Clouds of Tyranny

In the year 2084, the United States of America
elected its first and last female president in history, 37-year-old
Rebecca Brahm who was born and raised in the small town of
Carlsbad, California. She grew up akin to a mother employed by the
police force and a rusty construction worker for a father, who died
when Rebecca was 17 making her valedictorianship in high school
bittersweet. In college she majored in business politics with a
minor in law, graduating at the top of her class of 13,000 at
Harvard at the age of 24. She would spend the next decade or so
working with the college as a liaison with new acceptances of the
college. At age 35, she joined the board of trustees being their
youngest member in history as well as quietly planning her
presidential campaign the following year. She didn’t seem to want
anyone to know about this considering all the failed campaigns of
women over the past seventy-five years. However, on Election Day in
2084 she prevailed in her life-long quest of being the country’s
first female president. She would go on to serve four consecutive
terms as the President of the United States.

Upon President Brahm’s death in 2117, a town was
constructed in the desolate deserts of Arizona aptly named Brahm.
At the town’s dedication a bill was passed; a bill that made it
unlawful for any male official to be elected into any authority
position within the town limits. The natives of neighboring towns
called this segregated town “No man’s land.”

In the year 2110, Russia threatened the United States
of America and Europe with talk of a weapon of unimaginable power
and destruction. They are not taken seriously by the United Nations
or America for that matter. This angers Russia; so they display
their power in the most vulgar way possible: they drop this “ORB”,
as they call it (Omniscient Ruining Blast) in the center of
Australia. This causes a blindingly bright beam of green light to
shoot into the atmosphere, parting the clouds, and destroying every
living thing on the continent. The continent itself broke into a
dozen small islands and peninsulas that would not settle or be made
livable for 500 years. The result from this “demonstration” was a
total surrender of the Asian countries to Russia and the renaming
of Asia to Sovietopia.

In the year 2115, the first human clone is
created in Switzerland by a team of scientists. The clone was
physically flawless but behind the eyes was a different story, it
was hostile and violent. Not five minutes after opening it’s eyes
it began to attack the scientists, digging its nails into their
throats and pulling out the jugular veins of the first three. Then
the accelerated learning of the copied brain discovered that a
scalpel could do harm to living things. It went on to kill 13
scientists, the last of which actually had his head completely
removed and the clone was carrying it around with him as he
released his volatile personality on the good people out in the
street. It managed to end the lives of 22 civilians and a police
officer (bashing one to death with the decapitated head) before
being shot to death by the police force. Switzerland was then
forced to sign an agreement that they would suspend and disband all
scientific research and projects dedicated to cloning of any
type.

In the year 2120, the United Nations, with
the exclusion of Sovietopia, made an agreement that it would be for
the greater good to simply eliminate their enemy by force rather
than have another Nazi power on their hands. Thus, World War 3
began and went on to last for 25 years on every continent killing
nearly a fifth of the planet’s humans. Finally, the United States
of America had had enough and thought it best to simply drop a few
dozen nukes on Sovietopia and end the third world war once and for
all. After everything calmed down, the United Nations sat down and
discussed the future of Earth and they decided that a worldwide
police force was needed to keep everyone in line, much like
Interpol but more severe. While the local police officers would
handle crimes and rights, the world police would enforce laws by
politicians and government officials. Corruption would be dealt
with by way of severe punishment of instant execution. Extreme but
affective and no one complained.

In the year 2134, in the midst of WW3,
America accomplished what Europeans could not; they had cloned a
perfect replica of a very prestigious scientist by the name of Walt
Merler. The replica matched him in everyway: intelligence,
personality, and looks, it even had his memory up to the second the
“real” Walt Merler was put under with gas. Within three years it
had become a business and everyone with relatives in the war had
been applying for a clone (the application process was arduous and
aggravating). By the end of the war, there were over one million
clones out in the world somewhere. This is when they discover
something “extra” on their first clone, which had spent the last
decade working as a scientist in the stead of the now retired Walt
Merler. The “extra” can only be described as “magick” and the
ability can be passed to their kin. However, only the female can
pass it to the child growing inside them and if the child is female
themselves the power is intensified (even more so if the father was
“gifted” as well.) Since the war had ended and there was now a
world police they began to hunt down these clones after a few
became evil and vengeful, the worst case they saw was a man that
got laid off from a packing company and got drunk and found his
boss and melted his flesh and organs till all was left was bones
and a brain. The world police would continue to hunt these “gifted”
people for the twelve years following World War 3 till Earth had a
NEW crisis on its hands.

In the year 2257, Eduardo
Villalobos discovered something through his telescope; he spots a
meteor, which is incomplete. The confirmation of its incompletion
was founded that the cause was its collision with Neptune on it’s
way to Earth. Within weeks of reporting this to Nasa, they discover
that there are several shards that are inexplicitly headed directly
towards our planet. Scientists gather that one of the shards (the
smallest of them) will collide with Earth’s surface: it will strike
Canada on October 15
^th
, 2264. Every country has it’s
own plan to preserve their inhabitants and their way of life. Japan
and China planned to build an indestructible dome over their
countries where they would house their civilians, elected
officials, and animals for consumption as well as breeding. America
planned on a subterranean cavern under the surface much like a
movie that had been made a century earlier; in fact other countries
joked that it was typical of Americans to take fiction and try and
apply it to real life, that and it wasn’t very original. France and
England set sail for Antarctica seeing as how it was the furthest
from the expected collision point. Africa didn’t make any plans
whatsoever with the rationalization that God would protect them and
that the strong will survive. South America began construction on a
500-foot wall around their continent to shield them from debris and
tidal waves. Canada, being the assumed ground zero point, simply
just built bomb shelters and stocked up on supplies to get them by.
Canada treated it more like Y2K instead of the biggest disaster the
world has ever seen.

In the year 2264, the day finally came
nobody’s solution went according to plan and planet Earth lost over
ninety-five percent of its population. China/Japan’s dome worked
flawlessly, but they miscalculated the date at which they could
exit the dome and continue life. For when they opened the hatch and
peeked their heads out, the vile and poisonous air killed
two-thirds on contact and sickened the rest for several weeks till
almost every last person dropped dead. America had the opposing
problem, the foundation of the surface above them simply did not
hold and all the people of U.S.A. were crushed to death with the
exception of minimal survivors, but they had plenty of food and
water. France and England did the best of everyone. However, they
didn’t quite realize that they weren’t ready for this type of cold.
About half died from the blistering cold and the predators that
lurked around them. Africa’s surface was wiped clean from the
immense waves that the meteor generated, not even a single tree
still stood. South America’s “Wall” was an intelligent concept but
just not sturdy enough; debris and water ripped through it like a
katana through a flag. Once again, their population was cut in half
just like France and England. Finally, Canada, the humongous
populated metropolis was now a baron wastelands like the worlds
biggest blank canvas. The “Neptunian Collide” was God’s way of
letting us start over, many people believed. People stayed away
from the Earth’s surface for many decades before finally emerging
and started rebuilding. The few survivors knew they were back in
the stone age; they would have to build homes, try to make their
own medicine, and hunt their food. Luckily books explaining the
past thousand years of life still existed. Only the fit and
resilient survived. Over the years mutations occurred in humans and
animals. With humans it affected their brains making them either
incredibly incoherent or maliciously violent, the latter were
killed and burned on sight by the ‘able-minded’, as they deemed
themselves. Animals hadn’t really mutated, just evolved one might
say, they increased in size or grew wings or merged with another
being. For example, you might see a wolf bigger than a pickup truck
or a flying monitor lizard or a large cat with spikes and tusks.
Hundreds of years would pass before things resembled livable
again.

In the year 2524, the ‘Neptunian Collide’ was
a distant memory and the earth resembled that of the historical
1200’s complete with carriages, candlelit huts, swordplay, and
kingdoms with castles; the only difference was gunpowder. The
ancestors of their founders ran the small towns and the large
kingdoms had kings, stewards, or emperors to govern over all. Soon,
a national army was born calling themselves the Empire, who
situated in central Asia. They would police and negotiate between
neighboring kingdoms over property disputes and trade offerings.
The Empire was respected and liked by all because their master,
Emperor Gerard the first, who was a very generous and loving
man.

In the year 2604, Emperor Francisco Gerard
passes away, leaving rule of his kingdom and his Empire to his
eldest son, Francisco Gerard the second. The people would not have
to wait to see the vast differences from father and son, Francisco
had a black heart filled with hate, many would argue that he killed
his father before he finished his will, which many believed would
give rule to his adopted son Ralph Germ. Soon, people were being
executed for petty crimes such as theft and nobody in the large
kingdoms interacted with those of neighboring kingdoms and
communities. Segregation reigned supreme and trust did not exist
within Europe and Asia.

In the year 2615, the kingdoms of Velxeer and
Durma waged war over land and “rights”. The entire world fears the
Empire much like the dictators of stories from the past; Kahn,
Hussein, Hitler, etc. Rumors flew through the towns of fatalities
within the Empire; someone seems to be killing them off, but whom,
everyone wondered. Soon the rumors got more heated with talk of a
group or rebels that vow to never again idly stand by while the
corrupt Imperials rape, slit throats, and ruin the once good lives
of the honest people of the continent.

In the year 2621, the Empire began seeking
information on a “spellcaster” to use to their advantage, most
likely to do more evil. The rebel group feels it is time to make
their presence known to the world in an effort to give peace and
hope to all the peoples that have been hurt and persecuted against.
After seventeen years they show themselves with a sign of a blue
bandana and a name…THE RETURNERS!

Run, Run, Run!
she kept screaming it in her brain to
herself,
If you want to live you’ll run
like you’ve never ran before…RUN!
The
trees, although several yards from one another, seem to fly by like
a picket fence of thick wood as she ran for her life, literally.
She ignored the dangers of the thorny branches and prickly sticks
as she raced along the forest. Her legs were scratched, her left
cheek suffered a deep gash just under her left eye, she cringed as
she kept up the pace to escape the threat of death. She ran faster
and faster despite that she was already exhausted; sweat dripped
down her forehead, burning her eyes and the stinky juice soaking
her cheeks. Her bare feet ached as their bridges were stabbed by
jagged rocks and her heels were coated with dried mud that felt
like clay. She dared not look back for she had seen them when they
began chasing her: five of them with rifles and dress daggers
showed up at her home. Something inside of her said to flee, a
voice she could not explain, it scared her but she heeded its
warning; a sign that would save her life. She had always been an
agile young girl and the babbling creek was ahead and she knew she
could clear it with a single leap. She could see it quickly
approaching signaling her to pick up the pace and… “Ahhh!” A
piranha flew out of the water and slipped through her silky hair.
The creek was known for its seldom piranha every so
often;