Just my name

-Chapter 1-

Omega I

July 1st 2027

"It really has been a long time…" These were the first words that Brent had said during the entire three hour trip. This was one of the most boring experiences James, the driver, had ever experienced. Since this place was destroyed and locked down twenty-five years prior, the only way in was via some old bumpy dirt roads that no one had touched in ages. You could circle half the planet in this time using anything other than a car; yet in all of this time we'd managed to cross not even one-hundred kilometers through forests and mountains.

James was an ex-militant who was now forty-six; this old ghost town they were making their way to was his first job. Twenty-five years ago he had been a part of the active clean-up efforts and in-part with the creation of the quarantine that had gone down on the place immediately after. From what James was told Brent was an agent for some higher-ups in an agency that was too important to give out their names. Ironic to think that people who live through such anonymity can have so much power over what happens. If nothing else he'd have thought that the years following would have shown these syndicates how powerless they really are.

In recent times many people had started proclaiming that we were living in a new era with all the strange events that seemed to hit year after year with no letting up. The modern day has become the biggest conspiracy in human history. This place was where it all started; it was quite obvious to them why the governments of the world were as anxious as they were as to when this quarantine would lift; they wanted to find some answer that they never could've accessed before. Of course that is to say it's not like theories didn't exist; everyone online became an expert in "arcane arts" immediately once something like this came up. There were enough theories for this one initial event to re-write every published book in history.

The most common theories were those made from the unknown; these were theories that claimed that a force beyond our current comprehension of the world had begun to take effect. Some other common theories were theories of personnel; theories that stated that it was all an elaborate guise created by persons recorded to be present in most if not all of the notable locations. These were some of the most compelling theories because we already had ready proof that these persons were actively undertaking unknown endeavors in the same time and place as most of the most serious events.


"Stop here, we were supposed to meet Frank on the other side of that gate" Brent's words snapping James out of his thoughts; James pulled the car over next to the security fence. After the hassle it took to open the gate they found Frank waiting for them on the other side of the gate. "It's nice to see you again Brent, didn't think you'd be able to come back to a town like this". Brent just laughed "I thought you were closer to this place than I was".

James pulled himself out of the situation, nothing of their personal issues were his business of course and he was only here because against all of their hesitation it was decided that the place was too dangerous and an escort was needed; definitely not what James was seeing right now. What James saw was a bright lightly wooded area with nice climate; there were small buildings littered about with surprising cleanliness considering how long they'd gone untouched. Slight sounds of wildlife rustling through the thicker parts of the growth were distant enough to be more calming and reassuring rather than bothersome.

James looked back at the two to watch Brant fumbling with his strange cigar. There was no question the thing was indeed a cigar in the way Brent had used it, however if not for watching it's use simply seeing the object itself gave not the slightest indication of what it could be for. The thing was a thin metal stick with no light or any sign of electronics in it, with just a small pin hole running through the center. Brent pulled it to his mouth and inhaled through the thing as though it were a cigar although there was no smoke, heat, or even smell on the thing, and from appearances it didn't serve the same purpose as a cigar would either; as the thing didn't seem to stimulate Brent in the slightest nor did any particular action seem to draw it on him.

James moving back towards Brent and Frank as they gave him a signal to come closer, they had moved and were now standing next to a decrepit wooden bus stop. "Hey, we're moving to the pit, drive us up" Brent called at him from a distance. At this notion James moved back to the rotten truck they had come up in. As James drove up next to them Brent was just pulling his shirt back into order as somehow he'd managed to twist the thing already; although James was aware of this habit from the long journey up he was still amazed that he was already back to it even when standing.


James was simply sitting confused for the entire trip to the pit, the distance there was about a ten minute walk or about a fifteen minute drive. Taking the truck through the dense foliage wasn't possible so they had to drive it around the entire perimeter of the town to get to the other side of it where the overgrowth was far less dense by the paved entrance. When they got there the place sure looked a lot more surreal than it had back when he was in there and it was covered in military equipment and temporary structures. As it was now it was an enormous ring about two-hundred meters across and a two meter tall rim that made the difference between the bottom and the rest of the ground; not as a gradual slope but a sheer ninety degree cut into the soil with a large unmarked pad of concrete along the bottom of the entire thing.

Brent started laughing suddenly as he approached the edge of the ring, and jumped straight down to the bottom before he said anything. "So this is it huh? The infamous "UFO landing site" of the internet?" he said with a large grin on his face. "I know information about this place is scarce but that's got to be the most ridiculous one. People sure do have a way of twisting what they see". Brent began shaking his head just staring at the pavement below him. Frank spoke up "It's not they they're completely unjustified, I mean it's pretty hard to believe that the military would use a concrete slab to try and block a gas leak".

This was news to James; "A gas leak? This was just so that we'd have solid ground to setup our testing labs and the sort.". James hadn't heard this story but he'd never heard of something as stupid as volcanic gas coming out of a muddy sinkhole. "Even if we didn't have to setup camp I bet putting this concrete down could've saved a lot of people from falling in if people still lived here". "My point exactly" Frank replied. "Since you were in the cleanup you likely got a much more accurate idea of what happened than anyone in the public would've gotten, if nothing else that story is probably a ploy for the military to shut down any environmentalist protests about destroying marshland or whatever they'd call this death hole".

"Anyways, it's approaching one and I'd like to be in the schoolhouse again half and hour before two, if possible let's just truck it now" Brent yelled up from the pit. James having already been fed up with driving until now protested "We just got here from a perimeter trip, we have all day let's just stick to foot for now". Brent immediately looked irritated and snapped back at him harshly "Listen, I understand fully why you're here, but I also know that you don't want to be here, and I don't want you here. So how about you stop pretending you have any idea what's going on, and just let us do our work so we can finish this as quickly as possible. This can be accomplished by you just doing as I say when I say it".

James sighed into the air knowing perfectly well that Brent was right, although there certainly was a faster way to do this than to keep going as far as possible wasn't there? Besides that the school house is the one place the James would've suspected had nothing since that's the first place he had cleaned out after he was assigned. The thought that they had a time frame setup like this was incredibly stubborn seeming, there was no one else here they were under a strict quarantine and it's not like anyone would know the route they took anyways. As James got in the Truck he heard loud snapping and rustling coming from behind him. "Hey, what the hell are you two doing just get in the damn truck!" James yelled back to them. "Yea, we're right behind you". As they got in James revved up the truck and started along their way and became sunk into his own thoughts again. Huh, We were just in an open road, how'd those two fall into the bushes…