BRADLEY CLARKE - ARES, GOD OF WAR

Bradley fell off balance. He had been sat upright on one of the benches in the gym, having just changed out of his sweaty clothes. Bradley didn't notice that his dirty clothes were nowhere to be seen - or that the paint on the walls of the gym was chipped and the floor covered in a layer of dust. He was very disorientated, and ended up stumbling out of the gym without any of the stuff he had taken in. He slowly made his way back to his flat, spending the duration of the walk home trying to figure out what had led him to black out and simultaneously shielding his eyes from the burning light that the sun shone down upon him. He felt like he had a terrible hang-over.

He reached the door of his flat and rustled around his pockets for his keys, eventually locating them and putting them in the lock. But they didn't turn. He twisted them in frustration, sighing after concluding that his landlord must have changed the locks. Strange, considering the fact he had been up to date on his rent. Suddenly, the door swung open and a large bald man emerged.

"Oi," the bald man spat. "Fuck off, 'less you want me to get my rottweiler out. It's around his dinner time anyway." The door slammed shut.

Bradley stared forward in disbelief. He wasn't entirely sure of what was going on. The headache that was refusing to go away didn't help him deduce anything, either. Realising that he would probably get his limbs torn apart if he decided to pick a fight with a rottweiler, Bradley headed to his father's flat. He didn't care for his father at all, but this headache wouldn't go away and he needed to collapse on to a bed somewhere. His childhood home would have to do, even if the memories that it would re-instil were highly unpleasant for Bradley.

The key worked. He opened the door slowly and poked his head in. "Dad?" Bradley called out. "Dad, you in?"

No response. Bradley entered regardless. He was feeling dizzy and he didn't fancy walking the couple of miles it would take to reach his closest friend's apartment. He needed to crash out here. He headed over to the small kitchen area of the flat, seeking out the pad of sticky notes that his father kept on the fridge and then jotting a note down. 'needed somewhere to sleep . got locked out my flat . hope you don't mind. -Brad.'

Bradley made his way to the room he had slept in as a child. His father used it as a spare room now, but he never had any visitors, so it was just a bed in the middle of a room. Only - when Bradley entered, he discovered that all of his things were lined around the room. As if someone had raided his flat and put all of the things of worth in this room. Even stranger was that they were covered in dust. They seemed like they were completely untouched for a long period of time.

Bradley noticed that his phone was on the bedside table, and he went over to check it for any messages. It was dead. He put it on charge and waited for a couple of minutes before loading it up. He was not a man of technology, he preferred face to face communication, but he, like millions of others, had been swept along with the latest trend and forced to purchase the latest tech or else be deemed un-cool... whatever that meant. The first thing he noticed after the screen lit up was his primary notification.

1,124 unread messages.

His face contorted. This was a ridiculously large amount of messages, very unusual for him. Bradley looked at the date, wondering if he had blacked out for over a day and his friends had plagued him with messages to see if he was okay. It was the same date as it had been before he had blacked out. Odd. Then Bradley read it. The year. It didn't read 2018. It read 2019.

"What the fuck." Bradley dropped his phone to the floor. Surely it was some sort of error in the data? Or something.

His head was banging. He didn't like this. It was probably just a weird dream or something. Which was odd because he never dreamed much. He denied everything that he had seen today and put it off as his imagination, collapsing on to the bed and shutting his eyes tight, hoping that this 'dream' would come to an end.

Tucked into a corner of London stands a copper haired girl, barefoot in a stained sundress, knees bent as if to take in a large breath of air and left hand dangling, holding an expired bottle of pills between grimy fingertips. Though she herself was unkempt, dirt underneath chipped fingernails and wild mane in knots, the alleyway she stood in was immaculate, though a light dusting of dirt covered the area, a stark contrast to what it had been when she first stepped foot into it a year ago. Surrounding her body were wilting flowers, anemones once a myriad of colours, dying tulips attempting to soak in the rare sunlight of a London day. Even a teddy bear was placed in front of her delicate feet, as if an offering to the girl frozen in time, yet it was transparently obvious that the stuffed animal was not newly placed; its ears were still damp from rain and paws caked with dried mud. It had been laying on the pavement for a long time.

The street urchin with freckled cheeks and a dirty mouth had been turned into some sort of altar for the homeless, a patron saint to the unfortunate. Destitute little children with sticky hands and wide eyes played ring around the rosie around her and beggar women pressed pennies into their palms before her, wishing for Lady Luck to smile down upon them, but they soon stopped their pilgrimages when the girl showed no signs of waking, and refused allowance for their children to play there as well. Men did not usually visit the macabre sight; once, months ago, an old man had sat by her side every day, but soon, even his visits began to dwindle. The beggar women assumed he had died - they could think of nothing else that would force the elder whom had so vehemently denied giving up on the girl, but the children, frank as they were, simply believed he had given up hope.

"Mommy, is she ever gonna wake up?" A little girl poked her mother's side and pointed at the statue of a woman. She often came to the narrow alleyway with her daughter to think. It had once been swamped with curious eyes, but now it was generally vacant - no one came around any more.

"I don't know, darling." The woman replied, counting the pennies in her lap absently. She would soon have enough to buy her daughter a new pair of shoes if she saved wisely.

"I'm going to make her wake up!" The daughter declared.

"You do that, sweetheart."

With a determined look on her baby cheeked face the girl hopped away from her mother and began jumping up and down in front of the frozen woman's unmoving eyes, waving her arms frantically.

"Wake up, wake up!" The little girl screeched, "Mummy says I shouldn't sleep so long and that it's bad for me so it must be bad for you too!"

Miraculously, ironically, at that exact moment the bottle of pills slipped between the woman's fingers and hit the pavement, her knees following a second later. The little girl's eyes bugged and she opened her mouth.

"MUMMY - "

"Oh, God," Eleanor moaned, her voice raspy as she covered her ears against the shrill sound. "Please don't yell. It hurts."

But it wasn't just her head that hurt - the migraine forming between her eyes was only the tip of the iceberg. Her knees felt like she had been shot in both of them and her slim fingers cramped something fierce - she had never known such pain in her life. It felt like she had been unconscious for weeks. Eleanor had never been sick in her life; had she suddenly been struck by something that had been hiding in her immune system for years? A heart attack, stroke? She tried to swallow. It felt as if her throat was lined with sandpaper. Then - the old man. Her heart jumped into her throat and Eleanor struggled to stand, pushing herself up on wobbly arms.

"I've got to go - "

"Please stay," Another voice, this one older, warmer - must be the little girl's mother, Eleanor surmised, "You've just woken up, you've been asleep for so long - "

"How long?" Eleanor interrupted, unadulterated fear engulfing her. If she wasn't there to take care of the old man, who would? He couldn't have lived on his own, he just couldn't. He was so weak, so frail -

"Maybe a year, I think." The other woman responded hesitantly.

"A year?"

"I know it sounds impossible - "

"It sounds like bullshit!"

"Just let us help you!" The other woman's voice was firmer than it had been, a motherly tone that she had obviously perfected with her rambunctuous daughter. Eleanor cursed, but, feeling herself wobbly on unsteady limbs, acquiesced to the woman's plea. She was in no state to walk, much less go searching for her old man. She allowed herself to be lowered onto the woman's ragged blanket and was close to succumbing to sleep when something soft and small was pressed into her cheek.

"This - it's your teddy." A timid voice said. Eleanor's lips curled upwards and her breath evened out.

__

"The beautiful do not rest in alleyways with vagabond women and mendicant children."

"I'm not too concerned with beauty. You shouldn't be either."

"You are awfully self-assured for such a homely girl."

"I wouldn't know. I don't know what I look like."

A pause.

"Your eyes. They don't work."

"No. They never have. I've never needed them to."

Sleep, is a beautiful thing. It refreshes the brain, allowing the human to wake up ready for the next day. But there are some who can not sleep, those who are plagued with insomnia. It us an unfair disorder, and it leaves many not ready for the day ahead of them. Lee truly did pity these people, those who did not have the opportunity to experience sleep. Unfortunately, there were those who get too much sleep, another problem that was just as bad as the latter. Those who can not get up for the next day, those who missed the next day entirely. Lee was one of those people.

At first, when he woke up, he felt as if nothing had changed. He had woken up in his apartment, and it was just how he left it. The rays of the sun shined through his windows blinds. Lee glanced at the clock, hoping that he was not late for his interview, unfortunately, his hopes were dashed. The clock read 12:13 PM, his interview was 9:00 AM, Lee frowned and looked around in confusion. His father was supposed to call him to wake up, just in case his alarm did not.

"Shit!" Lee yelled as he jumped out of his bed and ran to the bathroom. He looked at himself in the mirror and saw that his hair was greasy, long, and unkempt.

"What the hell." Was all he could say before he tried to wash his face, hoping to get rid of his morning groginess.

Unfortunately, that was not the answer to his problems. He couldn't even use his sink, the pipes groaned, but nothing came out. Lee kicked the sinks cabinet in fusturation. He walked out of his bathroom and into the living room. Everything was wrong, were his parents, why the hell was his water shut off, he payed for it the day before. Lee sat on his couch and tried to turn on the TV, unfortunately, it seemed that his electricity was gone also. Week one of living alone and things had already going to shit.

Lee jumped when he heard the door bell. He glanced back in confusion, he was not expecting anyone today. Lee shrugged and walked over to the door, he tried to use the peephole, but it was to dusty to look through. He opened the door in fusturation, "Hello." He said as he came face to face with a beautiful woman.

"I'm petitioning for the legalization of being able to eat on our streets in residential locations. Would you like to sign this?" she said with a smile.

Lee raised an eyebrow, he really did not care about the legalization of eating in residential areas at the moment. "Hey, I'm not in the mood to argue about how stupid this is, but ima sign this anyway. " He said quickly before taking her clipboard. He quickly read over the signatures of others to find his own place to sign. He then saw that the dates read 2019, not 18. Lee dropped the clipboard and slammed the door. He stumbled over to his couch in disbelief. What the hell had happened? Was he being pranked by someone? Lee shut his eyes and hopped he was having one of those dreams were you woke up in a dream.

Vroom...Vroom-Vroom... Vroom..

"Huh, what an odd sound. It is sort of like cars passing by on a roadway. But... no cars were on the road when the lights went dark. In fact, the only thing I heard were birds chirping. I wonder what time it is."

Mark's stiff body was slow to respond as his knees creaked as he stood. His guitar slipped out of his hands and fell to the floor causing a dull thud and several splinters to fall off. Mark quickly knelt beside it, a little too quickly in fact as he collapsed to his knees with a thud. His head reverberated with pain as a dull headache formed between his eyes. He looked down at the guitar and instantly was shocked by seeing a faded and rusting acoustic guitar strings. It was as if months had passed since he had last even touched its strings.

Mark looked around the hotel bedroom he was in and noticed that the place was immaculately clean. It was exactly as he had left it the night before. He grasped the edge of the bed and stood as he turned to the clock on the bedside. It listed that the time was 5:34pm."Damn, I slept through practically all day. I hope the boys didn't leave without me cause of this." Mark picked up his phone and pressed its power button only for it to display nothing but a black screen. He knew it was out of power so he plugged it into the charger beside the bedside table and waited a few minutes.

The screen blinked white as it displayed the apple logo in black. Then his home screen flickered on and it displayed that he had a whopping 2,641 missed messages and three hundred missed calls. "But, that is impossible! It has only been half a day so how the hell did I get so many message?" That was when Mark noticed it, the date on his phone wasn't displaying the usual 2018 but 2019. At first he thought it must be a prank until he realized that nobody in the band had the code for his phone. But, that would mean he had been sitting in this room for an entire year without realizing it.

Mark moved to stand up only to collapse onto the bed with an even stronger headache forming right between his eyes. He closed his lids to the pale light pouring in from outside and let the darkness smooth over him. Before long his muscles relaxed and he feel into a deep, if fitful, sleep.

---

There was a blinding bright white light, that had slowly shined into her eyes causing a very low groan coming from the sleeping woman, then Evelyn's vision started to slowly clear up catching a glimpse of a blurred figure. "Doctor shes waking up!" Another low groan came from Evelyn as she slowly pulled herself up from the bed her vision finally clearing up, Evenlyn's eyes slowly started to scan the room seeing the very white and boring looking room before her. There were quiet a few balloons as well as some cards and flowers from various friends and family. Evelyn winced slightly as she felt her throat was very dry she needed water, the nurse nodded as she quickly left the room a few seconds later the doctor came into the room. The last thing she remembered was that she was in the hospital with her mother and father beside her holding her new born daughter.

"What happened?" Evelyn asked in a raspy tone, and watched as the nurse came into the room, holding a cup of water and handed it to her. The young woman would quickly reach over to it and started to sip from it Evelyn closed her eyes as she finally felt the soothing cool water sliding down her throat. A couple seconds later her mother and father came into the room carrying a one year old in her mother's arms which instantly put a smile on the young woman's face. "We just came in to check on you when the doctors told us that you were awake." Her mother said as she pulled a chair up next to Evelyn, she would then reach over to gently hold her one year old daughter.

"How long have I been out?" It was something she didn't want to hear but she wasn't even sure what had happened in the first place, other then the lights going out and then being in complete darkness. "You have been out for a year now, and don't know what happened its happened to a few people." Her father answered, Evelyn then reached for her forehead feeling a very sudden and painful headache going through her head. "You should probably let her rest, you can fill her in later.." Evelyn's doctor said causing her mother to frown lightly and nodded. "Get some rest okay?" Her mother said as she gently took the sleeping girl into her arms and followed behind Evelyn's father, feeling her eyes getting heavier Evelyn nodded slowly as she rolled over onto her side and fell asleep.

Romantic movies make you think your relationship is supposed to be amazing, passionate and exciting all the time. Books weave tales of true love where two people come across each other and magically fall in love. In Iris's case, her own love story started with her getting into a huge fist fight with the local surfer kid. Even now, the pink bubble-gum haired woman will adamantly deny that she dealt the first blow. Plus, the kid was being a huge dick if she remembered correctly.

Of course, ass-hole and her were put into detention together and forced to forge friendly relations with each other. They faked it well enough, and soon enough their middle school was plunged into a war between tattoo girl and surf boy. Oh, and those were the good hormonal-crazed times. She recalled pulling off the seran wrap toilet prank on him one day, and lord, his reaction was priceless. The memory still made her cackle like a witch to this day - And oh, did she just snort?

Strong arms wrapped around her waist and her skin erupted into goosebumps when she felt his warm and ticklish breath against her skin. She rolled her eyes, slapping the mop of golden blond hair but didn't attempt to move away. Surfer kid was now surfer man. No longer pimply and gawky, surfer kid had grown up pretty well in her opinion. They also complimented each other well. He could cook up a meal fit for royalty while she burned eggs and she could make a house sparkly clean while he clumsily knocked over the bleach all over the bathroom floor.

And even though they argued every other minute, they were glued together.

"You gotta stop sniffing me man, it's fucking creepy," she said, yawning.

"And you should stop remembering all the shitty things we did in the past," Rick retorted, knowing all too well that Iris only snorted when she thought about fledgling Rick and Iris.

"But I like our past," she gently protested, turning her body around and shifting it so she was facing him. Rick's lips spread into a huge grin, his large hands carding through her hair.

"Yeah? I think I'll like our future," he whispered back.

Surfer man was also now a total romantic and Iris loved it. She leaned in to kiss him, morning breath and all before pulling back and sitting at the edge of the bed. Rick grumbled, stretching out a limp hand towards her. "Wha -"

"Yeah, time to get up sleepy-head. We gotta visit my mum to tell her that you, of all people, asked me to marry you and why in the world did I say yes? You are a manipulative bastard, you hear me? A manipul -"

Rick suddenly pounced on Iris, grabbing her back down before putting a muscled leg over her hip. "Yeah, yeah," he mumbled as he smirked. Her five feet five inches were no match for his six feet body.

"You are such a neanderthal," she cried out, laughter escaping her lips as she wrapped her arms around him.

"You love me," he simply responded.

A pause.

"Yes, I love you very much."

The sound of waves crashing on the shore awoke her. The faint whispers around her gradually increased in volume. She tried to open her eyes, only to squeeze them back shut. Where was she? The beach? Oh yeah, she probably fell asleep while Rick was doing whatever fishes were supposed to do. She tossed once and then twice, the sand uncomfortably rubbing against her skin. She frowned. Did Rick pull the blanket out? Shit head.

And then she heard her name, a voice so familiar that it made her radiantly smile. "Rick?" she called out, opening her eyes now for real since there was a shadow blocking the sunlight. What she saw was not Rick. What she saw was Rick's brother, Luke. He seemed older now. Was that a beard on his face? She could've sworn that he had shaved yesterday. She remembered because Rick and her had switched the shaving cream to whipping cream...

Luke dashed over to her, tears in his eyes as he easily pulled Iris up to her feet before embracing her. Did he just drop a bouquet of flowers? Why? Luke was the first one Rick told about their engagement... Mum was still alive and kicking. Why? And then reality came crashing down. It hurt like a bitch. She pressed her face against Luke's shoulder, eyes wide in shock. She didn't cry this time.

The throbbing behind his eyes is what woke him up. The pain, Alec figured, ranked somewhere in the top five of his entire life, including the time he was 8-years-old and fractured his collarbone and humerus going downhill on a rickety bike. It made him nauseous for the first few seconds, and he refused to open his eyes. Motes of light flickered in the darkness behind his eyelids, and he felt the gentle warmth of the sun on his skin. His mind was foggy, clouded; he couldn't remember why he was here, what he was doing. He reached down, deep inside the mist of his memories, snaking through the dust and grasping for something; a thought, a conclusion, a reason.
An image of his father, a beer between the two of them, an awkward smile shared between two men who might as well have been strangers. The creak of a door opening and closing, sounds of feet walking against pavement, tap-tap, on soft grass and dirt. He remembered walking up the incline, sitting on the edge of a plain, the rushing power of a train only a dozen or so feet behind him. He'd come up here, alone, to think on his future, his purpose. He felt anger, frustration. Sadness. He felt alone.
The sight of all the little homes and houses, the businesses and buildings plopped into the middle of nowhere as if by the hand of God, bordered all around by green and brown, swathes of nature threatening to swallow up the little patch of civilisation. And the sun, so high up, big and bright and beautiful, an ever-burning flame that wrapped those beneath in its comforting glow. Alec came here to quiet his thoughts, to gather a spark of inspiration, a sign of what he was meant for. And then the sky disappeared. Followed by the sun, the land, the little homes and the grassy knolls and the parks, all swallowed up in darkness, before the world itself had simply just vanished...

"'Ey, son," came a voice from beside him, blurted with such an urgency that almost made Alec jump out of his skin. "Are you... Are you awake?"

Alec forced his eyes open, bringing up a hand to create shade against a bright high-noon sun. Odd, he was sure it was later in the afternoon when he'd left...

"Son," came the voice again, and this time Alec saw its source, a grizzled old man wearing too much denim and a wispy beard. "Oh, my Lord, you're awake. I... I can't believe it."

"'Awake'? Uh, sorry, did I fall asleep? I... Is that a problem? Sorry, I was just--"

The old man looked frantic, eyes wide and breathing heavy. Compounded by the grogginess of just waking up, Alec suddenly felt very uncomfortable with the whole situation, especially when the man pulled out a cellphone that was several generations old and began dialling a number. With that, Alec decided to stand on wobbly feet, suddenly feeling tired and sore and hungry all at the same time.

"Look, sir, uh, thanks for waking me up, but I should really go find my dad--" he went to take a step before the old man noticed that the young man was on his feet, doing a double take before waving his arms in front of him.

"Wait, wait! Look, kid, I don't think you understand. I'm calling your dad right now. God, Donna said that sitting out here all that time was a stupid, wasteful favor to your father, I can't wait to see the look on her face--"

"Calling my dad? What?" Alec paused, a quizzical expression on his face. "Sorry, who are you again?"

"I'm Paul, Paul Westen. A friend of your dad's, Peter. He asked me to come out here every day, watch over you, make sure no one messed about with you or anything like that while you were out."

"'Watch over me'? What? What do you mean? I went for a walk less than an hour ago."
Paul paused in his dialling, staring at the phone for a long moment before slowly, painfully, looking up at Alec with an expression mingling between shock and pity. He hesitated, as if he was attempting to find the proper words for what he was about to say, as if he were about to tell the young man the world had ended.

"Son," he went to reach out, as if to put a hand on Alec's shoulder, before deciding against it and dropping it back to his side. "You've... Been asleep. For a long, long time."

"What? I couldn't have been out for more than an hour--"

"Kid, listen to me, and take a breath. You've been asleep-- you've been gone-- for a whole year."

Mark awoke with a start with sweat beading on his forehead. His headache was subduded and he shook off the talking to himself as nothing more than a dream. Yeah, it must have been a dream because none of that could have actually happened. Only the insane would talk to themselves and Mark was more than sure he wasn't insane. But, the voice in his head wasn't his own so how sure could he have been that he wasn't truly insane. No, insane people don't live the life he had. Mark had never touched alcohol, drugs, or even gone to parties which involved either of those.

He had to get some answers from someone. Somebody must be capable of explaining what in the actual fuck was going on to him. That was when it popped into his mind, he could call Tyler. Tyler was the equivalent of a brother to Mark and the drummer of the Knights. If anybody knew what going it was Tyler who, despite having never finished high school, was possibly the smartest of the band members. Mark pulled out his iphone and plugged in his password before stopping at his contacts.What if he thinks I'm crazy? Could it truly be possible that I've just gone insane and haven't noticed it yet? No, he will believe me. I'm sure he will. Mark told himself as he pushed the call button for Tyler. The phone rang twice before Tyler answered.



What, asleep for an entire year? That is impossible. Sure it made since for a single person to go in a coma for a year with the proper happenings. But it happening world wide just because the lights went off? That was pure insanity. Tyler must have been drugged to come up with something like that. But, Mark couldn't help but feel he was telling the truth. It explained his phone but it still didn't explain the voice in his head. Then again, it would probably be better to not tell him anything so that they didn't place him in a mental hospital.



Mark ended the call and slipped the phone into his back pocket. He walked over to his guitar and picked it up. He would have to replace the strings and find somebody to work on the body but it would survive for the time being. Though, where he would get the money for to fix it he had absolutely no idea. Mark was about to sit down when there was a knock at the door to his room. Mark slid the door open and was met by a tall but stout man in a full black suit. He said nothing but Mark knew that the man must have been his driver. The pair walked through the empty hotel and out onto the street below to the waiting black car. Mark was amazed that the boys could afford something like this.

Then again, it had been an entire years since he was last awake. How could he be sure that the boys didn't hit gold while they were on tour as openers? The answer was he couldn't. It was more than possible that Mark had been left behind like last years trash, pun only slightly intended. He was going to their recording studio which Mark could hardly believe. The Knights actually had a recording studio which means they had either recorded an album or were in the process of doing so.

The car came to a quick stop at the front of an uptown Nashville building. The building was massive compared to the venues Mark had played at with the band. The band must have rocketed to fame in a year. Mark was led into an elevator and waited until he reached the thirty-first floor where it stopped. He was guided down a hallway into a rather lush waiting room where all he could do was look at the pictures of bands and magazine front pages. It wasn't until a few minutes had passed that Mark noticed that a woman was staring at him like he was a ghost. He didn't say anything but shrugged it off. To basically everybody he must have seemed like a ghost.

"Mark, welcome to Genie Records. I'm so glad you are finally here. Come, the boys are waiting for you." said a rather tanned Tyler standing in the doorway of another hallway. He looked like he had been through a lot. His blonde hair was streaked with a few grey and white hairs and his skin had changed from its previous dark white to a tan brown. A tattoo of an old school knight was plastered on Tyler's right arm. The clothes of torn jeans and a cotton overshirt were replaced by a pair of cotton black shorts and a white t-shirt underneath a black button-up. Mark followed the new Tyler down the hallway into a small sitting room with a wide screen tv and three other figures sitting on circular couch.

"Mark, I bring you back to the boys." Tyler said with a flourish of his hands. All the boys turned and shouted some sort of welcoming to Mark while they were running to Mark. They pushed Mark around and joked about his coma and such. How much they had changed surprised Mark. The normally disheveled Peter was shaved and clean cut wearing a suit of black and white. Julio had cut off all his nine inch long hair and was wearing typical cowboy wear. Ralph, on the other hand, had changed his clothes from an overshirt and khakis to torn jeans and a muscle shirt. Mark was amazed by their appearances and was even more amazed that they hadn't forgotten about him.

"Alright, calm down boys. We need to explain everything to Mark that has happened since he has been in a coma." Tyler finished his statement by plopping down on the couch. The boys all sat beside Tyler as they explained world events to Mark, most of which he didn't care about. Then they reached the band. The Knights had blasted into the spot light of fame after being openers. On top of that, they had also released an album a mere two months ago. " The sales have blown the roof man. We've made 5 mil in two months man. And don't worry about your share, we set aside a fifth of the profit for you along with the money we made as openers. In total, you have 1.5 million dollars in your bank man. Ain't that great!"

One and a half million dollars... holy God. I never thought I could have gotten here. Mark told himself. Mark's heart started to race faster and faster as he accepted that he had become unbelieveably rich. Before he realized it, Mark was falling backwards off his seat as the boys rushed to his side. Their voices were muffled as Mark slipped further into the darkness. Before he realized it, he had passed oh.

It wasn't necessity that compelled Eleanor to open her eyes upon waking but trained instinct. Long ago, when still a little girl with a cherub face, she would awaken but keep her eyes closed, for what need did she have to open them? There was no benefit to her so she saw no point in it until her old man had gently scolded her, but the sting was taken out of his words as he ran bony fingers through her curls.

"You frighten people when you sit up like that." He informed her. "They believe you are still asleep and it confuses them. People are harsh to what they do not understand. They world has not offered much kindness to you but you have nothing but kindness to offer it in return, so please do so by opening your eyes."

And so Eleanor trained herself to do so, blinking eyelids drowsily as she woke from slumber. She was generally able to tell time of day and location by her other senses - the smell of freshly baked bread signified the beginning of day, the sound of angry businessmen on phones, the faint scent of cigarette smoke meant midday as they rushed to lunch, the tinkling laughter of children generally heralded mid afternoon as they raced home from school. Her eyes were simply open to placate those around her - but today, today she sensed something different.

"You ... " Eleanor murmured. The world was muted around her. Nothing but different shades of darkness - but, rubbing her eyelids furiously, she blinked. The blob in front of her did not move. "Are you ... are you the little girl from earlier?" A head shot up and suddenly the small bit of darkness, more pronounced than that around it, dropped something onto the ground carelessly and darted towards Eleanor.

"You can see me!" She squealed, "I thought - I thought your eyes didn't work. Mummy said your eyes didn't work - she's getting us food, she told me to watch you but I got bored so I was drawing, you can draw with a rock and works just as good as chalk, Mummy says it looks just as good as all the other kids' drawings and we don't even have to pay for the rocks like you have to pay for chalk, they're just lying around - "

"My eyes don't work." Eleanor interrupted dumbly. She wasn't lying when she said she'd never needed them to, either. So why - why now? Exactly what kind of deep slumber did she go into?

And then suddenly, just as she had been able to see different shades of darkness, she blinked and nothingness filled her vision again.

It was almost disconcerting, to feel vision. Eleanor wasn't sure she liked it and was almost comforted when it went away of its own volition. A fluke. The woman mused hopefully. From being asleep for so long. It - it must've messed with my head somehow.

"Where is your mother? I'm hungry."

BRADLEY CLARKE - ARES, GOD OF WAR

By 8 A.M. Bradley had awoken. In the time he had been awake he had came to two conclusions: He had most definitely been in some sort of comatose state for an entire year, and that he had something buried in the deeper recesses of his mind. A voice. An unfamiliar voice. Bradley wasn't sure how it had got there, but it was there. It whispered to him in his sleep. And he spoke back. He wondered if he was crazy... or perhaps he just needed some time to readjust to the world. It had scolded him for crashing at his father's place. Called him weak. It was right, in a way. He despised his father, yet he still relied on him in some ways. He wished that he didn't, but he did.

His father had not returned over night, so Bradley decided to remove the note that he wrote and leave without leaving any sort of evidence that he had ever been there, other than the fact that his phone was now in his pocket, and not on the spare room's bedside table. It was probably better this way. That way he wouldn't get any trouble from and could go on with his life. His father wished he was dead anyway. The feeling was almost mutual.

What with his apartment having a new occupant, Bradley made his way up to his friend Danny's flat. Danny was Bradley's closest friend. The best way to describe Danny was a total degenerate. Harsh but accurate. But he was a good guy deep down. He never wanted the life he was given - stealing and conniving. But it was the life he had, so he did everything he could to get by. Yes, he was a criminal. But he was loyal, and he cared about his friends, so Bradley had grown close to him over the years. They'd gone through a lot of stuff together - lost friends, earned their first ever pay-check. Bradley didn't care what others thought of him. He was the one guy who would welcome Bradley at his doorstep no matter what.

"Bradley?" Danny opened the door with evident shock on his face. "You woke up? When?"

"Just last night... You're the first person I've spoke to. Well... apart from some fat bloke who was living in my apartment. Care to fill me in on what's going on?"

"You know just as much as me, Brad." Danny continued to stare at him perplexed for a few moments before remembering to invite him in. "Come on, take a seat. We need to catch up."

Bradley entered the flat. It looked pretty much exactly the same as it had a year ago. There was a dirty t-shirt on the floor in the corner that Bradley was 99% sure had been there a year ago. He ignored it and sat down on one of the seats in the main room. Danny disappeared in to the kitchen for a few moments before returning with two beers, one for himself and one for Bradley.

"How is everyone, then? Will and the lads?"

Danny frowned as he sat down in one of the seats opposite Bradley.

"What is it?" Bradley asked with concern.

"A lot has changed 'round here since you left, Brad." Danny sighed and leaned back.

"I never left."

"You might as well have. You were always good at defusing this kind of shit... but we got in to an argument, and, you know, Will being Will, got a bit too mouthy. Got himself stabbed."

Bradley shook his head. "What? And you did nothing?"

"Of course I did, but I couldn't save him."

"Fucking hell... It really has been a year. Puts things in perspective." Bradley looked down solemnly.

Silence ensued for a while. In attempt to prevent any sort of awkwardness, Danny spoke up, handing Bradley a cigarette. "Have one, mate. It'll make you feel better."

Bradley peered at it for a moment. "Nah."

"You what?" Danny smirked. "You couldn't go a day without them last time I spoke to you."

"Like you said, a lot changes in a year. I don't know. I just don't feel addicted any more."

"Mate, I wish my mum would get a year-long coma," Danny joked. "She really needs to pack her smoking in."

Bradley laughed and leant back in his chair slightly. It felt good to be back. In reality, he never really felt like he had left. But he most certainly had. And he was glad he was here with his friends. But something didn't feel right. Maybe it was the loss of a friend. Or something else. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. He didn't feel normal.

"I'm sorry.. But your husband doesn't have much time to live." Evelyn opened her eyes and looked around the room she noticed that her hospital room door was closed and the television in her room was off she could hear noises from things like carts moving down the hallway as well as people talking in the hallways. All of these sounds, sounded rather clear to her she never had this kind of hearing before. She started to wonder where that voice had came from and then the door opened, and in came her doctor from earlier who smiled at her. "We did some more tests, and it seems like you are clear to go home now and called in your parents to take you home." He told Evelyn which she smiled, and then recognized it was the voice from outside of her room giving the bad news to whoever it was.

"Cant wait to get home." Evelyn said with a smile as she looked over she noticed a set of clothes that her parents had left while she had been asleep. "Your family should be here pretty soon." He said as he turned around and left the room and closed the door behind him, Evelyn got up and went to get changed out of the hospital gown and started to get dressed into the clothes her parents had given her.

Then a few minutes later Evelyn smiled seeing her parents and went over to give them both a hug, which they both returned Evelyn then headed down towards the hospital's front desk to check herself out. "Where's Sophia?" She asked following her parents to the car, and got into the back seat of the car. "Shes at home with the sitter right now, i'm sure you really want to see her right now huh?" Evelyn's father said with a smile as he started the car and left the hospital. The young woman nodded and smiled, then her mother handed her phone. "Don't worry we kept it charged and didn't mess with it." She told her Evelyn eventually looked at her phone to see 1,000 messages and 1,500 missed phone calls.

What is Strength? What is Power? Is it the ability to force others to bend their knee. or perhaps to subjugate those you hate? Maybe, but strength comes in many forms, the strength to uphold your beliefs to victory, to blend with your ambition to rise above your rivals, of to force yourself out of comfort. Even the weakest of beasts has the strength to become mighty, it is up to them to decide if they will use it to become powerful and legend.


It wasn't everyday you woke up half naked in a fetal position being scrubbed by a nurse. Franklin would have counted himself lucky, the nurse was attractive enough, if she wasn't currently wiping his ass clean of fecal matter in a small tub. The two met eyes silently, eyes growing wide and faces blushing. The strange pressure in his lower body disappeared and was replaced with pain in his head, as the nurse began screaming. Two more nurses, and two police officers burst through the door, receiving the full moon salute for their troubles.

The nurses, a man and two women, recovered quickly however, bringing towels and a hospital gown for Franklin to wear. He was the escorted to his room by the two officers, both comedic looking men with doughnut-bellies that waddled slightly as they walked. Franklin himself hobbled slightly, having been on I.V. and non solid food for a year. As he entered the room, he found a single sharp dressed man sitting next to his bed.

"Good morning, Mr. McDuffie. I hear you've had an... interesting morning wake-up call" the man greeted good naturedly as he got up to shake Franklin's hand. He was a man of average height and build, a bit old with medium-length, wiry, silver hair. The main distinguishing mark was the man's sideburns that would make even Martin VanBuren blush. The hand was a rough hand, like sand paper or a cats tongue if it was dry. "Speaking of cats, Franklin thought idly as he weakly grasped the man's hand, "his sideburns make him look like a cat. Who the hell keeps sideburns like that anymore?"

"Now, Mr. McDuffie," The older man continued, "I understand you were, ahhh... assaulted by a former acquaintance of your, correct?"

Franklin nodded in silence, looking down at his slippered feet. He knew where this was going already.

"Well, Mr.McDuffie, I believe that, ahh... you could use some protection correct? The city police would be glad to provide it if you ahh, provide for us as well. You know, scratch my back and I yours?"



Franklin looked around his new apartment, on the opposite side of the city from his old one. It was near midnight now, and the bed was looking quite enticing. As he fumbled towards the bed, his vision began to cloud and he could hear voices in his head.

As he drifted into unconsciousness, images began to flood his head. There were a group of winged humans, and each appeared in flashing images.

"Brother, what are you doing? We have been called to our lord's side." A female voice ringed in his ears, like the fanfare of brass trumpets signalling victory.

"Come brother, let us Spar! After all, if i can't even defeat you, what use is my drive?" Another voice spoke, like water against a cliff, pounding relentlessly until the rock eroded away.

"Brother, he beckons. We are to assist his son in restraining the traitor." Another voice, feminine and soft, having a reverberating timber that the other voices lacked like a typhoon wind restrained by will.

Finally, the images faded away leaving Franklin in a dark void alone and cold. He wasn't sure what happened, and became even more confused as a bright light flashed before him. Stepping out of the light, a armored figure strode towards him. His armor was well crafted plate, fashioned into a breastplate and layered pauldrons. However the distinguishing marks of the figures were the winged closed helm, and the feather-like lamallar plates that resembled feathers.

"Greetings Host," A final voiced emerged, "I see that you are well. I must say, the sight of you is quite disappointing."
"What?" Franklin replied.
"You are weak. That is all."
Franklin was speechless, and slightly angry at the comment. "Who the hell are you!?"
"...I do not know." The figure replied, "However, I know this. You are weak and unworthy, and I am ashamed to be associated with you."

Your writing prompt is now, “What has happened to your character in the last month since he/she has woken from the coma?” If you have not made your first post yet, please include your 'waking up' scene and ‘one month summary’ scene in one post.

Also, if you want to try and roll the dice to see if your character can learn the name of the god inside him/her, PM me. Tell me that you would like to roll the dice on this issue. Just to be clear, your chance of making this discovery this early is small, 1 out of 10, 10% chance. But there is no downside, you can try again later with better odds. So it's up to you if you would like to try this early.

This is a great time to start collaborating with others through PM. Maybe lead your characters to meet each other.

I’ll move the plot along again after either 10 people post at least once after this OR June 4th arrives, whichever comes first.

The morning after Mark had woken up was mostly a blur to him. He remembered getting up and putting on some clothes that were left beside him and then watching the news. Nothing about the new really stood out to him until he realized that nearly all of the stories that morning were about the coma patients like himself waking up. He was amazed and relieved that he wasn't the only person who woke up. How awkward it would have been for him if, out of everybody else in a coma, he was the only one to wake up. But, this didn't make Mark feel anymore lonely. Everything had changed without him and he no longer had a place in the band. The boys still treated him like their brother but he knew what they were hiding from him. They had already replaced his position as acoustic guitarist with a new kid who quite obviously was a ladies man.

"Mark! Mark, there you are. We've got a slight problem mate. It seems that you waking up has somehow gotten leaked out by somebody. The paparazzi are swarming the place looking to find out all they can from you. We've gotta get ya out of here without them realizing it. Tyler said as he came running in from the same hallway Mark had been brought in from. Mark sat still for a few moments until he realized that it meant every part of his life would be revealed by a bunch of rumor hungry journalists. He had never been the center of any large amount of people's attention except for on the stage but even then they weren't looking at him rather at Tyler or Julio who were the pretty boys of the group. Mark's heart started to race and before he realized it he had passed out again.

---



---

Mark awoke to Tyler fanning him with a magazine and his shirt unbuttoned. "Thank god you are finally awake Mark! You passed out after I told you about the journalists. Must of been a real surprise to you man." Tyler said all of it as he sat backwards and laid down on the carpet of the room. So now Mark had developed the tendency to pass out when stressed. I guess it wasn't too surprising but it basically meant that Mark could no longer play on stage considering that he was almost always stressed when he was playing a show. If he couldn't stay calm then he would pass out in the middle of a show and possibly hurt himself or somebody else in the process.

Mark stood up on shaky knees with the help of Tyler before he grabbed a fedora and black over shirt and walked to the door."Let's get going Tyler. I want to get away from them as quickly as possible before they start swarming like sharks to blood." Mark said as he opened the door for Tyler as they walked out. The paparazzi were everywhere out side the hallway and tried to ask Mark all sorts of questions which he just shrugged off or ignored completely. Before long Mark was in another black car and being driven away from the crowd of people looking for answers he couldn't provide. About three hours later, Mark was in the drive way to Tyler's new house in a semi-rural portion of Tennessee.

"Tyler, thank you for helping me through this man. You've been the best friend mate. I'll only stay here for about a week before I leave though. I think it would be best if I go somewhere other than here. I can't be with you and the boys unless I can figure out what is causing me to faint so often cause that was three times in two days." Mark said to Tyler after arriving at his house. Tyler nodded okay as they got out of the car and went into his house. Mark was true to his word as, only a week later, he left to move to New York City where he would live in a flat while going to Mount Sinai Hospital to find out the cause of his fainting problem and if it was serious enough to require him to take some sort of drug to control it.
---



Mark was walking through his loft as he prepared to go to Mount Sinai Hospital one last time. They had said that they couldn't find any physical causes for his fainting so they decided it was time to look into the psychological side of things. They even suggested that it could have been caused by his early childhood. Meanwhile, after the fans of the Knights had caught wind that Mark woke up, the sales for the first album had skyrocketed. In the three weeks in being awake, the album had earned another two million dollars in profit. It was like the fans were flocking to the Knights just because Mark was awake. What was worse was that Mark genuinely felt bad for doing so. It felt like he was the only reason the Knights were famous and that he had taken away the spotlight from them. Even after moving to New York City, Mark was plagued by zealous fans and journalists who wanted answers which he knew he couldn't provide.

Mark left for the hospital at one in the afternoon and arrived not too long after two. They were to prepare him for an overnight stay to monitor his brainwaves and perform a battery of tests for him. Their first tests was showing him scenes of violence which he passed with flying colors. Another test was showing him musicians playing their instruments which he also passed with flying colors. The third test was showing Mark works of art from ancient times. Everything went well until the pictures changed to a statute of Zeus holding his lightning bolt. Mark's heart began to race and his vision started to turn black. Before he realized it, he had passed out.
---

Above stood massive beings looking down at a young baby. Their faces were contorted in anger and hatred at the young child which had bore them no ill will nor harm. They mocked the young child who understood not what they meant nor what their insults could possibly mean to a young one such as him. One of them handed him a staff with a pinecone on it as a joke to his heritage. They laughed at him as the scepter which was rightfully his was replaced by the thyrsus. Then they began their torment of the young god. They torn his limbs from his body and started to consume him as his cries were muffled by their maniacal laughter. How painful it was to the god until a might thunderbolt pierced one of them straight through the chest and turned him into dust. The others followed suit as a might god cloaked in lightning descend in his anger only to find his son's only remaining part, his heart.

The mighty Zeus sewed the heart into his thigh where his young child would be born again. And so the child was recreated in the thigh of Zeus until time came for him to be released. The mighty Zeus cut his son out of his thigh and handed the child to Hermes. The god Hermes took the young babe, reborn from his father's thigh, and handed him to the rain-nypmhs of Nysa. He was raised on the mountain far away from the place of his birth, Olympus, where not even Hera would find the infant to exact her revenge against Zeus.
----

It had been a rather long 4 weeks since she had woken up from the coma, but she was happy to be alive since waking up she spent a lot of time taking care of her daughter Sophia trying to make up for lost time over the past year since in that coma. Evelyn sat at her computer leaning over reading through the news a lot of the articles have been about a lot of people who had been woken up from their comas seeing some of the weirder stories from “Do the Awoken have psychic powers?” – National Enquirer, “Two Suspected Awoken Rob Bank” – Shanghai Daily, “Are the Awoken a threat to humanity?” – Globe Magazine.

Letting out a soft yawn Evelyn walked over to her bed and went to lay down on her bed, and slowly closed her eyes as she fell asleep. "Why don't you go outside and do something? You've been in here since you left taking care of the little one." "Because whatever happened to me, I wanted to spend the time that I missed with my daughter." Evelyn slowly opened her eyes and lets out a soft yawn as she started to stretch, she heard her phone going off and went to look down at it seeing that it was a text from one of her friends asking to hang out.

Evelyn texted her back and told her yes, she stood up and stretched slightly and turned to head towards the front door. "Hey mom and dad, i'm going to go out and hang with some friends i'll be back before dinner." Evelyn said as she got towards her car and started to drive towards her friends house.