City Of The Dead (#Wattys2016)

PROLOGUE

*Author's Note*
Welcome to My world, I would like to take a moment to warn everyone ahead of time that the following tale not only delves into some very complex technical aspects of various topics, but it also is intended to touch on some political and social issues that plaque modern society today as well. There will be scenes of extreme violence, abuse, self harm, alcohol, drugs, Gore, death and other socially taboo, or "politically Incorrect" subject matter.

Please Feel free to cast your votes and drop me a line with your comments or questions.
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ALL Characters, places, events, etc a purely FICTION, any resemblance to real people or such is purely Coincidental. This work may not be copied, distributed or displayed anywhere else without Direct Written Permission of the Author or their legal Representatives. ©2016
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The year according to the yellowed, dirty calender he had found months ago was 2106, although the ragged and torn paper had long ago lost its meaning having run out five years before he still had the very back cover that showed the next twenty years after it. "God, had it really been five years since the end came ?

A beautiful, once in a lifetime event the so-called Scientists called it when they first started warning the public that a large Asteroid was going to pass close to earth. Pass close they said, no harm to come, just mild radio and television interference they said.
They hadn't even given their bringer of destruction a name, just a number Asteroid X -762, they called it. Moving at thousands of miles per hour it's massive, misshapen form tumbling , rolling end over end, side to side through the darkness of space bringing with it Death's own cold, lecherous touch.

He remembered the day it came, a mindless, soulless chunk of useless rock seemingly no threat NASA said again and again until our very own world chose to betray us. Her invisible tendrils reaching out into the endless void around us, searching, grasping at nothing again and again. She called to him, silently beckoning him closer and closer from millions of miles away until her invisible touch caressed his surface.
His heavy, ancient iron core was drawn to her, pulling him this way and that, pushing him away just to grasp his very core in her magnetic field. The Sun's rays causing his pock marked, cratered surface to rapidly heat releasing plumes of toxic methane into the endless darkness as the frozen pockets of gas expand and break free of the thick stone and ice walls that held them captive for Millennia.

His eyes watered with tears, not from pain, he had long ago learned to deal with that. No these were tears of remembrance because the Scientists were right it was beautiful, when it began at least. The skies swam with every color the mind could imagine. Brilliant shades of blues, reds, greens, and purples danced in the atmosphere for weeks kind of nature's own kaleidoscope of lights as our planet drew disaster into her gravitational pull.

Asteroid X-762 did the unexpected, it fell into orbit with us, a looming spectre of death slowly circling Earth like a jungle cat slinking through the darkness behind it's prey, cold, calculating, awaiting for it's chance to strike.

It hung in the sky, silently circling our unknowing world, it seemed to mock us with each passing day. So large it was that when it passed between us and the moon it looked like someone had taken a bite out of our ancient companion.

What our Smartest and most inventive minds either didn't take into consideration or maybe they simply didn't realize was that as the sun warmed the seemingly hard surface releasing the trapped gasses each change in pressure caused small cracks and fissures that crisscrossed the surface to expand, each pass also caused the rock to rapidly cool, contracting on itself as well. Back and forth, extreme heat versus extreme cold the Asteroid was involved in it's own war. Natural opposites pushing and pulling against each other with their pressures building up gradually over centuries even before it came to visit our world.