The Freaks of the Ring

One : Adam

The thundering sound of crumbling walls sounds outside, shaking the ground in a crude man-made earthquake. I huddle in a corner underneath a table many times repaired, hoping that the piece of cruddy furniture won't fall apart on top of my head. I sigh and hold my knees up the chest, really wishing that this would all come to an end soon.

I live on the outskirts of a ghost town attacked too many times for no apparent reason. I think that at one point it was called Philadelphia, though no one has used the name in too many years. Now, everywhere with people was just called a safebase, at least until it was attacked too. The safebases are attacked in a particular order, though no one seems to have figured out the order quite yet. Everyone just says that there must be a reason for this all. Besides, there's a reason for everything that happens, the good and the bad and the misunderstood, right?

I don't know. I don't know what to think about any of it, honestly. The war has been going on since before I was born and it doesn't seem to be coming to an end any time soon. I've heard people in this base talk about how the world is going to come to an end before we ever hear about the final battle of the war. I have to disagree with them. The world as everyone knew it is already destroyed.

After a while of cowering in fear with everyone else in the room, the shaking finally stops and the green glow of nuclear waste disappears from the walls. Everyone hesitates to stand up, though it seems like the best choice at this point. The base isn't about to fall on our heads and everyone seems perfectly fine. A collective sigh of relief ripples through the room. We've all lived to see another day.

I make my way outside to see the damage done, though whatever the hell it is that I'm seeing certainly wasn't the first thing that came to mind. Everyone is so used to seeing the devastation of the bombs and the weapons of mass destruction that I have expected there to be a crater where the building was, just razed right to the ground without any indication that there had been anything there in the first place. It was the one building in town that no dared to enter, mainly because we're all pretty sure that there was some sort of experimental demon hiding out in there.

But there was no crater, just a huge pile of rubble and another thing that looks like a dog corpse. Except there hasn't been another living animal in this town for years and whatever that is is way too big to be a dog. Well, it looks like that rumor about a governmental experiment couldn't have been too far off from the truth.

I get closer to the rubble to scout out this giant corpse (if it really is an animal, it could feed everyone still living in town for a month, so why not?) and hope that whatever it is really is long dead and not rotting yet. But then I see them. Two boys, one with hair bluer than what my grandmother described the sky being, holding another in his lap. There is a device in the blue-haired boy's hand and rapid fire words that mean next to nothing to me are pouring from his lips. It sounds like a foreign language, not that I could name anything that isn't the Common Tongue. From a distance, it almost sounds like he's crying into the device.

I don't recognize the two. They've never appeared in the safebase before. I'm almost tempted to ask them if they need help. For all I know, the could be refugees from another safebase looking for help. It's the only thing I can come up with, so it has to be the answer.

I didn't exactly expect the guy to actually hear me coming (I mean, yes I was walking on rubble and I should've expected to get some reaction, but still) and put his conversation on hold. We stare at each other for a few seconds, his bright gold eyes locked onto mine for longer than seems necessary. He put the device back up to his ear, his voice shaking and switching to Common Tongue. "Send reinforcements. I think I found the one." He closes the device, not taking his eyes off of me for a second. It's kind of creepy, honestly.

It's not more than ten seconds before I hear a loud noise like a sonic boom behind me. A cold hand that doesn't feel like it should belong to a human closes around my wrist. Panic settles in, but not before a gravelly, almost robotic voice sounds in my ear. "What's you're name?" The grip tightens.

"A-Adam. Who's asking?"

He never does answer my question. "Well, Adam, if you even think about screaming I can assure you that you'll be dead meat in a moment. I might even have someone interested in your corpse." Before I can even think of a response, a bright white light explodes at the back of my skull. That's when the darkness finally takes over.

I don't even get a chance to wonder where in the world the robot guy even came from.