, to be able to hide in my fathers arms for one last time. But I couldn't, I was a Dolore, Nicoli Dolore, son of Faust Dolore, and Dolore's never showed weakness, never showed how much they were hurting, never showed their fear, not even to the ones they loved the most, especially not them. I remembered the gut wrenching nausea that hit me as gravity suddenly reversed itself. The ground cracking like the sky, chunks lifting to meet it. I didn't know where it was I was supposed to be looking. Up or down. Left or right. Direction was meaningless in that moment. I would later learn that the Earth's electromagnetic field was broken that day. That the Aurora shined brighter than ever before. One more time. One last glorious time, it shined on the Earth, all of it, from pole to pole for all to see, shrouded in a beautiful rainbow. But no one could appreciate it. No one stopped to stare in awe. No, humans had better things to worry about. They had to survive. They had to figure out what the heck had happened. They had to run from all the new horrors unleashed on them...on us. The Golems, artificial lifeforms with intelligence's of varying degree's who served those infected by the K-Virus, the Pantheon, those infected, the Animate, organic life with no soul, no will of there own, the closest thing to dead you can get without actually being there. Not to mention the other Renegades, the ones against your faction, each side right in its own way, each side trying to survive, trying to find food, water, shelter, a piece of the earth stable enough to withstand life for at least a day. Every moment was harder than the last. Everyday we grew closer and closer to extinction. Every single godforsaken day I wished for a way out. I think that's how I ended up on the roof of the old El Capitan theatre. I think that's why, but really I just didn't know anymore. I stood, looking out on what used to be Hollywood, but was now just a street. A name. A long forgotten sign. What did I think I would accomplish from this? Did I think that the borderline toxic outside air would clear my head? Sure. That was definitely the reason why I was standing at the edge of a roof wondering if the fall would kill me. I sighed, my eyes taking in the destruction around me, overturned cars, shattered asphalt, jagged spikes of earth jutting from sides of buildings, tall skyscrapers reduced to nothing, all of man's greatest accomplishments gone in flash. Reduced to rubble. To nothing. Made you realize just how un-important we all were. I would have laughed if I could remember how. Or maybe what I really wanted was to cry. I remembered a poem that fit this scene, Ozymandias, I think. Written by Mary Shelley's husband Percy. But anyway one line stood out in my mind at that moment. One quote on a pedestal of a broken statue in the middle of the desert a quote that spoke of the intense irony of existence. “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” But there was nothing there. Nothing left. Wasn't that how the next line went? Wasn't it... Nothing beside remains. I can't really say it's surprising that the husband of the lady who wrote Frankenstein wrote a poem about the insignificance of existence, I probably would have ended up doing something similar if I had been in his position, hell I still might. We probably could've been friends, Percy and I. But that didn't matter now did it. I closed my eyes and for a moment I could see the city for what it had been, a bustling center of the entertainment industry, sunny, warm, inviting, always full of people, always having some party or club you could go to. For a moment I remembered. For a moment I wasn't in the world that seemed to be forever overcast, to be shrouded in a thin layer of gray, as if everything was slowly being leeched of its color and we were just the last annoying specks that resisted our destinies. I opened my eyes again, people used to say I looked like my mom, I had her face, a soft non angular thing, feminine in nature, lacking the masculine jaw my father had, giving me a seemingly innocent appearance; we shared the same smile when I would really smile, the same eye shape, the same lips, but my nose...that I got from my dad, and my pale skin, and my ears, and my wavy black hair, and my coal black eyes, the slim but deadly build that held our hidden strength. I was my parents child, anyone who saw us together would be able to tell. I sighed. Thoughts like that always brought my mind back to the reason I was standing here. I was wondering if the fall would kill me. Probably not. Not much could kill me anymore. See...I had the K-Virus. And that, amongst other things, made me virtually immortal. A single tear fell down my face and I breathed in the sulfur, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, whatever the hell else was in it infested air. Ha. Looked like I still remembered how to cry. Not much good it would do me now, all I had left was myself. All my family was gone, the few people I could consider friends dead, all that was left was a base need to survive and even that was dwindling away to nothing. Fizzing slowly out like a candle's flame drowning in its wax, waiting for either the wick or the now liquid substance to snuff it out. That was me, the candle flame. I had no reason left to live, no reason left to try. I dropped my mask. I closed my eyes. I breathed and I felt the burn it caused, a sweet, sweet thing that told me I was alive. The fall wouldn't kill me. The air couldn't suffocate me. A knife wouldn't cut me. I was a candles flame. I didn't deserve to shine brightly.I didn't deserve to live when I had nothing to share it with. I felt the wick burn out, I felt the wax overtake me. “My name is Nicoli Dolore, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” I jumped. Nothing beside remained.
© 2013 Tsukin Archangel |
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Tsukin ArchangelPalmdale, CAAboutHmm let's see~ I'm 20 (wow I've had this account for a long time) I'm a poet I'm a story writer A singer An amateur Voice actor An anime enthusiast An avid gamer 100% Unadulterrated Me! I wri.. more..Writing
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