Etho

-1-

It was all over. The charred remains had seized their burning to leave piles of rubble and smoldering ashes. Through his thick eyelashes, the believed to be last survivor, tried to connect what he was seeing and what he thought he was. By the time he knew he was in the intersection he crossed everyday for school, he had risen to the scarred limbs he knew as his legs. His shaking hand steadily raised to the bottom of his jaw to smear a dark substance across his chin that he saw in a puddle of gasoline he awoke next to. He drew his fingers up to the top of his head and pulled the brunette bangs away from his forehead to get a better view of the strange world he had just traveled to.

Where am I... the repeating phrase marching through Etho's mind. It started as a low chant, growing into a mocking fear.

In his confusion, he neglected to realize his wounds. Bruises on his elbows, gashes on his calf, and... and! Not a wound, but an odd occurrence on his right hand. He felt a strange, strong vibration. His eyes shot down to see this. A storm had produced lightning. Not only was that rare in the place he last remembered being, but that the flash of one of the strikes was directed toward his hand.The flesh of his hand, tingling. A constant strike of lightening, flickering in its blinding light. I'm dreaming... How stupid do you have to be to believe this even for a second! Wow... This must be how it feels to be lucid dreaming.

He glared in dazed bewilderment, not believing his eyes. He shook, flipped, and even clapped his hands, yet the beam continued to follow his hand's every move. After a couple minutes of looking around him at the destruction, he didn't realize that the lightening was no longer trembling at the tips of his poorly managed fingernails. I'm dreaming... How stupid do you have to be to believe this even for a second! Wow... This must be how it feels to be lucid dreaming.

He stepped backwards one step and found himself stumbling upon a grizzly sight. He looked in front of his feet for what he tripped on. As soon as he saw, he scrambled to his feet in shock! No! NO! It's not true! It can't be! He continued to encourage himself with cliques of denial that he was not seeing the lifeless body of his eldest sister, Adria. Her pale face, eyes wide open. Staring at him. Giving him more grief than any one being can endure.

-2-

Etho gathered himself, remembering all the horrors flashing back to him. He recollects being in the middle of a road... he was looking for someone. His father! He knows that he was in search of his father. One of the greatest scientists known to mankind, Dr. Raymond Cutler, majoring in apocalyptic research in his prime. His research was bad-mouthed and thrashed by his colleagues and professors at an Ivy League university, Stanford. Others said he should have devoted his life to a real profession.

Through torment and all, Cutler endured. Once the time started for his research to be proved-his and billions' last day on Earth- it was too late for apologies. One of his many "bullies", Professor Derek Hillesland, spent the rest of his life, from his realization of the very-real apocalypse to his death involving one of the many floods across the Earth, praying for forgiveness from God. Dr. Cutler, being the brute that he was, damned his soul to hell one night after Hillesland attended one of his seminars and dubbed his beliefs as nothing but a waste of effort and time, crushing the heart of the neglected Dr. Cutler.

Dr. Cutler's begrudged mind was set on destroying all those who looked down upon his work. He began constructing an illegal machine in an abandoned bomb shelter a mile away from his home in Palo Alto, California. The bomb shelter was directly under his laboratory.

On a dim and damp December night, Cutler was working on his machine, that he named K.O.R.E. On that same night, a seven-year-old Etho Cutler had won the dual science fair between Juana Briones Elementary and Barron Park Elementary. His mother, proud as could be, took him to his favorite ice cream shop, and then to show his father the silken blue ribbon the Principal of his school, Mrs. Lawrence, had awarded him with. They asked his friends at the front desk, about to leave, where Raymond had gotten to. His mother, Natalie, and him had wandered around a bit, calling his name.