Hess slammed awake.

She was drenched in sweat, heart pounding out of her chest. She reached around to her left, and felt the damp mass of curls atop the head of a small sleeping form. She breathed a sigh of relief. Her son Silas sprawled out next to her, clutching his worn stuffed owl. It was a relic from the days before the Great Drought, somehow preserved from all the pain and suffering brought in the days after. Silas loved the owl, and it never left his side.

Hess gathered her son to her and held him close. She knew her dream was more than a fleeting worry, but she couldn’t lose the moment. She fell back into sleep, willing herself to not dream again. The vision would wait until tomorrow.

When morning arrived, Hess woke with no recollection of her dream. It was a rare occurrence, but not unheard of. Her psychic and empathic powers, as she called them, were strong, but not infallible.

Hester and Silas Grey lived in Santa Cruz, California. A coastal city once thriving with culture and population, it had become a shell of its former self. In the aftermath of the Great Drought, all that remained was a rag-tag community of people struggling to survive and make their way through a world without clean water.

It started in California.

No one truly believed the drought was real, or that the state would run out of water, but it did. One day there was water, the next it was gone. Faucets turned with no response, but people were slow to react that day. Everyone assumed it was a city issue; just call the city and they’ll fix it. No need to worry. We’ll all be fine. It’s not like I needed a shower today. I can go to Starbucks instead of making coffee at home this morning. I’ll make my oatmeal with milk. It’s all good.

A few felt a little worried, so they made trips to the store and bought a bunch of water bottles, but no wide-spread panic had set in yet. It was someone else’s problem, and they would deal with it.

One hundred years later, life had devolved considerably fast. In the beginning, different states in the U.S. shared water, with government contracts to back everything up. When the other states ran out of water, other countries stepped in to help. But people weren’t happy with pricing and rationing regulations, so uprisings began in most major cities. This wasn’t anything new. Protests, strikes, and outrage were commonplace in most cities. Soon, militias formed and took down the government. The United States of America was now one of the weakest and most volatile countries in the world. International leaders cut off communication and assistance, leaving the U.S. to its own devices.

As society transitioned from modern life to one without accessible clean water, they passed on to the next generation a sharpened survival instinct, honed by much more than the lack of water. Militias and random gangs believed they now had the opportunity to take whatever they wanted. Religious leaders arose, screaming the arrival of the Apocalypse and the coming Rapture, when only those who believed in the true God would be whisked away from the madness of the world. More than ever did society cling to the idea of a greater purpose to life; how else would they survive the horrors they now faced every day? There was safety in numbers, and most churches had stockpiles of supplies essential to survival.

In this way, one group rose to power on the Western Coast of the United States. Within fifty years of the Great Drought, the Keepers of the Faith became a force to be reckoned with. Theirs was a strong military with a strict religious background; one did not simply sign on the dotted line. They required rigorous training before one was even considered for induction into their ranks. Rumors sprang up that more died during training than those who became soldiers. The greatest rumor was that their Leader had direct communication with God, who had granted him immortality in order to Save as many as he could before the Rapture arrived.

The exact location of the KOTF headquarters was unknown, but there were “Churches” along the Pacific Northwest and California. And where there were Churches, there were communities of people struggling to survive, for the KOTF still held the last remaining source of clean water. This was also a mystery; the Church Elders would pass it off as a “Miracle of our Leader from God”, and ration it to those who could afford it. Water was not freely shared. Trades and payments were required, and many became steeped in debt to the KOTF.

This is how the Keepers of the Faith held the entire West Coast of the United States in sway.

Next Chapter: Excerpt from Book One