The power had failed sooner than Sephra had expected and the world was in turmoil. It was just two days after his death that the power failed. There was no slow regression into darkness. One moment the lights were on and the next they weren’t.
What we didn’t know, what had been kept from us, was that we even though we had known the end was coming power consumption had actually increased in the days leading up to the blackout. A combination of poor planning and corruption.
Moreover the war which had so casually used nuclear fuel as an explosive had denied its descendants the power required to continue living. In a sheltered reality we had been living off back-up power supplied, intended for dire emergencies, for months. We had all been living on borrowed time.
It hit the population like an explosion. One moment our screens were giving us all the information we could ever want. The next they weren’t and never would again. One moment there was order, the next there was chaos.
High above Bataga the most powerful people in the world looked down on their city, trapped. Without power there were no lifts and no doors. Only the poor could make it out onto the streets. Fire prevention systems had been drained of all their power. The systems watched passively as their kings burnt and their palaces melted.
Hospitals suffered record deaths as life giving machines failed. Newborns in oxygen and xenon incubators suffocated as the nurses struggled fruitlessly to release the electronic locks. The hallways echoed with the screams of the untreated injured.
The Police went home, there was no use for them anymore. Families gathered together their relatives. In hushed circles parents whispered to their children sweet words of comfort before they all drank from poisoned chalices. Some mothers spared their offspring from the horror of the new-world by drowning them in the fabric of the pillows they had so lovingly bought for their most precious joys.
The world was gone and nothing could ever bring it back.
The only this that I knew as the city feel was that I needed to reach the docks. I had to get to my ship, but the city was in complete turmoil. There were riots everywhere, the barbarian hordes had breeched the city walls and everyone had gone mad with fear. They were just running anywhere without direction or purpose.
Here and there people were rushing into each other desperate to cause death. Just around the corner there were people looting with an addicted thirst. The militia’s desperate ensure that no one would acquire the wealth they had collected from years of government payouts destroyed anything they saw. Nothing was immune.
I had called Adrian earlier and told him to come with me. I told him that I had a way out, that I had a way of surviving. Whether or not this was true, I knew that I had to save him, no matter what was between us. Matt had already died. He had been thrown off his own roof by the gangs. I hadn’t felt anything at the news. None of it felt real.
I had waited as long as I could but there was no sign of Adrian. I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to go. The crashing of explosives was getting closer. I was almost certain he had been caught up somewhere, certain to die, when I spotted him out of the corner of my eye. His impossibly handsome figure was striding towards me at full speed.
Crouching next to me he put his mouth to my ear and shouted over the rifle fire, ‘why are we going to the docks? It’s madness down there, the worst of the violence! You can’t get through. There are no more ships left. The evacuation has come and gone. I mean people are jumping onto sub-orbiters trying to get away. They can’t make the translation to hyperspace. They’re never going to make it away from Earth. What chance do we stand? There’s nothing left!’
‘It’s okay,’ I shouted over the deafening noise. ‘There’s one more. We have a chance. You just have to trust me!’ I threw my head over my shoulder checking the street behind. ‘Now let’s go before we get shot!’
Running at lightning speed I threw myself across the street. Bullets, like rain, washed the crowd away. It was a tsunami of lead that the writhing mass of bodies simply could not withstand. They jumped and span about in the air and fell away twitching.
We ran down the banking sides of the walkway desperately urging one another forward. The Docks were just moments away from us as we rounded the corner onto Canal Street.
What greeted us around that corners like a scene from the Divine Comedy. I had expected that there would be unrest but what I was not prepared for was an inferno.
Everyone knew the Docks had been built before the wars and they truly were something incredible. Deep wide pits that created chasms in the ground which formed their overall structure. Huge angular cranes stood above to lift and lower ships into the voids below. In the background there were huge skyscrapers each shaped into impossible designs surrounding the docklands superstructure. The red sky shrouded their figures in a veil of violence.
I realised with horror that they were all ablaze, every building, every support unit. An aura of brilliant red embers had settled around them. The flood of citizens flickered with the fire’s red gaze as they dashed here and there, desperate to find something, anything that could help them escape.
Among the chaos I sighted directions to port 2B. Without a moment’s hesitation I grabbed Adrian by the hand and ran. As I ran everything became light. Halos began to surround the citizens around me. The buildings blossomed with light and became beautiful symbols of destructive harmony.
My eyes, in their ethereal state, caught sight of a girl in front of me. She was perhaps eight or nine and had become separated from her parents. Lost, she was fleeing in any direction. There was a sudden crashing as a grenade detonated behind her. In an instant light surged towards her and pushed her forward. She became an angel, launched into the sky on a sea of colours. She was beautiful and my heart wept for her salvation.
Then she was gone. I was left only with the sensation that I had seen something profound and I was grateful for it.
The dodging and strafing continued until a sign hung above our head came into view. Embalmed by the fire washing over its surface were the letters 2B. I didn’t know how, but we seemed to have made it. It seemed that in my mind’s state of shocked inebriation I had been guided in the right direction nonetheless. I surged with energy. In just a few moments we would be safe. I was sure that we had made it.
I looked back towards Adrian and my heart almost stopped. My body sunk as my eyes saw that his shirt was adorned in crimson. He had been hit by something, and he was barey walking. I quickly rushed back and looped my arm under his shoulder. Using all of my strength I dragged him forwards. But we were entering the gang-way too slowly, the people around us seeing an opportunity were trying to rush over us and onto the ships waiting platform. The seconds were crawling by with the feelings of minutes. I groaned with the strain of lifting Adrian up and onto the railing guarding the platform. Running my hand along the gene pad we were authorised for entry and the air lock opened. I dragged Adrian into the dark.