The pain tore Weston from reality. The world was a bubble filled only with pain and anguish. With every blink of the eye, a new method of torture appeared to murder him over and over and over again. A dozen steel blades impaled him from behind, a thousand barbed arrows rained from the gray skies, a dulled guillotine beheaded him again and again. Time lost meaning as reality itself focused its fury upon Weston Meyer. Eventually, faces other than his own entered the void, their eyes full of contempt. They stabbed, bludgeoned, cut, and maimed him for hours, days, years, and centuries. The faces became familiar: Weston's mother, his father, his uncle, the citizens of his childhood home. They were all happy as they beat and battered the helpless man. They betrayed him; stabbed him in the back: None could be trusted. The faces then became Weston's. All of them enjoyed the self-punishment: He could not trust himself.
Weston seemed to experience a lifetime bleeding buckets and hoping for death. Reality became pain and betrayal, and time became a lie that only deepened the wounds. The weight of untrust was unbearable, overshadowing even the pain of the blades piercing his body. Suddenly, everybody was an enemy and a liar. There was no distinction between friend and foe. Fear and hatred burned inside Weston's belly. Just as it reached the boiling point however, it all stopped.
One Year Ago
The pain and hate disappeared, leaving only the feeling of the cold, wet, hard ground pressed against the front of his body. For a moment, he had no idea where he was or why, confused by the cracked asphalt and wet ground in absense of rain. Then it all rushed back: The briefing, the flood, the falling tower. Sent nearly back into shock, Weston immediately pushed himself to his feet and scanned the area.
The steel walls around the fort's courtyard had been all but annihilated by the fallen skyscraper and powerful quake, leaving a few small portions that surviving soldiers used as support as they recovered as best they could. Most were surprisingly calm, or perhaps too shocked to panic like the rest who screamed profanities and claimed that everything had ended. One man knelt in a lingering puddle and stared blankly at the sky, muttering, "They locked us in. We're trapped," then began yelling, "We're fucking stuck!"
This prompted Weston to look up at the sky as well, assuming the man was only raving like a lunatic. However, to his dismay, a faint glimmer could be seen in the skies above Sovereign almost like a massive bubble encasing the city. The glimmer had a distinct curve to it, leading Weston's eyes down to it's source. He found himself limping toward a broken part of the wall, hoping to see the outside of it and ignoring the fact he was limping at all. However, he was in no way prepared for the sight beyond the wall.
Sovereign was a sea of fire burying what was once the Jewel of Gaia. The scene resembled the images of the Realm of Sin from movies and other media: A world of fire and brimstone and chaos. And behind the torched skyline was a massive barrier encircling the entire former metropolis. Operation: Spartan. The Wall had been raised and quarantine had commenced.
"I'm sorry, did we do all this?" A cold feminine voice spoke from nearby.
Weston flipped around, expecting to see the woman speaking behind him, but no one was there.
"That bonding was a lot more painful than I thought. Physical pain isn't as common as you'd think in an endless Void." The voice managed to remain nearly emotionless while keeping a sarcastic tone.
Again, Weston turned to look for the voices source but found no one.
"Oh right, you weren't expecting this. I'm sure this wasn't the most pleasant of days then. The apocalypse is probably quite a shock during peacetime. If it happens again, I'll try to make sure a smaller town gets obliterated."