In the light and alive . . .
Epíphantos
Chapter One:
The Heart of Ruin
Dawn had barely risen into the ashen sky when Samantha Manson began to make her way through the heart of the ruined city. Her breath came before her in wisps, the wintry air causing her skin to prickle as it kissed her cheeks. She passed by throngs of trash and debris unbothered. Even still, her grip on her ectogun remained unceasing, as was the rigid control she held over her body.
The environment was saturated with its usual dullness, void of all life and afterlife, but Sam refused to allow herself even a moment's respite. Too long of a moment was a recipe for disaster.
Speaking of a moment.
Sam jumped into action; her weapon charged and pointed as a sudden noise from her left offended her senses. Pivoting off her heel, she spun to face her opposition.
—just in time to witness the terrifying sight of an emaciated cat vacate a toppled trashcan, the lid left spinning in the cat's wake. If not for her current position above ground, Sam would have laughed. Instead, she wiped the sweat from her brow. Her nerves trembled from a combination of anxiety and unneeded adrenaline. With another semi-nervous flick of her eyes, Sam continued along the familiar path. She was almost to her destination, anyway.
Having grown up in the midst of the war that existed between the humans and the ectoplasmic entities known as ghosts, Sam was well accustomed to fear. It invaded her system whenever she was outside of the Compound. Above ground. In Amity—she felt herself shudder, yet it had nothing to do with the chilly air. Gritting her teeth, she pulled the cloak she wore tight around her shoulders, clutched it to her heart, and continued down the beaten path.
Leaning skyscrapers and a hodgepodge of rusted automobiles framed her path as she walked. Grisly brown skeletons riddled the ground like gravel, crunching beneath her boots. But Sam paid no mind to any of this. Her finger traced the trigger of her gun. She remained resolute.
Once the war had drifted into ghosts' favor, the decimation of the material world quickly followed. They'd pushed the tired human race into darkest recesses of the planet, leaving the humans to somehow survive off of an ever-dwindling supply of resources.
Not that there's many left of us, anyway, Sam thought morbidly. Even still, with the population as low as it was, there weren't enough resources to sustain them. The planet was too ecologically damaged to produce fruits and fodder. Human lives now diminished faster than the hue of the once-blue sky. Diseases and other sicknesses were killing them off just as quickly as the ghosts were. Simply put: they were running out of time.
So this was it. Her generation would be the last . . .
This is why Sam intended to live her life to its fullest. No matter how long she had left.
As the winding path before her ended, Sam smiled when the toe of her combat boot dipped into softer ground. No longer cement, but real earth. Various patches of yellowed grass were stark against the velvety darkness of soil. Bony shrubs reached with claw-like limbs, while vines crawled high over an upright post. Sam's eyes followed the twisting ivy until it ended abruptly at a sign that read, "Amity Park Recreational Park." It was then she let her guard drop. Though only a little.
Even though she feared this world, it was still better than the one below her feet.
So many of her kin remained blissfully concealed within their underground fortress, the compound, home of the Resistance, and the largest population of humans that remained on Earth. Fear prompted their seclusion. Then again, fear was what prompted everything now. Children grew up with it, were nurtured by it. It was now an integral part of their society.
But.
Sam refused to give into complacency. She refused to give into her fear. She would go down fighting in a way that could not ever be trounced. So, deathly alone in a world ravaged by spooks that could take notice of her at any moment, Sam threw back her head, raised her hands into the air, and—
She laughed.
Sam twirled. Her boots made divots in the thawed soil. She took a deep breath, one without the synthetic aftertaste of the compound's filtration system, and she loved it, even with the coppery tinge of contamination. Many called the Resistance futile. The final battle had been lost two years ago. The Warriors, the Inventors, the Leaders, the Thinkers—they were told to disband, and many members did leave.
But Sam wouldn't.
She couldn't.
She would continue to fight with her kin, even if there was nothing left to fight for. She would continue to live, because there's always something to live for.
Laughter subsiding, Sam shuffled about the small perimeter of the park, cleaning up garbage and dusting off rickety old benches. She smiled and cradled her hands around a tiny sapling that was just beginning to make its lazy accent above ground. Her violet eyes appraised it, and then she followed its leafy gaze towards the sky where it desperately searched for sustenance. The sky was its usual green-tinted-grey, slightly hazy, as the sun filtered through the film of ectoplasm within the earth's atmosphere.
Sam's smile turned down at the corners. Then it vanished completely. She looked pitifully at the sapling. "Hope you can make it, little guy," she said.
The night was going to frost, she knew. Yesterday had been warm, she knew. The sapling would not survive. She knew.
A quick glance at her watch told her it was time to go. Releasing a sigh that dissipated in small, wispy rivulets, Sam turned her gaze away as she took stock of her surroundings. She drew her ectogun and balanced it between her two hands, cocked and ready, before moving slowly back towards the winding path.
She had been gone from the compound too long. It would not be long before her absence would be noticed. Her family would worry.
Sam's steel-toed boots hardly made a sound as she crept back to civilization. The walk was not far. Ghosts never entered this part of the city anymore, anyway, located at the heart of Amity. Proud as she was, she liked to think it was because they were intimidated by the sheer strength that was the Resistance, but the omniscient voice in her head told her that was not the case. For some reason, the spooks avoided this area of the city like it was the plague. Why that was, Sam wasn't sure.
And yet, she could never shake the irrational fear that an ominous entity was around her, watching her. She swore she could feel the threads of her life fluttering in the breeze about her, along with her twirling breath.
Sam shook her head to free herself of her obvious paranoia. It was for this reason that she never dropped her guard as she traveled. The hypersensitive ectosensors and scanners at her wrist remained blank, but still.
She paused at a junction where she caught her breath under a dead stoplight, before she pressed on, further into the heart of the city. Of Amity. The historically acclaimed ghost capitol of the material world. One that ironically lacked a spectral entity of any kind.
Springtime air wafted through her ectosuit and saturated her to the bone. She shivered, grateful when she climbed the steps to one of the many abandoned houses lining Main Street. The house itself was a nondescript grey, with a split foundation and dilapidated roof. But what it lacked in structure, it made up for in functionality.
A colorful array of green and red lights blinked at her from an off-white panel box that erected from the floor. Where the kitchen had once been, there was now riveted sheet metal, completely replacing the floors and walls. Directly in front of the panel box was a hinged indentation of thicker metal, and it was there Sam went to stand. She began the process of entering the Compound by hanging the wrist adorning her verification bracelet over one of the many sensors.
The trap door below her feet hummed to life. It lowered her to the bottom level of the house where she followed a set of stairs into a plain white room. There, she pulled down her glove, rolled up the cuff of her jacket, and hovered her tattooed wrist over the last remaining sensor. A door opened. Sam entered an elevator that pulled her deeper and deeper into the ground, into the fathomless world of misery and loathing, of regret and loss, of the last remaining form of human congregation and resistance.
Sam pulled her ectogun to her chest and stared upwards, envisioning a sky that was tinged with blue instead of green.
Had she still been above ground she would have seen a flash of light, one that would have superficially blinded her. Then her ectosensors would have spiked, signifying immense power from an ectoentity in close proximity.
EDITED: 12/22/2014 - ALL CHAPTERS WILL RECEIVE SIMILAR UPDATES!
A/N: Hello everyone! Welcome to my story! As the line above states, I am in the middle of updating all my older chapters. I don't like how they read anymore. I feel as if I have improved heaps in my skill since I first started this story back in April. If you are a new reader, welcome! Coming back for some epic rereads? Well, I hope you enjoyed the fresh update!
Now, to the newbies. This is a story about overcoming preconceived judgments, as well as relearning a world through once-biased eyes. It is my first fan fiction here, so bear with me! Still getting the hang of everything! Go ahead and continue to the following chapters! But I forewarn you now, I WILL be updating them over the next few days so they are subject to change. Please don't forget to leave feedback! I love chatting with you guys and respond to all the reviews I receive!
Happy reading!
-Roar