In the beginning the Void was without form…Until mankind screwed it all up
The year was 2115 near as I can recall the story, about four hundred and twenty-five years ago and life, well life was normal. People had a normal jobs, they lived normal lives, and had a normal families. The world had been at peace then for more than fifty years, or at least there had been no major wars, just little fights here and there; mostly among the countries that still used oil. Here in America we hardly noticed since the development of the nuclear battery; no one really cared about oil anymore. We were all very secure in our technological superiority as our science moved ever forward into the future. Hell we even finally, had flying cars, get that flying cars. Science fiction had been promising those for almost two hundred years. Perhaps that is where the trouble started, science’s belief that the sky was the limit and we no longer had to worry about “what if?” Yes what if. We all found out the what if this time, and it all started out so innocently and with such optimism. Perhaps that is how it always starts, that child like optimism. A belief that you got it all figured out and nothing can go wrong. Oh boy, did it ever go wrong. The whole idea started back in the mid 1900’s when physicists came up with the idea of wormholes. They were supposed to be these great highways to the stars, instantaneously transporting us to the planets and beyond. Sort of a cosmic gateway they thought, to other parts of our universe. Well, they are a gateway alright, but not to where they thought. They called themselves the Colberg Group, a conglomeration of scientists and physicists from America and Europe bent on the creation of teleportation using, you guessed it, wormholes. The Colbergs reasoned that one could create a set of portals and between them establish a stable space time corridor through which to travel. With great media hype and huge multinational funding they strode bravely forward building their first portal in only two years at the mere cost of 14.8 billion Euro. All seemed well, on track, and under control. They had figured it all out and had managed to come up with some rather unique alloys during the development and constriction of the first gate. The thing was huge. About one hundred feet across, big enough for a freight train to pass through. About this time is when the trouble started. They were about 6 billion over budget and had only completed one of two gates. Government funding began to dry up and private industry was also talking about cutting their losses and running. I guess the Colberg Group must have panicked, because they came up with an idea to prove their theory and demonstrate to investors the soundness of their work. They decided to turn it on, to activate the single gate to see if a wormhole would form. Of course to where no one knew, without a matching second gate exactly polarized to the first, the thing could lead anywhere or nowhere. So in front of representatives from nine nations, a hundred corporate heads, world media and about fifty thousand spectators they threw the switch… and the world changed. At first nothing much happened, the device began to glow as power surged through it’s array of capacitors that encircled the giant ring. In the center of the ring amongst stray electrical discharges and flashes of color a tiny black spot began to grow and grow. As the apparition formed and grew, colored streams of light began to course inward and out. A snake like tunnel of light was beginning to form, it must have been a wormhole because it certainly looked like what we all thought one would look like. It continued to grow threatening to stretch beyond the gateway itself. More and more collateral disturbances began to manifest, machinery overloading, power couplings burning out. All the while the engineers tried in vain to shut it down. The wormhole had gained a life of its own as it grew beyond the confines of the gateway finally swallowing it whole. The crowd began to panic as objects, first small then increasing in size began to be swallowed up.
Then all at once it was quiet, the wind settled, things stopped getting swallowed and everything got calm, real calm. The swirling vortex was still there and well over a two hundred feet from side to side. Then something really strange happened, it reversed but not by sending back the few pieces of equipment it swallowed. Something much more terrifying came through, a sort of thick darkness began to emanate form the phenomenon. A strange intangible darkness blocking out the daytime sun, creating a moon lit night. The region of darkness grew rapidly covering the assembled crowd and beyond to the horizon. With it came strange changes to the surrounding desert. Trees that were not there before appeared, so did swamps, insects, grass, and many strange sounds. The smell of rotting vegetation and swamp gasses filled the air as people ran in all directions attempting to outrun the, the whatever it was. Then they came, the strange unworldly beasts like dragons only smaller. They flew from the vortex spreading out across the dark sky. The moon was up, or at least a moon, not like ours, it was as if I was standing on another planet. Had I been drawn into the vortex and immerged on some faraway world millions of light years from earth? As I began to take a more careful look at my surroundings I began to realize this was still the Arizona desert, sort of. Suddenly I was aware of someone grabbing at my arm, no one I knew just a concerned stranger pulling me toward his hover car. In a state of shock I did not resist as he shoved me in the back seat . We lifted off and headed at considerable speed away from the vortex toward distant light and possible safety. Minutes passed as the land whizzed by below and several of those little dragon things swooped at us. Then suddenly we were once more back in the bright desert sunlight and apparently safe. The following weeks brought a media circus of accusations and wild crackpot theories as to what had happened and how. But none of them, not one, could explain the strange beasts that kept being discovered around the world. Some even said that aliens and dragons had began to prowl the earth. The worlds scientists had not explanation for the changes in the countryside, in some places desert was swamp and in others land was sea and mountains valleys. The weather two was slowly becoming unpredictable, freak and very local thunder storms and micro hurricanes where popping up all over the globe, sudden snow flurries in the middle of July, in the middle of the Sahara! As the months turned into years the situation became worse as world wide crop failures, or just strange disappearances of entire farming regions caused mass food shortages. The nations of the world tried to ban together to solve the problem but the old political and social mistrust began to become apparent. Why humanity chose to fight amongst its self in the face of this apocalypse is still a mystery to me. However they did and as the famines worsened and roving hoards of strange creatures roamed the earth, war finally broke out in the world which had known peace for near a generation. Governments of the world were unable to cope with world famine, supernatural occurrences, strange alien technology, and war so they collapsed. As the great nations of the world fell, feudal republics began to spring up everywhere. The great nations of the new millennium were gone and with them the great civilized human race turned once more to barbarism. Self proclaimed kings seized cities and regions of the world setting up feudal systems where once more the strong where free to pray upon the weak. This is my world, a daily fight for survival where strange and supernatural creatures roam the land. A place where technologically altered humans fight for survival along side those who have found new power in the land.
Copyright 2007 John Arnold