Prologue
It is the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month.
I have not been outside for two days, and today is a holiday. My mother worries. And she is right to.
You see, deaths are occuring. Of course, death occurs always – there are always the old that die of natural causes – but this is different. There are reports of fallen children, murdered officials, stabbed countrymen – there is death everywhere.
It has not always been this way. Our world was once peaceful and ordinary. There was a man, a superman, although he is not at all like the Superman we know from stories. When he appeared to us, his first attacks spoke to us. We understood that he was here not to save us, but to wreck us, to take revenge upon humankind. I do not think anyone knows his reason for revenge.
He is a superhuman. I do not know his face. The townsfolk talk of his violent attacks on the cities beyond us. My father worked at Starfleet Headquarters. There was an attack there, one month ago. My father perished with six hundred others. The superhuman...
His name is Khan.
I have learnt to detest the name.
The night my father died, I wept. My mother wept. My neighbours wept. It is now one month after my father's passing, and I remain in my bedroom. I do not weep anymore. I stare at the window. The sky outside is a bright blue, but it can hardly be called beautiful – I know that it is littered with the souls of the perished. So many families have been ripped apart because of Khan. Alas, I am cold, and I cannot weep for them. I wish to, but I cannot.
The merry Christmas holidays approach us quickly. I have ready two gifts. One for mother, one for father. I feel a sudden pang in my chest.
