Masked Intentions

Chapter 1

Christina 

When the third world war broke, no one expected it to be the way it happened. I don’t remember much of it, to be honest. All I can remember were chaos, noises, and the unnaturally fast way men cursed. I didn’t even think people could speak that fast, let alone curse with so much supposedly-censored words at such a pace.

 

On the other hand, it began the way nearly everyone anticipated it would. Nature finally made us pay for everything we had been taking since time immemorial. It began with the death of a few animals, followed by the pollution of nearly all bodies of water, and… well… you get it. Everything else declined. Eventually, the sources of daily needs became scarcer and the countries started fighting for it. West Asian countries were rich in oil, so basically, a lot of the world’s nations had them as their main target. The US Government tried making a pact with them – some sort of trading their goods (what goods, though?) for their oil – but, as everyone figured out, it ended tragically in a mini third world war. On the other hand, Europe was the last one out. They were the last ones to have drinkable water and good vegetation for both man and beast. Most of the world’s population (or what’s left of it) migrated there in whatever way they can even if it involved murder, taking of what are not theirs, and many other satanic actions just for the sake of their own survival.

I am a European girl – a Polish one at that – and those were the hellish days of my entire life. Yes, I did not experience any form of scarcity but I experienced having to fight for necessities. I experienced extreme overpopulation just because the world decided to go all Pangaea in Europe. Our resources, though a lot more sufficient than the rest of the world, could not sustain every single individual who invaded our space. Then again, I couldn’t blame them. If Asia was the sufficient one, then I’m surely one of the people finding their way there.

In one word, the world was shit. It was absolute shit. Apparently, the religious fanatics were right. Apparently, the environmental advocates were right. An apocalypse could actually happen and the world could actually collapse. The joke, obviously, was on us – the non-believers.

On the other hand, another event in the history of mankind happened that none of us anticipated.

I was 20 years old when it happened. I don’t remember much of the details of that fateful night but I remembered seeing them for the first time – the Endrallians, the descendants of demons and Asthrallians, the descendants of angels – walking along the roads of the world of mankind. Only a few of us witnessed the moment they arrived. It was so late into the night and those were the times we were already definite the human race will soon be extinct, so most of us dismissed it a mere trick of the mind. But here’s the thing – the following morning, none of us thought, or even considered the thought, that we were still living in reality. In a span of one night, the whole country was restored. The sky was clear again, there were birds chirping (it’s been a while since I last heard their songs), the air was perfectly breathable, and so on. For the first time in a long time, there were so many people out on the road and no one wore masks. For the first time in a long time, the world seemed normal again.

Yet there was one thing completely unnatural with it all.

Where did it come from?

Who fixed the whole goddamned planet?

More importantly, what did they want?

There were buildings again – they looked weird yet unique – but something about the structures told us that whoever created the new city should never be trusted. After all, who the hell created a whole city overnight? Who the hell brought peace in this poor excuse of a world?

Imagine this: you sleep while having a hard time breathing because gas masks are very inconvenient when you’re trying to escape from the world through a peaceful time of solitude. Around you, you could hear children crying. Perhaps they’re hungry because all day, there was nothing to eat. Somewhere in the distance, you hear bomb explosions then you end up thinking to yourself why the hell are they still resulting to bombing when more than half of the world’s population collapsed already. Then, for some reason, despite the chaos around you, you ended up falling asleep anyway. When you woke up, it was as if the events of the previous day (and, in fact, even the previous year and a half) were all but a dream. It was as if none of it ever existed. Suddenly, there was peace.

Then again, that was two years ago.

The peace is gone now.