The Condemned

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Prologue

The beginning of the 21
st
Century heralded as a milestone to the advancement of many things. Terrorism was not one to be left behind with the times; it had posed a constant threat for an increasing number of years and made itself known with greater and greater urgency, in more chaotic and destructive ways. It grew with humankind’s intolerance, their inability to accept the differences among themselves and their failure simply to live without the need to kill those who did not share one’s own beliefs and way of life. With this ignorance came wave after wave of unnecessary pain, anguish, and death.

   The wars that were fought, ironically, in the name of Peace became increasingly brutal as the men and women behind them became more and more insistent that their way was the right way, there was no middle ground to be met by any side, all players demanding absolute control over the board and the pieces captured upon it.

   Inevitably, in a world where it was clear that only the strongest and most powerful could ever flourish, in a desperate bid not to be consumed and overtaken and forgotten; the majority of governments poured time and money into the technological advancements they felt sure would provide them
with the security they needed in order to remain independent.

   On the other hand, maybe some of them just liked to blow things up...

   The advances in Biological Warfare were of great interest to a large number of powers and much time and effort was invested in the creation of drugs and chemicals that would have devastating effects on the population in large-scale areas.

   Around the same time
the inhabitants of earth were shaken by a series of natural disasters that some believed were God’s way of culling the numbers or of punishing the unjust.

Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and other deviances of Mother Nature plagued the continents, seemingly growing more and more powerful as the elements raged against humankind.

   The combined dangers of both man and nature’s potential for destruction could only end one way. It was just a question of which would get there first.

   When the Apocalypse, Rapture, End of the World or whatever other names it had been given in various prophecies, did come
to fruition,
it was never really documented exactly what had begun the chain of events that had led to an 80% loss of the world’s population. Partly because there weren’t enough people left to care about making a note of precisely what had happened, partly because it seemed as though
everything all
happened at once. A
giant cataclysm of horror and pain, a tornado of annihilation and devastation that swept across the globe, demolishing everything and everyone in its path. It made it hard for the finger to be pointed at any one specific thing.

   All that was really known, all that anyone could say with any certainty, was that something had gone wrong and the human race, though not quite facing extinction, found themselves fighting for survival in an environment far more harsh and dangerous than they had become accustomed to.

   Those who clung to religious beliefs and who fanatically held faith in the notion of a divine hand meting out judgement told stories of fire raining from the sky, of water turning to blood and of livestock falling dead from disease, among other such biblical occurrences.

   The paranoid minds of the time swore that government concoctions had finally
advanced
too far ahead of their masters
and either intentionally or not
some
deadly virus had been released;
sweeping uncontrollably, airborne
,
throughout the planet, leaving a trail of disease in its wake.

   Environmentalists claimed that Mother Earth had simply had enough of the abuse of the planet and was striking back through a series of shattering disasters, cleansing herself of the human virus that had plagued her for too long.

   There were groups,
widespread, who insisted that W
atchers
from another world had lost patience with us, had sat for too long, observing us, and had eventually grown weary of our petty games and pointless struggles, had come to put an end to the meaningless of it all.

   The how is not of so much importance here.

   Simply that it was.

   When the end came, the human race
was not prepared. Conceit and p
ride had perhaps led us to believ
e that such a thing would never
,
could
never
really happen. Bad things would always occur but never so close to your own doorstep as to threaten what you held dear or to wipe out all that was important to you.

   By 2068 the earth’s population had reached roughly eight and a half billion. By 2077, we had been reduced to a meagre 1.7 billion. This perhaps still sounds a relatively hefty number, but
disease was rife
among those who had survived the purging of our earth. Famine was responsible for wiping out a good portion of those who made it through
the initial hardships,
many lived through earthquakes only to be killed by looters. Crime levels rose inconceivably in relation to population numbers. With the hierarchy of power disintegrated there was no law, with no law there was no order and civilisation rapidly declined.

   As is the nature of our kind, men and women who had been somebody, meant something in the lives that were no more,
sought back the power they had once known. Slowly, over time, a new government order was established. These people named themselves simply ‘Officials’ and attempted to restore some se
nse
of
significance
to their devastated lives. As is the case with all forms of government, this one
was not without its corruptions and
was viewed by most as nothing more than a powerful way to enforce obedience in the masses
,
even if it meant a complete dissipation of any notion of rights or fair treatment. Strong enough to incite fear and a thin layer of submission but not to achieve any kind of better world for the people who still had to live in it; it was all about the power really.

   The majority of people merely existed. Drifting aimlessly through a life that held no meaning. Scavenging and looting became the primary occupations of most. Underground black markets
sprung up,
run by those calling themselves ‘Renegades’
-
tight knit groups
, rebellious and opposed to what they perceived as the stolen power of the Officials. Bleakly
striving for survival in a post apocalyptic wasteland
, a
dapting to this new way of life was necessary for survival. Those born into it knew nothing else and in time stories of old ways would fade, only to be passed around campfires or down through generations as children sat, jaws gaping in fascination at tales of things that sounded as if they came from science-fiction.

   Mutations among the survivors were, thankfully, something of a rarity but were not unheard of. Some insisted that their presence at all argued forcibly that the collapse of civilisation had been a direct res
ult of some government meddling. N
uclear experimentation of some sort.

   It was
not until some time had passed,
however, that handfuls of adolescents began exhibiting unexplained talents such as the ability to sense the thoughts of those around them, set fire to objects with only their minds, move heavy items through the air without touching them... A wide variety of genetic ‘
anomalies
’ that began appearing thirty and forty years following the cataclysm of events that had so drastically reduced the population of Earth. By this time a new generation had moved into play and the ‘how’ just didn’t seem so important anymore. Mutations allowed for speculat
ion but caused no great debates
as their appearance would have done immediately following the end.

   The phenomenon was not widespread and others shunned those who discovered themselves capable of such acts.
Cast out
from whatever society they had been a part of, feared by the people around them not only because their talents and abilities made them more powerful than, and in a way superior to the others around them, but also because it served as a constant reminder that somewhere along the lines our genetic makeup had undertaken changes brought about by our own foolishness.
Nobody likes to be reminded of their mistakes. We’re a vain species and prefer not to see fault in ourselves. It’s easier to destroy or become
alienate
the things that serve as a beacon, lighting up our failings unavoidably. The presence of a group of people exhibiting ‘superhuman’ qualities served to dehumanise the remainder of civilisation. Mutants are very rarely accepted within societies, who seek out as a collective to find and destroy anything different and thereby threatening.

   Word of people with gifts and abilities did not need to travel fast or even well for them to be brought to the attention of a far more dangerous presence than they could’ve imagined. The ones who were murdered by people they knew,
by their own family and friends
due to fear of the unknown, before they ever fell into the hands of the Officials were perhaps the luckier ones.

Chapter 1

Alecia Walker - Birth to age 16

Ever since she could remember, it had been the two of them; there wasn't a time that she could look back and he was ever not there for her. Xavian and Leci against the world. He had taught her everything she knew, had been more lik
e a father to her than a brother. M
ore like a father than their father had, but that was unfair since the old man was long dead and he'd never really had the chance. Xavian had been doing as he'd been told; take care of the family. Even if the only part of th
e
family that was left was your bratty kid sister.

   It wasn't as if she'd even made it easy really. Far too inquisitive for her own good, she'd seemed to make a game of getting into as much trouble as possible, leaving him to have to fight the way to safety for them both. Her carelessness often severed months of hard work he'd put into making the right kind of connections to make their lives just that little bit easier.

   Since he'd been gone she had realised just how much he had done, just what he'd sacrificed for her, exactly how much he'd cared, and whether he had taken care of her out of love or through some sense of responsibility, he had cared enough to
die protecting her. It was just a shame it had taken that to make her realise they'd been a team.

   Leci had never known her mother. She was told the woman had died giving birth to her but it made no difference. She wasn't one for wasting emotions or feelings on things that might have been. She had never known the woman, what was the point in wasting time feeling guilty for something she
'd
had no control of, or feeling sad about the loss of someone she had never known?

   Essentially dragged up for the first quarter of her life by her father, she had little recollection of her first five years.

   From what she had learned from her brother, much later on, their father had once been a good man, a proud man who had loved his family dearly. The loss of his wife set him on a path to self-annihilation via the vices of alcohol and gambling. None of this mattered to Leci; all she remembered was that the fighting had been an almost constant factor in her younger years. Faded memories of cowering behind Xavian whilst their father, intoxicated, drew himself into yet another bar brawl. Usually the worst thing his kids were forced to watch was their old man taking a fist to the jaw, he had a knack of getting away from situations before they got too violent to handle. He called it luck, even at such a tender age Leci identified is as cowardice.

   Of course, there was bound to come the day when his ‘luck’ turned and someone pulled a pistol on him.

   Leci could still remember how she had screamed.

She hadn't thought she was going to be able to
stop until Xavian had clamped one
hand over her mouth,
the other around her waist,
swung her from her feet and fled.