Crystal Core

Prologue: The Broken World

The sky was clear.

Maybe that was a stupid thing of me to sense, but it was the only thing I could think of. Images, thoughts, people… anything could be running through my mind. What I ate yesterday. What I dreamt last night (though I had hardly slept at all). How groggy I was. What I wanted to accomplish today. If I should go out with that guy from work. How much did I drink last night. Those were normal thoughts, things that I would have thought if it had been a normal day. Hell, I wish it was a normal day.

I knew the truth though… the truth that there never would be a normal day. Ever again.

Leaning against the railing, my arms propped up on the metal bars so they dangled over the edge, zephyrs nipping at my clothes and hair… most people would ignore me. In a normal place, with normal people, I’d be dismissed as just another person. Self-sufficient. Introverted.

As I dallied my time there, though, I could feel them. Eyes burning into my back, my face reddening as I broke out in a sweat. They didn’t speak, the people around me, fraying forms at the corners of my blind vision. They even tried to pretend I wasn’t there, but I knew, yes, I knew. Their thoughts, however inaccessible they are, screamed at me. Blamed me. Hated me. Pitied me.

I laughed, trying to make it sound happy, but it came out a dry squawk, ripped away in the currents. In their eyes, I was a cold, detached leader that thought about the bigger picture and didn’t care to kill a few ants in the way. How wrong they were. Did they even realize… did they even know how much it hurt me? How much it pained me to see them, myself, everything… did they know?

Finally, I took a deep breath—which was hard to do at such a high altitude—and cracked open my closed eyes. I hadn’t opened them all morning, not even as I brushed my teeth and walked outside.

The sky spread out from me as the airship sailed through the watery periwinkle sky. Lemon yellow clouds in the distance occasionally wafted by. The ship was relatively large compared to some of its earlier models, but it worked, just barely. Wood, meaning it was valuable and sturdy. Crewmembers, young and old, from geezers to children climbed the nets and messed with the sails (Though they wouldn’t matter anyways; engines ran the ship. They only went about their useless chores because there was nothing else for them to do) All cultures, from Caucasian to African, Hispanic and Asian, and many others, conversed to each other quietly, milling about the patchwork cabins and shouting orders to lesser ship mates. The hull of the ship was massive, but only about a hundred refuges could be held in it. Far above, the captain was piloting the mechanism inside of command room. I sighed. It had been such a lovely thing. Now it was reduced to a method of survival.

A long time ago, the ship and its inhabitants would be looked on as a novelty. A long time ago, there would have been more ships, more people, more supporters. Everybody would have gone about his or her duties enthusiastically, not senselessly and routinely as it was done now.

Things changed… a lot.

I inhaled another deep breath, catching the attention of a few people on deck. Their eyes, in the past, would have glittered with hate. I wouldn’t blame them for hating me. Now, though… those once fiery eyes were filled with another feeling. Hopelessness. They didn’t care about anything anymore, even though they blamed me. Everybody was like that, even me. I was surprised we hadn’t turned to animals yet.

But eventually, I would have to face the inevitable. I looked down, down to the world below. My heart caught. How did I do this? I questioned myself, over and over. I knew the answer. I just didn’t want to accept it.

Nothing was left on the ground world. Buildings piled up over each other like a child’s building blocks, forming a macabre pyramid that towered into the sky. Away in the distance, a gigantic socket in the earth, sucked of its marvels, yawned at me with an eyeless gaze—an ocean, possibly the Atlantic. Beneath, hundreds of feet below, was the blackened earth. Ashes covered the planet. Nothing lived in the gray graveyard below. Something stuck in my throat, forcing me to choke.

It burst forth from me then, just as we neared the building pyramid that once had been New York City. A sob broke from my throat as I gripped the railing until I could no longer feel my fingers.

“No!” I screamed. The people aboard jolted away at my outburst. “No! No! NO!” My guilt washed over me, piercing my every nerve. How could I have done this madness?

“Miss!” someone said behind me. “Calm down!”

“NO!” I fell to the deck, my raw kneecaps blaring their suffering in my brain. Tears stained my face as the gap widened in my stomach, engulfing my shame. My hopeless sadness, of terror, of the pain… the compressed feelings. No longer could they dwell in the shadows.

The pyramid came into view, and with it the sight I was expecting to see as metal bars pressed against my face scraped my flushed skin, yet it still shocked me.

There they were, the dead ones. Men, women, children, fossilized in the buildings, their bodies no more of flesh but of stone. They hung over the massive frames, glued to their deaths as their lifeless eyes looked up at me. Mocking me, haunting me and reminding me of the sins I had committed. Birds, their frightened forms trying to escape the dread, had fallen into the debris, each shattering into a million pieces. The remains of the humans’ possessions were coated in a thick, black slime. To make things worse, the aroma wasn’t horrid like it was supposed to be; it smelled sweet, tangy, yet sickening. I vomited, the horrid mixture hitting the spire of the Empire State Building.

To think. The whole entire planet, every single tree and plant, every mammal and insect, the people…

I killed them all.

Me. Just one person. I eliminated the world.

“Why…?” I suddenly stood up, surprising the people around me. They watched me in awe and terror as a shrieked to the sky like a harpy. My hair was a bloody whirlwind, whipping around the slash at those who were near.
“Why did I do this?” I heatedly shouted. “Why did you let me do this? Why?”

I couldn’t describe it. I felt numb. The burden, the knowledge of what my decision had done to so many people… it ripped me to shreds. Nothing was left. Nothing human could have done such a thing. I didn’t feel real.

I only knew one way to end it. Ignoring the horrified expressions of my companions, I swung my foot up onto the railing, climbing onto it. I stood up straight, my toes curling around the rusted metal. I felt free, standing on the thick railing, my hair flapping into the wind as the world sneered at me from its deathbed. Vertigo hit me, and a human sense buried within me screamed to stop. However, the feeling, the certainty of what I was meant to do… it blazed in my body, eradicating all of my other emotions.

Behind me, they tried to grab me, the people, but something held them back. Was it satisfaction that I was giving up my life? Did they feel that I was doing the right thing? I couldn’t tell. All I knew was that this was the right time to do it. I sighed, and felt my body sway forward…

“No! Wait!” My head twisted around so I could see a man panting, nightshirt billowing in the wind. Red hair hung lankly, as though it was in a different dimension than this one, unaffected by the breeze.

“Don’t!” The word made me falter for a second as I looked him over. What…? Why was…?

“Cristene, don’t!” he pleaded, green eyes locked on mine. My eye twitched at my name. “It isn’t your fault!”

“Sam…” I said. My brother.

“Please, Cristene, I’m begging you! This isn’t the solution!” Sam cried.

“Sam…” My face softened. “Please… don’t be sad…”

His face turned incredulous and he reddened in fury as I closed my eyes and uncurled my toes. So close…

“No!” He lunged forward, grabbing my limp hand as I dove forward. Gravity took hold and demanded me to fall, but Sam wouldn’t let go. My body thumped against the hull and I winced. Couldn’t my brother let me pass without pain…?

His grip on my slippery hand was tight, but I wasn’t going to help him save my life. A monster like me didn’t have a soul to save. I shouldn’t live. Already I was dangling in the sky hundreds of feet above—if this was chance, it was now or never.

My hand finally slipped from Sam, his face staring at me fall from the ship. He yelled my name, but I couldn’t hear him as the blistering winds buffeted me. My human self screamed at me in terror, the shock and force of my fall astonishing me. Save me, I pleaded. Save me! But nobody, not one person on the sky ship or the fallen world below, could save me.

“I—” I started, but my words were stolen by the wind. The earth reached up for me.

I want to live! Tears pricked my eyes, the crystal droplets rocketing up into the sky. Save me! I don’t want to die!

Save me!

Away on the ground below, the jagged skeletons of the old world beckoned me to join their slumber…

-

“And that marks that end of my tale.”

“Huh—no, wait! The story can’t end like that! What happened to Cristene?” somebody asked.

The storyteller took a drag of the pipe. “You tell me,” he said, bored. The eager eyes of his listeners satisfied him, but also repulsed his guts. Such young, innocent, open eyes… If only they had seen the terror the rest of the world had fallen in.

He surveyed the crowd. The bar had grown silent when he had begun his weave— barbarian bastards, most were—every person paying their undivided attention to him. Simplistic men, badly traveled and uneducated. Any half-decent storyteller could easily sway such a crowd. All through the story, not one of the patrons whispered or coughed, not one left, everyone hanging onto the feathery words that fluttered out of his mouth.

But at the end, they all turned angry, shouting protests and insults at him. Why was there such a terrible ending? What happened to the world? How could a ship fly through the air? Their faces turned red, their hands clammy, and their eyes—so openly they showed fear, the terror of the unknown. To make it worse the stale scent of beer and other alcohol clung to their breath, red veins popping up in the corners of their eyeballs. No doubt somebody was going to get hurt in a few moments. And it sure wouldn’t be the storyteller, no way. He was getting out of there, despite his audience’s plain displeasure.

With the murky shadows in the creaky bar starting to peel from the wall, the first crash of a body on the floor, of splintering wood and raucous voices egging on the attacker, the storyteller pulled up his hood and crept behind the stage. Another body thumped onto the floor, then all hell broke out. Bottles cracked on people’s heads, legs and arms were broken, tables were overturned, and the meaty sound of human flesh hitting human flesh buzzed distantly in the traveler’s ears. He looked downwards as he slunk behind the stage curtain, making his way to the back entrance behind the bar counter. A barmaid and the owner of the facility huddled with each other underneath the countertop, wedged between two barrels of wine. Hunched over, the storyteller put a finger to his lips so that they wouldn’t be frightened of him. The girl started to sob, but the manager covered her mouth and nodded, pointing to a box. The exit was behind the box.

Looking over the counter to make sure the brawlers wouldn’t see him, he pulled the box away, very much aware of the squeaking sound it made on the oily timbers. A man was flung along the bar counter, clearing bottles and mugs like a bowling ball in an alley. He stopped at the far right end of the bar, right where the storyteller was frozen in place.

The drunken man’s eyes swiveled in their sockets, his partly open lips bleeding. The scruffy man tried to get up, but just managed to fall like a bag of potatoes behind the counter, his lumpish body landing on the storyteller’s back. The traveler gave out a whuff of air as he collapsed under the man’s weight.

Suffocating, he didn’t know what to do as the man pushed him down into the floor, crushing his nose. An old man like him didn’t have a chance getting such a lout off his back. He glanced at the manager pleadingly. The man’s eyes screwed up in distaste and fear, but sensing that leaving his guest there to be squished under one of his patrons wouldn’t leave a good mark in the books, he crawled hesitantly from his hiding place. The barmaid had long ago passed out from terror.

With a little help from the old man, the bar owner shoved the drunkard off the man’s back. The storyteller sat there on his stomach for a moment, breathing heavily. He was too old for this kind of stuff.

Looking over, the wanderer found the owner had pushed the box fully away and held open the little door. Hurry, he mouthed.

The storyteller took his sponsor’s advice and scrambled upright, going through the door, into the dark night. Glancing back, the owner whispered something to him:

“Be careful, wanderer. There are many eyes watching you.”

“I know,” he replied as the wind behind him whistled by.

The owner narrowed his eyes. He tried to analyze the man’s answer, but in the end he huffed, showing a bitter smile. “I don’t know where you are going to go, old man. But I hope you know what you are doing.”

“Don’t worry,” the storyteller said, a roguish twinkle in his eye. “I’ve lived a long life—they can’t ever crack me.”

“Goodbye then.” The bar owner shut the door, latching it closed.

The man stood up, his back creaking a little. Inside the shouts and cringing sounds had subsided; now most of them were stumbling out of the bar into the streets, back home to their angry wives. The dirt under his feet felt uncomfortable, but it brought a homely sensation. The trees, sinister shadows in the distance, beckoned him along the empty path, betwixt the black lakes.

Shouldering his pack, the old man sighed contentedly. Despite how the world was turning into a graveyard once again, this was his home. On the road, spreading the tale. Seeing the hope, however futile, being unearthed in the sunken eyes of the damned.

He stepped forward, with the dark world in front and behind him, the moon on his shoulders and the earth beneath him.

The end of the beginning, and the beginning of another end.

Lurking in the darkness, two shapes followed him, yellow eyes searing out of the bowls of the night. Hunchbacked figures, they stuck to the sparse underbrush, low forms slithering over the land, only their cloaks swishing the bushes. They could be described in many ways, many names and many faces morphing from their personas. However, they simply went as the Deceivers, hiding in the shadows, trained assassins.

Soon… soon, the true end would come.