The Sky Is Falling - Chapter 1 – Ominous Warnings
“Dear Ben
Forgive my handwriting as I’m doing this in a hurry before any of you get back from getting firewood, but I need you to know what Harold told me. You see, he wasn’t dead when I found him. He was near it but not in the grave just yet. He told me I had to continue his quest to find the God Cannon. Now that quest falls to you. You have to seek out Esther Queen in London. I know I can count on you.
Love, Uncle Rooster.
I’ve thought about that letter maybe a dozen times in the past five days. I know every word by heart, even though I’d read it just once before burning it. It is my mission statement, and I will follow it. Skye and I will go to London. We will find the God Cannon, and we will kill the gods. Yet this isn’t about saving the world, it’s about something primal and simple: revenge. The gods had come down on our home, The Glass Palace, and killed our families. My mother died in my arms. My cousin Milo was burned alive. The gods think they’re safe, swooping around the world, destroying continents and people’s lives, but now their days are numbered. Skye and I are coming for them. They will pay.
I return back to my chores, putting log pieces in the fireplace. The weather is bitterly cold and tonight the temperatures will be below freezing. The odd thing is it isn’t even winter. It is the middle of July. Connor, a blacksmith whose cottage Skye and I are staying in, had said the seasons were out of order, which didn’t really explain much. The seasons have been acting strangely for months now. I wish I knew what was wrong. All I know for sure is that it is freezing all the time and most days I am never warm enough.
“Who do you think this Esther Queen person is?” Skye wonders. She is dusting the small cottage we are staying in. The house’s owner, Connor Bristol, is away in the nearby village of Fowl running errands. “Neither of my fathers mentioned her before. Do you think she’s a god slayer too?”
I watch her work, her face beaming as she wipes a damp cloth over the surfaces. She likes to clean. She says it keeps her mind off things. Her pet teacup pig, Albatross, is curled up on a dilapidated old chair watching her with avid eyes. I still haven’t figured out the connection between them. How does Skye know what her pet is thinking, and how does she ask him to do things for her? I wish she would tell me what her deal is but I know she has secrets. I hope that one day she can trust me enough to confide in me.
I’ve known Skye ever since I can remember. We’ve been best friends since before I could talk. We’re both fifteen years old and are the last living members of the House of Casper, a small town that existed inside an old shopping mall called The Glass Palace, which was destroyed by the gods that plague our world. Sometimes I think we’re lucky that we survived. Other times I think it would’ve been merciful for us to have gone down with the House and our families.
“I’ve never heard of her either, but I think she might,” I say. I’m starting to get bored of doing chores now. I want to leave and start our journey to London immediately. Patience isn’t one of my strong suits. “There are dozens of them out there. Maybe father would’ve told who they were if he’d lived.”
I doubted that. Father liked to keep secrets. If the gods hadn’t attacked, he and the others would’ve left to kill the gods themselves and I’d be mayor of the House of Casper. I’d be miserable, but at least my family would still be alive.
I got my wish, though. I wanted to be out in the world instead of stuck in The Glass Palace, stifled. I should be glad I have what I wanted so desperately.
“Are you...are we god slayers now?” Skye asks me. Her voice is quiet, hushed, almost awed, like even voicing this question is somehow blasphemous. She clutches at her raven black hair, hanging loose around her shoulders.
“I suppose we are.”
“That’s quite a burden.”
I nod my head, agreeing with her.
Skye gives a mournful sigh and gets back to work.
I’m a god slayer. It’s quite a grand title, especially when I haven’t actually slain a god yet. I hope Esther Queen can help me with that.
I don’t know if I’m supposed to be scared or delighted. While I want revenge, the thought of actually killing the gods terrifies me, not to mention the long journey we’d have to take to get to London. It’s hundreds of miles to our destination, through cities of rubble and tribes of Felum and across the chasm of Britain and who knows what other dangers. What if we don’t make it? What if...what if...
No. This is what I have to do...what we have to do. Our families deserve vengeance and we will get it for them. The fact that we save the world in the process is just a nice bonus.
I journey outside to fetch more logs for the fire. It is snowing again, heavy. The flakes are the size of cherries and feel like blunt razors as they hit my hands and face. I don’t understand this change in weather but suspect it has something to do with the gods. I don’t know how they’ve done it, but Tornado and Blue Hair have managed to destroy the seasons as well as the rest of the planet. What I don’t understand is why they’ve done it. What’s the point? A part of me thinks that they’ve done it just because they can, or because they want to inflict more misery on us, but something tells me it isn’t that. The frustrating thing is that I might never know the truth.
The gods were responsible for so much. Hundreds of years ago there were six gods. The good ones created a weapon called the God Cannon to kill the bad ones. After that, the good ones started fighting each other for reasons nobody knows. Mixcoatl and Ninurta (or Tornado and Blue Hair as I call them) ended up destroying cities and killing people in their millions while fighting. The people left over warred with each other, caught diseases and reduced their already low numbers through other means. Any attempts to gather together and build big cities again always ended up the same; the gods destroyed it.
I pull my hand through my hair, dark brown and messy. I’m growing it long in memory of him. My adolescent beard is still scraggly and a little pathetic looking, but I’m hoping that one day I will have a goatee that would make my father proud.
Rotter the parrot flies past me and lands on a fence post. This bird has literally saved my life. He somehow led me out of the Order of Power’s underground base, through a mineshaft, and all the way to Connor’s cottage. I ruffle his red feathers with my hand, eternally grateful. I’ll probably never know how intelligent this bird really is.
“Rotter!” the parrot announces. He sounds proud of himself. “Skye is the best person in the whole world!”
I agree with him. She’s the only thing I have left right now and I will treasure her forever.
As I reach the woodpile I begin to think about my father. His body is buried on the hill overlooking the cottage. He’d taught me so much in my life. There were still things he hadn’t gotten around to teaching me. What have I missed out on? What did the Order of Power do when they repurposed him, turned him into the vile, murderous Brother Willow? Zachary Casper was a man who had been destined to destroy the gods, along with Harold Oldman and Uncle Rooster and Doctor Kahn, and now they were all dead; dead and remembered only by Skye and myself. The Order of Power had placed a newly created personality inside his head, which then took over and erased the original. They had used his body for their own ends; they had “repurposed” it.
I flash back to Brother Willow’s cruel, taunting words, telling me that I wasn’t Zachary Casper’s true son. It’s a lie, I know that. But why could the Brother come back from the dead and display such amazing healing powers? I haven’t inherited it. So why can’t I heal myself in an instant? Why am I so different?
I tense and whisper, “Brother Willow...”
I haven’t checked on the grave today. For the past five days I’ve monitored the buried remains of my father/Brother Willow. I have to make sure he hasn’t risen from the grave again. If he could do it once then he could do it again.
I run, stumbling over farming equipment left lying around. I have this terrible
certainty that Brother Willow is clawing his way out of the dirt right this very second, covered in worms, screaming for revenge. I should have checked him sooner! I’m such an idiot!
I halt at the gravesite. I heave a sigh of relief to see it is undisturbed. It seems Brother Willow is dead and is staying that way. I’m glad. Seeing that monster riding around in my father’s body always made me sick to my stomach.
There is a loud crash from further down the hill. I walk up the steep incline a bit more and look into the valley, down at the village of Fowl. It is made up of twenty or so small cottages and an old religion church that is now used as a grain storehouse. The remains of the Order of Power’s headquarters still burn, days after my brother, Dylan, blew it up with his suicide-bombing raid. The village looks peaceful enough. There are no Brothers and Sisters about, but there are no villagers about, either. It’s the middle of the day, a market day. There should be people about, buying and selling things, chatting about their families.
Connor is down there...
I look around a bit more, but I can’t tell where the crash came from. I know for certain it originated from Fowl. Did the noise drive the villagers back into their houses? Is the Order of Power up to something? I doubt it. Assuming the aboveground entrance to their underground headquarters is the only way down there, I imagine most of the Brothers and Sisters are still trapped underground because of the damage caused by Dylan’s bomb.
I have to know what’s going on.
Connor returns a few hours later as the sun begins to set. He is in a boisterous mood, obviously drunk, as he comes in the door. The bags he carries with him look heavy but I’m sure he can handle it. He is almost seven foot, with blonde hair and the physique of someone who could handle any weight. I asked him days ago how he’d gotten such large muscles and he said he was born that way.
He calls hello to the two of us and puts his bags on the floor. Skye runs to the door and closes it to stop the snow from blowing in. Connor seems to be a forgetful drunk, much like my Uncle Rooster is...used to be. I imagine Connor would have loved my uncle’s homebrew. It was certainly a taste you never forgot.
“Did you get everything?” I ask, excited.
“Are you that eager to get yourself killed?” Connor asks. His voice is deep and gruff and gravelly.
“We won’t get ourselves killed,” says Skye with a smile. She pulls out some dried chicken from a bag and giggles.
“Maybe you should reconsider this foolish venture,” says Connor.
“Ridding the world of the gods is not foolish,” I snap.
“Maybe if you were doing it for the right reasons,” says Connor.
We’ve had this conversation before, back when Skye and I had told Connor of our plans. Skye had told me Connor was trustworthy and I believed her, but now I was beginning to wish we’d kept quiet. I don’t want him to convince us not to go. I still don’t know him that well, as I haven’t been living with him as long as Skye but I can see he cares for her. He doesn’t want her to get hurt. He doesn’t want me to get hurt either.
“Revenge is a perfectly good reason,” I state.
We decide to have one last warm meal, one final night in a proper bed, and then tomorrow we will start on our quest. We have our food supplies now, as well as a plastic tent that Connor has borrowed from a friend. We even have a map in our possession. It belonged to Connor’s wife, though where the wife is now we have no idea. He refuses to talk about it.
As I chew down on undercooked peas, I mentally flesh out the mission before us. London is in a southerly direction from our current position, and I’m fairly sure we can navigate our way there using the map. The map is ancient, probably pre-apocalypse, though it does have the chasm that had split the country in half marked on it with some sort of red crayon. I have no idea how we will bypass that. I joke to myself, saying we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Is there a bridge? Surely someone would’ve built one by now?
“The town seemed quiet,” I say to break the silence.
“The Order members that were displaced on the surface have been billeted in people’s homes,” Connor explains to us. “They won’t let the villagers leave their sight unless it’s for a dire emergency. They only let me do my trading because I’m the only blacksmith in the area, and they need to keep me on their side.”
“I don’t know how the villagers put up with them,” says Skye.
“They don’t really have a choice,” says Connor. “The Order have been good to this village in the past. Now things are changing. They’re more aggressive.”
“The House of Casper thought the Order was a pathetic cult,” I say. “They were dead wrong.”
I watch Skye as she feeds Albatross scraps under the table. She catches me watching and winks conspiratorially at me.
“How far are they with the rebuilding?” I ask. “I heard a loud noise come from down there earlier today.”
Connor sighs, looks down at his plate. “They tore down the mayor’s house because she said she didn’t want to be repurposed. The mayor and his family were in it at the time.”
Skye stifles a gasp. The Order is getting aggressive.
“The whole town have been told they’re to be repurposed in the near future. When reinforcements arrive they will be,” says Connor. “They should be here any day now. Lucky for you you’ll be gone by then.”
I tense. “Why?”
“This entire valley will be crawling with thousands of Brothers and Sisters. I heard them talking; they’re starting the crusade very soon.”
“The crusade?” A look of deep thought comes to Connor’s face. “I spoke with one of the Brothers in town, a Brother Storm. He told me that they were going to go out and repurpose the whole world.”
“The whole world?” Skye exclaims.
Connor nods. I know it to be true because Brother Willow told me.
“Did he say why they were doing it?” I ask. “Brother Willow said it was because they wanted everyone to worship the gods.”
“That’s what he said too.”
We contemplate this horrifying prospect as we eat. The thought of it makes me feel ill. I have no idea how they’ll reach the entire world but for some reason I know they’re quite capable. They’re going to kill millions of people and place soulless monsters inside their bodies.
Why am I even thinking about this? If I kill the gods, then the Order of Power won’t have anything to worship anymore. If I complete my quest to find the God Cannon then I destroy the Order at the same time.
That night I dream I’m back in the Order of Power’s underground base. I’m still in that sinister white room, strapped down to that gleaming silver table, as the sharp point of the metallic, bulky repurposing machine lowers down to destroy who I am. The needle is going to push through my skull and into my brain and implant a new personality. I struggle against my bonds, shout for all I’m worth, but nobody is there to listen. I’m on my own.
“You’re not on your own,” says a familiar voice.
I know that voice like it is a part of my own soul. It belongs to Brian. I feel him take my hand and I just know all is right in my tragic world again. The man I love is here to save me and take me away from this nightmare. Even the sight of The Glass Palace collapsing in hellish flames, somehow reflected in Brian’s eyes, doesn’t faze me, not now he is here.
“Untie me,” I ask him.
“You don’t feel any pain,” says Brian. “You become something better. You get to serve the gods!”
Brian looks the same as ever. In appearance he hasn’t changed a bit. He’s not the Brian I knew anymore, though, is he? He’s been repurposed as Brother China now. My first love, the man who I had pinned all my hopes on, is gone forever.
“Breathe slowly and let it happen,” says Brian. Standing next to him are Brother Willow, Sister Artemis and Brother Pine, all members of my family who have been taken and erased forever. Brot
her Pine, my brother Dylan, may have somehow shaken off the repurposing, but he is still dead, still gone from my life.
I struggle some more as the people who were once my family start chanting, willing the personality of Ben Casper to die. The repurposing device, all needles and blinking lights, lightly brushes against my hair. As it starts drilling into my head I wake up, screaming.
I look up in the dark to find Skye sitting on my bed, looking down at me. She smiles and gives me a kiss on the cheek.
“You’ll be okay,” she says. “You have me now.”
“I couldn’t save them,” I whimper. “Not any of them.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” says Skye.
I can hear the teacup pig snuffling around the edge of the bed, and with a leap he’s on top of the covers. I smile as he tries to get into bed with me. I let him. The small creature is warm and I need something, anything, to comfort me right now, even if it is a smelly little pig.
When morning arrives, and Connor leaves to do work on the farm, I’m still wide-awake. The pig is curled up in bed with me, fast asleep, and Skye is flopped out on the covers too, also in a deep slumber. I haven’t slept a wink since the nightmare. All I see when I close my eyes is the still earth of my father’s grave. Violence and misery surround me. I should be anxious to get going. We have all we need to start our journey to London. With the crusade beginning, the world just seems to be on the brink of another disaster. Even if I do kill the gods, the Order will still be around in their thousands and the seasons will still be twisted. So what’s the point? Is revenge all I have?
“You dribble in your sleep,” Skye states, yawning.
“I haven’t been to sleep,” I tell her.
“You have,” she says. “You probably just don’t remember.”
I get up, wash my face, and dress, thinking it over. Revenge has been a good enough reason so far to kill the gods. They did murder my family, after all. I’ve told myself over and over that the gods need to pay for what they’ve done. Yet now, with so much else going on, and with Connor’s drunken remarks yesterday, I’m unsure.
Skye is about to cut into some bread for our breakfast when she looks at me. I’m staring at her, willing her to say something.
“What is it?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I lie.
“You really are weird,” she says.
I decide there and then that revenge has to be enough. It’s fuelled me this past week and it will keep me going for the rest of our journey. Whatever happens with everything else has to save for later.
The two of us sit at the table, pulling pieces from bread rolls. I’m musing on the journey ahead and I suspect Skye is too. We don’t talk. Now is a time for thinking.
“I thought for a while that if the gods died, then the Order of Power would die too.” I sigh, feeling naive. “That won’t happen, will it?”
She just shakes her head sadly, and we continue to eat, and we continue to think.
Skye suddenly stands bolt upright.
“What is it?” I ask, frightened. “What’s wrong?”
“Rotter says something has upset Connor,” Skye mumbles as she heads for the door. “We have to go and see what’s wrong!”
“How do you know what...?” But she’s already out the door, Albatross trotting behind her in an effort to keep up.
I just don’t understand Skye. I never have and I never will.
Outside I get a shock; the snow is thawing. The icicles that creep down from the porch roof are dripping water and the tiny pond by the side of the house no longer has an ice coating on it. Even the air feels less crisp and chilly than it did last night. Perhaps summer has finally decided to make its presence felt.
“The snow’s melting!” I exclaim.
“Rotter isn’t here,” says Skye, panic clear on her face. “Where is he?”
“You seemed to know where he was...”
“He says he’s up the hill,” shouts Skye, stalking off. “Follow me!”
I sigh and tag along behind Skye and Albatross as they scamper up the hill, being careful not to slip on the icy grass. We have better things to do than go on a wild goose chase, but Skye seems to be generally upset.
What was upsetting Rotter becomes readily apparent when we reach Connor. He’s standing with his back to us, utterly still. There is no reason to ask him what’s unnerved him and the parrot so.
My father’s grave is empty.
I fall forward, my head spinning, the world a daze. My mouth is full of dirt and I spit it out, smelling fresh earth and dried blood. I can feel Connor pulling me back to my feet but I don’t really register him. My father, Brother Willow, has come back to life once again. I might have to kill him again, and the next time might break me.
“Maybe some animal dug him up,” Skye suggests as Rotter lands on her arm. She strokes him to calm him down.
I look down at the grave. I feel sick.
“Someone dug their way out of there,” I say.
Connor is looking at something in the melting snow that carpets the hill. Skye and I look too and find footprints heading away from the grave. The three of us, plus animal entourage, follow the footprints as they meander and wave back towards the cave in the mountain: the entrance I came out of when I escaped the Order’s underground base.
“Why has he gone back there?” I wonder. “Surely he would have gone down to the village and met up with the Brothers and Sisters there?”
“Perhaps he was disoriented?” Connor suggests. “He was dead and buried after all.”
“Well, he was confused the last time he died,” I say. I remember the jolt I had upon seeing him again after I’d killed him the first time. I don’t think I can take much more of this. “This is bad. We have to go in there and see if we can stop him. If he gets back through the mineshaft he’ll tell the Order where we are.”
“Or lead the Order through the mineshaft so they can kill us,” says Skye.
I look at Connor and make a snap decision. “You have to come with us to London.”
“I can’t leave here,” Connor protests. “This is my home.”
“They’ll find out you helped me and they’ll repurpose you!” I yell at him. “I can’t see that happen to you as well.”
And then the ground trembles. I have sudden flashbacks of when the gods destroyed The Glass Palace. Rotter starts screeching like the world is ending. Perhaps it is.
“Rotter says he saw something in the sky!” Skye yells.
“It’s the gods,” I tell her, petrified. “I’m certain.”
The three of us look up. The skies are still dark and heavy, despite the fact that summer is almost upon us. That’s when we see it, a quick glimpse as two clouds pass by each other, revealing the blue sky and beyond.
There is a large crack running along the surface of the moon. It reminds me of a hairline fracture on a piece of glass. How massive must the crack be for us to able to see it clearly from all the way down here?
“What does it mean?” Skye asks, clutching my arm.
I don’t know. I’m too terrified to answer her.