Waking. For the first time in what feels like centuries, my first instinct is to draw breath. I inhale water and splutter, thrashing around with my limbs, trying to orient myself. My vision is edged with black, choking gags muffled by surrounding water. Through the murk, I see light dancing above me. Instinct takes over. I kick off the river bed, and rise.
I break through the surface, coughing invading water from my lungs. I don't swim so much as flounder ashore, crawling along frozen ground before falling onto my back. Above me, the sky is pale blue with a gradient of orange toward the horizon. It may be morning or afternoon, but without knowing east or west, I can't be sure. Over my harsh breaths and pounding heart, a distressed voice calls out.
'Guardian! Can you hear me? Guardian?!' It's source appears, hovering above me. A little floating thing, it's casing all straight edged and symmetrical, surrounding a blue eye. It's calling to me.
'Guardian? Are you alright?' It asks me, blue eye pulsing along with it's speech pattern.
I try to speak, but all that leaves my mouth is translucent bile in harsh gags. My throat burns so I nod my response.
'Okay, that's something. So, I guess I should tell you you've been dead a long time.' It pulses at me with it's eye, in a natural voice. Not coldly artificial like I expect it to, though I don't know where that expectation comes from. It has real feeling to it. It should reassure me, but it's tone is uncertain. I glare at it, waiting for it to continue.
'We need to move, get somewhere safe. I'll explain as we go. Can you stand?' It blinks at me, hovering away to my right. I push myself to my feet, wavering a moment, fearing a fall. I'm hit with a brief bout of lightheadedness, holding out my hands to steady myself till it passes.
Looking down at myself, I realise I'm wearing little more than rags. Tattered remains with a few bits of faded colour left in them. Again I'm hit with a sense of familiarity. That I know the colours and patterns, but cannot place them. I shake my head and look up to the floating bot.
'Those won't do.' It pulses, looking me up and down. I open my mouth to ask what it meant or one of the thousands of questions running through my head. The most prominent of which, who am I? But all I manage is a meagre croak that fades into nothing. My throat feels like I've been screaming for hours, leaving a burning itch.
'Give me a moment.' It hums and floats away amongst rusted, ancient husks, which I know as cars and flat, broken stone ground. Concrete. As I watch it float away, I get a look at my surroundings. I'm standing on the bank of a wide river, facing the far side. The far bank is dotted with wreckages and beyond it, in the distance, I see a great wall. The landscape between wall and my feet is dusted with snow. Even from this distance the wall looks imposing, easily a few hundred feet tall and built of metal. Rust runs down it's mighty surface in orange-brown smears from centuries worth of rain. To my right a ramp leads a drop into the river, with another ramp on the opposite bank. A bridge once stood here, linking these two sides. Rising out of the water in places are the backs and fronts of vehicles, cars or vans, a bus, amongst crumbled sections of the collapsed bridge.
Memory hits me. Images of a darkening sky, the sound of screaming, panic and fear. A tight grip on my hand. In the memory, I look up to see the face but the bot is back, announcing it's presence and the memory parts like mist. I turn to face it, showing my annoyance with a harsh glare.
It stops a few feet away, looking at me with worry by how it's shell lowers over it's eye, 'What?' It asks, looking at me a moment before floating back to me. 'I managed to scrounge up some workable materials, it'll protect you more than those tatters. Here.' It pulses. From it's eye, a cone of blue light emerges and envelopes me. In a blink, the light fades and I feel a comfortable, warm material covering me from head to toe. I look at my hands, gloved with a material that looks to me like rubber with it's matte sheen, but I know it's not. My arms, chest, legs, all covered in a matte-black suit with light plating woven seamlessly into it. I put a hand to my face to find I'm wearing a fully sealed helmet.
My raised hand brushes on a scarf around my neck, running the coarse material through my fingers. It feels right where it should be. It feels personal to me.
'How's that fit?' It asks me, hovering before me still, waiting for approval of it's hasty craftsmanship. How it made this, or what from, I have no idea, but I'm grateful for it all the same. Wrapped in the warmness of this new suit, I realise how cold I had been before. I give the bot an exaggerated nod to show my appreciation, stretching out my limbs, testing the suits manoeuvrability.
'I'm glad!' The bot chimes, going on to introduce itself, 'I'm your Ghost. You can call me just that.' I nod my understanding, resting my hands on my waist as it speaks, 'We have two priorities; Transport and finding you a weapon. Unless you planned on running away from everything?'
I shake my head and point toward the wall in the distance, over fields of snow, and shrug. For now gestures are all I have to work with and I hope it reads them well.
It looks toward the wall, 'The Cosmodrome? I guess it's as good a place as any for what we need. With any luck, another Guardian might pass by. We could use the help, if they're willing to give it.'
I nod toward the wall again, deciding on our destination and Ghost nods back by bobbing up and down once. He vanishes then, and I feel a spike of worry that my only source of answers just disintegrated.
'I'm still here.' Ghost says within my helmet. 'Let's get going. I'm detecting some fallen, not friendly, coming this way.'
I step back into the water, mapping out a route across the surface bits of collapsed bridge and vehicles. I fell the coldness of the water conduct through the material of my makeshift suit, but the suit is sealed and none leaks in.
Moving forward, leaping from car to van to car to bridge, I run along the exposed roof of the bus, to a car before reaching the far bank with a running jump.
As I begin my trek across the frozen wastes, scarf flattening against hastening wind, a feeling creeps up my spine like a shiver from cold and I think perhaps some water did get into my suit. No, a voice inside my head says, You know it's not that. An unease grows in my gut and I attribute the voice to instinct, and it tells me I'm being stalked.
It takes a few hours to get close the wall. Drawing closer, I realise it's full scale, dwarfing me into a spec standing before it. A lonesome spec amongst hundreds of rusted out husks, the remains of some grand exodus.
Ghost is silent as I stalk between the eternally halted vehicles, occasionally glancing inside for anything of use, only to find skeletal remains. Some are slumped in the driver seat, others have collapsed into one another, having died in a last futile embrace with a loved. One poor soul's skull had a large hole blown through it. No room to speculate how that one died.
'Beyond the wall we'll find the Cosmodrome and hopefully a ship to take us to the city. We'll need to be careful though, we've entered Fallen territory.' Ghost echoes inside my helmet (or inside my head?), as I vault over the bonnet of a car.
In the hours it took me to cross the snow-capped landscape between the river and the wall, I realise I haven't tired. I feel strangely inexhaustible, like I could keep going for hours more if I needed to, driven by something. Though my voice is yet to return, the rest of me works better than I feel it ever did before.
What's before? I ask myself. Ghost starts talking, distracting me.
'The Cosmodrome… Full of Golden Age technology and ancient war machines. You can see the towering colony ships. They were to build cities across the stars… Instead, they never left their berths. The Fallen have been picking over those stillborn ships since.' Ghost explains as I enter the shadow of the Wall, the sun blocked out by it's immense height. I shrug. I don't know what he means by Golden Age or The Fallen, these things are new to me. No sense of dull familiarity when I hear those words. What I do feel as I slide between the stalled traffic, is that these cars are now coffins and the highway a mass, unmarked grave. A river of the dead. And I crawled out of it.
I stop a few metres from the wall's gate, staring at the broken gaps in it's surface. That feeling of being watched becomes stronger, and I know I am. There are things in that hollowed wall and their eyes are on me. Ghost senses it too.
'There's movement in the wall…' He whispers. 'Fallen…' Then I hear it, the same as earlier only closer. Yelps and barks, most high pitched and whiny. Like a pack of mongrels. Then comes a bark to silence the others, deep and booming, authoritative. In one gap I see half a dozen yellow eyes light up, looking at me.
Running is pointless, they'll be on me in moments, even with my tiresome state. These things are slightly feral, instinct says and they'll be unrelenting in their hunt. Four arms emerge form the darkness, three fingered and clad in white armour. I think they belong to two separate creatures until it pulls forward into one, large creature. It's adorned in white armour. Face covered by mask and helmet, crested with two spiked fans rising from the back. A red cloak, once regal, now ragged, hangs from it's shoulders. More red cloth hangs from it's belt. It roars at me.
It leaps from the wall, landing two dozen feet away, it draws a large rifle made of a metal wire frame with an orange-lensed scope. Behind it, smaller, two-armed creatures wearing bodysuits and red neck scarves are crawling out of every crack and fissure in the Wall's decrepit surface, like ants swarming from their hill at a sign of danger. They crawl and leap to the ground and rush to meet their leader.
The leader roars and levels it's rifle at me, bounding forward to kill me. It's minions rush forward too, a few feet behind it. A wave of alien hatred and savagery is bearing down on me. I think I'll be torn limp from limp, perhaps feasted on. I wouldn't put it past these things, no matter how much ruined nobility they cling to.
There's a crack in the distance and it echoes throughout the open sky and off the Cosmodrome Wall. The Fallen leader's helmet shatters and a white stream comes screaming out of it's ruined skull like a breath in winter.
'What was that? Oh, you're tracker! I forgot!' Ghost says worriedly at first, then sounds sheepish. A white pulse comes across my visor, leaving a Heads-Up Display in it's wake. The top left is the most snatching thing to my eye, for it shows pulses of red ahead of me that I know to be the Fallen horde. Behind me, which I turn to face, is a group of blue dots.
'Guardians!' Ghost says with relief.
Three figures standing on the broken section of highway. One of them sprints forward and leaps, then leaps again, and reels an arm back and I glimpse the four-fingered hand of a human. A pulsing orb appears in it's reeled back hand. It quickly grows in size, glowing intensely before the figure lunges forward with it's arm, casting the pulsing orb over me and straight into the charging mass of the Fallen.
The orb hits, releasing a large explosion of blue/purple light. I see the forms of the Fallen disintegrating into blue fizzles of matter, obliterated completely by the figure's attack. I'm frozen in awe. More Fallen rush forward, starting to spike off little blue bolts from their pistols.
While I was focused on the figure in the air, I didn't see another figure bound towards me. It's footsteps are heavy and powerful, it's covered in thick red armour plating with a furred collar and a sash hanging from it's belt. By it's build, I guess it to be male. He charges right past me, intent on meeting the Fallen charge head on and alone. I reach out to tell him to stop, that he'll surely be consumed, but my voice fails in my throat. The one who shot the orb stops beside me, another man. He wears an ornate purple robe, covered in belts and pouches. A glowing metal band is clamped around his left arm between the shoulder and elbow.
'Don't worry, Hunter.' He says in an elegant voice, placing a hand on my outstretched arm. I gawp at him, the expression hidden by my helmet. The Titan charges, jumps and raises raises his arms above his head. His clenched fists crackle with lightning-like energy and he smashes them to the ground amidst the Fallen ranks. It releases a blue shock wave, killing dozens of the runtish aliens. A larger one, somewhere between the dead leader and the smaller ones in terms of size and adornments leaps to strike him as he recovers from his assault. A bullet leaves the screaming wisp rushing from it's fractured skull. The Titan draws a rifle from his back and fires on the Fallen, gunning them down with automatic fire. The robed one pats me on the back before rushing forward to help his armoured friend.
The last figure appears beside me as I watch the Robed one and the Titan firing into the Fallen, killing them by the dozens. I wonder how many have been killed and how many more will come seeping from the cracks like insects. I don't hear her approach.
'Aren't you armed?' She asks impatiently, as if addressing a child. She wears golden armour on her chest, knee-high boots and a one-sided, hooded cloak. In her hands she carries a sniper rifle almost as long as she is tall.
I shrug, pointing to my addled throat. Ghost appears between us to speak on my behalf. 'I found him a few hours ago, in a river to the North. We hadn't found a weapon yet.'
'Can't he speak for himself?' She asks, looking at me. I can feel disapproval through her visor.
'He was in the River. Nearly drowned when I revived him. But what's going on here?' Ghost asks her.
'Priority Strike on the Fallen that've taken residence in the Cosmodrome. Ghost?' She calls forth her own Ghost. He appears beside her, cased in black while my Ghost is white. 'It's not much.' She says as her Ghost sends forth the same conical beam my Ghost used to outfit me. A revolver materialises in the air, a heavy thing with a wide barrel. I take hold on it's rubberised grip, pulling it out of the air. It's faded white paint show's it's age and poor condition, but I'm thankful for it all the same.
'You're coming with us.' She says, making for her companions.
'Um, shouldn't we really go back to the City?' My Ghost suggests meekly, but I'm already following behind her. She breaks into a Sprint and leaps up, drawing her knife and charging it with blue crackling energy that emanates off her. She lands, poised to dash between the dwindling ranks of the Fallen with incredible speed.
I check the Hand cannon's cylinder to get a feel for it's action. My HUD tells me it holds eight rounds. My Ghost picks up some white packets of spare ammo left from the dead Fallen. I raise my gun, centring the sights on what my HUD tells me to be a Vandal, one of the medium ones. I pull the trigger and hear it's soul come screaming from it's body. I kill maybe two dozen Fallen, mostly the small two-armed Dregs. The other Guardians, obviously more experienced in combat, dispatch maybe a hundred each in the Battle before the Wall. When the last of the Fallen retreat inside, responding to the barking summons of another leader, I regroup with the other Guardians, hopefully to find answers.
'He can't speak.' The Hunter tells the others as I join them. I still feel she's glaring at me. The Titan rests his hands on his belt, regarding me with a little nod of his head. The robed one, the Warlock, folds his arms, and assesses me from head to toe.
'New?' The Titan asks, his voice is deep, suiting his size. I hear an artificial buzz beneath it. I nod in response.
'A few hours.' The Hunter says.
The Titan looks back at her, then at the hand cannon strapped to my thigh. 'Least you saw fit to arm him.' The Titan says simply. My Ghost appears, right between me and the Titan.
'Titan, I think we could perhaps use a lift back to the City?' He asks. I push Ghost aside, stepping forward myself. I clear my throat.
'I…' it's little more than a croak, but audible, 'want… to join…' is all I manage before my voice fails again.
'Ha!' The Titan bellows and claps me on the arm. Even that friendly gesture left my arm throbbing. I feel sorry for anything that has to contend with one of those gauntleted fists. 'He has spirit for someone so recently dead.' The Titan laughs, turning to his companions.
'I saw him fighting.' The Warlock speaks up. I wonder how he did in the heat of battle. I would later learn Warlocks never switched off their scholarly vision, they were always studying, evaluating and quantifying the world around them. 'He killed his share, considering his inexperience. A few precise shots over distance. He could survive with us.' The Warlock nods slowly at me.
'You know where I stand.' The Hunter says to the Titan, who looks down at me. He glances down at the hand cannon again.
'Yes I do.' The Titan cheers heartily, 'You'll fight with us, Hunter. Hopefully you'll be with us afterward. I'm Bulwark-3, Titan and fire team leader.' Bulwark holds out one of his large hands. I shake it, my hand vanishing in his gauntlet. I cringe a little as he gives one firm shake, for a moment I think he'll dislocate my arm.
'I'm Astol. Warlock. A pleasure.' Astol bows to me, a greeting I find disconcerting and out of place.
The Huntress steps forward, holding a knife, hilt-first out to me. 'This was a Hunter's knife.' She tells me. 'I found it on the Fallen Captain. Perhaps you can do right by them.' I accept it, nodding my thanks and weighing it in my hand. It's an elegant thing, light, but robust. Unbreakable. Ghost fashions a sheath for it, which I fasten to my belt, above my left hip. 'I'm Mariana.' The Hunter introduces herself with a nod, this time with some respect to it.
'What's your name, Hunter?' Bulwark asks me, forgetting I can't speak.
My name? Memories flood through my head, threatening to burst through the frosty glass that holds it apart and overwhelm my mind. My name, a spoken and written symbol for an individual. I think hard but it doesn't come back, so I take a deep breath and draw the knife. There is a name coming forward, wether or not it's mine, or belonged to someone else I knew in the before, I can't be sure.
In the frozen earth I carve it out. Cullen.
'Cullen… Very well.' Bulwark nods at my quick handy work. 'My only advice to you, Cullen, is this: stay in back and don't take any risks. The Darkness is strong ahead and if you go down, you may be lost to it. Understand?'
I sheathe my knife and nod. I understand not taking risks. The Darkness, the words are meaningless but invokes the memory of the swirling ink in the sky and the screams that heralded it's arrival.
'Move out.' Bulwark shouts, pointing to the Wall overshadowing us.
Looking around the battle scene one last time, over the rows of stalled cars and snow-dusted rocks, I know I won't be the last new born Guardian to be born from this river of dead.