The Overlord: A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (3 page)

There was no magic or myths as Fossil had said, just twisted science and a man who abandoned his nightmare here on Earth. Yet, after all that time, the Overlord might've actually come back. I wasn't going to miss out on being one of the first to see him. Besides, a perfectly good opportunity to do something extraordinary had presented itself. Who in their right mind would want to pass up on jet packs?

3

THE WANDERING STAR

As for the interception of the so-called Space Wizard, I believe the events are best told by the intergalactic traveler himself. Through events that inevitably transpired, Commander Zero ended up with a mysterious journal in his possession. Left behind in the Overlord's chamber of the Lair, a couple entries shed some light on what exactly happened when he came back to Earth.

Now a confiscation of the United Corps, the journal appears incomplete with several missing entries. Its only contents reveal nothing on what he might've been doing in space for all that time. It was as if the other entries had been purposely omitted, like there was something he didn't want people to know about. The world may never know what was actually on those lost pages, but at least his last two entries were found fully available. I think he meant for someone to find his last words.

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I am Dr. Deadstock. In the old world, I was an energy scientist. Before that time came to its end, I was going by another title. The people called me the Overlord, but that was ages ago. Now days, I'm not really sure what I should be called. I've roamed through both light and darkness in the endlessness of the great void beyond. In doing so, I've become something of a lonely Space Wizard than anything as tangible or real as a scientist.

When you look up to a clear night sky, what do you see? You see stars of course, but what if I told you there were stars between the stars? You just can't see them for they're as black as the night that surrounds them. In the vacuum of the consuming dark, they'll often lose their place and wander through time and space. I am such a dark and wandering star, a forbidden light. It sounds like a fairytale, I know, but I assure you it's nothing short of horror.

These musings stem from a constantly agonizing notion in the back of my head. It tells me that I'm no longer human. My anatomy has changed from an experimental procedure. I've become my own monster. From the outside, I appear to be a man of organic matter, but underneath, I'm filled with synthetic life. My veins flow with the power of the Blood Tech and its secrets, the first human to ever make the symbiosis. I vow that I'll be the only one too.

In my effort to keep the Blood Tech battery hidden from mankind's clutches, I took an inhuman measure to make it impossible to steal. Infused with my own heart, I have concealed the Wandering Star. The process changed me. It changed the world around me. I am unlimited now, invincible. I am the very energy that others so desperately seek.

Along with the heart inside me, I took the monitoring intelligence, the Far Stranger, and fled the planet for good. The hope was to bring slumber to the mayhem, but upon returning, I fear I may have just reawakened the bloodshed. I knew I had to come back, but I didn't know what the cost would be this time. The Last War had its own price and it was all too high. Mankind won't survive that kind of payment again.

My bloodline's predecessors, immigrants from a place called Kenya, used to tell me something in their primordial Swahili tongue, "Dunia duara."

Literally, the motto means that the earth is round. More significantly, it means that wherever you go, you'll always end up back where you started. When need be, it was a way for a mother and father to express to their child that nothing ever really changes. Thus, nothing is really worth fretting over.

At other times, it was a way of reminding me that I'd never be able to see and do everything. Instead, I should just focus on what was right in front me. As I grew older, its meaning translated into something far more despondent. Dunia duara, the earth is round. It never has an end. What will be, will always be again.

Distant stars, planets, and galaxies alike shine out from the black expanse of this whole universe, but here in the Milky Way, this planet of water and earth has always seemed to stand alone to me. It's been more than two decades since I've stepped foot in its dirt. Last I saw of the world, a web of red veins was laced upon its shadowed face. From the surface, the sky was painted black and crimson. Flames danced across the ground. Cities burned as horrible lasers gleamed from every corner. War was being waged over every nation and territory. 

It's much, much quieter now. As far as my eyes can see, miles of desert wasteland stretch out in every possible direction. This morning, as I descended upon this familiar planet from the cosmos above, I came to two likely conclusions. I thought at first that there appeared to be a layer of dead skin that covered the whole of the earth, just waiting to be peeled away to reveal new life. I took hope in believing that the world wasn't completely dead. 

As my ship fell, however, a terror came upon me that the world was actually deeply scarred, unable to ever be what it was, incapable of sustaining any sort of life. Upon arrival, it seemed that my worst fears had come true. I've never known such dread as the possibility of being the only sentient being left in all of the earth.

Crashing on some strange coast, I couldn't make any sense of my surroundings. The oceans had swallowed most of the continental mass. Geography had drastically changed as a result. I had no idea what sea I was in, let alone what national borders laid beyond.

Stumbling out of the wreckage of my ship, I waded through the surf toward an unknown shore. I took a moment to gaze upon my own reflection in the waves, praying that I was not staring at the last of humankind upon those waters. In that mirror of the sea, the arching waves revealed something more than just me. A pair of eyes that were not my own were staring back through the reflection. The irises were bright green, vivid and glowing like a predator of the night. A face than rose from the surf to meet my own. A smell came up with it, an aroma of death like the mushroom clouds in the Last War.

Disfigured and mutated, the creature almost looked like a man. Its skin was unclothed, scaled and draped with slime. It was marred with open wounds that would have slayed a normal person. Fins protruded painfully from the whole of its frame. The neckline was slit with gills, struggling to respire in the open air. As for the green eyes, there was no sign of intelligence staring back at me. If ever it was a man, it had become pure animal.

Snarling with a few blackened teeth, the creature snapped toward me. I quickly seized its mushy neck with one hand, shoving my knife into its stomach with the other. It wailed a hissing cry as a fountain of green goo came gushing from its belly. I pushed the creature off of me and the waves took it away. What on Earth was that thing?

The fight wasn't over, though. With its dying yelp, the creature had called its friends to avenge its slaughter. The waters around me began to spout and pop. From the dark sea, more amphibian humanoids emerged to feast upon my helpless position.

I unsheathed my lengthy knife and lobbed it into the closest head. The ravenous life form immediately ceased its approach, glowing eyes dimmed. My magnetic glove, linked specially with my blade, then brought the hilt from out of its forehead and back into my palm. Again, I hurled the knife, brought it back, and flung it out once more. One by one, their assault was spreading thin, but they were splashing their way closer and closer every time.

Suddenly, more backup arrived. The creatures of slime and goop were coming in packs, loads of them. Where were they all coming from?

Switching to my sidearm, I slowly retreated back to my vessel as I sent a few wallops into the oncoming attack. Every round tore the gooey monsters apart, like blowing seeds from a dandelion after making a wish. Their slime proved flammable as every bullet sent their bodies ablaze.

For all its carnage, taking time to shoot was just slowing me down. Every second, the aquatic arena got smaller. Ceasing fire, I turned to make a run for it. Frantically, I sloshed back to my celestial ship.

I radioed out, "Far Stranger, power up the engines, now!"

"Ability to fly has been compromised," informed my personal artificial intelligence into the radio. "Stranded. Craft will never make it out of the sea."

I shouted back, "I wasn't planning on it, but prepare the ship for takeoff anyway. I've got an idea."

"Then I hope you have something to hold onto," spoke the gloomy voice.

Peering over my shoulder, a cycling vibration started to swirl from the dual thrusters behind me. With a fiery roar, the propulsion system sent a massive geyser of steaming water up into the air. The waves tremored, aggressively rippling toward me and my confused assailants. I dipped under the surf and quickly swam out of danger's range, wrestling and swerving through the creatures along the way.

Returning to my celestial ship from the opposite side, I climbed up onto its nose only to find that I had a follower at my heels. It reached for my ankle and bit down through the thick leather of my combat boot. I howled out as I drew my hefty gun from its holster. Click, click, the chamber was flooded! With the sole of my free foot, I didn't hesitate to smash the creature's face in. Breaking free from its oily grasp, I then clamored toward the cockpit with my adrenaline pumping.

Once seated, I seized the control stick without wasting any more time and slammed it hard to the left. The ship began to wildly spin in the sea, counterclockwise and gaining speed with every rotation. The bloodthirsty monstrosities were increasingly progressing to come at me from all directions. The twirling thrusters served to burn through the bulk of their onslaught, but some had already made it onto the top of the craft.

"Far Stranger, we're going to have overload all power supplies," I bellowed as I closed the overhead hatch. "Engage this heap into a self-destruct mode! I want you to blow the whole thing up, just make sure you eject me before you do!"

He asked with practicality, "Do you require a spacesuit?"

I derided, "Does it really look like I have the time for that right now?"

A slimy hand was already clawing to get in, banging away at the cockpit glass. Annoyed, I pounded the glass back with my fist in an attempt to scare it away like a bothering fly. The angered creature paused to shriek at me before continuing on with its rattling barrage.

Inside, the engines whined as a warning alarm split my poor ears. With all haste, I strapped on my flight mask, leveling out my breathing as I waited for the impending moment of destruction. The internal combustion came soon enough. Just in time, the shield glass broke open above me as my seat shot wildly into the sky.

Elevating with me, an enormous explosion of seawater and fire gusted up from below. My celestial ship had imploded, swallowing those awful beasts in its ruin. Split off from the discharge seat, a silver parachute then plumed out from by back, suspending me in the air. As I hung above the smoldering wreckage beneath my feet, I floated over to the shoreline and plunged down into its sticky sand.

Stumbling up to find my footing, I was suddenly yanked backward. Those blasted creatures were still alive! One of them had my silvery chute in its grip, tugging me toward its gooey black jaws. A female, it carried an appalling smile and a set of seaweed hair that went down below its shoulders.

I unclipped myself from the parachute cords and strung her neck with its silver sail. With one free hand, I reached for my knife, but it was missing from its sheath. Where had it gone?

Opening up my palm, I allowed my magnetic glove an opportunity to retrieve the blade, wherever it was. After several fraught moments, there was still no sign of it and I couldn't hold the distorted woman any longer. Her friends had come to her rescue, ganging up and surrounding me without a survivable exit.

Amazingly, from out of the seething wreck in the waves, a steaming object came flailing toward my hand. I grabbed ahold of something red and hot. It was my knife! I swung out the searing blade into the soft, slimy flesh about me and carved my way free from their entrapment. Coated in sand, goo, and grime, I raced to put my back to the dunes. Facing the ocean, I then stood to meet the evils that lurked at water's edge.

Before another move could be made, the creatures fled most unexpectedly. In despair, they swam back into the deep as I caught wind of a familiar sound. It was a loud, mechanical hum. I knew exactly what it meant. Humans were here. Humans were coming. They were coming for me. In that instant, my desire to see a living person vanished as a part of me truly wished I had returned to a barren and lifeless world.

Though it was a clear day, there was a dark cloud hovering over the dunes behind me. Slowly, I swung around to behold the sight. Strokes of lightning were shrieking out from the swelling fume. The mechanical hum was coming from within its cloudy presence. I sifted through the sand and proceeded to mount a dune to get a closer look.

Summiting to the top, a beautiful ambiance of colored lights popped through the veil before me. There was something behind this foggy curtain. Wild currents of air then shook my overgrown mop and beard. Before I knew it, the air went still and the clouds settled peacefully to the ground. Something had landed.

From the foggy apparition before me, three figures marched out in specialized battle armor, translucent and impenetrable to most anything. They were armed with technologically advanced weapons of glassy construct. These were my people. These were my followers. These were Thralls.

The three approached me with ceremony. Two at my side. One directly in front.

"The area is secure, but I wouldn't want to hang around here for very long," said the operative at the center.

I could tell by the voice that it was a girl. Though all of their faces were hidden beneath their helmets, I could tell that this girl in front of me was young, too young. Along with the other two fledglings at either side of me, I presumed that they were all probably no more than a year outside of being teenagers, if even that.