Very Short Peice: The Birth Of Fear

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2003-12-22 03:32pm

This was written up for a game I take part in, in an attempt to flesh out the backstory a bit. The 'Burning' was a great nuclear war that left Earth pretty much devastated, and set the stage for a particularly grim future in the stars.

Birth Of Fear.

I remember now. 2102, that was the year. The year I lost everything. The year.. We all lost everything. Like something out of an ancient legend about the end of the world, the fires started. For twelve hours solid, missiles tipped with the power of burning stars rained upon Mother Earth, snuffing out the light of civilization that had burned for thousands of years.
Since that day, many have told me the initial deathcount of the Burning was one third of humanity. When I emerged into the ruins of the city, it felt like more. There were no people here. No children playing, no people walking to work. Looking up one street, I could see what had once been the center of a mighty nation, the capital of the United States. I knew it's structures well. The melted, sagging pillar I could see, ravaged as if by a billion years in a single moment of fire, was the Washington Monument.

*****

Several weeks later, I was astonished to find that, as I cleared the top of a hill, signs of humanity. A small town, built of scraps and spare materials, had been made in the mountains. They welcomed me into their tiny community, told me of how they had taken refuge here, to escape the fallout of the ruined cities to the east of us.
Life with the mountain people was hard, but it was fufilling. They showed me how to farm and hunt, how to make food last. And on some nights, they would tell tales about how things were before the Burning. They told me of the soldiers, that would come when flood or fire destroyed a town. How none of them were afraid, because they knew the soldiers would be coming to help them rebuild.
A year and a day after I had found them, I bid my farewell to the mountain people. I had learned much, and they had shown me where more people should be. They urged me to use my strength to find these survivors, and help them find others. Across the mountains I set out, onto the great wide plains.

*****

In the shadows of once-great cities, I found them. Survivors huddled up to the cities they once flourished in, slowly dying from starvation, disease, and radiation. I taught them the lessons of the mountain people, how to find new places to live, how to hunt and farm. When I saw the fear in their eyes, I would tell them tales of the soldiers who were coming. How soon, no one would have to fear this new world, as the soldiers would help rebuild.
I taught, and I was taught. Doctors showed me how to treat the poisons of the fallout, mechanics showed me how to repair the relics of the world before the burning. I urged them to send their strongest out to those I had helped before, to rebuild the ties between people.

*****

Beyond the great rolling plains where I had found so many, I found mountains jutting up into the sky, far higher than those I had trekked across so long ago. Yet, I had grown stronger in my journey, and I had learned many things. I found people there as well, clustered around relics of technology for their survival. I urged them to journey with me, to cross the mountains to the great ocean beyond. Some went with me, some refused.
I told those that travelled with me of the soldiers. In the retellings, they had become as strong as trucks, as kind as fathers. And with each telling, the fear in their eyes would calm, for they knew help was coming for us.

*****

It had felt like an eternity since I had emerged from beneath Washingon D.C., as I looked out over the Pacific Ocean. In the distance, I saw the shapes of warships in a bay. My companions cried out in joy, telling each other they had found the soldiers. The soldiers had come to save them.
As we entered the city, we found that these soldiers were not the rescuers we had told tales of. Anger and conquest drove them, meaning slavery for all those who stood in their way. They rebuilt for themselves alone, and in the eyes of all those who toiled, I saw fear.
As they surrounded me, I thought back to the great rolling plains. And all the people that were waiting for these men.

They had no hope.

lukexcom · Post by **lukexcom** » 2003-12-22 11:52pm

Very Falloutish...

So the National Guard and the Navy decided to band together and form a new empire out of the ashes of the old one, i.e. The Brotherhood of Steel from Fallout?

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2003-12-23 02:38am

lukexcom wrote:Very Falloutish...

So the National Guard and the Navy decided to band together and form a new empire out of the ashes of the old one, i.e. The Brotherhood of Steel from Fallout?

It starts out very much like it, doesn't it? Only much, much darker. I may be adding a second peice.. I have to see how the first is received.. Where it goes into more of the universe's details.

Thirdfain · Post by **Thirdfain** » 2003-12-23 02:53am

VERY nice. The storytelling style works well for the topic matter. One of the better pieces of short fiction i've read here.

lukexcom · Post by **lukexcom** » 2003-12-23 06:00pm

SirNitram wrote:
lukexcom wrote:Very Falloutish...

So the National Guard and the Navy decided to band together and form a new empire out of the ashes of the old one, i.e. The Brotherhood of Steel from Fallout?
It starts out very much like it, doesn't it? Only much, much darker. I may be adding a second peice.. I have to see how the first is received.. Where it goes into more of the universe's details.

I liked it. The concept of peoples' memories of the National Guard made into tribal-like legends of the "caring angel-soldiers" like it's done here is very well done. And then the shock at the end...

I think you should go to town with this universe, you could do so much with a properly thought-out post-apocalyptic world.

Post by **Kuja** » 2003-12-24 01:13am

I like the idea, it has quite a death knell-ish tone to it. So now that the Navy and the Guard's turned on folks, who's going to fight em off, I wonder?

The Air Force and the Marines? Or maybe the Coast Guard...

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2003-12-24 05:44am

I rarely read post-apocalyptic stories, but this one is so poetic that it deserves a distinction. The strange beauty with which it depicts apocalypse and desolation is very remarkable - although I don't know the exact word for how I should describe it.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2003-12-24 07:20am

Nice. Maybe the monkeys will come and kick everyone's assess and rule the world

Keep it up.

Who will kick the navy's assess?

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2003-12-25 02:39am

Just from the reactions here, I am starting brainstorming on a second part. I can't guarantee I'll finish it.. I've alot of exposition that needs done, without making it a peice of, well, shit. Thank you, all, for the positive feedback, and I hope I don't dissappoint.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-01-11 02:52am

Evolution of Terror.

It's been twenty-two years since 'Supreme' Admiral Jacob Rogers acheived his goal. Driven by fear of extinction and of remaining armies, he swept the globe, the devastated ruins of humanity falling, one by one, to his forces. Many, like those I had visited, had thought salvation was coming.

By now they understood me. Why I was able to venture into the ruins without becoming sick, how I was able to march across the entire nation alone. From no woman's womb was I taken, only the cold, sterile realm of a lab. Intent on discovering more about me, I've become a sort of pet to Jacob. Poisons are constantly circulated through my system to keep me weak, and not a threat.

But no poison will save the Admiral from this. Time itself is claiming him. At the age of eighty-three, he is no longer a young man, and it is time for his life's work to be passed on. As I watch, he decrees his rank and position will be passed down from eldest son, to eldest son. As I watched him slowly fade from life, I think I finally saw fear fade from his eyes. Can one forgive a man for being so afraid he will do terrible things?

********

Douglas. Not a name I'm endeared to. Douglas Rogers took the mantle of his father. Born after the Burning, he has lived in the relative luxury of being the most powerful human's son as civilization is painfully rebuilt. I've met him; his father thought it important that his son, being groomed for leadership, know about me. That I am somehow important to the grand scheme.

As Supreme Admiral, now a real rank, he pushed humanity harder and further. While his father was only interested in restoring enough space technology to aid our existance on the surface, this man is obsessed: He must return to space. The rumours between slaves are true, it seems. Portions of humanity.. Led by the Austrailian, Japanese, and Russian governments.. Escaped the inferno. Fear has gripped the son as it had the father: Will they come back? Will they return to destroy these last humans?

I am, in my own way, spared. He seems to think of me as some sort of pet; he will share with me schemes of his return to space, seeking out the means they used to flee. And, in the darkest moments of his madness, he tells me: I will be how they die.

********

Humanity alone can't rebuild. Sickness kills off too many, many are born weak. Even with the Donovan Field.. Some new creation which can render regions affected by fallout safer.. life cannot be rebuilt as it was. They say, as they herd the slaves that were humanity's civilians, we need a new kind of human.

I try not to think where they found the technology to do it. Genetics; who would have thought it would be recovered so soon? How I do not know; it merely is here again. It starts innocently: Those with chronic diseases are noted. Next comes the expansion of rights to those who have the 'right stuff', DNA that is expected to produce strong, healthy children. Some are even freed from their servitude, to live as the enlisted do.

Sinister and slow, it expands. The denial of 'birth rights' to those not approved by the new government, the United Earth Militia. Slowly, those 'unworthy' are dying off, claimed by sickness and time. As the technology they have recovered is rebuilt, it becomes more encompassing. Officers are modified, their children being born free of almost all diseases. Enlisted and workers are added as their 'genetic compatibility' defines.. That is, those not up to snuff find themselves being bred out.

'Highborn' they call themselves. The new race. Able to flourish in this demolished world. The Master Race, they tell me. I had two as my guards, one day, when I was being taken to visit my 'owner' at Cape Canaveral. They taunted me, wanted to see if I could do anything free of my chains.

I had forgotten how good human blood tasted. But, as I stand here, admist the ruins of the vehicle I caused to run off the road, surrounded by the corpses of those who were trying to guard me, I wonder.

Is there anywhere left to run?

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2004-01-12 12:02pm

Very interesting, and certainly some of the better writing I've seen around here.

I know some of the ideas have been done before - I got flashbacks to everything from Brave New World to Zardoz, but it's still fabulously executed.

If there's a "Best Original Fic" category for next year's GSDA as well as "Most Original Fic", I'll certainly consider this one for nomination.