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Prologue
Look at what they were all doing with their lives. Children shooting children. Mayhem in the streets. Drugs on every corner. Hookers and whores at every turn. Murder and chaos no matter where you looked.
No one was doing anything about it. The cops just turned their heads and let it slide. The justice system let off those few that the cops actually bothered to bring in. The prisons were overcrowded, and outfitted with revolving doors at the main gates; you'd walk in, and then walk right back out in no time at all.
People were hiding in their own homes from the criminals and the thugs. The only ones that seemed to have a modicum of security and freedom were the murderers and thieves themselves.
No one seemed to care. There wasn't anything being done about it. There were no mythological white knights to ride along and punish the wicked. There were no superheroes to fly in and save the day. Hell, even the actual people who really did care, who really were trying to make a difference, were hard-pressed to keep themselves in one piece, let alone try and fix the mess the world was in.
There was too much wickedness and evil in the world. There was no justice anymore. Just yesterday, some boozed out coke hound plowed his car through a school playground and killed half a dozen kids. Thanks to his lawyer, he was already out on bond. What fucking judge thought that even giving that guy a bail hearing was a good idea?
Where was the justice? Where were the people trying to make a difference? No one seemed to care anymore. No one seemed to notice the blood flooding the streets. No one cared about the gangs running the children out of their own parks and off of their own play-sets. No one seemed to give a rat's ass about the mother's giving birth to babies, addicted to god knows what right out of the womb.
How many crack-heads could he see from the window of his car as it drove down the street? Even one was too many. How many knife-wounds, gunshots, and bullet holes would he end up being an unwilling witness to by the end of the day?
There. In the near distance, the sharp staccato report of a high caliber handgun. A rifle would have reverberated more, been deeper, and not so… vulgar. It was already too late to salvage this day. It had begun.
In more ways than one.
He watched in morbid fascination as the match clutched between his shaking fingers disintegrated slowly, the glowing orange flame eating its way inexorably down the wood until it just gently kissed his fingertips. He didn't even hiss in pain as he dropped the burning splinter. He only stepped back as it tumbled into a pungent, damp puddle.
The gentle WUMPH of the fire whispered in his ears. The flames leapt towards the ceiling, eating the oxygen, the wood, the cheap, cracked linoleum.
Too bad it wouldn't eat away the sorrow of the world. This one fire, no matter how far it spread, wouldn't be big enough to do that, though.
He watched the fire eat its way through the dilapidated crack house. The yellow gold of the flames licking at the walls, and the thick belches of smoke holding him immobile, transfixing him. The crackle of the beast as it devoured everything in its path sang in his ears, and tingled in his veins.
The screams awoke him to reality.
He kicked the empty can of gasoline deep into the flames, and retreated out the door into the darkened alley. He could still hear them all screaming, even out here. Too high and stoned to find their way out of the deathtrap, the drug addicts within shrieked their fear and pain to the heavens.
Just let the fire take them. Let the inferno cleanse them of their sins. Let the raging flames be his justice.
He smiled, his eyes wide and glazed with madness as he watched the ballet of flickering light through the barred windows. The smoke quickly obscured the heavenly fire, and carbon coated the glass in soot, cloaking the judgment taking place within.
He turned and fled down the dark alley, smiling in grim satisfaction as the screams died out behind him.
No one had cared about the state of the world. No one had given a damn about at what they were all doing with their lives. Children shooting children. Mayhem in the streets. Drugs on every corner. Hookers and whores at every turn. Murder and chaos no matter where you looked.
No one had cared to try and fix it.
Until now.
As the fire started to eat its way out of its prison, he smiled. He would bring the fire to cleanse the whole world. He would bring justice to them all.
Even if it meant burning the whole world to ash.
