Fissure Chapters Prologue-1

The world has been split to the center. A crack deep and wide. And things are coming from inside. A family has been split as well. Three factions. And they all are willing to do what it takes to live.

Prologue

Televisions were on late through the night, every channel playing the same footage. A newswoman, mid thirties, who at the beginning of the program looked amazed, scared, and even confused all at one time, now looked like she couldn’t come up with anything more to say on the topic, despite the look of unbelief that could either be perfectly authentic, or an attempt at making the audience feel more special than they really are. They, needless to say, switched to another spokeswoman as they had an infinite supply of willing candidates with many different ethnical backgrounds, and we listened to the same spiel all over again but this time in Japanese as the subtitles soared by underneath the video. What this woman had to say, every woman for that matter, who’d been speaking at one point or another, was how this single event could lead to the scientific discoveries of the century, wait, scratch that, millennium.

That was the beginning. The aspect of joy felt throughout the nation. New naturally occurring elements could be found, scientists could get a better picture of what the inside of the Earth, underneath the crust, mantle, and all the way down to the core, might look like. Things we never could have hoped would exist, might actually exist. But by the end, it was terror that was felt. And it was spread throughout the world. Needless to say, we did find things that we could never hope existed.

It started when the lady on the screen stopped talking and keeled over, blood shooting out of her mouth, pooling around her feet, and a large extremity came out of her throat. This wasn’t a human’s doing though. It was what looked like an octopus’s tentacle. A giant octopus. So large, that when the tentacle was finally removed from her mouth, it was a gaping hole; a passage not to the light of heaven, but the burning of infinite flames, and the fiery hell that came with it. Then she died, the Japanese woman lying on the ground, never in peace, forever in turmoil. The lens was blocked by a thumb, but in the background screams erupted like a choir of angels, singing their first and final deathly tune. The cameraman must have died as well, because the thumb was removed and the camera sat lying on the ground, aiming at both the lady, and the cameraman, resting alongside her.

The footage was live, and everything that was happening seemed more real as a result. Me and my family, from the comfort of our homes, all gasped in unison, for what I had just described, had all happened in the blink of an eye. When the camera shifted slightly, you could just barely see the vast savanna where the massacre had just took place. There was no one standing, everyone had a pool of blood to themselves. There’s only one reason this could be happening. The break; the fissure. And things were coming from inside.  

Chapter One

Year 2040

    Although the craft is sustaining, I suspect that this will be my last entry. I can’t live with the burden of what I was forced to do in the past. I want to be with them again; with her. Please forgive me my sweet angel. I will see you again soon. - Jordan

Log entry: 08/23/2120

The city square isn't juvial anymore. Not when tens of thousands of body bags lay on top of one another, creating a mountain of despair, and swarms of flies. And none of them are empty. My best friends, almost all of them, have made their final home among the rest of their kind. Our neighbors, grocers, teachers, even our milk men, have all laid to rest. And that was the beginning when the only thing the disease, the one that wiped out ninety percent of the population, did was kill. The virus has mutated, and now, the very few remaining people that become infected change. They change into something that’s not themselves. It corrupts their minds, and gives them a sense of bloodlust. And they don’t stop until you’re dead on the floor. The only thing that gives me the shivers every time I see them, cozy inside their sleeping bags, is how they got there in the first place. Who decided that, Hey! It's the apocalypse! Nice time to stack some bodies!

    We don't live here anymore. We learned two years ago, when the initial outbreak occurred, that it wasn’t safe. All our friends and neighbors started dying, so we up and left. We spent five days in the Fire River National Park Refugee Camp. Which is funny because all of the religious folk literally thought that the rivers were going to start catching fire. Needless to say, we didn’t stick around long. Next we followed the road a good ten, twenty miles. Out of nowhere, a car sped along the highway, bulldozing through the wrecked and salvaged cars lining the interstate, and pulled over to the side of the road, right where we were standing. They didn’t say a word, they just grabbed Gabriel and drove off, paying no heed to my mom’s cries of sadness, and my father’s cursing.

I won't forgive my parents for making us abandon friends, but now that they joined the Army Against Naiads almost two years ago right after we left, when they took him, they can’t ever see us anymore. They haven’t for the entire time they’ve been gone. Gabriel, the youngest of our family, is who they’re fighting for. He was only six, but the Naiads snatched him. That’s who the people in the car were. Naiads disguised as humans.

We call them the Naiads because they somehow managed to live under an ocean of dirt this entire time, without detection, only to grab us and pull us under, and finally suck the life out of us as they drown not only our bodies, but our souls. Well, we don't truly know what they do with the people they take, but it's likely the hostages aren't around to talk about it. Me and my sister are all that we can be certain is left of our family. We live together fifty miles out of reach of the nearest town, which is still a good hundred away from where we are now. But today's a special occasion. It's the day it all started. Every year we come and honor the dead, me and my sister, and it's become a tradition.

“We should be heading back before nightfall so we can shelter ourselves away from the outburst conclaves.” My sister speaks from right behind my ear causing me to jump. The Naiads brought plague with them, the ultimate elimination device. The outbreak conclaves are city's,or places where we are likely to find the infected. “You should always be on the alert. You never know what could be stalking you.” My big sister is always looking out for me, although she has weird ways of showing it. Before the Cataclysm, she was the sister who would always be kind and sweet, and never say a mean or hurtful thing about anyone. But underneath that thick layer of snake skin, she's tough as nails, and it took the world ending for anyone to notice.

We start on the long journey home towards our log cabin in what we call the Haven. No living soul, apart from animals, for forty-five miles in each direction, and fifty to the nearest town, which means it's almost impossible to get infected. Located inside a large meadow, no one will be able to get to us without an arrow through the head first. Oh, and that's another thing my big sis is good at, archery. It may seem like I'm a lot younger, but really, she's only a few months ahead of me. Still, I never quite got the bow skills down. We stay away from the roads, a good fifty meters off, so that if anyone walks by, we can see them, but they can't see us.

Well practiced at moving stealthily through the forest, we make little sound at all, but must duck down quite a few times when we hear noises. Animals or not, we can't take chances. Bow slung around her shoulder, my sister leads the way, and soon we can't go any farther because the lights have dimmed dramatically. We decide to set up camp for the night in a secluded area, and set up our sleeping bags and lanterns which are only for emergency situations. Finally, we slip into our bags, and drift off into the only chance of peace we ever receive. No matter how cold it gets, we never get closer than five feet to each other. Fourteen year olds have dignity too, even if it is the apocalypse. We wake up to a sound, and quickly pack, but stay low. Whatever the source is, we don't stick around to find out, and take off, no words passing between our unmoving lips. A shiver passes through my spine, and I can't help but feel we are being watched.

We go about another mile before I can't take it anymore. “Casey, be ready. I think we're being followed,” I scratch out a whisper. She takes an arrow from her quiver and docks it, ready to fire if the opportunity arises. We play this game for about two minutes, and I can tell she feels the entity nearby too, until a loud screech erupts from the left, and a murder flies up out of the treetops. Casey barely has enough time to swivel to the left and release her arrow into the skull of the diseased one that had been following us. A second worth of hesitation and she would have been dead.

         After our encounter, we’re eager to keep walking. We make another twenty five miles that day. If we had took the road we would have been faster, but it's a death trap out there. As Casey proved, even under the cover of the forest, things can threaten your life. We follow the road, still about fifty meters out, to make sure we aren't off course. It's risky, but better than ending up alone In the woods. That's when we hear it. Screeching along the road, skidding along. A car. The one that stole Gabriel. And it's driver wants his siblings.  

         

Chapter Two

Year 2045

The Earth is like an egg. Yes, we've all heard this metaphor before. But, if the egg is treated just right, a phenomena may occur. A baby chick may hatch. Such is the case for our home planet. If we had took more care and consideration to the treatment of our egg, the chick wouldn't have hatched. My hypothesis, is that this life force was sent to us because the planet was trying to protect itself, like a chick trying to prevent his body from being boiled. The only difference, is that the chick is helpless, but our planet is not. The creature’s goal is to wipe out the cause of the trouble; humans. This monster is our savior, our salvation, if not for this generation, for the next. I hope they have learned from our mistakes, and I hope that the chick crawls back in the egg, resealing the cracks, and doesn’t return again. If it does, the effects will be momentous. - Dr. Lisanna Stuart, Oxford University , Ph.D.

Log entry: 03/09/2041

To be continued... (sorry for the bad description, they didn't give me enough characters)

Author's Note

I've decided to take authors' advice when they say, jot a basic overview of the story down, then come back and lay on the details thick and creamy. Now, a perfect example of this is the first chapter compared to the prologue. In the prologue, all of the details are added. The first chapter, though, has a slimmer overview. What I'm hoping to hear is not about how it is now, but how you think it's going to turn out, and what I can do to improve the future path of this story. Thank's for reading, and don't forget to review!

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Oh, and I have started the second chapter already. Let me know if you'd like to read more!