:::Sins of The Past:::

[Dr Jekyll]

Chapter 1: Cataclysm

January 3rd::New City::
Ratonia Hotel – Roof Top

The news was getting to him. Hours spent in agonizing anticipation for the conformation of what his bones told him would be the truth: The western Brice islands had been hit by a devastating Tsunami only twelve hours earlier. No survivors. 3 large islands, a continental shelf, populated by several million people, several billion tons of constructed civilization, washed away as though nothing more than sand to the rising tide. Millions of lives snuffed out in the blink of an eye. It was disgusting. It was enough to churn Alexander’s stomach simply by fact alone, but the thought of his mother and father, his brother and his young children, the smile of a dear niece and nephew forever lost to the unrelenting ocean waters flung upon their home island by a vengeful, angered god. It was enough to numb him. He clung to hope for twelve hours, clinging to the news, waiting for some sign of survivors: something that told him…something.. anything.

In desperation he prayed. He wasn’t a religious man, not by any means of the word, and this is the first time, in a long time, that he allowed himself to believe in something higher up, more powerful than himself and his fellow man. He prayed to whatever diety would listen, in both named and nameless prayers, to antiquity and modern dieties of stone, flesh, blood, fantasy and realism. A desperate cry for some news, any news that his family had somehow survived… He felt greedy, asking for them all, but couldn’t decide on how to choose one over another, couldn’t choose. He would ask for all, but would settle to cling to any one of them again.

He stared off into the night, into the city lights below the hotel. New City was a mecca of civilization: the place to be for any up coming hot shot. It was Hollywood and New York combined. The presence of the nation’s capital gave it the regality of Ancient London, while the concentration of artists, actors, lovers, saints and sinners gave it the spirit once belonging to Paris, or Vienna. The city was a marvel, and in Alexander’s opinion, was the pinnacle of life in the world today. The city possessed everything to fill ever desire you could ever dream, and yet: for the moment it simply felt cold and empty. Distant.

Before his vision, faded letters sprang up into existence, the notification of his implant that a call was coming through to him. The notification was so subtle that an trained mind could receive it without any loss of attention, any measurable level of distraction., and it took nothing more than a thought to answer or ignore the incoming contact… he shoved the invasion aside, not recognizing the source of the incoming call…figuring it was from the government: a condolence programmed into the mainframe to express regrets to survivors of victims of the tragedies. First the fires in the Americas, and now this.

He needed to keep his mind off things. He thought the view of the city would be peaceful enough. Watching the traffic flash by below, mingling with the colors of the city lights, as though the world wasn’t falling apart all around them: as though they weren’t all simply biding their time until whatever was going on affected them: brought their perfect world crashing down to shatter around their ankles..

Paige

His mind reached out towards the contact in the way it did when initiating a connection. It was as though he could reach her with thought, but he knew too well the mechanics of it. He sent a request to the mainframe, the satellite that orbited the planet that sent and received the requests from cranial implant devices imbedded in the upper crust of society. A simple thought was all it took, and in similar fashion, a warning would cross her mind, like the faint vibration of an ancient cell phone. Answer or not. Talk with mind or voice, it didn’t matter to Alexander Gray. He simply needed someone, anyone…

In the distance the sirens began to sound, and the air began to smell of distant fires. In the night, the thick blanket of smoke looked nothing more than looming storm clouds on the western horizon, rolling over the city from the outlying suburbs.

“Crash,” Alexander whispered to the night, as he watched the western sky begin to glow, and the low rumble of what sounded like thunder echo across the azure night sky, and he knew calamity had found them before the emergency news feed had interrupted his thoughts with the whispering of a news anchor in the back of his mind, begging for his focused attention:

“Firefighters report that the blaze localized after a freak discharge of lightning struck the base of a power conduit at the New City Power Supply Station, located in 2000 block of the city…”

Paige he reached out again… searching for her amongst the multitude of sudden and breaking news reports that began to flood the system. Tokyo, Berlin, Rome, New York, Panama…. Shoving them away, trying to climb through a flooding network of disaster and panic… feeling the compression as every one of the privileged seemed to leap onto the system at once: to check on loved ones… to cry out for help.

[OhGodOfWriting]

Inside her tiny hovel of an apartment, Kamilah was watching the news on her ancient television set. This luxury was an outdated piece of junk which no one would pay money for. Two sticks mounted on the wall projected a screen between them, and one of the sensors was damaged, so that it formed a warped image, rather like a cracked screen. It didn't even create 3D projections, like newer models could. Cast-off technology was easy to come by, though it never worked like the latest stuff did.
She watched the ongoing reports of the devastation of the Brice islands, unable to move from her metal chair, even with as sore as her butt was becoming. It felt as if she had been wearing this same aghast expression for the last three hours, as they replayed images of tidal waves crashing over shorelines, storm radars, people running and screaming and dying. This was occasionally intercut with splices of the fires, in short blips, but that was already old news.

Kamilah hadn't moved since she had gotten home after her run and sat down in her only chair. Without a chip in her brain, she had to turn the TV on with the remote she kept nearby on her pallet bed. She wore grey sneakers that had once been white, a black tank top, and black athletic pants with reflective white stripes down the sides. The matching jacket was on the back of her chair.
There wasn't much to the dingy grey cement building, stacked on top of others and half-crumbling in a topsy turvy way. One wall was missing, and was hung with a large sheet of canvas for privacy. She had a fire pit to cook food on, and a bath tub with barely-running water, which she used for washing herself as well as the scant dishes she possessed. The toilet situation was not great, but at least she had one, and at least it flushed, sometimes. She had a lot more than many others had. Of course it helped that she did not have a big family stuffed in here.

It was then that she heard the faint sirens, and then the power cut and the naked lightbulb in the ceiling suddenly exploded in a shower of glass fragments, at the same moment that the TV had its own less dramatic fritz, shorting out and then sparking feebly for a moment. Kamilah gasped and then shook glass from her hair and clothes, standing to do so. She paused when, a second later, there was a loud, eery boom. Had that been lightening? She hadn't seen the light, yet it had blown her power? How could it have done that from so far away? Unhooking her track jacket from off the back of her chair, she pushed through the canvas curtain which served as her door and stood on her balcony, looking out over her own view of the city.

Slums radiated out around her in every direction, and the city lights were only a distant sight on the horizon, like stars fallen to the earth. The landscape was unusually dark right now, however, as the short had cut at least some of the power in the closest parts of the city. She carefully smoothed a tan hand over the top of her head, making sure there was no glass in her hair, before she did a quick examination of her clothes as well, in the dim moonlight. Satisfied, she pulled on the jacket, only to notice out of the corner of her eye, a growing redness on the horizon.

"What the hell is going on?" she wondered, beginning to smell the thick smoke. Had the fires started here? People were already beginning to come out of their homes and talk to each other in worried voices. She heard a couple of children crying, and that goaded Kamilah to action. Swinging her legs over the fire gate, she descended down it to the crumbling roof of the next building, picking around the holes with the practiced steps of a neighbor. From the ledge of this building, it was a short drop to the next fire gate, which rattled heavily when she landed on it, but it held. Shimmying down the rungs, she jumped the last several feet, landing in the dark alley on the balls of her feet, in a crouching position.

Getting up, she began jogging in the direction of the group home, but after only a couple of streets, she realized that they would be looked-after. Her tutor who lived alone, would have no one. The elderly woman who scarcely left her house was also not anywhere near as good at navigating these streets as the kids were. She cut through an alley and continued jogging, holding one arm over her face, burying her mouth in the crook of her elbow to block out the slowly descending smoke.

Kamilah spent at least a couple of hours a day running. It was almost a more natural pace to her than walking, so her lungs could easily handle the exertion. The zipper of her open jacket bounced along above her hip, while her ponytail swayed in time with the reassuring 'pat, pat' noise of her feet. This familiar sound varied slightly whether she was running on dirt or concerete, or crunching over trash, and it was all commonplace to her.

[Dr Jekyll]

It was all so much.

The noise in his head was deafening. A thousand voices crying out, weeping, screaming in unison. It was as though a nightmare broke through the confining boundaries that kept it secure in the lands of dream and arrived into this real world. Alexander felt numbed as the wails of people’s final moments, attempting to reach through the system in a futile cry for salvation only to have it cut off by their sudden and abrupt disconnection. Each silenced voice meant death. And as tragic as it may be, the fact that for each voice silenced another rose up to takes its place was all together alarming on its own. It forced Alexander back, away from the edge of the rooftop. It forced him to divert his eyes from the rising smoke, and close his eyes to the bright flashes of lightening that stabbed unnaturally not from sky to cloud, but from ground to sky.

Numbed, he fell back onto his hands. Senseless feet flailing against the tiles of the roof top, pushing himself back across its flat surface, as though he could race away from the truth. The wind blew from the east, bringing with it an unnatural heat, and the faint smell of charred wood mingled with the sweet smell of an oncoming storm. The mixture was oddly calming, oddly alarming giving the circumstances, and there was something else on that wind, another smell that he didn’t recognize, something he didn’t want to think about, or want identified to him.

A single drop of warm rain fell upon his head, sliding through the strands of hair and resting against his scalp, causing his hand to wipe it away, his mind to take notice. The distance rumbled, thunder sounding, pulling Alexander from link, as again he reached out to Paige, and again he found nothing but terrible silence as his answer. The authorities were advising that people stay in their homes. The news was saying that it was too dangerous to evacuate. It was just a fire… just a storm. Another drop of rain pulled Alexander’s eyes up towards the darkened heavens, as he watched the storm clouds roll over, as though some product of a time release footage edit. The clouds seemed unnatural, as though a scene from a dream… they drew up him up to his feet, glued his eyes to the skies.

Reason and logic shouted at his mind, but he ignored them. Rationality beat at his attention, frantically trying to get him to flee the roof of the high rise, to go inside, seek what little protection the thin shell of a building could muster against the force of nature that was rampaging the city. His mind was alive with pictures of destruction and death. The 3rd street freeway has collapsed in on itself. The main harbor bridge now ends suddenly with a 140 foot drop into the icy waters of the Sixen Canal. The down town court house is on fire, the eastern precinct office is blacked, without a roof. Bodies litter the streets. Cars over turned. And it kept coming, flooding in on him as quickly as someone can snap a picture, upload it to the network.

“Alexander Gray?”

The voice came from behind him, whirling Alexander around quickly. Gentle green eyes met his emerald ones, held him transfixed in their gaze. She had long, blonde hair, and a very appealing face, though the eyes looked normal, there was something about them that were odd. They felt cold, empty, like the silence he got after sending another message to Paige, after trying again, in vain, to reach out to her. The woman was nearly as tall as he was, slender, and dressed in some form of uniform. A black based suit, with a tunic instead of a shirt, a blue diamond at her throat. Her shoulders covered by a jacket that hung open, the same blue diamond split on both sides of the garment’s front. She had a regal, almost majestic look about her features, as though perfection could be entombed in flesh and bone. Yet obviously perfection was something more than human.

“Yes,” Alexander spoke carefully, eyeing the woman before him, as though one would a sleeping lion. He was careful not to move too much, careful not to draw too much attention to himself, as the woman’s gaze, still locked in his own, seemed to flash from seeing him, to becoming lost somewhere between. He could see she was calculating, could see that she was linked… how deeply, Alexander wasn’t sure. He’d heard rumors of some becoming so engrossed in the link that they lost themselves to it… that they could effuse consciousness into it, move about as pulses of electricity, to exist outside of the corporeal. But he never believed it. Such a thing his beyond his ability to process, to understand… it must be impossible.

“Time grows short,” she whispered, and as she did the building below gave a mighty heave. Alexander went sprawling to the floor, screaming out as his mind began to reel in terror. The tremors struck again, and again. Letting go only to manifest once more, making Alexander’s struggle from his feet back to the ledge of the roof a timely one. He peered over the ledge cautiously, holding onto the stone guard rail, watching the building below sway in unnatural motions. The world below seemed to dance, the earth itself, rolling. The streets were cracked, deep fissures forming in once solid pavement. His heart beat rapid in his chest, his breath impossible to capture, as he watched the building beside them, simply begin to crumble beneath the shaking motions that undulated it like a dancing cobra.

“What is going on,” Alexander whispered, in shocked disbelief. It was just a fire… it was just… everything was so confusing. Everything happened in the same moment, turning Alexander’s world upside down, ripping it apart as sure as it was crumbling around him. the whispered question only a reflection of his acknowledgement that this wasn’t a dream. He wasn’t going to wake up and none of this be real.

“The event is global,” The woman’s voice spoke from behind him, the words floating through the chaos of his mind until finally grabbed, clung to like a life raft in a sea of storms. He turned, away form the chaos, away from the devastation, and his emerald eyes looked on the woman with anger, fear, scorn…

“How can it be global. This city is breaking apart,” he demanded, nearly screaming. The quick wind of a quickly approaching storm whipping his hair around his face.

“The world is breaking apart,” the voice was calm, the answer easily given, and Alexander just stared at the woman in disbelief. He wasn’t sure what about the moment led him to believe her as though every word that came from her mouth was the indisputable truth, perhaps it was simply his confusion, the rapid succession of events that left him breathless and so twisted about that he couldn’t tell which way was up. She may be a harbinger of doom, but right now, she was the only beacon of light in his land of confusion.

“Come with me…”

[OhGodOfWriting]

Kamilah could not see the source of all lightening, though it flashed more than any lightning she had ever experienced, strobing the dark alleys she ran between, and booming above, behind, and all around her. She felt as if she had been trapped in an upside-down bowl, while the heaviness of the storm clouds seemed to actually press down upon her, so intense was the atmospheric pressure. Her pace quickened, even as she tried not to panic, and the smell of smoke began to choke her, even with her face covered. The rain started slowly, taking longer to find her down amongst all these leaning, topsy-turvy buildings. Soon it was pouring, what felt like sheets of water, and she was getting deluged by waterfalls of it when she passed a slanted ledge. There were few working storm drains here. The roads were soon running with it, turning into muddy rivers that splashed up above her ankles. Dear god, what was happening, and how would she get out of it? How could her tutor possibly, and what about the children back at the group home?

The storm just made it smell worse in the slums, the water bringing all the refuse and waste mixing and sweeping down every main street. When the ground began to shake, the young woman did not notice it at first. She was running for her life through slippery streams of water, and things were often unstable here. When she did realize it, however, she stopped running, dodging under a leaky awning to gasp for breath. She had been inhaling so much of the water running down her face, it was like drowning very, very slowly. She coughed, palms pressed to the sides of the building beside her, and tried to clear her head. This confirmed what she feared: the shaking was not her own body, but everything around her. The ground vibrated, carrying up through her legs and making her rattle and sway. What should she do? Not go stand in a doorway, surely, when the slightest tremor brought buildings down here. Besides, if she did that, she might be burned alive while she hid out. Her line of reasoning was proved sound when a stack of ramshackle houses only about a block up from her began to slide with a harder tremor, and crash, spilling out over the street with popping glass and a heavy wave of dust that managed to reach her through the deluge.

The girl crouched and turned away, protecting her head with her arms. When she thought it safe to look, she slowly uncurled and sprinted out from under the awning again, trying a different route to the old lady's house. She was so near now, if only she could make it in time...

Just as she was thinking she might, the ground began to tilt beneath her, and she gave a strangled scream, dropping on all fours to try to claw her way up the road which was quickly becoming a wall. Her fingers came away with handfuls of dirt, which disintegrated into mud and and slipped away from her, just like the soil under her feet. She was falling backwards then, airborne for a moment, staring at the sky and finally getting a glimpse of one of the unnatural lightening bolts. While she thought she was about to die, she had time for another wondering thought. "That's odd..."

Her back hit something, hard, and she screamed out in pain, vision momentarily going black, before she tried to roll over. She could not, as her spine protested with an amount of torture she could not overcome. Sucking in a few water-drenched breaths through clenched teeth, she slowly, carefully tilted her head to try to figure out where she was. Some dark cavern formed by a collapsing road. It was quite small, and she was alone. The walls were steep, and growing steeper as the trembling ground beneath her continued to sink. There was no way she could get up those slick, sheer sides, even if her back wasn't, what - broken? She was beginning to truly panic, for the first time in her life. There would be no noble death for her. Pain had broken her, fear had defeated her. She was nothing in this moment, and her life had amounted to nothing. It had never been going anywhere. Why had she always had that misguided sense of purpose? What a waste. She would have rathered she never been born.

That's when she saw someone. Wait, someone was in here with her? She lifted her head too quickly, causing her to hiss out a gasp and sink back down. In the moments she spent quietly observing this stranger, she realized something was wrong. They were standing there, staring at her, exactly where she had been looking before, and there had been no one there. He was also unnaturally still, and his balance did not even seem to be thrown by the tremors.

"H-hello?" Kamilah rasped, sure he would not be able to hear her over the roaring sounds the world seemed to be making as it died a painful death.

"Hello," he responded smoothly, his voice carrying without difficulty as he spoke at a normal volume. For a second, Kamilah wondered if she heard it only inside her head. She must be going insane.

"Who are you?" she shouted at the boy she could scarcely see. Whatever light ricocheted down into this cavern, showed only glimpses of a too-perfect face, and rigid posture.

"We are the ones who have a plan for your race," he responded.

"I don't - what?" Her fingers gripped broken pieces of asphalt. Why did she get the feeling that this person was a very dangerous enemy?

"You have been chosen," he continued, his voice ethereal. "I have come to collect you."

"Collect - ?" Was this where the stories of a grim reaper came from?

"Do not worry, you will live," he soothed without inflection, and she wondered if he could read her mind.

But she did worry, and she wanted to ask about everyone else, but the ageless young man was already walking towards her, one hand eerily outstretched. She started to struggle, which caused her to scream in pain, although she did not stop fighting. He reached her flailing form easily, and stretched out to touch his fingers to her forehead, and everything faded out of focus, and she knew no more.

[Dr Jekyll]

“Come with me, “she repeated, and Alexander’s eyes fell upon outstretched fingertips, eyeing them warily. For a moment he stood considering, pushing away that part of himself that told him he was crazed. Why was he willing to believe her? What she was getting at? Where was she going with this? It was obviously a trick. This couldn’t be a global phenomena. Terrorism, perhaps some accident at the power plant, and a freak storm… It wasn’t global, it was bad timing. Defiance filled his gaze as he looked up from her fingertips to touch upon her cold, green eyes, and for a moment the consternation that stiffened his resolve held firm. But another voice whispered in the back of his mind… soft and weak against the tormented onslaught by the link. It was a whisper of his name, and an ever so gentle pull against his consciousness, drawing his eyes away from that of the woman, his feet, once against to the edge of the rooftop.

“Paige,” He shouted, both in voice and in mind, letting the overlay of the city that was part of the link slide over his vision, a dim glowing spot off in the distance, in a darkened part of the city marked her presence. Nearly seventy city blocks, a distance that, had he not been up so high, he wouldn’t have been able to judge, much less see. Between him and here, the city streets were broken, the world seemed to be crumbling. Massive sink holes have formed, and the building upon which he stood upon swayed dangerously, as though any minute now it was going to fall out from beneath him. The distance was impassable, at least in the current conditions of the terrain.

“Paige…” He whispered, feeling the futility of the situation sink in, decimating his resolve, and destroying what little confidence he had managed to bolster. He was helpless. The situation was hopeless. He didn’t know why he believed it, didn’t know how the realization came to be so firmed in his mind, but deep down inside, he knew this could only end one way. The building swayed, and the world was suddenly ripped by a clap of thunder, as a bolt of lightening struck from a low lying cloud and tore into the side of the very building he was standing upon.

“Paige, I….” he started, and went numb when everything suddenly fell away. The thundering reports, the overwhelming hum of a thousand voices screaming, pleading, crying.. One second it was all so deafening, and in the next, there was nothing but silence and stillness in his mind. In frustration he cried out, whirling around on his feet in panic, as the building rocked again, to find the woman still with him, still standing only a few steps away, watching him… staring at him with those emerald orbs.

“Forget this life,” she whispered, and for the moment, there did seem to be a shred of humanity about her. Her voice filled with something unexpected, a sense of remorse. “Come with me,” She spoke again, this time moving, taking the steps to consume the distance between them. Alexander’s mind reeled, and instinct, panic, forced him back a step. He felt as though he were locked inside a nightmare, as though he would simply wake up in a moment, too frightening to continue sleeping. He felt as though none of this was real… it can’t be real…

Then it was all over. Suddenly he felt the roof beneath his feet shift, felt the ground upon which he stood fall away. He felt weightless, felt the air sweeping past as he rushed towards the ground. His ears were deafened by the clash, his eyes blinded by nothing but brilliant white light, and all over, his body was alive with electricity. The bolt must have hit close, the bulding must have crumbled… he was going to fall.. he was going to die.

Hands found his face. At first he fought them, shoving them away , panic seized him and he fought to be free, to fall, to die. But the hands returned, their grip strengthening. A soft voice whispering in the back of his mind, across the dead link… “you’re safe now….” The voice whispered, and perhaps it was delusion, perhaps it was the fear as realization sank in that he was moments from hitting the ground… but he could have sworn he felt breath on his lips… breath and a kiss…

[OhGodOfWriting]

The stillness was the first thing she felt. During that time when blackness still cradled her, the calm and the peace felt unnatural. The world was no longer rocking and shaking around her. Why was it not rending apart? Yet she could not worry in this strange sleep - her mind was too at ease. And yet, she felt a strange connection to other minds. She could see warped glimpses of memories, the last thoughts they had all had before they were taken. Faces of loved ones, swirls of a world torn asunder, and names. Paige, Paige, Paige...

The other minds she could sense were now in this forced peacefulness, being in a coma rather like she was. She felt connected to them, yet she could not know them. Just the vague impressions of their collective worries from the life that had been taken from them. There was no pain, either emotional or otherwise, though she could faintly remember that the absence of both was strange. Why, she could not recall.


Kamilah awoke suddenly with an intake of breath.


She was staring up at a domed ceiling which looked out at a deep blackness. It was strange, it seemed to move, and at times, grey streaks marred that perfect darkness. With a gasp, she realized it was the night sky, only it was moving so quickly, the stars could not be seen. No, wait, the sky did not move, they must be moving. How could they be moving so quickly? She sat bolt upright to look at her surroundings. She was in a large room, oblong in shape, with several doors around the walls, and windows looking out of two walls, as if this were some central room in the ship. Everything that was not glass was made of silver metal. Kamilah had never seen anything so high-tech in her life. There were a handful of other people, all laying in cots like she had been, and none of them were stirring.

Moving to swing her legs off the side of the bed, she paused. Last she could remember, she had not been able to move. She had broken her spine. There was no pain, no ringing headache, no blurred vision. Besides feeling a little empty from hunger, she had never felt in better physical shape. She was not even tired, and her body felt calm, despite the panic beginning to kick in mentally now. She reached to feel her back, but it was fine. Her clothes were still sopping wet, and muddy. Her sneakers squeaked on the metal floor, leaving puddles. Her hair had half-fallen from her ponytail. Feeling the dampness of her hair, she realized that not that much time could have transpired from the moment she had passed out, to now.

She must have fainted from fear when that strange boy touched her face, she surmised, incorrectly. She looked around at the people nearby. There were six total, including her. Three females and three males. All laying on their backs, all in a deep sleep. She held her breath and watched to make sure they were all breathing. They were. None seem seriously injured, although some had been wounded. Dried blood seeped from cuts that no longer existed. Kamilah felt her breath hitching and she forced herself to remain calm.

Where the hell were they, how had they gotten there, and who were these people? From what she could tell, they all seemed youthful and healthy. She rose onto shaky legs, and took a half-step toward one of the other cots. "Hello?" she whispered. It was the cot closest to hers, and on it was a boy with faded orange hair, that fell in a shaggy cut around his face. He was a big and muscular, and though his face was not malicious, Kamilah had the thought that she would not want to run into him in a dark alley. Yet here she was, trapped on a ship with him for all she knew. She tip-toed over to him, and then shook his round, flannel-clad shoulder. No response.

After hesitating a moment, she hauled back her hand to lightly slap his freckled cheek, earning herself no response from him. He slept peacefully on. Panic threatened to engulf her again. Was she the only one who was going to wake up? Oh, dear god...

She ran to the next cot, looking with worry down on a young man with a boyish face. His dark hair was messy, and although his face was slack with sleep, and his eyes were closed, she thought him beautiful. "Wake up," she whispered, as though afraid some enemy might overhear them.

An irrational thought popped into her head, though it was so different, so other, that it sounded to her as if it was spoken in a voice of a different flavor than her own mental voice, which she would have recognized. The voice said, matter-of-factly, "If you wish to wake him before his time, then kiss him." The thought made her blink with shock, but as all the world felt like chaos and insanity right now, she obeyed after a pause. After all, shaking and slapping hadn't worked on the other guy.

Kamilah put a hand on Alexander Gray's chest to support herself, and bent down to kiss him. She kept her eyes open with uncertainty, one silver and one brown, like the eyes of a malamute dog, watching him for a reaction. Her lips touched his, softly, barely at all. She had never kissed someone romantically before, not since she was a child and boys her age would steal innocent kisses like this from her. Since then, she had kissed friends and even children on the mouth, with just the slightest pressure like this. It was an intimate, platonic sign of affection, done more often in the slums than in the cleaner, more reserved world of the elite. Though she kissed this peer the same way, it did not feel the same. First of all, he was a stranger, and second of all, he was very cute. Part of her hoped he would not wake up until she pulled away, and she started to, even though she prayed the kiss had been enough of one to wake him up, if indeed that would work. Chances are it wouldn't, she reasoned. It had just been some crazy voice inside of her head.

[Dr Jekyll]

There was nothing. In a moment, the infinite universe had been drawn into nothingness just as this woman, this lifeless, emotionless being had drawn him into her kiss. It was as though he had struck bottom, everything had ended so abruptly, a moment’s flash as consciousness and reality flooded away from him as through pressured through a suddenly opened hole. He floated in the nothingness that remained, aware but not aware, asleep, but not slumbering… Awake, but unable to think. If it was a moment, then it could have been a millennium. He had no idea of the passage of time between one kiss to the next, he only knew that the sudden absence of reality, the quick nature in which it fled him, was mirrored in the way in which it returned. In an instant it was all back. In an instant, he was able to think again.

And he felt lips touching against his.

“Paige,” the lips whispered against those that brushed his, and instinct drew his hand from the cot’s mattress to the hand which supported upon his chest. He felt her warmth and pressure there, and without thought curled his fingers around those that rested so firmly against his chest, right above his now beating heart. Though thought and form did return in a rush, the memory of what he was last experiencing crawled back into being. His eyes opened, confusion at the time lapse settling in the forefront of his mind, draining away thoughts of Paige, of the kiss. When his eyes focused, when the face inches away from his own morphed from that which he expected into the unknown face of this woman, Cadian felt his heart skip.

“Who,” he whispered, confusion settling in, and though the question was immediate, and his concern for the answer genuine, he didn’t start. She had him pinned, and a look for surprise in her eyes, seemed to settle Alexander’s. It was confusing, and in another situation, perhaps he would have reacted differently, more violently, but as he stared into those di-colored eyes, and as memory was still returning of the night on the rooftop. The confusion grew, the questions began to overwhelm his mind.

He moved her hand carefully, slowly, before letting it go. The touch wasn’t something he welcomed in the moment. He didn’t know who this was, or why she had been kissing him. She seemed to have more life in her eyes in that one moment that the other had, but did that mean she wasn’t a part of this? What was this? It felt like a nightmare, too surreal, to terrifying to be real. Life seemed to have lost its normal rhythm, everything flowing in a slow, serene ebb and flow.

Then he sat up, and the rhythm changed. He saw the other bodies, the woman before him the only other that seemed awake. The room’s appearance, drawing his eyes up silver metallic walls, to see the darkness above, streaking with gray slashes. At first, it took his mind a bit to process what it was he was seeing, and then another moment to convince himself that he hadn’t been watching to much science fiction television shows, and ultimately he came to the conclusion that what he believed to be the stars of the heavens streaking by at unnatural speeds just couldn’t be reality. The technology didn’t exist to perform such feats. And yet there it was, as real as the bed upon which he sat, or the woman before him.

The woman…

His eyes settled back on her, and for a moment he simply just watched, taking her in as though really noticing her for the first time. She wasn’t anyone he had ever seen before, at least, anyone he had ever taken notice of. He wondered her origins, and as his mind mused the possibilities, involuntary creating past lives and identities for the woman, he listened to her, watched the way her mouth moved, as his lips involuntarily remembered the caress of her tender lips against his. He decided her should introduce himself. If he had questions, perhaps she knew something more than him.. at least, perhaps it was worthy of obtaining a name in hope of finding someone to aid him with finding some answers.

“I’m Alex,” he spoke, putting a hand against his chest, just now noticing the large, dark stain that marred his chest, the stain left behind by blood after the flakes have fallen away… “what’s your name?”

[OhGodOfWriting]

The murmur of a name against her lips had felt almost as though he was kissing her back, for a moment, holding her there half a second longer, if only in shock. Then there was the name, the name that she had heard before in that sleep which could be better described as limbo. She had drawn back a couple of inches, but his hand had moved to hers, freezing her above him. His eyes opened, and the young woman stared down into his, forgetting in the midst of her surprise that her own eyes were quite startling and unnatural. When he asked her 'who,' her lips opened as if to answer, but no sound came out. Her widened eyes hardly blinked.

She let him move her hand, and once he let it go, the girl quickly straightened and took a step back. Her body posture was apologetic and uncertain, but her face remained transfixed with curiosity and shock. Even as he looked around the room, her unusual eyes studied him, sweeping him for any clues as to who he was or how he had gotten here. He looked like a very normal young man, no more supernatural or enlightened than she. His clothing, though simple, struck her as having expensive origins, and appeared to have been well-cared for before the apocalypse. She did not miss the dark stain of blood on his chest, but he seemed to be as healed as she had been.

When the boy looked back at her, the girl began speaking, trying to grind this situation towards some sense of normalcy, but to do so felt unnatural in this place. "I'm sorry," she spoke, her voice rich with a faint Parisian accent. There was a hesitation, where she considered saying what she was sorry for, and explaining why she had kissed him, but she dismissed it. Odd as that had been, and even, embarrassing as it was that she had, there were far greater things to worry about. With a shift both physical and mental, she became more serious, as though nothing strange had transpired between them.

"I woke up here, as well. I was the first. Before I got here, I was running..." Her tanned brow creased as though concentrating, grasping to remember the smokey remnants of some forgotten dream. "No, I had fallen...and there was someone with me. I did not know him, and then...I was here." For some reason, she did not want to put into words how creepy this person had been. Or that when he had reached for her she had passed out. It would be weird to put into words (even if she could) all that had transpired between then and now. It belonged to a world, to a school of thought she had never subscribed to. She was a realist, a rationalist, and anything inexplicable she had never concerned herself with.

She fell silent, knowing that if she was not going to tell the whole story, there was not much purpose in talking. He then introduced himself, and the woman felt some of the tenseness relaxing between her narrow shoulders under her track jacket. Her face almost softened into a smile, but it broke off at the last second into a twisted worry of a grimace. She was scared, brave as she was, of where they were, how they had gotten there, and what had happened to their world. Just to hear the simple profession of another human name in the midst of all this terrifying confusion made her eyes prick with tears which she did not show nor give into.

"Kamilah," she responded, mimicking him by lightly touching her own chest with her fingertips. She dropped her hand again and finally looked away from him, glancing around the room. "Who is Paige?" she blurted suddenly, eyes shooting back to him for a second and then back to the two cots which each held a female body, ignoring the other two cots occupied by males. It was not very logical to assume that Paige was here, but she could not help wondering. This unknown girl's name had been so strong during the in-between, and he had whispered it as he had woken up - as she had kissed him. Had Paige been brought with Alex, by some divine miracle? Kamilah found herself hopeful that Paige had been. It would be reassuring if there was some rightful order or kindness to this hellish ordeal.

The girl looked back at Alex to wait for his answer, and a moment later, there was a soft groan from one of the females on a cot. Kamilah's head whipped around, but the rest of her stayed frozen, watching in silence for more signs of life. Yet it was as if that girl had simply rolled over and gone back to sleep. She was petite, with perfect ebony skin, and a close-cropped cap of shiny black hair. Her full lips were open as she breathed in and out easily. In repose, she looked like a child, or like Peter Pan, and Kamilah felt a pang in the motherly part of her heart, and thought that she did not want to see the expression on this young woman's face when she awoke. It would be terrifying and unguarded. Kamilah did not feel up for taking care of anyone right then.

Kamilah looked back at Alex and whispered, so as not to wake the girl who had just stirred, "I think we should explore before any of the others wake up. They will be scared, and will want answers. The more of us there are, the more confusion there will be. These people are going to need leaders. For now, that looks like us." She looked dismayed but resigned to this idea, and steeled with grim resolve. Her di-colored eyes stared at him unwavering for a moment, her eyebrows slightly raised as she awaited response. With or without him, she began to walk out of the ring of cots and toward one of the corridors branching off of the oblong room. Her steps were uncertain and slow, almost creeping, and she would let Alex pass her if he joined her. Her squeaking sneakers were loud, though she was attempting to tread quietly.

[Dr Jekyll]

Who is Paige?

The question hit him like a sledge hammer to the back of his head. Not so much because he believed that someone everyone should know of Paige, because there was no reason for it, but because something in the moment, be it the location, or the manner in which the conversation was going… two people talking about what was… that made Paige seem something less than alive, and more a part of his past. But she was still alive, right? She had to be…

“A…A friend,” He responded a bit slowly, a tad bit to numbed than he had expected, and in that moment, was the doubt began to play in the back of his mind, and the questions of what was going on began to build to a loud torrent in the back of his mind, Alexander stood up from the table, and sat bare feet upon the cold, metallic floor of the bay. It was cold, a stark contrast to the warmth radiating from some unknown source within the bay. The air around was comfortable, but he felt no movement of it, as though the ambient temperature of the bay was conditioned to go without notice, to de-synthetize, or perhaps make lull one into not paying attention to what is around them. In truth, everything seem to have this cold detachment about it, as though he were looking at the world through the haze of a dream, as though none of it was particularly real and he would wake from it any moment.

He paid the others little attention, aside from noticing any movement they made, as he walked between the two rows of beds, slowly. His feet padded against the metal deck plating beneath, turning to see if Kamilah was going to come with him or not. He hadn’t extended an invitation, nor had he even thought that he would need to. It simply felt natural that if he moved, she’d want to be near… a feeling he didn’t quite understand, or see significant information to warrant its presence in reality, thus reaffirming his current belief that he was asleep.

Then there was the blood that flaked form his clothes as he walked. Dried, dark red, and yet enough of it to be explained by an exploded heart, or a puncture wound. Something fatal, and yet there he was. He didn’t need a test to tell him the blood belonged to him, again, he just seemed to understand that it did, and though that thought should surprise him, or at the least upset him…. he felt comfortable with the idea that he was alive, and that he couldn’t understand the why or how of it.

The portal drew closer, and as they approached what seemed to be a rounded, metal door embedded in a circular frame, Alexander found himself anxious to be out of the bay… beyond the circular door, as though beyond it was a home. As though, somehow magically, he could pass through it, across its threshold, and return to the rooftop of the building, before this horrible night mare began, and things would be alright. Somehow… by the same magic that brought them to this place…

“Have you seen anyone else? Heard anything,” He spoke, thinking the talking would help ground him to what he was afraid was a true reality. He didn’t want this to be real, and yet he knew it to be. He wanted to know what happened to Paige, to New City.. He wanted to know why he couldn’t shake the thought that everything he loved, everything that he had ever been a part of simply blinked from existence when that woman… that lifeless woman kissed him. He wanted to know that this reality was nothing but a cruel hoax, one that came into being with this other woman, vibrant and wild…. Why did he think of her as wild… when this woman kissed him, and awoke him from his roof top nightmare into this…
He felt lost, suddenly disjointed, suddenly totally disconnected from everything… and for one who spent his life connected to the world via a mental link… the feeling was nothing he understood… nothing he was comfortable with.

When the door opened, arbitrarily he chose left. Before them a thin corridor, well lit, of circling silver plated walls, with an array of black faced panels spacing as they walked. Information terminals, Alexander could only guess… or perhaps they were something else. He didn’t know, couldn’t fathom to understand any of this… not while his head struggled to wrap around the basics…

He stopped nearly fifty feet down the corridor, and in a moment his face flooded with true confusion…

“Are you real?” he whispered, “Is this heaven?”

[OhGodOfWriting]

Kamilah traipsed behind him, unable to keep up with his longer strides without pushing hers to be faster - and something just felt wrong about rushing, in this place. She who tended to jog everywhere was compelled to creep, fighting the urge to thread her way sneakily along the walls, as if expecting a dark evil around every corner. Her sneakers continued to squeak most uncouthly, but she continued anyway, trying not to wince at every unwelcome sound of her own feet, and telling herself it was unnecessary to remove the shoes.

They were alone. Despite her hyper vigilant senses, something within her simply knew that the only people they would find were the ones they had already seen. This place was as abandoned as a tomb. They had never been more isolated in their lives. Solitary confinement would have been welcome compared to their current state. They were hurtling through space, leaving behind a planet that had probably already been or would very soon be destroyed. The feeling of being set adrift with no answers was so strong, the young woman was nearly trembling from the effort of fighting back hysteria.

She shook her head to his first question, before realizing he was not looking at her. "No," she said softly, letting her eyes rove over the mysterious walls around them like a jungle-cat being introduced to a new cage. In the back of her mind, she pondered his answer about Paige. Somehow, she doubted that this girl had been only a friend. She seemed like more, and Kamilah herself almost felt connected to her. In the transition phase, where all of their minds had been sharing thoughts somehow, Paige had been the brightest light, the warmest place; a beacon as if from a lighthouse. There was more to it than what Alexander had said, but now was not the time to pry for more information. Especially as it felt rather trivial to her at this moment, considering the vast unknown they were faced with.

It took Kamilah a moment to realize he asked a sincere question, and that he asked it of her. She let herself catch up with him a bit more before she answered, as she trailed her fingertips down the bumpy silver walls. "I don't think this is heaven," she responded, slowly. She had never believed in heaven, before, but right now, anything seemed possible. Wondering if one was dead could do that to a person. Still, if there was a heaven, surely this wouldn't be it.

"The man who...brought me here... he said that we were chosen for something. Whatever it is, I don't think we're...done yet. Did - was anything said to you?" Her gaze was on the ceiling now, looking for some clue of anything...more. Her foot shifted on the floor, not intending to walk on without an answer from Alexander, although this action did cause her body to lean further down the hall for a second, which was growing dim, the light from the main room not able to reach so far. Suddenly, however, the hall began to illuminate, from sources that were hard at first to discern. Something similar to recessed lighting along the floor and ceiling gave off a diffused glow which grew brighter over time.

Kamilah's head whipped around, trying to find what had caused this. If there was a motion sensor, it had to be visible, didn't it? She found nothing, and she almost-smiled as she looked back at the man who was with her. Moving backwards so that she could remain facing him, she took a step away from him on the floor, and the light began to brighten faster, in direct correlation to her progression down the hall. The girl really smiled now, and raised her eyebrows at her companion. "This place is...weird," she surmised wryly, finally turning away from him to continue their exploration.

While this was as terrifying an experience as one could have, Kamilah was perhaps better equipped to adapt to it than Alex was - at least so far. She had always been too poor to ever have a mental link installed. She had never known anyone who'd had one, at least to her knowledge. Communication was only face-to-face, without many phones or computers in the slums. She was used to being alone, to sitting in silence, to having nothing help her or confuse her save her own thoughts. It was merely one less shocking change for her. She did not have to grapple with the strange and sudden silence that Alex had been plunged into, something which in itself was a traumatizing change, on top of everything else that they found themselves in.