Prologue

Anthony sat on the deck of his home with his wife, watching the trees of the neighbourhood sway in the cool summer breeze. In their retirement, this had become a simple yet tranquil routine. Anthony didn't mind though. He was perfectly content to live out the last few years of his life in calm serenity with the one he loved. As the ringing of his tinnitus drowned out the sound of rustling leaves, he once again found himself dazed and deafened as he watched two of his comrades roll on the ground burning in agony after being caught in a napalm bombing run. The smell of burnt human flesh had never truly left him, nor had the words his superiors had used to describe the poor souls. "Acceptable losses". The burn scar that ran from his lower jaw to his ear felt like it was lit afire again, and his body tensed up on instinct.

Janet took his hand into hers and gave a light squeeze. Anthony took a sharp breath and looked to her before he eased back into his chair. Sixty five years of being woken up by screaming and crying in the dead of night had better attuned her to his panic attacks, to the point of her seemingly being the only one capable of calming him. She didn't resent him for years of worry and sleepless nights. If anything, they only strengthened her appreciation of her husband's resolve to protect that which he loved.

Most of the men he had fought with had cracked under the pressure of living with what they'd seen. There was statistical talk that more of them had committed suicide upon their return home than had actually died in the war, but Anthony had always distanced himself from those types of conversations. He knew that in the end, that was all that any of them were; just another statistic for politicians to use to further their own agenda. The only thing that kept him from being a part of that statistic himself was the constant reassurance that for all of the ugliness of the world, there was an equal amount of beauty. He looked to Janet as if to reassure himself of that fact.

As a cluster of schoolchildren walked past the house, herded by an overwhelmed schoolteacher, Anthony realized that during his brief reverie the wind had completely stopped. In fact, there was nothing but an uneasy silence filling the air. He would have thought he had gone deaf if a neighbour hadn't shouted to him from his yard to turn on his television and check the news.

"Something isn't right." Janet stated as Anthony ushered her inside. That much had been clear; this suburb hadn't been silent like that in the last forty years they'd lived there. Anthony turned the tv on, and was immediately greeted with an emergency broadcast.

"Massive seismic activity reported at several points across the planet, all equal distance from one another. Dormant volcanoes have begun oozing lava at an alarming rate. Full scale evacuations of the states within the Yellowstone area. Please stand by for a message from the president of the United States. Massive seismic activity at several points across the planet, all..." The message droned on.

"Christ!" Anthony exclaimed as he saw the map detailing the points of origin for the earthquakes. "That one can't be more than a hundred miles from here!"

"Thank God we're not feeling the effects here. I doubt the house could-" Janet was cut off by a sharp test tone from the television.

"My fellow Americans-" The president started, before a series of digital artefacts danced across the screen. "- imminent disaster -" the video stuttered as the glitch occurred again. For a split second, Anthony could swear he saw the shape of a human face Among the screen tearing. "- Armed forces prepared to rescue -" "- Deploy in under two -" "- Remain calm -" The president stuttered through graphical tears and stammered audio. And then in the blink of an eye, the reception was perfectly clear. "We assure you that so long as you cooperate with the rescue teams, you -" 

The president's image begant to distort once again.

"- WwwwwwwwwwiiiiiiiiiiiiilllllllllLLLLLL -"

The image of the president mouthed the word "not", with no sound to match it.

"- DddddddddiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeEEEE-"

The perfectly clear sound of s child's giggle permeated the room through the speakers, before the house abruptly lost power.

And then the quake started.

Anthony reacted a moment too late and found himself face first against the hardwood floor of their front entry hall. Fading in and out of consciousness, he raised his hands above his head in desperation, as if it would offer him any kind of protection. The whole earth seemed to heave as he opened his eyes and found himself seemingly lying on the ceiling, a split second before he was thrown back into the floor. "Hardwood" he thought as everything turned black. "What an accurate name."

When he woke up, he couldn't tell how much time had passed. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to move. He noticed he was pinned beneath a section of the roof and ceiling that had caved in, revealing an orange, sunset-like hue in the sky. That however was the least of his concern, as he was more focused on the giant structure slicing the clouds in two and extending farther in the sky than he could even imagine. A rusted iron tower with shining red and pink sections that seemed to pulse and throb as if they were alive. A tower that seemed to be at least...

"A hundred miles away." Janet finished his thought as she turned to him with tears in her eyes. "What in God's name is happening Anthony?"

"I don't know." He said with strained breaths.

"Oh God!" She screamed as she realized he was being crushed. "Let me get help,.. I'll go get one of the neighbours!" Janet sprinted as fast as her brittle bones would allow into the street. A loud echoing screech from above stopped her dead in her tracks. To her horror she gazed upwards at a murder of crows perched uniformly atop the power lines. One in the centre cocked it's head to the side, preened it's wing, and stared at Janet.

"What-" She gasped as the flock descended on her, knocking her to the ground as the pecked her eyes out and ripped away her flesh. Anthony could do nothing but wheeze pathetically in protest and struggle to free himself. The screaming, the destruction, the smoke rising into the sky... He found himself lying in the mud in the middle of the jungle as a raven plucked the flesh from a corpse. Rising to his feet, he shuffled towards the dead, bloodied man before collapsing only a few feet away. The impact jarred him back into reality as he gazed into the lifeless eyes of the woman he had loved all his life, just before they were plucked away and fought over by a pair of crows. 

Drifting between the past and present within his own mind, he began convulsing. The last thing he felt before blacking out was the acidic taste of bile rising into his throat. In his life, Anthony had known plenty off horror, beauty, love, joy, and fear. 

It was only on this day however that all of his fears were realized.