Chapters:

Prelude

“Those who would steal fire have sullied their own minds…”

- Annashdal

In the cover of night, under centuries old starlight, a sprawling city on a distant world, not unlike your own, is where our songs begin. Blanketing this particular night sky was the heavenly body of Jotunheim VII, a bloody red gas giant with violet streaks of gaseous winds cutting across it’s red skies. Staring up at the gas giant on the streets of the city of Anith, was a police officer by the name of Gaston Waldt. He wasn’t a particularly bright man, nor was there anything truly remarkable about him, and like most people in the galaxy, his life was absolutely meaningless, but I digress, he does bare relevance to our story, so his tale shall too, be sung as a sort of prelude if you will. Waldt strolled the narrow streets lined with steel neo-gothic towers that loomed over him, reaching towards the stars above. It was a routine patrol; the area was known to have issues with vagrants and troublemakers alike. Of course you’ve probably guessed by now that there would be nothing ‘routine’ about tonight’s patrol, and you would be correct…you cheeky little… Let’s continue shall we?

A slight crackle came over his headset, breaking the silence of the night, followed by the electronic voice of a woman. “Waldt, there’s been a disturbance in the Gemini Arcology, Officers Morguez and Sterson have already been dispatched. They have maintained radio silence for three hours and transmissions have failed to connect, please investigate and proceed with extreme caution. Over.”

Raising his hand to his headset, Waldt answered. “Roger that.” He quickly reached for his hip, unholstering his sidearm. He sprinted down an alleyway to the right of him, a shortcut to the domed Arcology. After some time traversing through the labyrinthine city, he rushed through the narrow divide; he could hear a scream in the distance. “A woman? Perhaps Officer Sterson?” He thought to himself, his heart beginning to race as he sped up his pace. A small automated trash collector zipped passed him as he reached the end of the alley. There she was, hunched over against a wall, a woman clad in a standard Officer’s uniform, presumably Officer Sterson. Waldt slowly approached her, turning on his shoulder-mounted lamp.

The woman whirled around in a single motion ending with a police-issue laser pistol aimed at Waldt’s face. She had tawny frazzled hair with the kind of gaunt expression and fearful eyes one gets only when one has seen something truly horrifying. Her uniform was drenched in blood. She gripped her pistol so tight, if it had been a living thing, well, it would no longer be living. Upon recognizing Waldt, a feeling of relief washed over her after being in such a prolonged state of desperation. “Gaston?” She asked, her voice shaking in disbelief.

Waldt raised his arms up once he had recognized Sterson to be the one behind the pistol still aimed at his face. “Yeah, Jeane, it’s me. Just lower your weapon and tell me what’s going on. You’re covered in blood, where are you hurt?” He spoke to her with a reassuring tone, while keeping an alert eye on their surroundings. Trembling, Sterson lowered her pistol and wiped some blood from her uniform. “I’m alright, it’s not my blood…” She answered. “Where’s Morguez?” Waldt asked confused. “I don’t know…we got separated in the chaos. The Arcology has gone to hell…I just, I don’t know what the hell is going on in there! I-” Before she could finish, she was interrupted by Waldt, “Slow down! Focus. What was the disturbance reported in the Arcology? And if that’s not your blood, then who’s is it?” Jeane took a breath, staring at her bloodied hands. “We were sent to investigate an incident at the power facility that had resulted in an outage. I’d never previously been to Gemini myself…when we got inside it was dark and quiet, with no one in sight. Comms were down so we couldn’t radio HQ; we figured it had something to do with the outage so we just headed over to the reactor…” She stopped, her face pale and sick as though she were about to… “Jeane?” Waldt asked, worried. Just then her face went from pale to a greenish hue before hunching over and vomiting on the floor with a tad bit splashing onto Waldt’s shoes. “Jeane! God! Geez, are you alright?” Waldt approached her, stepping over her vomit naturally, in an effort to comfort her, but found himself waved off as Jeane recovered.

“When we finally reached the control room…there were…there were bodies everywhere and the equipment was in ruins. There he was, this lone…” She hesitates for a moment. “Man…with a service wrench in hand, just swinging it down over and over and over with a look of twisted apathy as he rambled…” Recalling the memory caused her to grow wide-eyed, before lurching forward and vomiting again. Waldt quickly leaned over and patted her back as a comforting gesture. Now if you recall, it was previously stated that Mr. Waldt was not a particularly bright man, what he did next makes that fact readily apparent. Waldt looked ahead of him, across the street was one of the several entrances to the Gemini Arcology. For those not familiar with the term, an arcology is a self-sufficient mega-structure akin to a small city within a single building, designed to have a minimal effect on the environment. Gemini is the smallest of the four arcologies in the city of Anith. Out of bravery, foolishness, or just plain ignorance, Officer Waldt had decided there was no time to waste and that he must take action. He turned to Jeane. “Listen, it’s going to be alright. I’m going in to get Morguez. I need you to stay here and call for backup!” Upon finishing his declaration, he rose, making his way towards the gate of Gemini. “Wait!” Jeane cried out after him, only to be stifled by her own disgusting oral emissions. Unfortunately the poor sod was already across the street, pushing his way through the entrance of the Gemini Arcology.

Waldt skulked through the terminal lobby, which had been left in disarray. Where there would normally have been terminal security, there were only unattended desks, toppled computers, and holo-screens along the walls that usually played cheery advertisements, but now only played cyan blue static. The halls were dark, barely illuminated by the emergency lighting, forcing Waldt to rely on his shoulder light to guide him. The man had never entered this particular Arcology, you see the arcologies of Anith were reserved for the STEM industries, scientists and engineers so that they could work freely without external interruptions, with some minor exceptions, they did require a work force to function of course. The security of the arcologies were managed by a number of androids ranging from the clunky and obsolete, to the advanced skin wearing machines that could be mistaken for humans at first glance, but became increasingly more disturbing the longer you looked at them, none of which could be found. Each step he took echoed through the silent halls as he cautiously made his way to the boarding platform. Transportation within the dome consisted an automated tram system that moved through all the buildings of the micro-metropolis. He began climbing into one of the tram’s carts lined up against the boarding platform, hesitating for a moment as he looked at the destination touch-screen. It was splattered in blood. Stomaching his disgust, he took a seat in the cart and wiped the blood off the console. As if being woken up from a deep slumber, the tram slowly came to life, with the touchscreen display lighting up and the cart’s doors closing.

The console’s speakers turned on. “Welcome, Officer! What is your destination today?” The machine spoke with a bright and soothing voice that conflicted with the harrowing atmosphere that surrounded it. The screen in front of him displayed the twelve drop-off stations throughout the arcology along with a map showing each route available. The direct route to the reactor’s facility along with several other routes appeared to have been shut down. It took Waldt only a brief moment to come to the conclusion that the fastest route to the facility was to go through Residential. He took a deep breath and let out a sigh before selecting his route. “Residential District, all aboard!” The electric feminine voice chimed over the speakers. After a moment the tram lurched forward and began speeding down the track, going through station’s exit tunnel, enveloping our heroic officer in total darkness.

Soon out of the darkness, there was light. The concrete and steel tunnel had become an elevated glass tube surrounded by a cluster of sleek towers and neo-gothic buildings strewn with lights of varying brightness, all enclosed within the Gemini dome. Above and below, there were many platforms and catwalks stringing from building to building. The sight was so enrapturing that Waldt began to lose his tension, nearly forgetting why he was there, but he would soon receive quite the unwelcome reminder. Without warning the tram shook violently. In mere seconds, with such little time to react, Waldt found himself feeling an overwhelming sense of weightlessness. The now shattered glass tube was twisting and distorting around him as it came tumbling down. Just as he gained his sense of direction, he found himself faced with a lovely view of the ground below him that now appeared to be coming closer at a tremendous speed. It was at this moment that the thought of actually dying first crossed his mind. There was a deafening crash and then, nothing.

Cold. Murmurs. Voices? The few seconds of vision that occurred to Waldt were merely blurred shadows. After some time, he managed to recover his senses. Having slowly returned to the realm of the living, he struggled to move amid the debris. With the difficulty he had breathing, he was sure he had at least three broken ribs. He groaned in pain as he attempted to move his left arm. That too, was broken. He did not complain however; scraps, bruises, a broken arm, and some broken ribs, were considerably lucky given the circumstances. He stared up at the broken rails above him. He had fallen at least one hundred-forty feet or so. Painfully, he pulled himself out of the rubble, yanking his sidearm out from a small pile of concrete. He dusted himself off before feeling the tingling sensation of a great amount of heat. He looked upon the scene ahead of him and his face contorted with horror. The platform he landed on seemed to be a kind of small town square of sorts, with a series of shops at the base of the towers they were built into. At the center of this square was a pillar of fire made of several stakes that were driven into a pile of seemingly human bodies, still charring away in the flames.

“What…the hell…?” He could not keep the words from escaping his mouth. Amid the sound of the crackling fire, there was a whisper, a faint voice amongst the smoke and ash. Still shaken, his eyes searched the haze, darting back and forth looking for someone, anyone, who could rationalize the nightmare he was experiencing. There was a crumpled figure rocking back and forth ever so slightly sitting against the base of a plastic tree, now warped from the heat of the fire. Waldt slid down the rubble of the tram wreck, nearly losing his balance upon landing on the floor of the platform. He gripped his broken arm as he slowly approached the figure covered in soot. As he got closer, he could tell it was a thin man wearing what looked like a burnt engineering jumpsuit, orange with yellow accents and gray padding on the knees and shoulders. The man was muttering some incomprehensible mantra to himself as he rocked back and forth against the plastic tree, holding his head in his hands.

“Hey…you there…” Waldt called out to the man as he slowly inched closer to him. The ashen man trembled, looking away from Waldt, still rocking back and forth. “P-P-Please…” he stuttered almost in a whisper. He kept one hand over his face as if he were trying to block the sunlight from hitting his eyes, while is other trembled as he pointed to Waldt’s sidearm. Waldt looked at him, puzzled, before coming to an understanding and holstering his weapon. He put both of his hands up and began to kneel down next to the tortured man as a gesture of peace. “I’m not going to hurt you, I just need to know what the hell is going on here… My name is Gaston Waldt, I’m a police officer of the business sector of Anith. Can you tell me your name or who did this?” Waldt pleaded. The pitiful creature suddenly froze for a moment and stared at the ground. It wasn’t until then that Waldt could get a good look at the man. His face was sullen with dark sunken circles wrapped around white eyes and a thousand yard long stare. He had unkempt graying brown hair that looked as though he had been tearing out patches here and there. Without warning, the man’s face twisted towards Waldt, his empty gaze meeting Waldt’s eyes. Unsettled, Waldt couldn’t help but take a step back.

Tears rolled down the man’s cheek despite maintaining a disturbingly blank expression. “What is my name? That question haunts me so very much…and its answer eludes me… The shadows have taken so much from us… Leaving only demented husks for the fire…” He let out a heavy cough of soot as he got on his knees. “P-Please… if you could help me, I will help you… P-Please…” He begged, his throat hoarse from breathing the fumes of the bonfire. There was something about the man’s condition that was eerily familiar to Waldt, so much so it made his spine tingle with discomfort, but at the same time he was overcome with so much pity for the lost soul that knelt before him and so he reached out to this nameless engineer.

Waldt took the man by the hand and lifted him to his feet. “T-T-Thank you…” He stuttered. As the engineer began to dust himself off, Waldt examined him with a quizzical expression. There was a scorched nametag on his jumpsuit; all but four letters of the inscription were legible. “Hey…” Waldt hesitated for a moment. “Rice? Can I call you that? It’s all that’s left on your tag…” The engineer paused and looked at Waldt in confusion before his solemn expression suddenly flickered with a faint bit of life, quickly looking down at his tag to read it. Odd behavior even for men in his condition, just how far down the rabbit hole was this poor sod? “Oh… What like the grain? I s-s-suppose that would…s-s-suffRICE…” He let out a hoarse chuckle followed by a wheezing cough. There was something particularly sickening about this wretched soul cracking a quip whilst coated in the soot of the burning dead. Waldt, being a reasonably ‘civilized’ man could not help but show a degree of disgust. “We should go…” Waldt finally broke the silence. “Listen I’m looking for another officer, Benjoe Morguez, have you seen him? He was sent here to investigate an incident at the reactor facility. Clearly there’s a hell of a lot more going on here and I need answers!”

Rice chuckled to himself, his voice coarse with hopelessness. “Funny… I was hoping YOU would have answers for all of this…” He paused, staring down at his feet. Silence. Only the sounds of the crackling fire and the stench of the deceased. “You know… At first they didn’t know what to do with us… when we first saw the shadows I mean… There were so many of us…” The feeling of discomfort returned to Waldt. “What do you mean?” he asked, almost hesitant. Rice turned to look at the wall of the nearby abandoned restaurant, their shadows danced upon it in the fire’s light. “They were just like you… They said they wanted to help, but they locked us in rooms… and left us to die. They could not see the shadows, but we could… so we had to show them with light!” The demented raised his hand toward the shadows upon the wall, presenting them as if they were a newly unveiled work of art. The transition of concern to horror washed over Waldt like a mass of insects crawling under his skin. Rice turned to Waldt as tears rolled down his face. “Forgive me…” With a heavy thud, our intrepid hero’s vision went dark, his body cold. It was a feeling that Waldt wasn’t quite fond of becoming familiar with.

“Gaston…”

“Gaston!”

“Mr. Gaston, officer of our great city, awaken!” A sudden surge of pain broke the darkness into a haze of shape and color, slowly forming the world around Waldt. He could feel a searing pain at the back of his head, oozing with warmth. He was tied to a metal chair at the center of a dimly lit room, littered with broken desks and shattered monitors. Light from the outside filtered into the room through the window paned door. A good foot away from his face was a man he had never seen before, with a crooked smile and a long nose that looked as though it had been broken several times over. His eyes covered by bandages, despite this, he could almost feel the man leering at him from beneath the bandages. “Splendid! You’re still alive; this is good, this is very good! You’re just in time to watch the parade!”

“Listen, I’m getting real tired of not knowing what the hell is going on here…” The words just barely escaping Waldt’s mouth as his jaw became heavy and slow. He struggled against the rope holding him. Just now becoming truly aware of the ever-deteriorating situation, Waldt’s face reddened while his body and voice quaked with rage and fear. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!” He yelled as loud as his body would allow him to, further demanding the answers he so desperately sought from those who had so little to give. His rage would soon subside, melting into horror one last time. The blinded man now had a smile that far exceeded the width of a human head, his form bloating and bubbling as he cackled with laughter, his appearance taking the likeness of a human toad.

“Ho ho ho! I see, you see it now don’t you? The gates to the capitol are open and the marching band heralds the arrival of all the king’s horses and all the king’s men! A parade for all the masses from city to city, nation to nation, a gathering of all mankind through all the ages, one that all shall witness and none shall pass over!” He proclaimed, as his head twisted around like that of an owl, returning to face Waldt with a grin that reached from ear to ear.

If our Gaston Waldt could be truly admired for anything, it would likely be his shear tenacity, a tenacity that would prove itself in a final act of rage and desperation. Waldt swung back in his chair and flung himself forward, slamming his head into the demented creature as soon as he finished his proclamation. Upon knocking the beast back, Waldt fell to the floor, still strapped to the chair; he tore his broken arm out from the binding, crying out in excruciating pain. The wretch wailed as he gripped his head, unaware that Waldt had freed himself until the Officer loomed over him and broke the chair over his malformed skull. With adrenaline coursing through his veins, there was only one single pervading thought in Waldt’s mind: survive. Without hesitation he charged for the door, his broken arm now limp at his side. Shattering the glass, he came to halt on the other side when he was met with a small crowd of disheveled people surrounding a pyre in the plaza. They twisted almost apathetically to witness the arrival of the desperate Officer Waldt. Their shadows stretched up along the walls of the offices and shops within the plaza, twisting and turning, rising from a two dimensional existence to a third.

The shadows came together and began to tear themselves from the walls, becoming a single form, a perversion of the human body with arms and legs that were long and thin, segmented like that of a spider. It’s head cocked back and forth, twisting side to side like a bird, while it’s eyes were large fish-like globes with a pestilent yellow glow, its entire body and face covered in dark thin human hair. The wretch loomed over the pyre on all fours, crouching over the demented souls surrounding it. It cackled and screeched, baring a grin of broken and missing teeth. In horror, Waldt screamed with all his might, but there was no sound, only silence, no matter how much he strained his lungs. Finally, he turned and ran, but found his movement weighted and slow as if walking through quicksand sinking into the earth beneath him swallowed by a sense of existential dread. As if it had been waiting for Waldt this whole time, another creature stood in his path. This one was much smaller than the wretched thing behind him; it was tall with long arms like an ape, standing on its pig like legs. It bore a humanoid skull with an unhinged jaw and twisted horns. Three glowing eyes opened on the unholy thing’s leathery face and just for a moment he could swear he saw it shed a tear.

As the creature howled, all Waldt could do was watch his impending doom like those ancient horror films, bereft of survivors. Despite all this he couldn’t help but laugh, for now, just on the horizon, past this nightmare, he could see it. He could see the parade now, marching along some alien distant shores, people of all ages. There were men in women in all kinds of bizarre and foreign attire with floats and bands playing a tirade of music. He felt a sudden surge of pain in the pit of stomach, but only for a moment before he saw his friend Morguez and himself too, marching with the rest towards that great incomprehensible city on the horizon, whose sights filled one with both joy and overwhelming dread. That eldritch place whose contents he could not imagine… He tried to wave, but for some reason he could not find the strength to, all he could do was smile and join them…

Such were the final moments of Officer Gaston Waldt, a man who had the courage, the tenacity, the foolishness, or the ignorance to walk head first into a nightmare, but did not return. But where his song ends, many more begin, for Waldt’s experience within the confines of the Gemini Arcology marked the return of a plague that collapsed the old Systems Republic into madness and nearly destroyed all human civilization almost one thousand years ago. A plague of many names that had been forgotten in time and interstellar conquest. This event would shape the future of the Milky Way Galaxy starting in the year of our Lord 3537.

Next Chapter: Anithians Verse 1