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Description
October 10th, 2015
London, England

Verity

A man is born. Some claim him as a prophet, some as a savior. Some say he is a devil. Whoever he was, he changed the face of the Earth forever.

My name is Verity and I was only 10 when this man, Brandon Highreach was claimed the Purifier, the Prophet. I was sitting with my pop watching the tele when an announcement came on, it was that horrible reporter from channel 11 I had always disliked.
He had short, brown hair, and it was always combed with lots of cheap gel. He also had these shining white teeth that I hated because mine weren’t that white. I suppose it’s silly, now, as I write this, that most of my teeth are bloody and rotten, and my hair is a long tangle of weeds filled with sweat, the smell of fear, and blood, not all my own. The reporter was talking about how some of the Vatican priests just found a young man on the streets of Rome babbling about some new faith, how all governments lie and how the Tao is testing us. One thing, however, struck me, and the rest of the world as incredible.
It was a fairly cold day, in the beginning of the Fall, and the sky was overcast and gray, but, for about two feet around this man people reported the weather as sunny and hot, like the middle of summer. They took a camera close to this man, and as the reporter was walking through the crowd, I remember thinking that something was wrong, that something was kind of strange about that, and that I didn’t quite think it was a trick. When the camera got close to this man, the whole screen went really bright, bright enough to hurt my eyes, and the screen went into a visual static. You could, however, still hear the gasps and screaming of the crowd. Then just faintly, you could hear the reporter yelling “Oh God, oh God, not like this! Not fucking like this!” And then there was silence.
Suddenly, the camera was back on, and it looked like thousands of rays of this light, but somehow different colors, while staying golden and genuine, shining out of the tele and strait into my eyes. My pop and I were both entranced by this, and I suppose that most of England was as well. It showed a much younger version of the reporter, with a kind of red aura around him, walking through some high school.
He walked down the hallway, ugly as ever, pushing kids out of his way. He had a cigarette in his mouth, and he blew smoke all over the crowded hallway. As he was about to turn the corner, going god knows where, a dean tried to stop him. He rolled his eyes and tried to push past, apparently in a hurry. The dean, however, was a pretty bulky man, and he pushed right back, so much that the younger reporter almost stumbled back and hit somebody. He tried to push past again, this time putting his shoulder into it and was stopped yet one more time. The dean was calling into his walkie-talkie for the police officer to come and help him with this “delinquent” and the reporter took one last pull on his cigarette and burned it out in the deans eye.
Then there was a lot more static, and then there was a man lying on a hospital bed, presumably  the dean by the body-type and voice as he was screaming “Stop the pain! Please! Anything!” The camera, rays of light, or whatever the hell it was shifted to the side, where two doctors were talking in hushed tones. They were saying that this man had eye cancer, and it had been avoided since he was a child. They thought that he would die soon, and they both looked at the man, and went their separate ways to care for other patients in this abnormally crowded hospital.
The picture shifted again, the reporter was maybe, 10 years older, and it looked like he was in some kind of unemployment office, begging for money. The lady at the desk kept telling him that he isn’t eligible for anymore money. “I need the fucking money! Just tell them that there’s a man here who really needs it!”
“Sir, I’m very sorry, but there just isn’t any way I can get you any more money.”  “You bitch! You damn bitch!” And with that, he picked the stapler off of her desk, and knocked her in the face with it. She started screaming, and he face had lots of blood running down it, ruining all the papers that guaranteed poor people some money until they could find a job. He left, and walked, fuming, and pushing people out the way, cursing at any who gave him a weird look, especially for having blood all over his clothing, and turned into an alleyway, looking over his shoulder and to his sides to see if anybody was looking.
“You have it?” Said a raspy voice from the end of the shadows. “No, but just, just, gimme it anyway, I’ll have the money next time.” “You keep this up, and there won’t be a next time, Eight” “Don’t you dare threaten me and don’t call me by that name, asshole, I don’t need the fucking cops knowing that name!” “There won’t be cops, they won’t find the body, old Eight.” “I said, don’t call me that!” Charlie pulled out a knife and sped, with the surprising speed of a professional runner, and ran right up to the reporter and held the knife to his throat. From this distance you could see that the man had bright red eyes that were halfway closed and a large coat that promised to hold something that was not meant to be held by any righteous man. There was a loud bang, like a gunshot, and the bright red eyes widened, and looked down at his coat, there was a large explosion spot, and through it and the blood and innards of the man, you could see small bombs, perhaps M80s in many hidden inside pockets, and the reporter’s hand holding a still-lit lighter. The man named Charlie fell back into the shadows of the alley, immediately dead, and the reporter searched through his coat and found what he was looking for. Various drugs, speed, riddlin, opium, heroine, and many others that I didn’t recognize. The reporter gave Charlie one last kick in the groin before spitting on him and walking away.
During this time, I had forgotten about the reporter. The camera was lying on the ground, still going, and I had been watching this apparition, which went on to show horrifying acts of violence, drugs, and sex of this reporter, but, next to it, the reporter was held in midair by these rays, and his head was forced to look at the sky and he was fighting the rays as they were putting him in a pose of prayer. He was crying faintly, and he looked almost to his death. Then, in the one most horrifying instant of my life, I heard a crack, and the man went limp. The man dropped the five feet he was being held up onto the hard pavement. All of his limbs and his head were stuck out at odd angles, much farther than any human was meant to be contorted.
Blood seeped from his ears, and at this time the crowd tore their eyes away from the apparition, turned them to the reporter, and then to the Prophet, Brandon Highreach (for that is who he was) and applauded, actually clapped at how this man had just died. Brandon Highreach raised his hands to the sky and everybody quieted down, sensing his calm and fortitude. He called, in a voice much like all those pastors I hear when skipping channels on the tele, talking about the “degenerates of the human race” whatever that means. He said, no, proclaimed “This man was one of the ones destroying this world, his lies effecting the government, and the people of Rome. God has punished him for his sins, and many will be when my work is done. My name is Brandon Highreach, and I AM YOUR SAVIOR!” Some of the people cheered, but some, which had children, had been covering their children’s eyes and left, in tears.
It was at this time that my father remembered me sitting, curled up and shivering from fear, under his arm on the couch. He gave me a hug and I asked him “Pop? Are we…are we…safe?” To which he replied “I don’t know…I just…I…I…I don’t know” And he gave me a bear hug, turned off the tele and got a drink of vodka from the kitchen. Everything had happened so fast, and I missed my mum, so I went up to my room and looked at her picture for about half an hour and cried, and, being quite tired from the emotional stress I had went through, fell asleep in an awkward position, tears still playing at the corner of my eyes.

September 18th, 2049
Glasgow, Scotland

Alyssa

The world has changed a lot since 2015, I’m Alyssa Meridian and my story isn’t that long, I was 18 at the time of the changing, my parents were taken from me by the authorities with their black bags for possession, I got sent to St. Bartel’s community school, more like a workhouse than an orphanage, but I managed, when I was 18 I found love with a guy named Aaron, we went out for about 6 months, played around, and had fun, but, it didn’t work out. We went our separate ways, and, as if by an omen, on October 10th the “Prophet” as all of us here at Rebel’s Outpost call him. He destroyed my world, and I aim to destroy what he wants it to be. Well, I want to stop him at least, there’s not really any way to destroy what HE wants.
Well, I guess I should tell you about the world now. It’s not what you would have thought. Most people from your time thought that the future would be bright, with lots of little servant robots, and flying cars and all of that crap. That’s not right at all. It’s more like what you learned about in school, remember? The “Dark Ages”? Yeah, kinda like that. It’s actually a lot worse than that. In the dark ages there wasn’t rubble anywhere you looked and experimentation faculties in hospital, there weren’t groups of humans living dead jumbo jets, flinching at every shadow, and teaching their offspring to fight at 3 years old. No no, there wasn’t a war, there wasn’t a revolution. The bombs came with no screaming, no tolling of alarms, no sirens telling us to get to a shelter. The bombs came, and people died. Lots of people. In fact, about 30% of Europe’s population was dead within minutes. That’s how all the rubble got here. People hurt went to the hospitals, and it makes me nauseous just to think of what they met there. Other people got on highways to get the hell out of there, and they drove right into the open arms of Highreach’s road blocks, so they started walking. Needless to say, about a mile down, nobody was still walking. He didn’t care what age or state, he took cancer patients, and little kids. Old or young, rich or poor, they all screamed the same.
He was evil, horrible, and the worst part was that he was smart. His IQ was off the charts, and he spent his whole life strengthening his mind. He weighed about a scrawny 50 kilos but he could take down a 90 kilo guy in seconds. He could move and think so fast, nobody questioned him. He took a lot of disguises, like, raving lunatic, doctor, or security guard, whatever he needed to weed out all the glitches in his plan.
My real story began as the first bomb dropped. I had a small apartment and, hearing about all the bombings of the past in St. Bartel’s, I knew what I wanted to do. I ran down the stairs, 4 at a time, glad I only lived on the 5th story of my building, and, panicking, stole a car. I drove to Glasgow, Scotland, and stayed. I asked some of the local police, and found out where the nearest shelter was. When I got there, I was so surprised that nobody was going in, maybe they didn’t hear the explosion. So, I rushed most of the town into the shelter, and one kid struck me as alone so I talked to him. “Hey, kid, you alright?” “I… I don’t…what happened? Where did they come from?” He said. “You mean the bombs?” I said, and he just nodded, slowly, so I asked him his name, and he said his name was Verity, and he had gotten separated from his dad back in London and his mum had been the victim of a terrorist strike, and he’d been rushed here, in a bus, with a guy driving that he had been coughing a lot from all of the dust all over his coat, since he was coughing so much. It struck my heart, him losing his parents, and I stuck with him, maybe what I lost at St. Bartel’s this kid hadn’t lost yet, but, whatever it was, he became my only friend, so I stayed with him and he stayed with me.

May 20h, 2051
London, England
Verity

“Shit, shit!” They’re knocking on the door, and I won’t let them in, I can’t let them in, or it’ll all be gone, all be over. He’d win, I’d lose, boom. I’d get one of Highreach’s special treatment, torture and brainwashing, killing all the people I’ve been fighting to protect for so long. No, no, NO! Never. So I dive out the window, and run, run run run, all the way home, little piggy! HA! Yes, that’s funny, little piggy, just like food, god I’m hungry, cold, so cold, too. Gotta turn right here! Or was it a left? God, I’m forgetting the route.
I think they’re behind me. They’re not that fast, his people, not like me, I’m fast like a rabbit! A HARE! I’ll outrun them yet, so I put on a burst of speed, and I’m getting very tired. There it is! I see it! The shelter! No, no no, that’s the old one…Then the new one is…oh god, it’s back, I have to go back, without even thinking I turn right around, and run, sprint for the hidden door that I know is right there in the wall…I hit the wall, bracing for impact, but there’s none. The wall opens on hinges and I fall to the ground, waking up some of the rebels that were sleeping. I think I lost them, they’re gone. Yeeeeess. Completely gone. “Sorry, Fred, sorry for waking you up, I’ll leave you.” God, I need to see her, I need to tell her what I’ve found, maybe we’ll win now, maybe we’ll be safe. I found her asleep in her usual spot, where we first met, the front of the shelter, so I touched her gently and she jumped, jumped right up like a rabbit. Like a cooked, marinated rabbit that mom used to make. She’d put all the sauce, and onions, and lettuce all around it. Yes, that was really good. Dad wasn’t as good at making it. No no, he was more for going out to eat, we would always go out to restaurants and eat, talk about my school, and share secre-“Ver?” She said, sensing that something was up. “Alyssa! I found it! I found it!” I said, knowing she’d be so proud. “Found what? Verity, slow down and tell me.” “Nu-uh!” I taunted her, trying to make her guess. “You have to MAKE me say!” “Verity…” “Alright, alright” I said, giving up. “I found the pill, Exroten. It’s what he was looking for. Now we have one, but…I don’t  want to take it. I don’t want to, don’t make me, please…please…no no no no no no…” “Don’t worry Verity, nobody is going to make you take it, we need to have it examined”
Uh oh. Not again.

Description
October 10th, 2015
London, England

Verity

A man is born. Some claim him as a prophet, some as a savior. Some say he is a devil. Whoever he was, he changed the face of the Earth forever.

My name is Verity and I was only 10 when this man, Brandon Highreach was claimed the Purifier, the Prophet. I was sitting with my pop watching the tele when an announcement came on, it was that horrible reporter from channel 11 I had always disliked.
He had short, brown hair, and it was always combed with lots of cheap gel. He also had these shining white teeth that I hated because mine weren’t that white. I suppose it’s silly, now, as I write this, that most of my teeth are bloody and rotten, and my hair is a long tangle of weeds filled with sweat, the smell of fear, and blood, not all my own. The reporter was talking about how some of the Vatican priests just found a young man on the streets of Rome babbling about some new faith, how all governments lie and how the Tao is testing us. One thing, however, struck me, and the rest of the world as incredible.
It was a fairly cold day, in the beginning of the Fall, and the sky was overcast and gray, but, for about two feet around this man people reported the weather as sunny and hot, like the middle of summer. They took a camera close to this man, and as the reporter was walking through the crowd, I remember thinking that something was wrong, that something was kind of strange about that, and that I didn’t quite think it was a trick. When the camera got close to this man, the whole screen went really bright, bright enough to hurt my eyes, and the screen went into a visual static. You could, however, still hear the gasps and screaming of the crowd. Then just faintly, you could hear the reporter yelling “Oh God, oh God, not like this! Not fucking like this!” And then there was silence.
Suddenly, the camera was back on, and it looked like thousands of rays of this light, but somehow different colors, while staying golden and genuine, shining out of the tele and strait into my eyes. My pop and I were both entranced by this, and I suppose that most of England was as well. It showed a much younger version of the reporter, with a kind of red aura around him, walking through some high school.
He walked down the hallway, ugly as ever, pushing kids out of his way. He had a cigarette in his mouth, and he blew smoke all over the crowded hallway. As he was about to turn the corner, going god knows where, a dean tried to stop him. He rolled his eyes and tried to push past, apparently in a hurry. The dean, however, was a pretty bulky man, and he pushed right back, so much that the younger reporter almost stumbled back and hit somebody. He tried to push past again, this time putting his shoulder into it and was stopped yet one more time. The dean was calling into his walkie-talkie for the police officer to come and help him with this “delinquent” and the reporter took one last pull on his cigarette and burned it out in the deans eye.
Then there was a lot more static, and then there was a man lying on a hospital bed, presumably  the dean by the body-type and voice as he was screaming “Stop the pain! Please! Anything!” The camera, rays of light, or whatever the hell it was shifted to the side, where two doctors were talking in hushed tones. They were saying that this man had eye cancer, and it had been avoided since he was a child. They thought that he would die soon, and they both looked at the man, and went their separate ways to care for other patients in this abnormally crowded hospital.
The picture shifted again, the reporter was maybe, 10 years older, and it looked like he was in some kind of unemployment office, begging for money. The lady at the desk kept telling him that he isn’t eligible for anymore money. “I need the fucking money! Just tell them that there’s a man here who really needs it!”
“Sir, I’m very sorry, but there just isn’t any way I can get you any more money.”  “You bitch! You damn bitch!” And with that, he picked the stapler off of her desk, and knocked her in the face with it. She started screaming, and he face had lots of blood running down it, ruining all the papers that guaranteed poor people some money until they could find a job. He left, and walked, fuming, and pushing people out the way, cursing at any who gave him a weird look, especially for having blood all over his clothing, and turned into an alleyway, looking over his shoulder and to his sides to see if anybody was looking.
“You have it?” Said a raspy voice from the end of the shadows. “No, but just, just, gimme it anyway, I’ll have the money next time.” “You keep this up, and there won’t be a next time, Eight” “Don’t you dare threaten me and don’t call me by that name, asshole, I don’t need the fucking cops knowing that name!” “There won’t be cops, they won’t find the body, old Eight.” “I said, don’t call me that!” Charlie pulled out a knife and sped, with the surprising speed of a professional runner, and ran right up to the reporter and held the knife to his throat. From this distance you could see that the man had bright red eyes that were halfway closed and a large coat that promised to hold something that was not meant to be held by any righteous man. There was a loud bang, like a gunshot, and the bright red eyes widened, and looked down at his coat, there was a large explosion spot, and through it and the blood and innards of the man, you could see small bombs, perhaps M80s in many hidden inside pockets, and the reporter’s hand holding a still-lit lighter. The man named Charlie fell back into the shadows of the alley, immediately dead, and the reporter searched through his coat and found what he was looking for. Various drugs, speed, riddlin, opium, heroine, and many others that I didn’t recognize. The reporter gave Charlie one last kick in the groin before spitting on him and walking away.
During this time, I had forgotten about the reporter. The camera was lying on the ground, still going, and I had been watching this apparition, which went on to show horrifying acts of violence, drugs, and sex of this reporter, but, next to it, the reporter was held in midair by these rays, and his head was forced to look at the sky and he was fighting the rays as they were putting him in a pose of prayer. He was crying faintly, and he looked almost to his death. Then, in the one most horrifying instant of my life, I heard a crack, and the man went limp. The man dropped the five feet he was being held up onto the hard pavement. All of his limbs and his head were stuck out at odd angles, much farther than any human was meant to be contorted.
Blood seeped from his ears, and at this time the crowd tore their eyes away from the apparition, turned them to the reporter, and then to the Prophet, Brandon Highreach (for that is who he was) and applauded, actually clapped at how this man had just died. Brandon Highreach raised his hands to the sky and everybody quieted down, sensing his calm and fortitude. He called, in a voice much like all those pastors I hear when skipping channels on the tele, talking about the “degenerates of the human race” whatever that means. He said, no, proclaimed “This man was one of the ones destroying this world, his lies effecting the government, and the people of Rome. God has punished him for his sins, and many will be when my work is done. My name is Brandon Highreach, and I AM YOUR SAVIOR!” Some of the people cheered, but some, which had children, had been covering their children’s eyes and left, in tears.
It was at this time that my father remembered me sitting, curled up and shivering from fear, under his arm on the couch. He gave me a hug and I asked him “Pop? Are we…are we…safe?” To which he replied “I don’t know…I just…I…I…I don’t know” And he gave me a bear hug, turned off the tele and got a drink of vodka from the kitchen. Everything had happened so fast, and I missed my mum, so I went up to my room and looked at her picture for about half an hour and cried, and, being quite tired from the emotional stress I had went through, fell asleep in an awkward position, tears still playing at the corner of my eyes.

September 18th, 2049
Glasgow, Scotland

Alyssa

The world has changed a lot since 2015, I’m Alyssa Meridian and my story isn’t that long, I was 18 at the time of the changing, my parents were taken from me by the authorities with their black bags for possession, I got sent to St. Bartel’s community school, more like a workhouse than an orphanage, but I managed, when I was 18 I found love with a guy named Aaron, we went out for about 6 months, played around, and had fun, but, it didn’t work out. We went our separate ways, and, as if by an omen, on October 10th the “Prophet” as all of us here at Rebel’s Outpost call him. He destroyed my world, and I aim to destroy what he wants it to be. Well, I want to stop him at least, there’s not really any way to destroy what HE wants.
Well, I guess I should tell you about the world now. It’s not what you would have thought. Most people from your time thought that the future would be bright, with lots of little servant robots, and flying cars and all of that crap. That’s not right at all. It’s more like what you learned about in school, remember? The “Dark Ages”? Yeah, kinda like that. It’s actually a lot worse than that. In the dark ages there wasn’t rubble anywhere you looked and experimentation faculties in hospital, there weren’t groups of humans living dead jumbo jets, flinching at every shadow, and teaching their offspring to fight at 3 years old. No no, there wasn’t a war, there wasn’t a revolution. The bombs came with no screaming, no tolling of alarms, no sirens telling us to get to a shelter. The bombs came, and people died. Lots of people. In fact, about 30% of Europe’s population was dead within minutes. That’s how all the rubble got here. People hurt went to the hospitals, and it makes me nauseous just to think of what they met there. Other people got on highways to get the hell out of there, and they drove right into the open arms of Highreach’s road blocks, so they started walking. Needless to say, about a mile down, nobody was still walking. He didn’t care what age or state, he took cancer patients, and little kids. Old or young, rich or poor, they all screamed the same.
He was evil, horrible, and the worst part was that he was smart. His IQ was off the charts, and he spent his whole life strengthening his mind. He weighed about a scrawny 50 kilos but he could take down a 90 kilo guy in seconds. He could move and think so fast, nobody questioned him. He took a lot of disguises, like, raving lunatic, doctor, or security guard, whatever he needed to weed out all the glitches in his plan.
My real story began as the first bomb dropped. I had a small apartment and, hearing about all the bombings of the past in St. Bartel’s, I knew what I wanted to do. I ran down the stairs, 4 at a time, glad I only lived on the 5th story of my building, and, panicking, stole a car. I drove to Glasgow, Scotland, and stayed. I asked some of the local police, and found out where the nearest shelter was. When I got there, I was so surprised that nobody was going in, maybe they didn’t hear the explosion. So, I rushed most of the town into the shelter, and one kid struck me as alone so I talked to him. “Hey, kid, you alright?” “I… I don’t…what happened? Where did they come from?” He said. “You mean the bombs?” I said, and he just nodded, slowly, so I asked him his name, and he said his name was Verity, and he had gotten separated from his dad back in London and his mum had been the victim of a terrorist strike, and he’d been rushed here, in a bus, with a guy driving that he had been coughing a lot from all of the dust all over his coat, since he was coughing so much. It struck my heart, him losing his parents, and I stuck with him, maybe what I lost at St. Bartel’s this kid hadn’t lost yet, but, whatever it was, he became my only friend, so I stayed with him and he stayed with me.

May 20h, 2051
London, England
Verity

“Shit, shit!” They’re knocking on the door, and I won’t let them in, I can’t let them in, or it’ll all be gone, all be over. He’d win, I’d lose, boom. I’d get one of Highreach’s special treatment, torture and brainwashing, killing all the people I’ve been fighting to protect for so long. No, no, NO! Never. So I dive out the window, and run, run run run, all the way home, little piggy! HA! Yes, that’s funny, little piggy, just like food, god I’m hungry, cold, so cold, too. Gotta turn right here! Or was it a left? God, I’m forgetting the route.
I think they’re behind me. They’re not that fast, his people, not like me, I’m fast like a rabbit! A HARE! I’ll outrun them yet, so I put on a burst of speed, and I’m getting very tired. There it is! I see it! The shelter! No, no no, that’s the old one…Then the new one is…oh god, it’s back, I have to go back, without even thinking I turn right around, and run, sprint for the hidden door that I know is right there in the wall…I hit the wall, bracing for impact, but there’s none. The wall opens on hinges and I fall to the ground, waking up some of the rebels that were sleeping. I think I lost them, they’re gone. Yeeeeess. Completely gone. “Sorry, Fred, sorry for waking you up, I’ll leave you.” God, I need to see her, I need to tell her what I’ve found, maybe we’ll win now, maybe we’ll be safe. I found her asleep in her usual spot, where we first met, the front of the shelter, so I touched her gently and she jumped, jumped right up like a rabbit. Like a cooked, marinated rabbit that mom used to make. She’d put all the sauce, and onions, and lettuce all around it. Yes, that was really good. Dad wasn’t as good at making it. No no, he was more for going out to eat, we would always go out to restaurants and eat, talk about my school, and share secre-“Ver?” She said, sensing that something was up. “Alyssa! I found it! I found it!” I said, knowing she’d be so proud. “Found what? Verity, slow down and tell me.” “Nu-uh!” I taunted her, trying to make her guess. “You have to MAKE me say!” “Verity…” “Alright, alright” I said, giving up. “I found the pill, Exroten. It’s what he was looking for. Now we have one, but…I don’t  want to take it. I don’t want to, don’t make me, please…please…no no no no no no…” “Don’t worry Verity, nobody is going to make you take it, we need to have it examined”
Uh oh. Not again.