Two Sides of a Stand

Volume I
Tom’s Walk Home

Tom was walking down the street. He carried a brown bag in his right hand. He looked middle aged. His hair was dark brown. His eyes were blue, and his face was wrinkled showing signs of his age. He was wearing blue jeans with a dark green sweatshirt, and a blue cap.
He was halfway between walking and jogging. His children were home, they could even be crying. He wished he didn’t need to leave them at home. He loved his children more than anything in his life. All he wanted was something better for them.
He was rushing home when a man put a hand on his shoulder. “Pardon me, sir. Could you stop a moment?” Tom turned around and saw the owner of the voice. It was a cop. He was wearing the typical city patrol uniform.
Tom rubbed his eyes and said, “Is there a problem, Officer?”
“I’m afraid there is, sir.” Tom detected a stench on his breath as though he may have been eating some Chinese or some other take out restaurant. “You see downtown there was a robbery. An employee at Bart’s Mart’s near the new mall was attacked and the store was robbed.”
Tom’s hand was shaking a bit, What would make them think I did something like that, he thought. “Well, Officer… I’m sorry I guess I didn’t get your name?” Tom asked.
“You can call me Officer Marcus.”
“Well, Officer Marcus, I don’t understand yet why you chose me to deter.”
“The employee at the store said the man who attacked him was wearing blue jeans and a blue hat.” Why am I ever bothering this man? he thought, He’s just a middle aged man probably on his way back to his apartment. That is until he saw the brown bag he was carrying. “Sir could you hold open that bag?”
The bag had Bart’s Mart printed on it. Tom confessed, “I was at the store, but I didn’t see what you were talking about. Had I though, I would be more than willing to help you, sir. I just picked up some macaroni and cheese for my kid’s dinner. I’m sorry sir, but I’m a little ashamed to say they are home alone right now. That’s why I’m in a rush to get back.”
Indeed the bag had just what he had told him, a bag of macaroni and cheese with some butter and milk that was unmentioned. “Okay sir, that’s good.” Officer Marcus told Tom. “Could you turn around and put your hands behind you.”
“What?” He stared at him for a moment then turned around. The cop started searching him, then Tom said, “Officer, what are you doing? Are you arresting me? On what grounds, shopping and wearing a hat?”
The cop stopped and said, “I’m sorry, just doing my orders. You’re going to be taken down to the office to make sure.” Officer Marcus seemed disappointed. He was positive this man hadn’t robbed the store or assailed anyone from it.
“My kids, I’ve got my kids to think about, sir! Please I’m asking you. I have done nothing. I only want to be a good father!” Tom had told him.
Officer Marcus thought of the snapshots in his wallet next to his badge. His own family. What if his daughter Ellie was alone at home with no one to watch. Scared, maybe crying. “All right,” he said, “I can tell you haven’t done anything, so I’ll make an agreement. I’ll let you go if you promise to go straight home to you’re kids.”
Tom laughed, “Well, all right. It’s a deal!” Tom shook his hand.
As Officer Marcus returned to his car he felt something cold on the tip of his nose. It was a snowflake. The first of the season. He looked up to see an armada of white crystal flakes. He reached out and touch his car door handle. He couldn’t help a smile from spreading over his face as he sat down and started his car he looked back in his rearview mirror for a moment and saw Tom smiling too.
Why shouldn’t he be?
When Officer Marcus was a block away he got a phone call. He had been told they had caught the real man responsible for the robbery. He laughed when he realized he never even asked for Tom’s name

About an hour later another discovery was made, this one more gruesome. Officer Marcus was ordered to return to Bart’s Mart immediately. He was not led into the store, but around behind it.
“Can’t believe it!” One cop said.
“I’m gonna kill that guy we found. Make sure he goes down for this!” Officer Marcus said.
“What are you going to say to the man?” Another cop said.
Officer Marcus looked down at the body in the dumpster. Two bullet holes through the chest and one in the neck. He said exactly what came to mind. “I couldn’t even speak to the guy that did this. This one’s on you guys, sorry.”
However, he didn’t know he had spoken to the man all ready. He didn’t know that the money which used to be in the victim’s pocket was used to buy some macaroni, butter, and milk, and that the rest was only and inch from his hand when he stopped Tom’s search earlier that night, and next to it a bloody pistol hidden by his baggy green sweatshirt.
He also was unaware that Tom, just as Officer Marcus had been unable to control the smile as he let him go, could not control his smile either as he drove his children over the state border. A new state a new start. His kids were the only thing that mattered


Volume II
The Black Ale

Copperfield, typical redneck town, in sector 5. Sherri tended in her bar, The Zeus, while the stranger walked. Their paths were separate, for they had never met. However, both their fates were about to be entwined, and the outcomes of their fate would have an impact on world unlike anything they could have foreseen.
Sherri saw him come in. She was instantly drawn to his face. He had a hood up like he was hiding his eyes. She looked away. Face doesn’t matter, she thought to herself. Whatever happens is going to happen anyway.
A hand grabbed her shoulder, and she jumped and spun around. Mort. He talked in his certain sophisticated sort of voice, “Ha ha, made you jump, huh?” Even when what he was saying was pointless his voice seemed overly smooth and calm for some reason.
Sherri just looked disgusted, “Shut up.”
“Someone’s a little edgy today. I suppose you should. Quite a character there. Isn’t it he?”
“Sure is.”
Mort smiled, “Of course he would be the lucky customer. Your choice after all. Quite a past he looks to have. I’d say he’d been to hell and back, except he doesn’t look burned. He could be a tough one to handle. Are you sure it must be him?”
She hesitated a moment and looked back at the shadowy eyes. “Positive.”
He pulled out a flask of what looked like beer from underneath the counter. It had a chip just above the handle. “Well then, no point wasting time. Let’s get busy.”

Just a moment later the stranger was sitting a at a secluded table in the bar. He had taken off his glove and was inspecting it. It had a hole in left hand pinky’s fingertip. It would surely require stitching before he continued his endless journey.
The woman behind the bar came up to him and held out her hand for her to shake, but he let it be. When she realized he wasn’t excepting her common politeness she pulled it back. “Hello stranger,” she said, “I came to give you a drink on the house this being your first time here.”
The Stranger lifting his face and stared into her eyes. She realized this was the first time she had seen clearly into his eyes and she was nearly dumbstruck. When he saw the mystery behind her eyes the, “get lost”, he had planned to say became, “Well if on the house….” He took the drink.
He took a sip, he noticed a few people looked at him, but when he looked back they seemed to turn back to their business. The drink tasted exactly how it looked, like beer. He wiped his mouth with his holey glove and said, “I’m really just passing through, however.”
A tear rolled down her cheek in front of him and she seemed to choke on the words, “I’m sure you are.” She didn’t walk, but ran back behind the counter with the strange looking man behind the counter.
The stranger shrugged. His interest in the woman was lost again for a moment and he stared back at his glass. He noticed a chip above the handle. He continued drinking without cutting himself on it. He noticed more people kept looking at him while he drunk. He started to feel tired. His eyes were drooping. More people were looking, but now they weren’t turning away when he looked back. One man dared to stand and stare.

“This isn’t right.” she said. All ready his head was dropping down to the table. “It’s wrong to see this.”
Mort smiled. “Falling for him are you, sweetheart?”
Her face turned eerily cold, “I want out.” she said and walked away. A moment later the stranger’s head fell and he dreamed quietly. People were laughing and mocking at him. Mort shooed them off and then drug the drugged body into the back room.

The Stranger woke up five hours later, and although his internal clock couldn’t tell the exact time, he knew it would be late, most surely dark out by now. He soon noticed he was tied up, and still very much drugged up. However, most of the side effects had lost their effects on his mind.
He struggled and managed to lift up his head and look around. There was nothing. Then the door opened and through came the man named Mort. Before Mort could say anything the stranger spoke, “You’re the Devil. I saw it, I saw you and her. I was with her in a cave, and you were chasing us. You were as red as a demon. You are the Devil.”
Mort laughed, “I guess that is why we’re here. It’s interesting that you should have dreamed of me in a way. I’m here to collect information one what you saw. You cannot disobey. Although your consciousness has resumed you will find it quite impossible to lie to or refuse to answer questions in your current state. A worthy side effect of our famous “black ale.”
Sherri walked in and when she did the stranger started talking, “The angel draws nigh. She pulls her hand away from God and man. She does this for love.”
Sherri walked up to him. She had tears down her face and she didn’t know why. But she felt wrong, very wrong. She put her mouth next to his ear and whispered, “What did you see?”
He laughed, “I saw many things. Among the most important was you. I saw much of you and us together. Then you unraveled us and with us fate. You poured the drink on strands of fate and it unraveled, this drink you call the black ale.”
It was Mort’s turn to speak now. “Your not the first of our victims. We are studying the effect of a flower with black petals. It appears to be hallucinogen, but we believe it can show the future. Is it true we could have changed the future by giving it to you? I find it unlikely, but if the drink has showed it, it must be true. You couldn’t comprehend the amount of predictions our victims have had that have come true. I’ll speak for both us when I say we both believe highly in it’s powers.”
“What would you do with such power?” The stranger croaked out from his drugged body.
“Not sure,” he responded, “but it’s too appealing to simply go unstudied.”
Sherri broke in, “Why me? Why am I in your dream?”
The stranger spoke surely, because we are soul bound. We were meant for each other, but no more. You have ruined us in this world. Yet, although I tell you I love you it will never work with what you have done, due to the unwinding fate.”
“Then, we will go to another,” She said. And as she did she stuck the stranger with a needle poisoned with the same black flower, then she stuck herself.
Mort almost screamed. “What are you doing? With that in your bloodstream you’ll…”
“Die? I know. I’ve ruined myself in this world.” She fell over. “I see how he saw now. It’s so clear… so clear…”
They both blacked out on the drug. When Mort was almost sure they were both dead, he turned to leave when the stranger spoke. “Fear not the one called Tom.” He said. “he must live or all freedom be rid from the world. So the drug has spoken. I feel it.”
The skin on Mort’s back crawled and he felt sick. Then, Sherri began to speak. “The on called Tom must die.” she said. “If he does not then the end he will bring and all will suffer and die through him. So the drug has spoken, and I have felt it.
Mort threw up then he heard them both speak in unison. “There are two Tom’s and both of different world’s. One must die and one cannot, but who is who and which is which it will not speak. You must spread the word. Leave it in the room. Carve it in the wall. Fate has been fixed, but these bodies have been spent for foolishness.”
Those were the last words either spoke. Their hearts stopped with their last words. Hours later in the middle of the night he buried them. He dug one large hole and laid them together.
They lied together beneath the ground while people walked above them. There was never a tombstone, or ever a marker. The couple lied in silence. Then, the man named Mort was left to the secret of the black flower and the drink they had brewed from it. How he used it would determine the fate of the world. He wrote it on the wall of the room.


Volume III
Brother Todd











Steven of Maderstill woke to the smell of bacon. His night was full of nightmares, like it had been as of late. The only reason to make it through the night was the next morning. Bacon was his favorite breakfast, so it seemed worth it now.
It was summer vacation and that helped too. He was seventeen. It was only one more year until he’d be off to college. He brushed his teeth and stepped in the shower. Maderstill was a suburb in Illinois about an hour east of the windy city.
He rarely understood the messages that the woman in his dreams told him. She seemed to talk in code or riddle. Every night she entered his mind as if through fog and grow more and more clear, but never could he see her face. She always started saying the same thing. Originally he couldn’t understand it, because it seemed from a far away place and it echoed in his mind. He had been having these dreams for about five months however, and now he could recite it without even thinking, “I am the lady of sight. I love the man of mystery. You will follow the man of mystery’s man, but fear him as well.” These words were always seemed engraved deep in his brain, but he never understood them. Never once did he doubt their importance, though.
He shook the thought from his mind and stepped out of the shower. Right as he was stepping out he was hit with heavy sense of déjà vu. Suddenly he felt dizzy and slipped hitting his head. He wasn’t hurt badly, but this sudden case of vertigo frightened him. He had never got a sensation like this before. After a moment of contemplation he shrugged, Just nerves, he thought.. Tonight was a big night after all. So he wrapped the towel around him stepped into the room and pulled his iPod Video off his counter. He put the headphones in, turned it to the Offspring, turned up the volume and awaited the night…

Tonight was the night he was to have dinner with Samantha’s parents, and she was Steven’s first serious girlfriend. He didn’t want to screw the night up with her parents. He knocked at the door at 7:04. When she didn’t answer the door at the first, he was frightened for some reason. Standing on her doorway, it brought back his dreams with the lady of sight. He had never really held a serious conversation with either of her parents and that worried him, but what he felt wasn’t nerves. He was terrified. Simply terrified and he had no idea why. He stepped back a moment and looked up into their attic. Their was a dim light, like a candle. He could have sworn he saw a shape move, then the door opened and Samantha was in the doorway. He looked down at her for a moment and then stared up again waiting for something, anything.
After a while Samantha laughed and said, “Are you going to come in or run away? You’d probably be better off doing the second.”
Steven looked up with a serious look that was the mark of a man that thought he might be gambling with his life, or fate. “What does that mean?” he asked.
Samantha looked like she was trying to express, my your acting strange tonight, when she said “Well c’mon on in so we don’t catch a cold.” But Steven saw something deeper, much deeper, that he couldn’t read. It was a secret.
He suddenly felt bad about feeling so strange. He stuck his hands in his pocket and felt his iPod. He wondered why he brought it. Looking back he didn’t quite remember making a conscious decision to bring it, but had done it as if second nature.
When he stepped through the doorway it was warmer, but something wasn’t right. The air seemed foul, he wasn’t sure if it was a feel or a smell, but he knew there was something wrong and he wondered how anyone lived in that house.
As he suppressed the feeling to gag, he walked around the first corner of the house to find her parents already at the dinner table. They looked cheerful enough on the outside, Steven knew it was a charade. There was evil in this home.
Samantha’s mom spoke, “Please sit, Steven. The potatoes are getting rather cold.”
Steven managed to fake a smile and say, “Sorry I’m a little late ma’am.”
Her father, who seemed a large brute of a man said, “Ma’am? Her? Ha, don’t waste your manners. You young folks seem to have little left in these days anyway. Save them for someone who isn’t the mother of a beast.
Samantha had no brothers and sisters, at least a far as he knew, so it shocked Steven to think he would speak like that, who he thought was beautiful anyway, right in front of her. “Excuse me, sir?” Steven said.
Her father pulled back the seat next to him and said, “Just have a seat, and don’t worry yourself, boy.”
He sat, and ate for perhaps ten minutes, but their was little conversation. When Steven was asked a question it seemed very unnatural to speak. He felt as if their was a scale delicately balancing the whole world, and if he spoke it might just knock it off balance.
Steven noticed that there was an occasionally banging coming from upstairs, but he knew it would be unwise to mention it. After a while Samantha’s mother, (who seemed quiet, depressed, and more than a bit unappreciated) wiped her mouth with her napkin, and said, “I guess I should examine that noise.”
Samantha’s father, grunted a large belch and shouted, “Well, get to it woman!” than laughed a horrible laugh. Steven could only wonder how his beautiful Samantha could even be the child of such a brutish man.
Her footsteps hadn’t been passed the stairs for more than ten seconds when a loud noise like metal snapping echoed from above. Then he heard a hatch open and a bang like a heavy object hitting the floor. Then, all that was left was the screaming of a mother.
Samantha was speechless, but Steven spoke, “What in God’s name was that.” for some reason he felt his hand dig into his pocket for his ipod, but he got control and dropped it, now isn’t that time, he thought (which is entirely different from now isn’t the time.)
Her father froze only a moment and then shouted on the brink of panic, “Now, follow me!” He motioned into the other room and started running. Steven stood, but Samantha only stayed frozen in her seat. “Move it girl!” Her father shouted.
Steven snapped, “Go! I’ll watch her!” he said. Her father, for a moment, his last moment, simply looked at his daughter with blind compassion then nodded and ran from the room.
Samantha whispered as if in a trance, “It’s all over.”
“What is?” Steven asked.
“Everything,” she replied, “and I don’t I want it to end.”
“Then it won’t,” he said and held her.
“Will you protect me?” She asked.
“Of course, I’ll protect you.” he said.
Her father walked back into the room with a shotgun. He pumped a used shell from the barrel, then loaded three new ones into it. “Should really take better care of this thing.” He said dryly. “I’m going upstairs. Stay and protect Samantha.”
“I will.” said Steven.
“Good boy. I’m going.”
Steven watched after him as he climbed the stairs. There was only silence for a while, and in it Steven spotted a closed flip-open buck knife on the counter. He grabbed it and opened it. It locked into place. He was pleased to see this so he knew he wouldn’t cut his own fingers off at least if worst came to worst. He turned to Samantha and asked, “Okay, now tell me. What’s going on here?”
Samantha was tried to speak, but she was barely understood between the sobbing. “I…. He’s…. my…. Brother…. Brother Todd…he’s monster….” The last word she screamed startled by the gunshot from upstairs, “DEMON!”
They stood together for a moment, with Steven’s arm wrapped around her and there was only silence. She pulled away from him and walked to the hallway. She peeked around the corner then turned back to him.
“Nothing,” she said. Then, a horribly sickening arm wrapped around her throat. It was pale as the full moon. It wrapped around her so tight she could not scream. However, Samantha did manage to utter her dying words. “You said, you’d……….. protect.” Her last thoughts accusing him. Then another hand wrapped around her chin and pulled it back snapping her neck, silencing Samantha forever.
A switch somewhere inside Steven’s mind was pushed and he felt another odd sense of déjà vu, but this time it seemed not to weaken him, but to lend him strength. He stared at the glistening simplicity of the knife in his hand. The buck knife lay inside his palm awaiting him. It seems so plain, and it was truly calling him in a more than symbolic manner. He knew this knife was his fate, and this place his the start of his destiny.
He flipped the knife open in a rage and shouted, “I’ll kill Brother Todd, in her name.” Then he paused and looked down at the open blade in his hand and seemed to pray for a moment, then lifted his head, and shouted in a cry, “For Samantha!”
However, as he reached the corner the figure itself loomed itself towards him with frightening speed and for the first time he saw Todd’s face. It was hideous. He looked dead. Strands of hair were falling off his head in clumps, and his eyes were clouded. This surely was the face of death.
The beast scratched at Steven’s face with unnaturally long nails, but Steven drew his blade, and struck the monster in the arm. It recoiled, but Steven dropped the buck knife.
The monster was on him in an instant, throwing him backwards. Steven hit the back of his head on the floor and he felt dazed just long enough to make the mistake that could have ended his life. He thought he was going to die when he saw the claws coming towards his neck, ready to rip out his throat or jugulars (he didn’t care to contemplate on which would be worse.) That was when the front door opened and a man stood in the doorway, wielding a magnum revolver in his right hand. He shot, and it was true. It hit beast’s head and it died a mercifully quick death.
The stranger held out his hand to Steven, (who was still lying on the ground in unbelief). Once Steven was up the stranger reached down to pick up the knife, examined it a moment, then handed it to Steven. “Nice knife. However, it was not meant for him.”
“What was it meant for then?” Steven asked.
“That can only be revealed in time.” the man said.
“Who are you?” Steven asked.
The man laughed and said, “Oh, my name is Tom, and I too have dreamed. Dreamed of many things both blunt and symbolic. I know you have too, and that’s why you must come with me. Your events here today were tragic, but I feel your past had to be purged, before you were prepared to walk out with me. The man in my dreams has spoke of you as Steven. I want you to know things just as you do, Steven. I Hope you brought your things, because you won’t be going home this night.”
For a moment the thought of leaving home never to return struck Steven hard, then he felt the power still emanating from his knife, and was content. “I’m fine, Tom” he told him.
Tom smiled, “Good, we best be moving. For I am followed, by the police, what I’ve done means little, for it’s not your place to judge me, but only God’s and his plan, or fate as some know it. I don’t know quite what’s happening, but I do know that it’s very important, don’t you feel it?”
“I do.” he said. “But what about her parents, I don’t know they are…” but Tom cut him off.
“Dead? Oh rest assured they are, but the cops draw near and if they found me all would be lost. Especially were it the one pursuing me. His name is Marcus, and we shared a night once in the city long, before fate’s hands did touch me with it‘s haunting dreams. He seeks me to make amends for a mistake long passed. To do so is foolish, remember that Steven. For that mistake took place nearly a full year ago now. He has stalked me ever since.”
Steven didn’t know what to do for a moment, then he touched with his index finger the cross which was suspended from his neck. It was to serve as a protection, as long as he was in the right path. He was still alive thanks to this man, so he must assume it was protecting him, because he was Steven’s path. “I will go with you.” Steven said.
“Excellent.” Tom said, sounding than a little like Mr. Burns from the show the Simpsons. Steven wasn’t sure if this was intentional or not, but he guessed it didn’t really matter much. They walked out to the car, and Steven looked in the backseat, surprised to see a young boy and girl in the backseat.
A smile crossed Tom’s face and he chuckled, “My children, Steven. You see? I never lied.” Steven had no idea what he was talking about, and just for a moment he allowed himself to just think about how he just decided to join a mad man, in a quest for “fate.” Then, he pushed the thought from the back of his mind, knowing that when he slept tonight he would surely see the lady in his dreams (but she would not come that night, nor the night after.) As they started driving away from Steven’s past he place his headphones on his ears, and drifted.




Volume IV
Above the Law


marcus, you’re a broken man, he told himself looming over the dead body, the bloody dagger still in his hand. Tears run down his cheeks as he stripped the body, taking the man’s clothes. He pulled the badge out from his pocket and stared at it. He backed up and looked at the statue of the man holding the flag above him. He threw the man’s police vest on and held the badge up at it. “Look now, I’m a cop again.”
A man walked down from the empty street and in a shock muttered his name, “Marcus? What has become of you.”
Marcus mistook the man for the one he met that day long past, on a snowy street corner. Soon after he had found a security camera had seen the man drag the body into a dumpster. When Marcus saw the footage, he knew that it was the man he had spoke with earlier that night, that he had killed the man in the dumpster. That was almost a year ago now. Since then, Marcus had gradually lost his sanity. His life was taken away. They took his gun, his uniform, and his badge. The badge was what hurt him most. He longed to have it back. As he held the dead cops badge in his hands, he felt it wasn’t the same as his, but it was indeed a badge. He spoke to the man he thought was Tom. “You have driven me insane. Do you know that?”
The man who had used to live by Marcus before he lost his job and was forced to move was unaware Marcus didn’t know who he was. “What are you doing Marcus? I that a body? What have you done?”
Marcus was crying and smiling at the same time, “You know I am a descendent of the man in this statue. He was a great man of war, and so shall I!” He reached out with the already bloody dagger and stabbed the man in the chest. The man stuttered backwards, then ran away in fear.
Marcus knelt before the statue and let his tears flow. He held the knife in his hand and seriously considered killing himself there, then he stood up and walked over to his car, a 2000 blue Durango, and sat inside. He turned on his stereo. The radio was playing the song Hypnotize by System of a Down. He turned the music as loud as it would go.
He sang along in an eerie half crying way, then he shifted the car into drive and drove away from the statue where he killed the random innocent officer. His spiral into darkness truly began that day. He drove onward down the road. He took a left onto a road that crossed a walking path through the woods. He slowed down crossing the path.
That was when he heard the gunshot. Then everything was black.






Marcus woke up much later, still in his car. It wasn’t dark out anymore. Bright sunlight was shining in through the car windows. He soon realized that his car wasn’t where he remembered though. He looked up to find another a building. It looked like a saloon from an old western. On the building written on a bold sign were the words, “The Zeus.”
He turned his head and looked to his left, there was a hole in his car window where a bullet had passed, but no broken glass on the floor, and there was no hold inside the car, just the window. He reached up and felt his head and pulled his hand back, but there was no blood on it. He tried to turn his car on, but it wouldn’t start. “What in God’s name happened.”
He opened his car door, and looked out. The ground was covered in a black flowers. He stepped out crushing one of them, and he walked his way up to the bar. He thought about knocking on the door, but then felt it was better to just walk in. As he walked in the man at the counter spoke to him, “Ah, so you’re finally here.”
“Do I know you?” Marcus asked him.
“You will quite well soon.” The man told him. “I’m Mort, nice to meet you. I believe this is yours.” He pulled out a badge from under the counter.
Marcus couldn’t speak for a moment then he uttered out in a raspy voice, “This is mine. This is my old police badge. How could you get this?”
Mort laughed his sophisticated laugh. “That’s unimportant right now. We have work to do, and lots of it.”



Volume V
The Purging


Already the disease had spread through the lands. Anna and her family lived on the outskirts in a small Piyan village known as, Therylle. She already had two of her good friends isolated in their homes, when her father came down with it. Her mother died giving birth last year, so her father was left alone to watch over her and her baby brother, Will.
She’d been watching Will when he came home sick from work at midday. Schooling had been canceled because of the plague. All of the officials were trying to keep it from spreading, but everyone knew it was too late to stop. This would most likely be the worst plague in the history of all Piyan. The doctors that remained well enough to work, informed people to stay home, there was nothing they could do to help. They just had to drink lots of water and avoid infecting other people.
The disease had yet to be given an official name, but it had been given names by the people. The most popular was gray man’s sickness, because the people with it usually turned gray before they died, and it seemed no one with the disease was surviving through it.
She knew what this meant, if her father had it surely, she would catch it soon. For a week her father locked himself in his room. He hardly ate or drank, and his skin had become very pale. She had still shown no symptoms, but on the eighth day after Anna’s father came home with the symptoms, Will began to get very sick.
One day Anna left him in his crib that her parents had built together for Anna when they found out her mother was pregnant. She came back and found Will dead. She broke down and gave up. She was going to kill herself to be with everyone else that had died after that. She entered a dark trance, and all she could see was the blackness.
That was when she heard his voice. It was Will’s. Still he held to life, a baby, suffering from the disease that had killed so many. She tried to talk to her father and keep him updated, but he wasn’t himself anymore. He was delirious most of the time. She was still one of the few still unaffected.
When her father died, it struck her hard, but not nearly as hard as the time she thought she found Will dead. That was how life had become. She was alone watching her sick baby brother. Until the day after her father’s death, when she too finally contracted the deadly symptoms.
From that point on, all the time she felt unbearable pain. She was trying so hard to protect Will, but he slept most the day. When he was awake to cry it was a sickening sound that made her feel worse. Why him? I’d give my life in an instant for him! She thought, but she would only have to hear the cries another two nights after that.
Two nights later a man, dressed all in white, came to take the child, and she was hardly still alive. Anna’s vision had become a fog, and she could barely see him in the room with her. Then she heard Will’s cries. She opened her eyes to the stranger in her midst. He was dressed all in white with a hood covering his face. Brightness emanated from him and all she could see was his maddeningly white smile. With Anna’s dying strength she reached out and grabbed the arm, and uttered from her swollen throat, “Don’t take him. He’s all I have.”
The stranger in white placed his hand on Anna’s shoulder and whispered in her ear, “But, you must thank me, for I save him.” The he touched her and she went back to the black void she had the night she thought she had found him dead. The last words she heard, “You must find them and join them, but you will have to make a choice one day. Now rest young girl. You have trials ahead.”
Then the darkness caught her and she subsided.






When she woke she didn’t know how long had passed, she was surprised to find she felt better, not entirely, but she knew she was indeed getting over the sickness. She looked to her right to make sure her encounter hadn’t been a sick dream, that the man was real, but she always knew it was. She supposed it was better then finding a body there, but she didn’t even want to think about that. Will was everything, all she had left, and she had to get him back now.
She tried to stand up with difficulty, she walked and managed to open the door and found, bodies scattered in the lawns outside, a few holes had been started, as if attempting burial, but most people either got too sick or gave up. Bodies were everywhere. She wondered if everyone felt the blackness she did or if it was the mad man’s touch.
She rest a while, then drug her father’s body out to join his friend’s in life. She did not try to bury him. She knew she had to begin her pursuit for Will. Honoring the dead is important, but secondary to saving the living. She closed her father’s eyes, and hesitated a moment. Then she knew her father would want her to go after Will instead of wasting her time with him.
So she walked on down the road of the village she had lived her whole life, Therylle, searching for the ones the man of the bright white spoke of. If no one else fate would lead her.




Volume VI
Forming of the Legion



Tom, Stephen, Randy, and Michelle had rode on down the highway running since the day Steven joined them. Randy and Michelle were Tom’s children, Randy was nine and Michelle was seven.
It had been a month since Tom had saved Steven from Todd. Still he had not dreamt. He had trouble sleeping at night even when they did stop to stay at a decent hotel.
Even though they had rode together for a month, Tom and Steven hadn’t talked much, and not at all about the night when Tom found him fighting for his life. They had picked up a car charger for Steven’s iPod and he spent most of his time in the car listening to it.
This day Tom felt it was time to bring back old ghosts. “Who was she to you really Steven? The girl that…. That the monster killed.”
Steven took the headphones from his ears, “She was my girlfriend.” He told him, “My first one really…”
There was a silence for a moment before Tom said, “Well why’s that?” Steven didn’t understand. He just kept staring at him, waiting for an explanation. Tom finally picked up. “Well, yeah, I mean you’re not bad looking or anything. Sure, just get the braces off and you’ll be a stud.”
This conversation was making Steven feel awkward so he started putting his headphones back in his ears.
“All I’m saying, is don’t worry too much, man. You’ll find another. Trust me.”
Steven turned his attention back to his iPod. Since the time Tom had extended his invitation, Steven had slowly lost his faith in the mysterious stranger. He drew his attention back to his music. As his song finished a single word flashed across the screen “Trust.” As quickly as it had appeared it was gone, and soon Boulevard Of Broken Dreams was in it’s place. He tried to back up to see it again, but it was gone. He knew he had no song called “Trust” in his library.
He thought to tell Tom, knowing he should, but he did not. There was no exact way to explain why he didn’t. This was his. His secret, and his to use and guard.
That night they stayed in a Holiday Inn. The night was ordinary, but the morning was unforgettable.




Steven woke to the sound of panic. The man he had traveled with was tearing apart their hotel room in search of that which he had lost. sheets and pillows were tossed across the room in a mad frenzy.
“What’s wrong with you?” Steven shouted.
Tom paused for a moment, then looked at him showing the tears in his eyes, “They’re gone, Steven. Someone took them.”




The car was cruising as Tom drove crazily down the interstate. Steven, feeling helpless and isolated from the whole situation, once again listened to his iPod. He never really knew the children that well, and he had never even noticed Tom bonding with them since he had come with. This indeed showed a parent’s will. He wondered if his parents might be similar at home, but he found it hard to believe.
Steven pushed back the headphones from his ears and asked the question that he had been waiting to for a long time. “Tom, it’s time to give up. Just tell me. What happened.”
Tom accelerated down the road, “Well Steven, I must say I don’t understand what you mean.”
“You aren’t fooling me. It’s too late now. I know you believe in fate. It’s your time to step up to the base. No more hiding. It’s meant for you to tell me, so you have to.”
For a second Steven realized that if this man was truly insane and depressed about his children, he might have just crashed the car to end it. However, he didn’t think Tom would do that, at least not yet. Just when he thought Tom would never answer he began his terrible and frightening story.



Almost one year ago now, Tom had walked the city streets. He had left his two kids at home, to run to dinner. Ordinary night, ordinary dinner. Yet, he could not shake an ominous feeling.
He felt like a child again. As he stood staring at Bart’s Mart, where his life would change forever, he thought about turning around, going home. Then he thought of his children. He often acted like the tough man, but he loved them more than life itself, to see them suffer was more than he could bear.
So on he walked, to his destiny, over groceries and pride. It never occurred to him, maybe it was never his choice, but fate’s. He never liked to feel that powerless.
As he took his first step on the cold concrete, he felt a chill reach up through his shoe all the way up his body. As he looked forward, there was a man emptying garbage into a dumpster. He didn’t think much of it. He kept walking towards the door, but he felt like he wasn’t getting closer. As he got closer, he could no longer control himself.
The rest of his memory was a daze. What he recalled as he told his story to Steven was seeing a man clothed in white. He held a gun out to Tom and told him one thing clear in a blurry memory, “Fate smiles upon you, Thomas.”
Then he saw nothing, but only heard gunfire.
The next thing he remember he was holding a 9mm pistol. Blood actually ran from the barrel as he held it for a moment, then it stopped. In a frenzy, he holstered the gun in his belt and grabbed the body stuffing it into the dumpster.
He looked at the ground to see a bag containing the exact groceries he had set out to purchase. He picked them up and began to head for home.
It was then that he encountered a rather ignorant police officer by the name of Marcus, still quite of sane mind at the time. He narrowly dodged him. Frighteningly enough he felt this was a solely due to fate. He continued home and ditched town. The one things he clearly knew about his experience was that although he did not know the man he killed. It was fate that he had to do it.
It turned out a tape was found by the police. Tom was very interested in seeing what was on the tape since he was unsure of what happened himself. The law drew ever closer on them, and they were forced into fleeing constantly.
Over time Tom had begun to dream, and his most recent had told him to stop in a town called Maderstill. To a specific house. Inside he found a teenager being attacked by monster named Todd. The rest is history.



Steven listened with interest to Tom’s tale. He felt ashamed of ever feeling anything against this man as he poured out his emotions for him. There was clearly something insane about him, but it was something he could relate to in a way.
He looked down at his iPod. The song once called Stay Together for the Kids, had become “Turn Right for the Kids“. There was an exit ahead on the interstate. Without thinking Steven shouted, “Turn right, now!”
Tom was confused, “What? Why?”
Steven suddenly felt panicked of some reason. “Just trust me!” The car turned right.
They turned and went straight wordlessly. Nobody else got off of at the intersection. It was as if it didn’t exist to anyone else. It was just a straight path, but at the end there was a helicopter.
It stood awaiting then. “Why, Steven?” was all Tom asked.
Steven raised his head up and told him, “Fate. That is why.” That’s all tom had to hear.
He opened the door, “Then Steven,” He stood up now and looked back at him, “wait here.” With that he slammed the door on him and began walking towards the helicopter.
As he approached the door opened, but Steven could not see anyone inside. Tom entered and the door shut behind him.
Steven waited for what seemed like hours, staring at the helicopter waiting for any sign of what happened to his possibly psychotic comrade, if that’s what you’d call him. He stopped listening to his iPod and charged it. He thought he might need the batteries more later.
Suddenly the chopper started. The blades started spinning and the helicopter started lifting off of the ground. Steven pushed open his door, grabbed his iPod in his left hand, and bolted out of the car. With his right hand he shielded his eyes from the Sun as he looked towards the flying steel that carried Tom within it. Then Steven had a sick feeling, he knew, just knew something was inside that got Tom. For a moment he thought it was Todd back from the dead. It’s true that Todd lived on in Steven’s fears. Yet, as the helicopter took off it flew towards Steven and when the door opened it was just Tom inside.
The man lied on the ground his arm hanging down towards Steven and he told him “Fear not son, this vessel of fate is headed towards the other world.” Steven did not know what Tom was talking about, but he stretched his arm out towards him. Steven’s hand barely linked with Tom’s left, and he felt himself being pulled off of the ground. He tried, but couldn’t get his leg over. Tom grabbed Steven’s arm with both of his trying to pull him up. All the while the chopper flew higher up. Steven was sure that if he fell now, he’d be lucky to suffer a broken leg. The helicopter changed direction and caused Steven to swing then bang his head on the hard metallic beast. If not for his strong determination to live he would have been knocked out in an instant.
Tom got to his knees and pulled the teenage boy with all his might, sweat dripping down his face. Steven looked up, blood was flowing from his head down across his face now. He swung himself enough to get a leg inside then managed to pull himself up. All his strength gone he collapsed on the floor. He managed to look towards the front of the helicopter and saw that there was no pilot.
There was a large thump on the wall next to where Steven’s head had been resting that made him jump. Suddenly, the noises were all around them. Whatever they were hitting the helicopter on every side. “What is that?” asked Steven.
Tom let out a deep sigh then said, “I’m not sure.”
Then there was a flurry of them that hit the window. The bodies stayed where they hit.
“They are…” Steven began.
“Crows.” Tom finished.
Flurries upon flurries hit them. Cracks began to show in the windows and Steven feared that they would break. Tom didn’t fear anymore. What happened would happen. As each body hit the walls it made a sickening crunch their skulls broke trying to break through the walls and windows.
Suddenly a bright white light shined through all the windows and they shattered sending dead bodies of mangy birds with them. That was the last thing Steven could remember.





Steven awoke hours later. He was being shook awake. At first he figured it was Tom, but the hands were smaller and weaker, but all the same determined. He coughed and turned up to see a woman about his own age. “Where am I?” he asked.
“Sector 8,” she told him.
Steven looked over and saw Tom on his back unconscious. He got on his feet and shook Tom awake. Tom found it interesting that Tom reacted almost exactly the same way that he had. Tom rolled over to his stomach and got to his knees. “I think your beast is dead.” she told him.
“What?” Tom asked, but she didn’t have to answer. She just pointed forward, and Steven turned around to see the mangled image of their ride there. It was hardly a shattered piece of steel now with blood spotting the outside, from the crows and possibly even some of their own. “yeah, dead.” he muttered. He turned back to the woman, “You said Sector 8? Where is that?”
“You mean you don’t know? It’s northern Piyan.” she told him.
Steven was more confused then ever, “What is Piy…” he started but Tom interrupted him.
“It’s the other world Steven.” Steven was still confused but he stayed quiet. He stared at the woman. Now that the immediate sense of panic had passed he could examine her. She was indeed a good looking woman, Steven would have almost said beautiful. He was immediately drawn to her eyes. Meanwhile Tom continued, “What’s your name?”
The girl hesitated a moment, perhaps wondering if she felt they were trustworthy. She looked back towards Steven and saw him blush a moment. She looked into his eyes and knew she could trust them. “My name is Anna. I’m looking for my brother. Disease struck my village and someone took him in chaos.”
“Sick.” Steven said. He sounded slightly dazed, but it was hard to tell if it was from Anna or the shock of entering a new world.
“It’s fate that brought us together.” Tom said. “We must band together.”
“I really have to…” Anna started, but Tom wouldn’t let her finish what she was about to say.
“And we shall help you find your brother.”
She looked back at Steven still intrigued by him. “Okay.” She said.
Tom looked up towards the sky, “Then today we form a legion.”
Steven looked down by his feet and saw a dead crow’s body in the grass. He pushed it away with the tip of his shoe. Then he looked up and said, “The Legion of the Crow.”
Tom smiled and said, “Yes, The Legion of the Crow.” Then the newly formed Legion began their journey south.