I know I haven’t posted in ages. I’ve been going through a few things recently and it’s just been too heavy to write so openly about it. This whole year since John’s funeral hasn’t been easy. When he passed away everything went dark in my life. It made just getting out of bed in the morning a nightmare, waking up in that big empty bed was a stark reminder I’d never see him again. Our huge house became cold and eerie where before I was always telling John to tidy up his gear because I was always tripping over it. In those then empty evenings I found it easy to finish a full bottle of wine listening to bad romantic ballads to starve off the tears. I know, cliché.

I became intensely private, didn’t want to go out too much, barely talked to anyone outside of work. I got fed up with people asking, “are you alright? Is there anything I can do?” and it became easy to pall of friends’ worry with a fake “I’m fine. Just tired.” Well I was tired (shattered, destroyed, exhausted and so on) but I was also not fine. All I wanted to do was wallow in my private sadness. At the back of my mind, I thought that was as low as I would go and I would just thread this depth of depression forever. Then something happened and I found I could go much deeper.

Two months after John’s funeral, I was restless in the middle of the night. I just couldn’t sleep, every time I closed my eyes, I started to dream and that was something I desperately wanted to avoid. I didn’t want to think much either so I huddled up in my big duvet to fight the bitter cold because I no longer bothered putting the heat on at night for just me. I liked the quietness of the late of night because it felt somehow eternal, never-ending, a way to forget forever. But a screaming cat broke the stillness and I stuck my head under the corner of the curtain to see if I could spot the annoying minger. And that’s when I saw him.

He was standing outside our house, on the pavement, looking straight up at my window; a homeless man with a dirty tattered coat, a mottled blue woollen hat, black beard, scruffy and downright freaky. For ten minutes, I watched this guy but he didn’t move. I turned on the light and in that brief distraction to find the lamp the man was gone. Puff, disappeared like a magician in smoke.

I was quite shaken up. It reminded me of the night John died - I was home late from work that night. I remember coming in, throwing my shoes off and calling out for him, but he wasn’t there but I didn’t worry, just assumed he’d be home later. And then there was that knock at the door, two Gardai standing in the doorway, the blue light of the police car flashing in the background. I remember John’s body, cold and motionless, laying in the white room and me nodding, saying, “yes it’s him,” but not hearing the words actually come out of my mouth. It made me freeze, deep inside. Something went dead in me right then, but also another part of me wanted to run, wanted to buck everything, escape the nightmare. But this night, when I saw that homeless man, that part of me reared up again, yelling at me to get away, to escape, that it wasn’t real. My heart thumped vigorously for hours. But he didn’t appear again that night. If that was it, I would have been okay. I would have dismissed it, a once-off, that’s all.

The days after, I was a little paranoid, looking over my shoulder all the time and jumping at everything. I started to relax, started to forget the incident. Three weeks later, I had worked late again and on the Dart home, the train carriage was nearly empty. I was sleepy, nodding off for a few seconds at a time. That’s when I caught sight of the mottled blue woollen hat. I jumped, turned around and there at the other end, he was sitting looking at me. I stood up moving backwards and toppled into another traveller. I panicked at the door-open button and luckily the train was stopping at that moment. I got off, didn’t care where. I looked back at the train as it moved off from the platform, but I couldn’t see him any more, even though I knew he had moved.

I was a wreck then. I watched everywhere, but I never saw him. It was only when I wasn’t looking that I would see him. I tried to work as much as possible from home, avoided travelling anywhere. When I did travel, I always did it when loads of people were around such as at rush hour. Weeks passed and I couldn’t keep it up. I couldn’t keep hiding. But it was when I relaxed, when I wasn’t really looking, that I saw him. I saw him once when I was shopping and I hadn’t been concentrating on what I was doing, he was there in another aisle, staring motionless at me. Another time, when I was dozing at my desk, I spotted him outside my office, the crowds flowing around his motionless watching form.

I did contact the Gardai about it, but, as usual, they couldn’t do anything about it. The freak hadn’t threatened me, hadn’t even approached me, no breathing down the line or dirty calls. My stalker wasn’t considered a critical threat according to them. But I felt my life was under siege. I was trapped in our empty house and when I let my guard down, he would be there, watching. Once, late in the loneliness of night, I imagined that the stalker was John, come back from the dead for he was about the right build and height. That just shows you how fucked I was getting, all Helsinki-Syndrome.

I couldn’t live like this, a slave to my own fear. So it was one night, when I had been woken up by the screech of that annoying minger cat, I felt a strange determination. That part of me that wanted to flee was strangely quiet. It was replaced with something hard, something curious, something fearless. Without much thought, I grabbed my coat and walked to the front door. I paused briefly with my hand on the doorknob. I didn’t know what I was doing, just felt it was now or never, that I either stand-up or forever crawl into my bed in search of the bliss of forgetfulness. It wasn’t cold that night but there was a wind that nearly pushed me down the street. I had to hold strong and compose myself but then I followed it. I don’t remember how long I walked, but I couldn’t stop myself. It was only when a gruff a voice called out “ho!” I turned around to face the voice and I stumbled in shock. My eyes were deceiving me for I saw two scrawny monsters approaching towards me. They appeared generally human in form, but one had only a huge gaping mouth of sharp awful teeth instead of a head, the other one had two wailing bunch of tentacles instead of arms. They were approaching me slowly, like predators approaching a trapped prey. I couldn’t scream or even run, all I could do is watch these two things zig-zag slowly towards me.

Then the mouth-head leaped at me, its mouth wide open so that I could see the awful tongue that danced in anticipation of biting down on me. But there was a sudden flash and the mouth-head was rammed against a wall. Something was ripping into it, I saw a glint of a short but broad golden blade, striking down so many times I couldn’t count. Blood splattered the wall. The tentacle-armed freak seemed to move back in fear, and then this something with its golden blade was tearing into it. In less than a blink of an eye, I saw it gut the tentacle-armed freak in two, its innards spilling all around.

And then I recognised who this something was… the mottled blue woollen hat, the dirty tattered coat, the black beard… he turned towards me, in his hand the golden blade dripping thick red blood. I started to move away, my cold determination slipping away, lost in his fury of the blood. My stalker stood there, blood splattered across his face. He looked like he was waiting for something from me, he stretched out his hand for me. I was horrified, shocked and when he saw the fear in my face he recalled. I swear I saw tears as he pulled away. And in a flash he was gone and I fell unconscious to the pavement.

When I awoke, I was in a hospital bed. I was thankfully unhurt. A Gardai in plains clothes was sitting there asking me questions about what happened. Apparently the two “monsters” I had seen must have been a trick of the light or some weird delusion of my paranoid state. They had been two old drunk guys looking for trouble. They asked a lot of questions about my stalker and I told him everything, I told him how shitty he had made me feel, how locked in I felt and he just listened. And for some reason, I felt unburdened and when I went home, I dared to say, I felt free.

Three months later and it brings me up to today. No sign of my stalker, the fucker seems to be gone. I even went out with the girls last week for the first time since John’s death. I smiled today. It has been a year and a day since John’s death and it is beginning to feel like I’m coming out of the dark tunnel and letting light back into my life.

Admittedly I only know myself because boingboing posted about it. They have some photos of Lovecraft’s headstone if anyone is interested.

He didn’t seem to notice that there was only one place set out in the restaurant and that the chief, who also acted as waiter, was waiting patiently for him to arrive. “Any news?” Mr. Grey asked but his tone implied he didn’t really care. And anyway before the waiter replied he knew what the answer would be. They had gone through the same ritual three days in a row. “No, Señor Grey. No Señor Grey,” would be all that Mr. Grey got. “Well then I’ll have the usual,” Mr. Grey replied and passed back the menu.

The concierge and the cleaner stood in the hall watching as Mr. Grey ate. He seemed so unconcerned, unworried even. Mr. Grey ate methodologically. First he cut up his sausages and then he pierce the yellow of his egg and dipped each piece of sausage in the yellow. Finally he cleared up the whole mess with pieces of his bacon rashers.

After that, Mr. Grey retired to the poolside (it was more like a big pond than a pool) where there was a small bar. The regular barman had left with his family who had headed for higher ground in the hopes they might survive, so the concierge had to step in as barman. But that was okay because Mr. Grey was the only guest.

He didn’t go for a swim. He sipped tea in the morning while reading some of the worn paperbacks left by other guests. After lunch he would vary his routine and have a light beer. In the evening, he had a small dinner in the restaurant (the only patron) before retiring to bed around ten in the evening.

This had been the routine for three days.

It came as little surprise that he was found dead on the fourth.

It doesn’t matter what happens on the fifth.

The small town, what was left of it anyway, was somewhat disappointed that Mr. Grey was dead. It had meant that the only reason they were still going was gone. Yet it didn’t distress them as much as one would expect. The peace he had given them was something to be treasured and they idly faced their fate as if it didn’t matter. Life would go on somewhere, that, they felt, was certain. Mr. Grey might have told them otherwise had they but asked him.

The town was just a little tourist trap. There was nothing, or at least little else, to it. Mr. Grey had arrived the day after they had received that terrible news. The place was in a panic with people overloading their cars trying to leave even though it probably wouldn’t make a difference and there was chaos on the small streets as people simply lost it. Two killed themselves.

But when Mr. Grey arrived in the hotel reception and asked for a room, something clicked. The concierge lifted himself from his gloom and served the man. The hotel manager rallied the town and the few remaining staff, with the cry that as long as there was a guest in his hotel there was work to be done.

And so for three days the town ticked over, nearly as normal.

Mr. Grey wasn’t his real name. He had forgotten it and neither did he care. Because, it was his fault the world ended.

The Mortician came up to the Mayor and the young man could heard the Mortician’s wispy voice say, “ah, if it is dead there is no problem…” It was too much for the young man and he yelled at both of them: “HE IS ALIVE!”

All the assembled town folk, who came to see the head, audibly sucked in their breath and followed by a low mumbling as they conferred among themselves. The Mayor sighed and approached the young man. “Now there is no need to be so outrageous. Seeing he is dead there is a little worry for us…”

All this time the head was listening. The head was definitely male and in the late thirties the young man had figured. The young man was a scientist and he gone about all the regular tests the moment the head had appeared. The head didn’t mind too much and occasionally complained that some of the tests ‘tickled’ (a sure sign the head was alive).

“Excuse me but could someone scratch my nose?” This was the first time the head had spoken to the assembled crowd and again they all sucked in their breath again. The Mayor walked up to the head quite slowly showing that he was purposeful even though he hadn’t a clue. He attempted to circle the head. The head’s eyes followed him till he was nearly out of sight and then the head slowly rolled around so that the Mayor couldn’t get to the back of the head. The Mayor continued his slow circle three times in an attempt to see the back.

The young scientist was agitated with frustrated and went striding forward to scratch the head’s nose but the Mortician and the local Publican held him fast. The Mayor stopped and then stared through his monocle at one of the head’s eyes. The head blinked and the Mayor stepped back.

“Seriously, my nose is quite itchy. Just one scratch, please!”
“Your… nose?” the Mayor asked as if it wasn’t obvious.
The head spun slightly so that it’s nose nearly knocked the Mayor over. “Yes my nose.” The Mayor slowly scratched it and the head let out a sigh.
“What’s all this fuss that our young scientist is worried about you being dead?”
“Actually, I’m alive. I’m pretty sure of it. Last thing I remember was sipping some coffee at…”
“Cough. Ee.” The Mayor repeated, considering each syllable as if it was of some importance. The crowd repeated the phrase.

Only the scientist was ever convinced the head was alive but the rest of the town folk came to quickly accept the head and even the head begun to enjoy its new condition. The head’s only complaint was that there was no day here and the only light was from the moon.

But they included the head in everything, from festivals and town meetings to birthdays and births. They even setup a Head Committee who’s sole purpose was to take care of the head, cut his beard, trim his hair, clean his ears, etc. Old Grandma would tell her stories in the town square so that the head could listen. The children would sit around him and some of the more adventurous would climb up using the lobe of his ear and sit in his hair.

She told the story of the Angels. That when an Angel died it would ‘wake up’ here on it’s way back to Heaven. It would take a long time to really wake up and it was said that while it was waking you could whisper things to it and it would believe it but when it finally woke up it would see right through the lies. She had stories of men who tried to manipulate the Angels to do terrible things for their greed but always got their comeuppance either by the Angels’ own hands or by their own fate.

The head got tired of these stories and once sighed when the Grandma started one of them. The Grandma gave him a frightful stare and after she had told the story and the kids had gone home, Grandma poked his cheek with her walking stick. “You don’t like the stories?” she poked him again.

“Ouch! They get old quickly…” he answered only to get another poke.
“That’s ‘cos there made nice for children.” She replied and then yelled “Grandpa!” The old man appeared in the door of the tavern and hobbled over. Some of the other men and women came out as they knew Grandpa was going to tell a story, a story for adults.

“There was a beautiful lass I knew when I was a young’in. She had a husband and three kids. She had good liv’in.” (That’s ‘living’ or having a good life as opposed to profession or being alive which are apparently very different as the head had come to learn). “This story is a tragedy and though it starts from a good place, it’s a bad thing that I must begin with. A great lizard-dragon burnt their home down while she was at market. All her family gone, except she. Struck with a terrible grief she mourned them for years until the town could no longer stand her crying.”

“Being ignored did her no good either and she started to try and kill herself. She asked the Mortician, the Soldier, the Publican and even the Doctor (though he did offer her things worse than death). But none would kill her. How could they? Action breeds responsibility and no-one was willing to face that for her.”

“But that’s when she saw a Star fall. An Angel had died. She trekked across the land looking for the little piece of broken Heaven and found the sleeping Angel in a rundown shack. ‘Angel,’ she whispered to it, ‘I am not worthy. You should kill me.’ The Angel stirred in its slumber. The girl had heard the stories, knew that Angels could be tricked as they slowly awoke. What she didn’t know is that Angels’ greatest weapons are not like metal swords. They are the razor sharp edge of truth.”

Grandpa took a deep breath. He said he had to get the words right.

“The Angel spoke ‘I have brought down nations, I have raised the humble to heroes, I have betrayed God and found Faith. I am waking and I have not yet the strength to strike you down. Tell me why I should kill you.’”

“She replied a little like this, ‘I have nothing, I have no-one. I cry and lose my living. I look only to the past. I am not worthy, you should kill me.’ The Angel, in it’s white smock rose from up from the depths of sleep as if it was a great fish climbing out of the depths.”

“The Angel responded, ‘I know you. I know what happened to you. The lizard-dragon was meant to be dead but I had failed to kill them all and so your tragedy is given from my guilt and failure.’”

“‘Then you should kill me now then, it’s all I ask.’ The Angel was now awake and he stood up, his glory barely concealed by his simple smock. His glory is a true vision to behold but it would be your last if you saw it.”

“‘You are a fool. I am awake and I see through the lies.’ The Angel said. “You do not really wish to die, but only crave the attention suicide offers. You wish the very heavens to feel sorry for you. Yet I will kill you.’”

“She went that kinda deathly pale when you see your own shadow wak’in. But that’s another story for another night, Mr. Head. The Angel said then ‘I will kill you because I see the truth and you are not worthy and do not deserve living. I will kill you slowly and painfully for Heaven does not care for pity.’ With that he revealed his full glorious form and she burnt in her mind for years until it was ash and her body was consumed by the light.”

Grandpa stopped speaking. The assembled people nodded their head in understanding. If the head was able to nod, it would have too.

(Sometime later, the head asked Grandpa where the woman was buried. Grandpa spoke slowly as he explained that the woman was still dying but the light of her burning soul was so bright that they threw it up into the sky once her body had gone. Her name was Luna.)

   We have a view of the road from the car. The trees are apparitions as they reflect the white light from the headlamps. We are moving very fast as if someone has hit fast forward. We come into a clearing and there is a pub with white stony walls and a thatched roof. No name is visible. Still in fast-forward, we move to the old oak door, which opens suddenly.

   … everyone looked at us. Well, when I say everyone, I mean the bartender and two old farts sitting in the corner. The bartender looks mean. Big shoulders and a big bald head.
   “What the fuck do you shits want?” And he sounded just as mean too.
   “Four beers!” John said without fear.
   “Yea I’ll have a Bud, a Guinness for Keith and a… Heineken Sean?” Stephen offered.
   The bartender grabbed four bottles with no labels and slammed them down on the counter. “Four beers.”
   “Eh, okay. How much?” Stephen said. John was doing a ‘silence’ sound to us.
   “You’ve never been here before have ya?” the bartender grinned at us. “A few rules, you pay at the end of the night. You do not, and I mean this you shits, you do not go outside until the sun rises. And you drink what you’re given.”
   Okay… We took our beers and found a table at the back. The beer bottles were painted gold and there were some sparkle in the beer. But it was good, surprisingly good.
   Keith, still waking, slammed half the bottle down and let out a walloping good burp. With the ice broken, we chilled and talked crap.

   “Ride the wave of madness!” she yelled as she stood, posed like a model, in the doorway. Long curly red hair and a body that made the four of us gasp. “Barman. The usual.”
   “Coming up!” the barman said.
   Music followed her into the bar. It was a thumping lively beat that drowned out the tatters of any remaining conversation. She was then followed by, one, two, three, five… ten… I lost count as more people who were as beautiful, fashionable and loud as her entered.
   Within a few seconds the little bar was transformed into a loud, and definitely live, nightclub. Chairs and tables were moved and a central space was created so people could dance. One or two of the new people jumped behind the bar to help serve.
   It was John who broke us out of our open-mouth trance by standing up and dancing his trademark bob.
   The music stopped and a man in a white suit stood in the doorway. The way he stood there, the way he seemed to en-thrall everyone in that pub, the wicked grin on his young and wild face… it held us. He started to dance and the music returned.
   The door shut behind him with a sense of finality.

   “Bloody hell! John was right!” Stephen ate his words. John was already dancing amid a trio of girls. We were still sitting. I noticed that the man in the white suit was talking with the mean bartender and looking over at the three of us.
   The bartender gave him a large red bottle and four glasses and he came over to us. The crowds parted to let him by.
   “Gentlemen! Welcome.” He handed out a glass to each of us and poured what looked like red wine into our glasses. “I’m known around here as Mr. D. and fresh faces are always welcome to our never-ending party. But we have traditions.”
   I gulped at this but he winked at me.
   “I challenge you all to a drinking contest!” he sat down on John’s vacant stool.
   We all lifted our glasses to our lips and down it went.
   He filled our glasses again and again we drank down the red wine.
   And again he filled our glasses. The stuff tasted like dry wine but had a bitter bite like it was gone-off. It occurred to me, as I lifted the stuff to my lips, that the original bottle couldn’t have contained that much wine.
   Yet, he filled our glasses again. I was getting woozy but I always had the stamina, the will, to not buckle. It was the reason why John and me were friends. He couldn’t beat me.
   Why was I getting so woozy so quickly? It mustn’t have been ordinary wine. And another glass of it went down. Stephen signalled his limit and Keith quickly followed.
   “Just you and me,” said Mr. D and, without hesitation, downed another glass.
   Another one, and another, and another… I couldn’t see straight. There was three Mr. Ds in front of me. I lifted the glass to my lips but then Mr. D fell sideways.
   I had won. I tried to remain cool and slowly place the glass on the table but I missed and the glass smashed on the floor.
   The world spun…

   “Drink this,” someone was pouring something down my mouth. I gulped and my eyesight cleared but I was still heady drunk. She was beautiful.
   I wanted to kiss her but my attempt to stand seemed to make me move sideways instead. Mr. D was standing there laughing at me as if he hadn’t drunk anything.
   “You did good. Sean isn’t it?” he offered me his hand.
   “Eh thanks.” I said as he pulled me up.
   But as I stood, the world started to spin again. I couldn’t tell which way was up. The girl that helped me, grabbed me hand and said, “lets dance!” and she pulled me to the makeshift dance hall. Part of me knew that it was the same girl that had led everyone into the pub.
   I looked back at my friends. Stephen and Keith both had a girl beside them and they were laughing. I couldn’t hear them over the music. It was so loud…

   We see Sean being pulled onto the dance floor. We see all the beautiful young people dancing and moving to the supernatural beat. It is all in slow motion. The world flickers and they are not humans but satyrs, some have the legs of goats and small horns, and others have tails and cat’s ears. Sean dances, the only mortal among them. The world flickers again and we see only humans.

   … I don’t know how we got there. She was unbuttoning my top and I was fiddling with the complex knots on hers. In moments we were doing it on the bed. She was on top. Then we went at it again and I was on top. I don’t know where I had the energy but we went at it again and again. My hand gripping her curly soft hair.
   The music matched our increasing rhythm…

   … outside. I was naked but then they were also. The gang of us were running through the field. They all effortlessly jumped over the tall hedge. Somehow I was following them. She was encouraging me, holding my hand.
   John was at the edge of the field. He was calmly smoking, unaware that we were racing towards him, laughter in our ears…

   … they were ripping him apart. Blood thrown high in the air. I staggered back. John was my friend. No they can’t do this. But then I looked at my hands; they were drenched in red, John’s blood…

   … name was Sarah. She whispered it to me as we danced under the moons and made love on the cold grass…

   “Get up!” the barman shook me. The morning streamed in the open door of the pub. The place looked like a bomb hit it. Keith and Stephen were still asleep on a bench. “Time for you to leave. Don’t look back now.”
   “Where’s John?” I gasped from my dry voice.
   “He’s gone already. Got a lift back to Dublin with the party.”
   “We haven’t paid…”
   “John paid. In full.”

   The three of us were silent in the car back. Stephen drove. None of us argued or bickered even when we got lost three times, we just muddled through.
   But all the time, I kept thinking about the nightmare, the blood on my hands, and John’s look of horror as they, no we, descended on him. But when I awoke this morning, my hands were not covered in blood. Before we left I looked around outside. I found the field that I dreamt about adjacent to the pub. There was a spot where several cigarette butts lay. No signs of struggle or blood. I got so paranoid, I checked under my nails, like in the detective shows, but there was no visible dirt or muck.
   “So, eh, Sean… did you get it on with that girl, the one you were dancing with? You disappeared for so long we thought something must have happened?” Keith tried to break our mood as we arrived into the city. The early light and its red glow shimmered above the buildings.
   “I don’t really remember…”
   “That good huh?” Keith grinned.
   We didn’t say anything else.

   We went back to our lives and buried ourselves in work. It took a whole week before we realised that John was missing.
   You see, the weekends were ours, we let loose, went wild but during the week, it was work. I was an accountant, Stephen a consultant of some sort, Keith was trying to be a writer and John was some sort of mad computer whiz. We all worked hard and worked late but it all paid well and when the weekends rolled round we spent it like there was no tomorrow.
   But it was only on Friday when I was trying to arrange our hedonistic plans that we realised that no one had spoken or seen John since that night.
   I drove out to his bed-sit on the north side of the city but no one was home. I called his neighbours who weren’t very helpful so I broke in to his place. It wasn’t hard and there was no alarm.
   Food had gone rotten on the table, messages from a week ago on his phone, week old mail though his door, everything seemed untouched from a week ago. I called the Gardai…

   … didn’t believe us. We didn’t know the name of the pub, where is was or even how to get there. They implied we were all high on drugs and probably John decided he could fly. I didn’t tell them about my nightmare. How could I? They would think I killed him. I didn’t.
   I didn’t go to work for days. Called in sick. I unplugged the phone and radio and stayed in bed.
   Then I had the dreams. In one, I was making love to Sarah, both of us naked and drenched in dry blood. I’d wake up and find I had wet the bed. In another, I dreamed we were running naked though the fields, screaming in madness and power and we would slaughter any living thing we found with our bare hands. Then some would be about John, he would be drinking too much and I would drink more. Mr. D would be there, laughing at us.
   Anytime I slept I would slip into one of these nightmares. So I tried not to sleep, drank as much coffee as I could find.
   Keith called once but I didn’t answer the door. I heard him yelling outside saying he could see me moving. But I switched off the lights.

   The worst dream hit me near the end of the week.
   I refused to sleep but the nightmares would not be so easily avoided. They tricked me into thinking I was still awake. Everything would seem normal but have a surreal, blurred, edge to them. I would hear the music playing and I would rush around the house looking for the source of it. Boom. Boom. There would be too many rooms than in reality and eventually I would find myself coming into a room I knew didn’t exist. There I would find John dancing in his unique way to the beat. Except, half his face was clawed off, his body was covered in large gashes and blood dribbled from his wounds. I’d wake then, knowing it was a dream.
   I must have banged myself against a wall while I dreamed because I had two sore bruises on my forehead. My beard had grown unusually thick and I found my legs had started to itch…

   Boom. Boom. The music played. I had by now placed old newspapers against all the windows so nothing could get in (or out). I wasn’t dreaming, yet the music played constantly. It was calling to me. Occasionally the daydream would show me Sarah, dancing, enticing me forward, except she wasn’t human in these visions. She had the legs of goat and horns on her head. She was even more beautiful, more stunning. Boom. Boom. The music was in my head. I couldn’t stop it…

   We see Sean curled up in the corner of a room. The furniture has been pushed aside and bits of litter disgrace the walls. But Sean is different than before. Horns grow suddenly out of his head. His feet change shape. He buries his head in his hands. Our view suddenly shifts to the front door. The supernatural beat stops and someone thumps on the door. It opens and Mr. D. stands there grinning with wildness. Sarah goes by him, now in her full satyr form.

   … Sarah pulls me from the house. I do not resist. I can’t tell if it is a dream or not because she looks like the image from my nightmares. She whispers things to me but I catch little of it. We’re climbing into a van. Mr. D. is there with a gold painted bottle, offering me a drink. I take a sip and the music in my head dies a bit. He doesn’t flinch as my house explodes in the background and then he bursts into laughter.
   “The world is going to be swallowed in the tide of madness and we will be riding it, leading it. We are the wave. Ride the wave of madness Sean!” Sarah screams as the van pulls off. I was riding this dream. I no longer cared if it was real or not. The music would no longer overtake me. I would overtake it.
   A part of me, a dead part of me, wondered what John’s dream was…

The darkness had finally overrun its defences and we could see the great cities in flames. The tall glittering skyscrapers turned into gigantic dead pillars of fire. The sky was blacker than the coldest night and filled with deadly poisonous clouds. The horizon was a thin red line of flame and death.

We were too late. The war was over. We, the Angels of the Choir Virtues, could save nothing.

We flew across the sky. My bright burning sword felt light and ready in my hands. But there was no one to fight. There was no one to save. All were dead.

We saw buildings crumble and burn, petrol stations blow up, bodies crumpled at the side of the roads, cars overturned and crashed. Yet there was no screaming. There was no panic or tears. Nothing living stirred.

And then came the explosion. It was like nothing I had seen before. On the distant horizon there was a great flash that blinded us for a moment. We each had to pause in the air.

We didn’t know what it was. But it was coming. Like a great wall, a burning inferno that reached from the ground right up to the black evil clouds. It sped towards us faster than we could think, decimating everything its path as if it were made of dead dust.

We froze in hesitation and we shielded ourselves with our white holy wings but the light was so bright and so hot. It tore through us as if we had been flung into the very depths of Abaddon. It shocked me into the denial of unconsciousness.

When I awoke I was sore and battered. My white robes, signifying my glorious status as an Angel of God, were in tatters. The light had been so ghastly I was left partially blind and couldn’t see more than black shapes that moved and the red light of nearby fires.

‘Prop him up!’ The voice was sharp and bitter. I was tugged and pulled and lifted up. The hands that touched me were cold. I couldn’t struggle against them or help myself. My body was broken. But then I heard the moaning of others in great anguish and pain. A sound I knew for it was the sound of those nearing a terrible death.

I fought but it was pointless. I was too weak. My eyes cleared just enough so that I could look around. The source of the terrible moaning I could just make out, on tall twisted spikes of metal human forms were skewered and were wiggling helplessly. They were still alive but dying quickly. I heard the weak flapping of wings and the realisation shocked me cold. They were my brothers and sisters, the other Angels of Virtues. They were dying.

‘No!’ I screamed pointlessly. I pulled but they had tied me with strong ropes. They tensed and my shoulders were painfully pulled back. The cold clammy hands lifted me up and I felt the razor sharp point of metal sticking deep into my spine.

There was horrid laughter, a perverse pleasure from my captors. They must be servants of darkness, monsters of nightmares. I could not escape them and my voice rose in song of mourning and shame.

Then I felt a light, a wonderful light that I knew and recognised even in my partial blindness. It was accompanied by glorious and great singing. It was the one true light of Him the Almighty. My brothers and sisters, Angels of God, had come.

I felt myself lifted and my eyesight was instantly restored. I was whole and glad again and my pain disappeared. I was ready to continue God’s great work and ready to battle the darkness.

I turned to face my one-time captors, planning to send them back to the very coldness of Hell. But I felt a gentle touch hold me back. It was only a light touch but it held great strength and power and I knew if was one from a higher Choir.

‘No! Let me bring justice,’ I pleaded.

‘No, Anthony, my child. Do you not see who you would take your vengeance on?’ I recognised the voice. It was the Seraph Gabriel, one of the blessed seven of God and one of his greater messengers.

So I looked and I saw.

My captors were not servants of darkness, not foul monsters. They were the human survivors of that apocalyptic explosion! Their skin had turned frighteningly pale and the sickness of radiation poisoning was killing them while it mutated them. But they were still human. It was not the darkness that had destroyed the world but humanity!

There was one who stood on a pedestal where a makeshift throne had been erected from the rotting remains of others. He stared at us, undeterred by the light of God and there was hatred in his eyes.

‘This world is now part of the Deadlands. This war has been lost. Do not look further. Not even our tears can save them.’ Gabriel cautioned. His tone was sombre and sad.

But I could not look away. I could not pull myself from staring at those human survivors and the dead bodies of my brothers and sisters that still hung on the metal pikes. They had died before Gabriel had arrived.

My sword had returned to me. Recreated out of the very light of Gabriel. I didn’t look at Gabriel as I descended. Nor did he stop me as I brought my holy vengeance down on them and slaughtered them all.

I tore the eyes out of all of them as they died for they were not worthy to look upon the light of the one true Heaven.

*

The trial had been quick and functionary. They had heard from Gabriel what had happened. They asked me nothing and said nothing to me.

I had killed humans knowingly and for selfish reasons. There could be no redemption. I was mentally readying myself for an eternity of torture in the 2nd Heaven.

I awaited their sentence. But none came. They must have believed my actions required no punishment yet I yearned for it. I yearned to be punished. I saw the world die and I know it was humanity that burned it. How can we protect and love humans if they willingly destroy everything God has given them? How can we stand tall and serve God if we were once human?

‘Why?’ I asked him.

Gabriel looked solemn. He was among the most beautiful of Angels and none would have dared ask such a question of him. But he did not strike me or condemn me. He bowed his head for I could see he was crying. He said, ‘It is simply the way of things Anthony. For Hope and Light to exist, there must be the darkness and failure. It is the Divine Plan.’

I once had faith. Even when I saw my mortal family killed in a mortal foolish war, I did not question my faith. But now I did. ‘I do not understand anymore.’

‘Do not try to understand. You must accept what happened and move on. Know that it is God’s Will. Have Faith in Him for through Him we are all saved.’ His eyes seemed humane and sincere. He seemed to understand what I felt but he knew as much as I did that it was impossible to give me the words I needed to hear.

*

The Earth was cold under my feet. I was naked and the sharp wind of this place whipped through me.

I had burnt my wings and left Heaven for good. None had stopped me and my brothers and sisters of the Virtues had begged me not to and so I had gone far from them and had made the fall.

It was night and very dark. I had expected to fall on a dead world but here I was in a living place. This world had not burned. A city of lights was in the distance. It made the horizon sky a deep orange hiding the few stars.

I made my blackened wings hide and I started to walk towards the city.

I was confused. The world was dead but here it was alive. Had I been given a second chance? Or had God sent me back so I may understand why He would let such a tragedy occur? Or perhaps this was my punishment to see the world burn again and know I could not stop it?

I did not know. It was cold and I needed clothes and shelter.

   Hold on a sec, this doesn’t look like Dublin. All the shops have neon sides, brightly blinking what they are. They all look like expensive McDonalds. There is another problem too. The names are not f*cking English.

   The caf� is warm.
   ”Thanks.” I hold the coffee in my hands. Thank god for the Euro.
   ”You’re English?” The bartender beams at me behind his white apron and black waistcoat.
   ”No, no. Irish.” His grin somehow widens.
   ”Ireland. You’re on holidays? Not the kind area to find Tourists.”
   ”Something like that and I’m kinda lost…”

   The mobile, thankfully, works fine over here.
   ”Hi, Rachel? Yea, it’s me?” I hold the mobile a good distance from my ear. I don’t know what she’s saying but it’s loud. The shouting subsides.
   ”Yea, look, I’m in Paris?” Rather more disturbing is the near utter silence that comes from the mobile. “Hello?”
   ”Yea? eh? I just felt like getting out of Dublin for a while? eh? I’m alone, there’s no one here but me? well not just me of course, I mean Paris huge? no I’m not being smart? listen? yea I know? I am not cheat?” She hangs up on me.
   Rachel, Rachael, Rachael. If I’m descended from Wizards and Boogie Men, she descended from Witches and Princesses. We’re meant for each other really, so much so, we can’t stand each other. Which would be fine, if we could stand being without each other. You get my point?
   We’re doing different degrees in the same college and met up at some Party. Ever since then we’ve been breaking up, getting together, breaking up again and it’s not always my fault.

   I sprawl out on the hotel bed and pull out my notebook and start scrawling away about what I’ve seen of Paris.
   The bartender recommended the small hotel. It’s small, dingy, cheap but not dirty and unclean. Not the first time I’ve had to find accommodation in the middle of the night, but the first time when I can’t read the signs or ask directions.
   Plan. Tomorrow I’ll head to the main airport, where ever it is, and try and get tickets back to Dublin. I’m exhausted so I relax and close my eyes. Sleep comes quickly and dreams follow sharply after.
   
   The walls were lined with skulls and bones. Empty eye sockets gaping at me. I reeling from left to right in the darkness. As soon as I came to a wall I saw the bones stacked so high they touched the stone ceiling. I wanted to run the opposite way from every wall I came to.
   The laughter chased me. It was a deep booming continuos laughter that sounded more like a hundred fog horns then a man.
   Then the thought struck me. I didn’t want to wake up here, I didn’t want to find myself locked in this terrible graveyard built of human bones. I shook and tore, my eyelids were like lead and refuse to open. I could feel the dream around me. I did not want to be here.
   The laughter started to subside and it turned into a roar. It felt like a hurricane was coming for me.
   I twisted and turned. The roaring was turning down the corridors of bone, hounding me to the last. I grabbed on to the walls as it reached me.
   
   I woke in pitch-blackness. The air was cold as if it had just risen from a refrigerator deep down. Shivering I attempted to pondered why it had happened again so soon.
   
   Slowly an eerie light cast on the stony walls. The shadows hung in drips and drabs among the crevices and cracks of the side. The whole chamber seemed to be modelled out of sticks but made out of stone. It was cold to the touch.
   I took a deep breath. The light swelled and retracted. Somebody was crying, whimpering. Darkness filled the chamber as the light suddenly moved and there was a tremendous thud as if someone landing from a great jump. The voice was louder now, he was shouting, “Non… Non…”
   I reached into my always-handy bag and pulled out a tiny torch, swinging around the chamber. The walls were more intricate than I first imagined, as the light seemed in places to pass right through it. I passed the light over the nearest wall… I nearly dropped it in shock. The light made its empty sockets black and it’s rounded skullcap shiny. The walls were made of bones and skulls. “Fuck” I whispered.
   Where the hell am I? I groped on the ground and found the torch again. The whimpering returned. I crept forward, staying low and pointing the torch down. I didn’t want the skulls staring at me. At the end of the chamber the walls of bone formed a junction. I looked right and I saw him. He was huddled in a corner and covered his face except for one eye that flicked maniacally around. The green light poured over him. Steam or smoke curled towards him and there was a grunt that sounded like a wild bull.
   He saw me.
   I placed my fingers to my lips in the international sign of “shut-up” but he didn’t get the message. His eye caught me and started babbling away in French and pointing with his other hand to the origin of the green light. He started crawling towards me. That grunt I heard happened again. The green light seemed to move, coming around the corner. I turned to my right, planning to run… “Shit!” I exclaimed. It was a dead end.
   The French man started crawling towards me using only his legs and still managing to cover his face. He seemed like a human spider that a kid had pulled all its legs off. It revolted me. I swung the torch back down the chamber I had come from. It was a dead end too.
   Thud. I swear I felt the bone walls rattle. Thud again. Perhaps it was my bones. Thud. The light poured into the junction.
   Something huge, something large was stepping around into the junction. I covered my face yet I could still feel it’s enormous size.
   
   ”Ah.. hows it going?” A voice boomed at me. It had a slight Dublin accident. I peered through my fingers and then quickly closed my eyes. It was big, roughly demon-esque, horns and animal-like face…
   ”Your here for the party I bet?” His voice shook the chamber and the French man quivered and shook in spasms. The French man was clinging to my trouser legs. I opened my eyes again. Okay it’s a demon, real, no doubt. Holding a green lantern in its hands, though it’s hands were the size of my head. Black eyes, green-ish skin but everything looked green in the light. He tilted his head as if curious why I hadn’t said anything.
   ”You’re a … a demon…”
   ”I’d prefer the term ex-dimensional being. My wife says we shouldn’t suffer stereotyping any more but I prefer demon myself. Has more… baggage to it…” The French man was in terrible spasms around my leg.
   ”You speak English…”
   ”I have very little French, I’m only over here visiting relatives you know. It nice to meet some home folk out here. You are a Dubliner aren’t you?” I nodded dumbly. “You’re a bit confused too… you don’t know why you’re here or why you’re not babbling like this picking here…” he pointed to the French man who was trying to crawl up my legs.
   ”Eh yea… something like that.” I relaxed my hands from my face. The demon pulled something from around the corner and sat down on it. “Well tell me how you got here…”
   ”Well it’s hard to explain…”
   ”Yea?”
   ”Well I kinda dreamed myself here.”
   ”I see.”
   ”Well that’s it.”
   ”You didn’t get an invite? Or your half-demon self dragged you here?”
   ”Eh. No.”
   ”Come closer I can’t see you very well.” I shook the man from my legs and tenderly stepped forward. He tilted his huge horned head to the left and right and said “Well there looks like there’s nothing wrong, probably your Irish blood.”
   ”Pardon?”
   His eyes opened up wide at something I was apparently ignorant of.
   ”You don’t know? Well I suppose, in this modern day and age.” He leaned his head as close to me as he could. I was staring into his black eyes. “All Irish have some demon blood in them. In you it’s quite strong.”
   ”Demon blood?”
   ”Yea.” He leaned back. “Not like human blood which is passed onto child from parents but from the land and others. Everyone who lives long enough in Ireland gets a little and sometimes a particular strong taint does pass from the parents.”
   ”So that explains the dreams?”
   ”‘Fraid not. Demon blood has nothing to do with dreams. That’s something else entirely. So you might as well join the party. It’s just in there.” He pointed with his thumb over his shoulders. “These French can really party.”
   ”What about him?”
   ”Do you want some? French soul is wonderful. It’s got these absolutely wonderful traces of purity and dirt mixed in together. You can nearly taste?” He stopped when he saw my horrified expression and laughed. His laugh nearly knocked me down to the ground. “I’m only joking. I haven’t eaten a human since my Dad’s time. It’s not allowed. Apparently it’s not progressive. Wife words.” The monstrous head stretched into a spasm of a smile. “He won’t remember anything. He’ll just wake up in the morning with a bad headache.”
   ”Em. I have a few questions?”
   ”Only one you know. That’s a tradition I wont’ break. One question.”
   ”Where the fuck are we?”
   
   The catacomb; a massive graveyard that had been buried by the sprawling city of Paris. It was so large that at one time it housed thousands of people. There are spots hidden from the normal folk and only accessible to those of “demon blood.
   But what I saw next was not the classic catacombs.
   
   The Demon let me into “the party”. I expected it to be full of huge horned Demons bellowing over burning corpses.
   It was very different.
   For a start the hall looked like a Victorian Boudoir converted into a night-club; Red and gold curtains hung from every wall, chandeliers twinkled lights, low comfortable seats that encouraged people to sprawl out on their backs or sides, classical music played from somewhere but all laid out with modern sentiments.
   Second it wasn’t filled with 10-foot monsters. It was filled with human-enough looking people. People with horns or tails or oddly colour skins. Some with thick fur covering every part of their bodies and others that seemed half animal. What was striking was that they were dressed normally, very fashionably. A girl-fox wearing black trousers and top and bushy red hair falling down her back winked at me as I stood a little dumbly at the door.
   A tall man that looked human except for the tail that keep tangling around his trousers started yappering away to me in French. I didn’t know what he was saying but I could tell by his hand actions that he was very camp.
   I started to speak and he switched to a near fluent English and explained that the wine was free, the food was being cooked and to enjoy myself, tapping me every so often on the shoulder and laughing a little girlishly.
   I escaped him by saying I’d get a drink. I really needed one.
   There was a man serving wine. I couldn’t tell if I had caught his attention because his eyes were completely black. But obviously I had. There was cheeses laid out too. Blue, green, yellow, some full of holes, some streaked with another colour?
   I tried a white one. Bad choice, I nearly downed the red wine in one go to get the taste out of my mouth.
   ”Try this one.” It was the girl fox that had winked at me. She held a different cheese that was white and streaked with blue. “Eh thanks.” I tried it and it wasn’t bad.
   Even though she was covered completely in red fur and had a snout instead of a mouth, she wasn’t bad. In fact she was kinda of hot. She wore a colourful small scarf around her neck, which contrasted, with her black top. White fur from her chest stuck out over the edge of her top.
   ”I’m Phil.” I offered my hand. Her furry hand was the softest I had ever held. “Jean.” Her French accent made it sound somehow sexy. “You looked a bit lost.”
   ”Yea you could say that?”
   ”Are you alone here?”
   ”What you see is all I’ve got!” I nearly sung it.
   
   She introduced me to her friends. A boy-fox, a singer with horns, a computer programmer with little tentacles behind his ears that keep swirling freely in the air and a red skinned woman who didn’t speak any English.
   We sat (or rather lounged) beside a great gold pillar. They never asked how I got here or what I was doing in France but they asked about Dublin. The boy fox really didn’t like me though, kept snorting occasionally at me when I was speaking.
   The place was full of little clich�s. Small groups talking and laughing among themselves. There were a few that moved between the little groups, a satyr (you know his legs are like the legs of a goat and has a tail and furry ears) with a bottle of wine in his hand pretty much demanded that I accompany him as he floated between groups.
   
   I was introduced to a plethora of people and started to forget about the little physical oddities of each one just as easily as I forget their names. And the night dwindled on.
   
   At some point people started to leave. I found myself talking with Jean. She asked about Ireland and Dublin and explained how she would like to visit. I suggested she should look me up if she wanted to come to Dublin. I then unburdened myself about how I got here. I don’t know why I did. Perhaps it was the drink or the shock of the evening but I instantly regretted it, afraid she would find me not really one of them. But she just winked and said, “we all have our mysteries, non?”
   
   She and the fox boy walked me back to the hotel. I kissed her on both soft cheeks and we promised to meet up if they ever came to France.
   
   Thankfully there was a different attendant then when I booked in and returned to my room.
   
   The next day I got to the airport and was lucky enough to catch a just vacant seat on a plane to Dublin. Back at my rented place the answering machine was full of messages from Rachel which started from Insulting and ended up with Worrying and Fearful. I called her and said I was okay. She tried to make me promise not to do that again and I tired my best to dodge answering.
   
   It was only two weeks later that Rachel, who was staying over in my place for the night, answered the door. I heard a little yelp and a thud.
   Rachel had fainted at the door. Jean and her boyfriend (in all their foxy-ness) were standing there a little embarrassed. I wonder will Rachel dump me again this time?

The End

The Earth exists in the Void; the swirling empty/full potential that contains everything that was, will be or could be. The Earth is a glob of concentrated energy and life, solitary and small. Things born of the Void pick on it and its Shard Realms who desire its energy or life. The are drawn to it, they are powerful and they are insane.

A thin Veil that hides the true nature of the world from people’s eyes and protects the Earth.

The players get to take on characters that have come back from the dead and have been reformed in the “void”. They have been changed by the experience. Their minds have been broken. Yet they have gain powers and a new understanding into the world.

The world, the shard realms, the dimensions and the dream realms are opened up to them and they see what’s really in the shadows, Demons and Ghosts, Spirits and Monsters, Zombies and Travellers are all there, lurking in this gothic world. While outside, dark entities are pounding on the door, looking for a way in.

The Prelude Fiction is avaliable online and I’ve also thrown up some of my artwork for it.

The last version of Void Universe: Renegade RPG is version 0.6. There will be no more versions of Void Universe: Renegade RPG.

Download Void Universe: Renegade RPG Version 0.6 (approx. 440 kb pdf).

The rules are created using FUDGE (Freeform, Universal, DIY, Gaming Engine).

History

0.1 - 29th May 2002

Initial draft of ideas and fiction - no Rules System

0.2 - 14th June 2002

Added New Others: The Cursed, Familiars and Demons.
New Sections: Credits, Characters, Traits, Rules etc.
Removed Sections: The Systems, Some detailed notes on Renegades.
Rewrote Setting and Others
Several blank sections to be filled
Minor updates!

0.3 - 17th June 2002

Updated Cursed: Vampires, Spirit Rules, Derangements, Introduction
New Sections: Inspirations, Character Development, ?Serious Note? in Derangements
New Character Type: Scientist
Added sketch artwork
Minor updates!

0.4 - 22nd June 2002

Updated explanation of Dream Realms
Added Astral Plane
Added Dream Creatures, Dream People, Spirit People, Angels and Devils to the list of Inhabitants.
Rearranged sections
Character Creation
Rules (using FUDGE)
Character Sheet
Character Creation, Combat and Powers Cheat Sheets

0.5 - 28th June 2002

Requirements for usage of Magic/Powers (Sympathetic Link)
Fix to Character Sheet
Change of name to “Void Universe: Renegade” from just “Renegade”
Dublin Setting

0.6 - 16th July 2002

Much more detailed Character Creation
Updated and partially playtested Combat Rules
Rules on the different worlds
Added section Worlds
Sample Characters

   I had fallen asleep on the sofa. The sun must have gone down because it was dark. It was the scratching sound on the door that awoke me. I leaned out to switch on the nearest lamp. Nothing. It was still dark. Outside the window I can see the whole apartment block is dead.
   What is that scratching? I get up out of the sofa. It stops.
   Where did I put the torch?
   Now I hear breathing like a dog except twice as exaggerated. Who would be doing that? I look for something to threaten the nuisance with and accidentally spill the half-empty coffee mug all over the sofa.
   ”Fuck.”
   That?s when the door starts to split, something is breaking in. They heard me say fuck. Now I am fucked. I pull my mobile out of my pocket, no network. This can’t be happening. The door is splitting open. Some thing with claws is breaking in. It isn’t human?
   I blink and then I see it properly, a man with tights over his head and with an axe. He’s grunting and gruelling as he widens the gap.
   I’m frozen I don’t know what to do.
   The little light from the moon outside is suddenly drenched in shadow. Something is moving across the window. The glass shatters inwards and I raise my hands to protect myself but tiny pieces are imbedded in my left hand. They sting like shit.
   There are two people by the window. I can only make out their shadows. One is moving his hand and the sofa is suddenly flying across the room at the man with the tights over his head. There is a squeal.
   The other looks at me and says, “Sleep.”

   I leap awake. What happened? I look around. I’m on a bed in what looks like a cheap hotel or B&B. The lights are all on. My arms are bandaged and the bits of glass have been removed. I hear voices from the other room. I creep up to the door and listen, my heart is pounding. “? we should kill him? the Reclaimer?”
   ”No!” A familiar woman’s voice. There is silence at her outburst.
   ”The Reclaimer will come for him, we should use him as bait?” The first voice continues.
   ”Yes. I agree with Andy.” The voice is almost like a purr.
   ”You can’t?” the woman’s voice.
   ”It maybe our only choice Leana?” Another voice? Leana. No. Leana is dead. I stumble back knocking the lamp over. It bangs. I hear the first voice say again “He is awake?”
   I panic? where to go, the door swings open and this man leaps across the room, pinning me to the ground. He looks at me like an animal would look at a plaything. His ears, hidden mostly in his hair but still noticeable. They look like cat’s ears.
   The man screams back to the others “He’s terrified.”
   ”Get off him, Phil.” It’s the last voice I heard before cat boy jumped me, the commanding one. He stands in the doorway, tall and intimidating. Phil gets off me.
   ”We mean you no harm Ken. We are trying to keep you safe.”
   ”Safe?” I plead but even to me my voice sounds weak and pitiful. Suddenly I’m floating and moving towards the bed. There is another man beside the leader who is moving his hand as if to guide me. He has a maniacal grin on his face. “Relax. You have a surprise.” It’s the voice that threatened to kill me.
   ”Ken. It’s me.” It’s Leana’s voice, but I she’s not?.She’s dead. My sight starts to go and see white light and I faint.

   When I awake, it seems real. Leana is smiling her concern at me and she places something on my forehead. I like this moment. But a shiver creeps up my spine as I remember I’ll wake up and I’ll be alone so I try to shake myself awake. But she is still there. Her smile turns to worry.
I am awake. I pinch myself. Ouch. She’s in front of me, I’m hallucinating.
   ”It’s okay?” she’s whispering to me and reaching out to me.
   ”Calm down.” The command voice says and I suddenly relax. The tension falling from my body. He sits in the corner observing.
   ”You’re real?” I whisper.
   ”Yes.” She answers.
   ”I saw your body. I watched you die in the hospital. I saw your body in a coffin? I saw the coffin?” She silenced me by putting her finger to my lips.
   ”I did die, Ken. I was changed and I came back.”
   ”How?”
   ”We don’t know.” the commanding voice again. “We all died, all saw the same creatures in black suits pull us away and then ? then we find ourselves alive again. Changed but alive.”
   ”Why didn’t you find me?”
   Her frown creased, “because I’ve changed Ken and there are things that will, that are hunting you because you once knew me.”
   ”What? The man with the tights over his head?”
   ”Is that what you saw?” The commanding voice said. “That is interesting. Personally I saw a slobbering monster with more claws then I have fingers.”
   ”I don?t understand.”
   ”None of us understand. We escaped something Ken. But it is angry so it sent a creature we call the Reclaimer. It has gone after all our families and you were next. It won’t stop until your dead.”
   ”It’s dark again. Tomorrow we’ll put Andy’s plan into action. You’ll only have tonight Leana. Make the most of it.” The commanding voice got up and left the room.
   ”What does he mean tonight only? What plan?”
   ”I can’t go back to you Ken. I’ve changed. I see things that I never saw before. I can sense things like I never could. I can read your mind, Ken and I understand your confusion. Don?t say anymore. Just stay with me and hold me.”
   And that?s what I did, I held onto her. Hugged her. But her response was mechanical. She held me back but it was stiff. She lay beside me on the bed. I reached out and turned the lights off, but suddenly she was screaming, “Turn them on, turn them on?” I switch the light back on.
   ”What’s wrong?”
   ”I can’t stand the dark, I can’t stand it anymore. You can’t imagine what it felt like to have your whole essence pulled out? it was so dark?.” tears were streaming down her eyes. I held her and she cried into my shoulder.
   She felt asleep in my arms. Oh god, her smell was so much better then I remembered.

   She woke first, shaking me awake. She went into the common room. The one called Phil was curled up on the sofa, wrapped into a little ball. She knocked on the other two’s doors to wake them and she pointed me to the kitchen. “Help yourself.” She kissed me on the forehead.
   The kitchen was filthy. There were some edible bits in the fridge but the rest was mouldy and filthy. It then only hit me how manky and dirty they all were. Leana looked like she slept in the same clothes for two weeks, Phil, while his face was clean; his clothes were a lot to be desired. Same went for the one with the commanding voice.
   Phil came in, his grin wide. ?Hi there. Sorry about jumpin? on ya yesterday. ?Fraid you were goin? run?? He took out some of the edible bits and greedily ate them. I found a kettle and some instant coffee and proceeding to brew something.
   I tried to drag his eyes away from the cat ears. ?So what?s this plan??
   Phil grinned, ?We wait, till tonight. Your bait and then we hop on it.?
   ?And after that??
   Phil frowned. ?Dunno?.?

   Andy was the paranoid one. He always gripped a carving knife in his hand. As I had already discovered he seem to be able to literally move objects with his mind. Phil was like a Cat. He acted like a cat, he had claws like a cat, he even smelled like a cat. Then there was Jay. The one they all listened to. I don?t know what he could do.
   I spent the day in that hotel room. Leana stayed with me. We talked but I felt like she was trying to say all the things she wanted to say before she never saw me again. The others pretty much stayed out of our way.
   Then night rolled round. I could tell because Leana started to shiver as the light from outside started to fade.

   They had a van. An old banger but it moved. We travelled to the Dublin quays and then to a dock land development site. The metal skeleton of the building stood tall in the moonlight.
   It was then that Jay grabbed me and we were suddenly moving upwards. We were flying. I was terrified and excited at the same time until he stopped on top of the tallest scaffolding. ?The thing can?t fly like us. It?ll have to climb to kill you. You?ll be safe.? He put me down on the steel pipe. It started to rock with my weight and the wind buffeted back and forth. I grabbed the nearest vertical girder I could and held on for dear life. It was then I looked down, how many floors up, twenty, thirty? I could see Phil, Andy and Leana looking up. Jay looked at me in a funny way and said ?Sorry about this. If there was a better way?? He then literally dropped, nearly making me puke once again.
   I looked down once again but they were nowhere.
   I waited. I found I could control the swaying by positioning myself in a vertical line. At the very least it didn?t make me feel like being sick.
   It was then that I heard something from far below. A shadow moving. Then commotion and violence from below. I tried to peer into the building through the girders. I leaned as much as I could.
   A flash then something that sounded like screaming or anger. I leaned in more to see if I could tell what the sounds were. Another flash and this time a scream of pain.
   Damn, what?s going on?
   I stretched a little further, loosening the grip of my hand.
   Suddenly the whole structure shook. I couldn?t hold on. I slipped. The girders raced by me until I bounced off one with my leg and then proceeding downwards facing upwards. I could see the night sky illuminated by the moon. With a thump I landed and lost consciousness.

   When I opened my eyes, I saw Jay. His back was to me. He was struggling. The man with the tights on his head was trying to push him over. But it wasn?t the man. I blinked furiously and the illusion ceased to be.
It was a monster.
   It seemed to be shaped like a 5-foot anteater. Two dark black eyes on either side of its flat head. Its long beak was actually a huge jaw filled with razor teeth. It stood on two legs but fought with four arms, each ending in a huge crab like claw. It skin was red raw as if it didn?t bother to create skin for itself. It pushed Jay aside, flinging him into one of the girders with bent under the impact. Amazingly Jay just groaned and began to pick him self up.
   But that was not my concern. The monster was coming towards me, it?s jaws opened wide and drool dripping from its fangs.
   Jay shook himself off but he was slowly recovering.
   The thing was nearly on top of him. I could smell the blood from his skinless body. I righted myself, sitting up and tried to push myself away. But pain shot through my broken leg.
   It roared as it neared me as if in triumph of its victory.
   Something pummelled into it at high speed sending it rolling towards the edge but it stopped short. I could see now we were still many floors up. The city seemed flattened against the clear sky with the stars like miniature beacons. Leana unrolled herself. It was she who had pushed the beast. The monster righted itself and made to charge her.
   I got up and started to dash towards the edge. I yelled, ?Over here, come on? you big feck?in ant eater? Come on.?
   It stopped and it looked at me. Then it started to charge. I hoped knew what I?m doing. God, the pain in my leg! The thing was nearly on top of me yet the edge was just in my reach. Its speed was amazing. The jaw opened. I had to wait till it was right on top of me. I could feel its foul breath on my face.
   I dropped, hoping to trip it. The pain was unbearable in my leg. It kicked into my side as it went over. Its claw dug in to my left arm. It held on ripping into the flesh of my arm. I could only scream in agony as it clawed its way back up. Its quarry in its snarl. This was it. I was ant meat. I stared at it, as it hung from my arm and it raised its other claws.
   It shook like a fuzzy image on television set. It roared aloud in pain. Something was happening to it. My left arm was going fuzzy too. Christ it hurt more then anything else. I was screaming without even realising, shouting for it to stop. My eyesight grew dim.

   Someone was tending to me. He wore a white monk?s smock. I looked down at my left arm; it wasn?t there any more. My leg hurt like hell. ?Be still. I tried to warn you before.? It was the man from the funeral who spoke only Irish. The disturbing thing was, he had a third eye that occasionally blinked at me while he placed my leg in splinter.
   I could see Jay and Leana slowly landing behind him.
   ?Who are you?? Leana asked.
   ?A concerned passer by. I?d advise you to leave young Ken to me before any Gardai arrive. We will talk later?? He smiled at me as he tied the bandage around my arm.

   That was the last time I saw Leana.
   The monk?s name is Lon by the way. He said they just left, he couldn?t find them.
   I?ve changed. Lon has been my guide to what my new eyes have brought me. He?s a Void Traveller, not actually from Earth if you get that.    He said my wife and the others are commonly called Renegades or Rebels. Warriors for mankind he kept saying but I?m not sure he?s telling me the full story.
   I can?t go back to my old life. I see things different. I help Lon and sometimes join in the fight. He patched me up well, my leg healed quickly but my left arm is gone forever. Lon explained he literally threw the monster into the space where it came from; unfortunately it took part of my arm with it.
   I’ve met others who know, who’ve seen. Occasionally I hear about Leana and the others and how they help stop this thing or that. She never calls.
   In the end, I suppose, I?m still alive. Leana is alive.

End.

This will be made avaliable through Renegade RPG as a PDF.

The City ahead of them looms like a splurting cancering growth. Smoky filth rising from the dull bright lights. The dead ones move towards it, over the flat lifeless fields, unused roads, empty buildings, dying cattle, they move growing ever certain. Certain that the last vestiges of life lay buried in the machinations of the City. Certain that movement is all that is left.

There is a chosen one. Someone who will stand b’tween them.

A few days before, George worked late into night. The office empty except for a solitary cleaner whose Hoover echoed eerily. George ignored the cleaner as he typed madly on his keyboard. His only light was the bright reflection from his monitor that threw colourful shapes on his face. The deadline loomed intimidatingly on his screen.

“George, is it finished?” The sun glared rather then shone into the office. The clouds had parted wide enough to allow the unhealthy sun to beam its pain into the windows of George’s Bosses’ office. George was staring at the wall. His new boss had only recently removed his previous’ bosses’ pictures; a dark black rim remained on the wall. His boss was standing, he was one of those “go get them”, full of drive and serious professionalism backed by a smile.

“Sorry what?”

“Did you finished it?”

“Yes, yes. Last night.”

“My god George, you’re incredible. I was only a little afraid we were going to be late.” George attempted a slim smile at his new bosses’ compliment.

“It’s only because I worked the longest on the project…” George played down the compliment. He felt so alone among all these strangers. Each member of the team had been replaced over the years, some moving on to new projects, and others changing cities or even countries (Europe is good for that). His boss was the last to change. He had left for a different climate only months ago. “Why don’t you take a day or two off, late nights can really kill the brain cells…” Take days off to do what? Everyone he knew here had moved on, he had even received notice that he was going to have to change apartment.

“No, no… I’d only be bored.”

George walked the dark street to the dart train. The moon peered with eye between gathering clouds. The street was empty of people. He had worked late again.

There was a crash. Loud and violent. A bum pushing a trolley had crashed into a wall. She mumbled and then started arguing with the air. George crossed the street to avoid her. Eventually she waved the arguing air away and moved on. It was well past midnight.

George moved on. Towards the train station.

“George, George, the dead ones are raising, George, George. They see you.” She was yelling. He turned to see her staring at him, her figure pointing at him. He was frozen to the spot. Something blew across the street distracting his attention. She had moved on.

There was a parcel for him at his single room flat. A 6-month late birthday present from his Mum. It was a single sock; she hadn’t finished knitting the other. In fact she had got bored and hadn’t bothered to start the second one.

The TV was full of crap, ads full of 0800 number chat lines, repeats of bad sitcoms and marketing campaigns that attempted to pass for entertainment, claiming that if you’re not bonking your friends sister, your not living. He fell asleep watching it.

Dreams filtered in and slowly filtered out. But one seemed vibrant, more real, more telling. He floated through the city. The smog turned to a magical haze. The buildings were rotten towers of some old castle. There was a woman of white floating with him. He knew somehow she was the bum. “George, George, the dead ones are raising, George, George. They see you,” she kept saying. He tried to fly away but he suddenly discovered that he couldn’t, that in fact he was trapped in some sort of wind. “The Dead Ones, The Dead Ones”. The City was evolved in shapeless dark forms, the city towers crumbling and melting.

“George? Are you alright?” She was new to the project. George became suddenly awake. “You had fallen asleep at your desk.” She had a pleasant smell and her being so close was nice.

“I think so. Just tired I think.” George took the rest of the day off.

It was still day, though with the dark overcast clouds it might as well be night. He took his car from the underground car park underneath his flat. He drove out of the city as night fell. The dead ones floated by his moving car in the night.

They paused briefly before going into the city. No chosen one stood against them. The city would crumble under their mass. George drove far away.