After pressing forward, I discovered another abandoned car in which the elderly driver possessed no visible injuries; he’d gone into cardiac arrest probably thinking he was going insane. I clasped my hands underneath his arms and moved his body onto the road before shifting the car’s automatic transmission and accelerating up into the hills.
Eventually, the sounds of screaming became fainter; however, gunshots grew ever more frequent outside of the town. I was slowly but surely venturing into the open plains which ended in an area overlooking an ocean. I grew even more fearful despite no longer bearing witness to the endless death toll and creatures roaming within my old city. Following a brief reprieve while on the road, I observed similar abnormal events occurring across the rest of the world. Black storms had multiplied across the Earth, along with lightning that arced down to spread fire and across the land. I felt terror within when viewing towering silhouettes dotting the landscape: giants of incredible stature heralding from another reality far from this one.
Dr. Keung destroyed the world.
And I was due to come across the most curious sight yet.
Within the hills sprawled a tundra upon which a struggle currently raged, and I witnessed men and women wearing the uniforms of the Globalist Army while assaulting a legion twice their size in numbers. Upon further inspection, I noticed the enemy legion dressed in gleaming armor that I’d never seen before—armor worn by a species bulkier and significantly taller than a normal human. It seemed to be another animal or, quite possibly, a horde of demons marching across the horizon. A horde threatening to establish dominion. They planned to slaughter us.
Some of them carried conventional firearms, whereas others wielded weapons from a time when melee was the traditional style of combat. They began sustaining both bullets and surviving the impact of mortar blasts from the Globalist battalion…
Then they commenced their own advance.
Their progression was slow, initially; despite this, they were covering ground in what seemed to be a death march that would end in the annihilation of the human race. I watched as several demons finally succumbed to brutal wounds, but their persistence as a force was earning them increasingly more territory. This allowed them to begin what soon became a melee assault upon the mobilized unit, and soldiers were suddenly confronted with an overwhelmingly powerful new threat. Something that none of them could handle in close combat.
They were mauled… ravaged… eaten…
The horde subjugated the battalion as it continued a destructive path through their ranks and began ripping ferociously through anything remotely hostile. I'd thought it was a form of warfare—creatures sent by the Isolationists, who’d vehemently opposed the Globalists, but no faction possessed the capabilities to bring such monstrosities into this universe.
A stray bullet smashed through the front window shield and buried itself into the middle of the backseat!
I was stunned momentarily but ultimately shocked back into reality, and I drove away from the desolate scene. Now I knew why no one could come to help us… the doctor had condemned us all.
Once outside of the area, I attempted to tune into local radio stations to check if there was anyone genuinely safe. I browsed for an active channel, but there remained only a static silence that penetrated any sense of composure I had left. I continued driving for a short time and avoided the regions which had been most tainted by the First Rift.
Then, I remember seeing it in the distance…
A truck. Our truck.
I slammed on the brakes and stopped behind my husband before rushing to get out of the car. I had to control my breathing in order to brace myself, but I had to see them—they had to be safe. He wouldn’t let anything happen to my son; besides, he'd made it so far! I still believed in him.
Although we'd had our differences, I always loved my husband—and thinking about our history together quickly gave me the confidence I needed to go to him. Maybe I couldn't forgive him for everything, but with only little time left in this world I'd wake up that idiot and let him know I was coming along for the ride.
With bold and renewed energy, I hurried up to the driver's side and peered through the slightly fogged window to see…
3
Body and Soul
-
Tavon
-
A FIERY PIT…
Whispering, screeching emanating from a vortex which generates powerful gusts. I look toward the skies for an escape and see the symbol of a blood-stained eye etched into the heavens. My fear overcomes me, but I urge myself to move forward—forward into a wall of dark winds that threaten to sweep me into their formidable embrace. They become a shroud over me, and all I can feel is a frigid sensation quickly washing over my nerves.
I drown in the void.
I’m shivering violently as I proceed onto a rugged path which winds its way to the edge of a tall cliff. My body becomes heavy; still, I press on through the oppressive climate before coming to a halt.
There’s a figure garbed in an old cloak, which has withered against the constant, cold breeze. I try to call out to him, but I cannot find the words to speak. I try to move, but my legs collapse beneath me; my strength fails me, and I ache. It's as if the weight of a hundred boulders have found their homes upon my back, and I barely possess the willpower to look up.
But when I do, the stranger is suddenly closer.
He’s an elderly man—perhaps older than Time in its entirety. All that’s apparent is that tears run in a steady, unending stream down his features, and he gazes at me as though his inner demeanor is far removed from his outward expression. The workings of his mind are inexplicable. I notice short, greying hair along with a series of folds and wrinkles in his skin produced from the effects of more than mere decades of enormous anxiety.
Despair was written across the old man’s demeanor.
“You can't save her.” He says. “You can't save anyone; your heart remains empty.” The old man's voice strengthens into a bellowing echo. He looks at me accusingly, as if he were God deciding my fate. “You’ve become hollow. Forsaken love!” the elder sneers before chuckling bitterly through his tears; he rapidly reforms his expression into a fixed, abnormal grin. His teeth have all but worn away.
His voice returns to its normal pitch: “You will meet Judgment soon, and you will be punished. You are bound to your iniquities, and you will be made to agree.”
His image fades away, and, following his disappearance, I’m confronted with…
Myself.
Millions of silhouettes resembling me arrive in abundance as they charge toward my location! A rage builds inside, but the fiercer the rage the less I’m able to stand.
The horde washes over me in a fury! And I—!
“Tavon!” A voice shocks me awake.
-
My eyes peer around drearily before I hear it once more:
“Tavon! Shut the fuck up!”
It’s Brock again.
-
Janelle
-
Tavon awoke in the condo assigned to him, drenched in sweat and unable to move.
His best friend, Brock, entered the room in awkwardly tight long johns bearing a faded stain from last night's dinner and looked rather irritated.
“Fuck.” he sighed, almost apologetically, before forcefully speaking up again, “I told you that you gotta quit this shit! I TOLD you that killing just isn't your game, Tavon; you've got too much compassion—and now I gotta deal with you waking me the fuck up every night?! You rant, dude; you keep asking questions out loud that I can hear a room over!” Brock scowled while folding his arms. “I don't know the answers, brother—so stop asking me. Go back to sleep or stay up or whatever…” he waved him away, “—just stop being so fucking loud.” Brock slammed the door and was heard stomping grumpily back to his own room.
Brock was generally a good person.
But also… very temperamental.
The feeling having returned to
his body at last, Tavon stood disgusted that he would have to wash his sheets yet again due to the sheer amount of sweat after his constant nightmares. He decided that he would take a long shower and gather his thoughts although it was only four-thirty in the morning and several hours before he'd scheduled himself to do anything.
The old man, a vortex, and—most of all—the cold… reoccurring images in every dream he'd had for the past month. Tavon hated the cold; as he was reminded of it, he increased the shower heat and reflected on what everything had meant up to that point. Typically, he wasn't able to sleep—more or so out of habit, as he’d been raised in the Lower-City and spent his youth avoiding the possibility of being robbed or murdered; a life abounded with chaos.
He thought he’d adjusted to his new line of work, but their faces persisted in his memory, and the only reason Tavon could sleep and dream now was that he knew a vision was stalking him. Tavon inspected his arm and noticed some of Boa’s blood. Boa, who’d turned out to be Genod's own personal driver. He ruminated and stood for a moment as the water rushed over him. To Tavon, it was a cathartic sensation, as if his transgressions were forgiven as the assassin washed away his impurities.
There’d been countless dead left at the scene and more in Tavon's history ever since he'd moved up in the criminal underworld, becoming a killer enlisted by a private company known as Angelos. He also noticed next to no soreness in his body from his prior skirmish with Portis despite having received multiple heavy hits. Tavon hadn't given himself time to train since he'd been focusing on increasing his kill count for Angelos.
The claw marks across his body began healing into scars and faded to a mild discomfort. He stepped out of the shower, yawned, and stretched before lazily walking over to a large mirror and taking some time to peer at his own relatively emotionless reflection.
Tavon had kept his facial hair trimmed and tight to his face, looking more like a darker outline than a field of stubble. His barber had done right by him and given him the best high fade he’d sported in months; a cut complementing dense, dark curls. His eyes exuded a grey hue known for their ability to instill feelings of both fear and trust in people he’d just met, and they often altered into a darker shade whenever he was engaged in combat. Tavon stood at five feet and seven inches with a slender but athletic frame and retained the silhouette of a Bengal tiger tattooed across the right side of his rib cage. This image was the only affiliation Tavon still shared with the now nonexistent Meiziki Clan, an influential syndicate that was once considered capable of dominating the Lower-City's criminal underworld.
He looked to his right and noticed a half-empty bottle of cognac on the corner of the counter surrounding the sink. Brock went through phases where he couldn't stop drinking and left bottles of alcohol everywhere; afterwards, he'd be absolutely clean for a few months before going down the same road again.
“Why is a grown man leaving this mess everywhere he goes.”
Though plenty would’ve happily given him the title, Tavon was not a monster; rather, he possessed an unnatural potential. At this point in his life, he’d met few like him, and so Tavon considered the possibility he wasn't fully human despite looking as much like a normal human would. The assassin took a moment to care for his teeth before proceeding to his wardrobe to choose from a small selection of outfits that had survived his growing number of completed contracts.
Tavon groaned, “I'll need more clothes soon; Portis ripped up the last jacket I had AND my last decent shirt—wait…” He noticed a white button-up with a dark brown right chest pocket coupled with a pair of tan trousers. Tavon quickly checked the weather on the massive monitor in his room: seventy degrees and sunny.
“This'll do for today.”
He got dressed before slipping on a pair of durable running shoes and checked his appearance again to ensure that he’d be capable of blending in with everyone else in the Citadel.
Overall, his most recent targets had been some of the easiest he'd encountered. Tavon had expected Boa to be a figure of importance considering his previous victim was merely a vehicle mechanic. His employer, Angelos, existed as a profitable entity whose use had long ago been sanctioned by the Dawn Federation: the governing body of the Citadel. Despite the occasional weakling, Angelos was reputable for providing high profile opponents; opportunities for assassins to grow if they didn’t perish on the job.
Tavon headed into the kitchen where he began prepping a breakfast big enough for both himself and Brock. On the news, he viewed various authorities huddled around numerous charred corpses at an abandoned hotel. The hotel was located by police in Zone B of the Mid-City after they’d received a plethora of calls from those who'd witnessed the impact radius of the explosion.
The children, who’d separated from the other trafficking victims, were taken into custody.
Maybe the Federation can do more for them than it did for me…
He heard Brock slam his foot on the ground to let him know he was being too loud, but Tavon only turned the volume up and even began humming as he lit a pipe stuffed with hashish. Brock wasn’t a part of Angelos, but the organization had provided the assassin with living quarters spacious enough to house two. Tavon sneaked his longtime friend in and provided him with a home.
Brock once again stumbled out of his room and bellowed: “What have I told you about smoking in the house, TAVON? What did I say, huh?”
“Sheesh.” Tavon brushed him off. “If it's my turn to cook breakfast, then I'll get it done how I want. We're not married, B.”
Brock shook his head. “The sun hasn't even come up and you already want to try me today…” he exhaled in disappointment. “How can you even smoke that garbage? It's got to affect your health or something, right?”
“I'm not worried,” Tavon responded nonchalantly, “It's kept me sane through your nagging. At least I don't leave out bottles all over the pl—”
“Fuck you.” Brock sneered. “Wake me up in an hour.” He turned back toward his room. “I can’t see how Aaliyah puts up with you.”
“She ain't my keeper!” Tavon shouted, “I don't claim her, do I?”
“Psh! You don’t mess with nobody else, so lock that shit down. You know she'll beat the hell out of you if there's anyone else…” He shut the door behind him.
Tavon shook his head and thought: He's trifling for such a big dude. Never stops running his mouth. Always Complaining.
He finished seasoning a breakfast of egg whites, sausage, bacon, potatoes, and spinach that he blended in a wide skillet. Tavon watched the news while he scarfed down nearly everything he'd cooked. On Channel A, there was a news anchor who belonged to an entirely different, humanoid species having arrived from another world some time ago; they were known as the Hayashi. Hayashi were generally accepted in the Citadel, as they resembled humans enough to often be mistaken for them though they were often taller, grey complected, and as bald as Brock.
The anchor stated that human trafficking had become a growing problem across the country. People were demanding that the Citadel Dawn Federation assemble an effort, in collaboration with the Dawn Bureau, to completely eradicate “modern slavery.” The anchor cut to a clip of press posing questions pertaining to the rights of “non-humans,” and a Dawn Bureau representative declared that they would adopt a very controversial stance and support the legitimacy of other species as well as long as no ill-intent was expressed.
“Good move.”
Another story covered Dar-Tech, the first company to pioneer wholly synthetic agriculture in the Citadel. At this time in history, major corporations in the city-nation as well as its occupied countries had made it possible for humanity to derive its own crops, filter a substance commonly used as a replacement for water, and generate key resources using technology that had been perfected after decades of research. Dar-Tech’s board committee announced their intent to “Lead the Federation in diet and nutrition” by manufacturing a greater state of health in the country.
A commer
cial followed the initial report, one advertising automated “butlers” that ran purely via solar energy—this “solar energy” being an artificial source the Citadel designed in order to replicate the effects of solar power while lessening the risks inherent in ultraviolet radiation.
The commercial then cut to an advertisement speaking in support of the legal right for a human to marry another similar, sentient species. Tavon changed the channel to a live broadcast displaying detained war refugees from the Citadel's ongoing conflict with its neighboring country, Gaspul. It was reiterated through an unseen speaker that Gaspul was a massive, rural, and ultimately divided country that the military had invaded long ago.
Boring.
He flipped to a sitcom depicting a human, an alienoid, and someone in a fake beast suit all living together in long-running reality television series.
Citadel TV is a joke.
Growing annoyed with his choices, Tavon used his remote to switch over to the Angelos Network Interface where he was directed to access a series of panels inquiring into his personal identity. The A.N.I. quickly checked his location and recognized that he was dwelling in one of the main branches of the Angelos organization, which itself sprawled across several developed countries.
The program then redirected him to log onto what was known as the “Core-Man Board.”
A.N.I. requested he submit his Angelos Identification Card, a small chip which he inserted into the console before pulling up his “Personnel Record”:
• Unit: Tavon
• Rank: Core-Man
• Promotion Status: Not Eligible
• Confirmed Kills: 7
• Kills Pending for Confirmation: 2
• Core-Man Ranking: 93
• Outstanding Warrants/Legal Complications: None.
• Remarks: Associate has no public identity or known criminal record.
Angelos Odyssey Page 5