The Last Wilshire: The Government's Dog

Chapter One: The Broken Dream

"Tenshi, if there is a story of Jörd's creation, then is there a story that predicts Jörd's destruction?" A sigh left Tenshi as she stood and walked over to her books that sat on their shelves. She seemed to almost absent-mindedly pull a book from the shelf. She brought it over and sat it down on her desk.

"The tale that predicts the end of Jörd is known as Ragnarök." I stared at the book that Tenshi had sat on her desk in front of me. "There are two endings to the tale. For the first ending, the destruction of Jörd is the final end, but in the second ending, new life will spring forth from the ashes of the end." I looked up at Tenshi.

"Do you believe in the story of Ragnarök?" Tenshi sat there silently for a moment. She looked at the book she had sat before me.

"I believe that the wheels of fate have already started to turn, and there is no escaping the future that awaits us." Tenshi's analyzing eyes were fixed on me. "You must have realized by now. This is nothing more than a dream little Jay." I stared at Tenshi. Her skin darkened as she crumbled into ash.

I reached out toward the pile of ash only for it to turn to pure white snow. I pulled my hand away and stared at the snow that had replaced the ashes. A snowball exploded as it collided with the side of my head. I turned and looked to my left to see Tau laughing as she pointed at me. Tenshi stood beside her watching me carefully with her analyzing eyes.

"What are you waiting for?" I looked back at the snow that had been a pile of ashes before to see a set of hands sink into the snow. I looked up to see Gala standing up as she shaped the snow in her hands into a ball that she threw at Tau.

I scooped up snow into my hands and shaped it into a ball that I threw at Tenshi. I watched as Tenshi simply stepped out of the way of the snowball I had thrown. She threw a snowball of her own that hit me square in the chest. I blinked as I looked down at the snow clinging to my clothes. It was a declaration of war. The snowball war went on until the sun started to fall below the tops of the trees.

"Time to head home." I pouted as Tenshi called an end to our fun. I walked over to Gala who was dusting the snow from her clothes.

"Let's do this again tomorrow." Gala smiled and said goodbye to the three of us. Something about her smile seemed off though and it bothered me as I turned and walked over to Tenshi. "Something feels off." Tenshi just looked down at me with her analyzing eyes. I looked back over my shoulder at Gala. Her clothes were different. Blood was dripping onto the snow staining it red. "Tenshi, something's wrong with Gala." I faced forward and reached out to where Tenshi had been. There was nothing there. "Gala?" I slowly turned around to find Gala standing there now facing me. There was a large gash that went across her body.

"There weren't any more tomorrows for me." I took a step toward Gala. "I had to give up on my dreams." Blood pooled in the snow beneath her feet. "You have to keep running." Gala took a step toward me and collapsed in the snow. Tenshi was standing behind her.

"You have to wake up little Jay." I rushed to Gala's side. Her lifeless eyes stared straight through me. "You have to wake up." Tenshi's voice echoed once more. I blinked and found myself sitting on the riverbank staring across the river at the trees on the other side.

"Tau, I don't want to kill in order to live, but I know that's not a possibility in this cruel world that we live in." I looked over to find the space next to me empty. "Tau?" I stood and looked around.

"Look at your hands, Jay." I looked down at my hands to see that they had turned a black-ashen color. I looked up into Mal's eyes to find that they were no longer filled with the warmth that I had once seen.

"I was just trying to protect you." I searched Mal's eyes for even a flicker of warmth.

"I don't need your protection." Mal stepped past me. The scene that I was looking at cracked.

"Kill them all." I watched as a broken shard fell. "Burn this island to the ground." Several shards fell away revealing flames. "Make sure not a single soul escapes." The scene shattered into thousands of shimmering shards, revealing Mal standing on the rocky shoreline.

"You have to wake up." I could hear Tenshi's voice as she screamed at me.

"Mal." Why was she staring at her hand? "MAL!" Please look up. "MALICE!" Slowly she looked up from her hand to stare across the water in my general direction. I could see the black coloration starting to spread across her face. "MAL!" I reached out toward her over the side of the boat. Her right hand fell to her side. The black coloration had spread everywhere leaving only her eyes, and then they too turned black. "Mal?" I watched as her body disintegrated crumbling to dust that was carried away by the wind. "MAL! MAL!"

I sat bolt-upright in a strange room. I looked around. It reminded me of my time spent in the hospital in Dr. Selos' care, but I knew that wasn't the case. I couldn't smell Dr. Selos anywhere, and I was certain that he was dead. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and slipped off the bed. My feet hit the floor as the door to the room was slammed open. A woman stepped into the room. Her eyes were wide in panic as she scanned the room. Her eyes finally landed on me, and I saw some of the panic fade from her eyes.

The woman stepped inside the room closing the door behind her. She wore a soft smile as she approached me. I backed away from the woman until I found myself pressed against the wall. I took notice of a bandage wrapped around the woman's wrist. She reached for the bandage. I watched as she removed the bandage. She held her wrist out to me with the palm of her hand facing me. On her wrist, she had an interlocked five-pointed star and crescent moon.

"Jay?" I stared into the woman's eyes and slowly nodded. She wore this sad expression. "I have some bad news." I kept myself pressed against the wall. "Some people were sent to search Niflhel for anyone that might have survived, but they didn't find anyone. You're the only survivor." I stood there staring at the woman.

I didn't know how to respond to what the woman was telling me. How do you even begin to respond to the news that everyone you'd ever known had died in a single night? I'd lost my friends. I'd lost my family. I'd lost my home. I had lost everything. I wasn't able to save anyone. I collapsed onto the floor. The woman took a step forward her panic returning as she reached out to me. I slapped her hands away. She stepped back.

"You should probably leave this place as soon asyou are able to do so." I watched as she wrapped her wrist back up in thebandage. "You should trust no one from this point forward. Not even myself." Igave a slight nod.