July 7, 2009
11:00 GST: Anomaly 1 appears out of the ocean on the coast of Brazil
14:00 GST: Anomaly 2 is sighted several miles in the ocean to the south of South Africa
16:00 GST: All contact is lost with South Africa and Lesotho
16:30 GST: Broken transmissions from Swaziland convey news of an invasion from the south by troops that are reportedly “not quite human”
17:00 GST: Satellite flybys find much of southern Africa obscured a black haze
19:00 GST: Barrier reinforcements are completed in Israel, Yemen, and southern Spain. The Mark War begins.
Five years had passed since the start of the Mark War; while relations between the human governments and the Marked, as they came to be called, had not advanced enough to determine the nature of the enemy or even their reason for attacking, the war raged on. Matt Kenton was living in Haven, the United State’s command center in the Mark War. Matt wandered home through the too-clean city streets, going home from school. Looking up at the white buildings rising around him, the afternoon sunlight glaring on the new paint and glinting on windows, he could not believe how all the tourists around him were so taken in by the façade painted on the already-decaying city. As Matt turned off of the main road, the glaring sunlight faded behind him. The glaring white paint faded to grimy brick, and the staring tourists were replaced by drunks passed out in gutters and homeless people camped in cardboard tents. A few more turns brought him to a crumbling apartment building. For what seemed like the millionth time in the life he could remember in Haven, Matt ascended the rusty stairs outside the building, pushed open the creaky door to his room – the lock had never worked – tossed his backpack on the floor of cracked tile, and flopped down on the couch. Turning his head a little, he looked around the dingy room. The old floral wallpaper was faded and peeling. There had probably been furniture besides the couch and lamp at some point, but it had all been stolen, thrown out or burned during the cold Philadelphia winter. It would not have really mattered if there had been a phone; Matt usually got into fights at school. Matt got up, banged on the thin wall to shut up his neighbors – they were yelling at each other about something trivial again – and walked back over to his backpack to take out the novel he had checked out from the library. The television had been stolen before Matt had even arrived in the tenement, and the special necessities allowance from the local government definitely did not leave him enough to buy a computer. Matt lay down on the sagging couch, turned on the dim floor lamp, and did what he did almost every night – he read, and lost himself in the story of another person, in another place, with better chances than his.
Matt jerked awake in his room, the lamp still throwing shadows on the floor and the open book lying on his chest. He sat up slowly, squinting as he rubbed his stiff neck and shrugged the tingling sensation out of his arms. Looking out the apartment’s single window, he saw that a slim crescent moon was already rising over the skyline of Haven, turning the usually shining buildings into towering shadows. “Oh crap,” he muttered to himself, running his hand through his sandy brown hair, “I forgot to go to the distribution station. Maybe they’re still open…” He opened the door and stood shivering in the brisk breeze winding through the skyscrapers of the city. After thoroughly lamenting his own lack of a jacket, he descended to street level and set out towards the nearest distribution station. While the distribution station was normally bustling with the homeless looking for food, it was now completely empty except for one bored-looking attendant. Matt strolled towards the yellow light spilling from the window of the station. As Matt entered the pool of sodium light, the attendant gave him a look of recognition. “Hey, it’s you again. What are you doing out so late?” Matt responded, “I fell asleep again.” The attendant looked indifferent. “Well, whatever. Here, have some of Haven’s finest.” Matt gave a wry smile as he took the offered Styrofoam bowl of weak soup. The attendant looked at him with concern, and said, “You know, you really shouldn’t be out by yourself. You know what the city’s like at night.” Matt did know. Killers, psychos, the occasional riot, anything you could care to name. “I know, I know,” he sighed, “I’ll try not to do it again.” He wandered towards home, sipping the soup and tossing the bowl aside in an alley. As he entered the main road from the alley, he leaned against a building and stared up at the sky. The crescent moon and handful of visible stars were almost completely hidden by the skyline of the city. As Matt stood enjoying the rare quiet of the night, something caught his eye on the top of a building across the street. A dark silhouette perched unnaturally on the spire of one of the city’s many skyscrapers, rich black against the white light of the moon. Matt blinked his eyes a few times, thinking he must be tired, and when he looked back up at the skyscraper, the figure was gone. I need more sleep, he thought to himself, and set out for his apartment.
As Matt reentered the maze of dark alleys winding through most of the city, he felt the back of his neck and hands prickle. He whipped around, wide-eyed, though he was not exactly sure what he expected to find. Seeing only an empty alley, with cold moonlight streaming in from the open street, he sighed to himself, “I really am tired.” He slowly turned back to face the shadowy alleyway and found himself staring at something he only recognized from the large news-screens set up around the city. The cloaked figure in front of him could have easily passed for a human, except for one thing – where a human’s forehead would be, a strange blue character, really nothing more than a simple design, glowed and flickered like an eerie methane flame over a stagnant swamp. Matt staggered back in shock, unable to believe that the Marked were in America. “H-He-Help…” he stuttered, but he realized that there would be no police to save him. Even if there were, they might not be able to do anything. Only Channelers could kill Marks. The creature in front of Matt dropped into a feral crouch and flung himself at Matt. Matt could only throw up his arm in front of his face before the monster reached him. As he did, a flash of light appeared before him and the monster fell backwards with a yelp like a dog’s. Matt stared at his hand. What was that? was all he had time to think before a small shadow flashed forth from the Mark’s cloak, piercing Matt’s shoulder. Matt gasped and fell back, seeing his own blood fly through the air before him in slow motion, and landed with a pitiful splash in a puddle of water. Matt’s vision flickered like bad film as a black circle closed in on the sliver of sky visible between the towering buildings above and the chill water soaked through the back of Matt’s shirt. This isn’t right. Why is that thing here? Why did I have to find it? Matt’s head tilted back on the cold, hard concrete, and he passed out staring at another cloaked figure, this one with a radiant lance in hand and a halo of moonlight around its head.
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Ok, there's the first part of my story. Before you harp on me, please keep in mind that this version has had zero editing. Also, it may need a new title, seeing as the current one (Eldritch Dawn) means absolutely nothing in the context of the story. Given that the story will eventually develop strong religious references and overtones, generally in a more mythical and rather unconventional manner, what would you suggest as a title?
