Upon the Wings of Death (contest entry)

This is something I whipped up for the Atlanta Writer's Club's annual writing contest. It is a revamped version of something I wrote for a writing prompt on Reddit over a year ago, but I thought you guys might want to read it.

Upon the Wings of Death

Fiction Category

Time was a funny thing. When you wanted things to happen, time dragged on like a snail hauling an elephant. Those hands of the clock just never moved fast enough. But when you needed more time, everything just went by so fast. Even faster when you knew that those second hands were counting down all the time you had left.

The world had ended six years ago, but humans were too damn stubborn to just give up, lay down, and die. Even when there was no point to it, when the devastation to the planet’s ecosystem had cone beyond repair, they fought. A hopeless battle, but one they fought anyways. Yet, in the end, the end of the world overtook them all the same.

One could not hold off Death forever.

It hadn’t started out being the end of the world, of course. Well, not this end of the world. When you live in a world of people who have superhuman abilities, whether it be some kind of mutation, or magic, or alien DNA, or technology surpassing that of most countries, there’s always going to be a world-ending threat. Sometimes it is the would-be despot. Sometimes it is a madman who just wants to see the world burn. And sometimes it is an invasion from another world, or beyond the stars.

The Xrand were an alien race that consumed everything they came in contact with, turning that biomass into new drones controlled by their Overmind. They would strip a planet bare, and then move on, world after world falling to their unending appetites. When they were spotted coming out of the cold dark of space, heading for Earth, there was panic, as refugees from species that had lost their homeworlds told humanity about the true nature of this threat. In desperation, everyone looked for something, ANYTHING that could change the inevitable fate.

When all hope seemed lost, the Archmage read from the pages of the Darkchylde Tapestry. The cursed tome contained power beyond measure, but reading a single page aloud could open a pathway to the minds of the ancient powers beyond time that had penned those words, trading one’s sanity for power. The Archmage read the entire book, all five hundred pages of it. And in his last moments of sanity before madness and the will of the Ancient One overcame him, he amplified his newfound power a thosandfold using the ley lines and the ancient stones of Stonehenge, and unleashed a spell of unparalleled power, wiping the entire Xrand species from existence itself, banishing them to the darkest corners of unreality.

In that instant, the world was saved, and damned. For the dark powers twisted the Archmage, and turned him into the Lich King Acheron, a necromancer the likes of which had never before walked the earth. And, in his madness, Acheron unleashed the Curse of Undeath, and the residents of Larkhill, all two thousand of them, died, and rose again, the first of the horde of undead to stalk the English countryside.

The Undead were a plague, from the very instant of their creation. One bite, one scratch, was enough to pass on the Curse, and condemn the hapless victim to join the ranks of the living dead. The British military met the growing horde at Basingstoke, and were consumed. But their sacrifice in holding the line allowed the supers of Britain to call in reinforcements from across the world. When the horde marched on London, the greatest battle the world had ever known began.

The battle raged on, night and day, as the military and the world’s strongest heroes held the line. Even those counted as villains joined the fight, for they could see what the tide of death meant for their own ambitions. But every time one of their comrades fell, they would rise again as the undead, and turn upon their former allies. Yet, in the end, the Lich King fell. For, as the Sentinels, Earth’s mightiest team of defenders, fell to the undead and Acheron’s dark powers, an assassin struck, and claimed the Lich King’s head.

If that were the end of things, then all would have been well. But that was not the way of things. Without their master, the Undead became feral, mindless, seeking only to find all life, and end it. Worse, it soon became clear that when a superhuman fell to the horde, they retained their powers after death. The only reason England lasted the week after the Lich King’s fall was because the undead, while they may have kept their powers, were still mindless creatures, and could not use those powers to their full effect.

England fell that first month. The horde did not remain in England, though, and began spreading across Europe, and the world. Citadels and safe havens sprouted up as people looked for any fortifications that might serve them against the undead. By the end of the first year, Europe was dead, save for a few holdout enclaves, and Asia was falling. The casualty figures were too terrible to believe. By all accounts, over a billion people had died, and more were dying each day, each one rising and joining the horde.

Six years, the war against the dead had been waged. Six years, the world had fought the losing battle. Paris was the first Enclave to fall, in the second year of the war. Survivors around the world mourned as they saw satellite images of the nuclear fire that was the Parisian Resistance’s last resort should their defenses fall at last. Those same survivors knew despair when the nuclear fire was not enough to wipe out the horde. The undead cared little for radiation, so if they were not destroyed outright, then a nuclear strike did nothing to them. It was a cruel irony that Man had enough weapons to kill the world several times over, and yet those weapons could not save them when the dead were coming for them.

Now, in the last Enclave, beneath Cheyenne Mountain in what had once been the United States, the Necromancer’s Bane, the villain known as Iceblade, watched the massive door designed to hold off a nuclear strike with a grim expression on his face. The Hong Kong Enclave had fallen just yesterday. Their screams as the undead breached their defenses and began to feed were haunting him, haunting every living soul on the base. Everyone knew that this Enclave would not last long. But even though the light was failing, and night had almost come, humans weren’t wired to simply accept their fate.

The massive steel door rung like a gong. And then again. One of the fallen supers with super-strength must have arrived as part of the horde. The door was made to withstand a nuclear strike, but Iceblade could already tell that it was a manner of time. The door would fall, and the undead would snuff out what was left of humanity. The only question was whether the last humans alive would have enough time to change their fate, one last time.

From the moment the End became clear, the Enclaves had worked ceaselessly on finding a way to change their fate. The death of all life on Earth became a certainty the moment the Lich King read from the Darkchylde Tapestry, but simply going back and changing that would leave the Earth at the mercy of the Xrand. So, two great research projects had been launched. One to turn back the hands of time, and the other to find a way to destroy the Xrand without the Archmage becoming the Lich King. The Hong Kong enclave had finished their work mere days before the end, and transmitted their blueprints through the still working satellite network. It was here, in this bunker, that fate would be changed.

Iceblade shook his head as he turned and walked with purpose down towards the lower levels. Why was he, a villain, chosen to go back? Because he was a survivor. There were others who were stronger, more powerful, more intelligent than he was, but, in the end, what mattered was surviving long enough to get the plans into the hands of someone who could make a difference, and prevent Acheron from reading the Tapestry. In one hour, he would get his chance. If they had an hour.

He had just gotten to the deepest part of the base, buried well underneath the mountain, when he heard the alarm. Red lights began flashing, and a voice came over the speakers. “THE DOOR IS BREACHED! THE DOOR IS BREACHED! THEY’RE COMING THROUGH!” And then the sounds of gunfire, screaming, and dying began.

Stepping out of the elevator, Iceblade looked at the guards in the hall. “Everyone pull back to the final room. I’ll do what I can to slow them down.” His blood was like ice, as he considered what he was about to do. There was no stopping the dead now. All he could do was cause them enough trouble that it would buy the time for the ritual to be completed. He took a deep breath, and then let the power flow through him. Slowly, carefully, he walked the halls of the lowest sublevel, filling them with solid blocks of ice. For the normal zombies, that would be a barrier that would last well after they had died from the cold or lack of oxygen. Even the super-strong one would have trouble breaking through foot after foot after foot of ice. Ice could not compare to steel in terms of quality for making a wall, but sometimes quantity had a quality all its own. If all they had to worry about was super-strength, then they would have enough time.

In that final room, a supervillain stood and looked at what remained of the United States military, and Cardcaster, the last Mage alive. The ritual was complex, and they only had enough power to send a single person back. The General in charge of the base stepped in front of him, holding the case in one hand. Iceblade knew what it contained. All the research on the weapon they had devised to defeat the Xrand, all the terrible history of what had happened to this world. With all the solemnity of a color ceremony at a soldier’s grave, the General handed him the case. As one, the soldiers saluted.

It was against his character. He was a thief and an assassin, who committed crimes for the thrill and sense of adventure as much as the money. But how could he not respond to such an act? With a grim look upon his face, he brought himself to his best attempt at attention, and returned the salute. These men and women, the last souls on Earth, deserved his best effort, now, at the end.

He took a breath as he released the salute, and pulled his mask back over his face. Cardcaster looked up as he approached the circle, her lifeblood flowing from her opened wrists as she began the final incantations that would take him from this doomed world, to one that still had hope. Her eyes met his, and he saw in them the nights they’d spent together as they waited for the end, taking what pleasure they could when her research was finished. The spell had been ready a year ago. They had waited this long only so that he would have the Weapon they needed to keep all of this from happening. She smiled sadly at him, a single tear tracing its way down her face as she spoke the words of power, unable to even stop long enough to tell him goodbye.

The room shook, and dust fell from the ceiling. Looking up, Iceblade swore as he saw cracks beginning to form. The undead could not simply smash through the ice, so they decided to smash the floor instead! Damn it all! They were so close! He reached for his blade, but the General shook his head. “Belay that, son. This is our time. We’ll hold them long enough. You just make it count.”

“Aye, aye, Sir. Give them hell.” He turned back to Cardcaster as her words began reaching a crescendo, her life force itself adding to the power of the ritual she had devised. Her body began to glow with golden light, as she was lifted up from the ground, spread eagle, the circle and runes around her shining with the color of blood. And then with a last, triumphant word, she completed the ritual, just as the ceiling gave way where the soldiers were preparing. Her body exploded into light, becoming a circular portal hanging in the air.

Iceblade grit his teeth. There would be time to mourn later. For her, for the soldiers, for all the human race. For his family. But now was not the time! With a roar of defiance at the gods of Death and Fate themselves, Iceblade cast himself into the rift, flinging himself outside of time and space with nothing more than the last desperate hope of a dying world that the past could yet be unwritten.

*** *** *** *** ***

The energy of the rift ripped and tore at me, body and soul. The pain was terrible, but the images were worse. Past, present, future, all of it was there, with all the might have beens and never weres and might yet bes, all twisting and turning about themselves out of all order, jumbled and colliding inside my mind. It might have been a moment, or a thousand years, because time had no meaning here. Eventually, the torment came to an end, and the twisting lights of the rift became white light once more.

The portal cast me out into an unfamiliar space. Without thinking, I gripped the case to his chest, and curled in the air to demolish the kitchen table I just hit with my shoulder, rather than the case. Groaning, I opened his eyes, only to be looking into the business end of a very big gun from an inch away.

“You so much as breathe wrong, and you’re a dead man.”

 That voice. I knew that voice. It had been six years since he’d heard it, though. I coughed, and tasted blood. Probably didn’t get through that landing as easily as I thought I did, but after the pain of the rift, I wasn’t feeling anything right now. Shock. That was it. No, can’t think about that. Have to make this happen. Everything depended on it.

My eyes focused on The Gunslinger, one of the Sentinels. A glance told him that the others were here, too. They had never known exactly where or when the portal would take him. That was part of the reason they needed someone who was a survivor, in case he ended up in some godforsaken hellscape, or worse, New Jersey. Instead, it looked like he’d dropped in on the Sentinels’ main base. Lovely.

“What is the date?”

Indomitable, invulnerable, super-strong prick that he was, growled, “What the hell are you doing here, bastard? Don’t think you’re getting away this time!” OK, that narrowed it down. Must be after one of the times I embarrassed the hell out of the Sentinels when they tried to capture me. Well, fuckity-fuck, that was going to make things difficult.

“What. Is. The. Date? It is important.”

The Gunslinger, never once taking his eyes off me, said, “June 23rd, 2017.”

I sighed in relief. It had worked! Ten years back in time! Looking back at the Gunslinger, I said, “Four years from now, an alien fleet is going to threaten the earth. The fleet is going to be stopped, but the cost of doing that unleashed the Apocalypse. I’ve been sent back to try and stop it from happening, because otherwise every soul on earth is going to die.”

“Why should we believe you?”

I turned to see Lady Superior, the leader of the Sentinels, looking down at me in her skin-tight costume that left nothing to the imagination. It was so strange, seeing all these dead people alive again. No, that’s the shock and coming down from the adrenaline. Keep it together. Keep it… oh, probably hurt worse than I thought. I could feel more of my body now. Table fucked me up. Head’s all fuzzy. Who’d have thunk that ripping causality a new one would be dangerous? Oh, right. Everyone. Looked like I’d be seeing Cardcaster sooner than I thought.

“In the case… plans. Combination eight six seven *cough* five three oh nine. Make it count.”

As the lights went out, the last thing I heard was people calling my name.