The Divide
Part 1: Turning back time
"Sirens in the air. Screeching. A head cracking pop, and then complete silence with a total blinding light. Everything collapsed as the earth shook right out of its foundations."
"I've told you people this a million times. My name is Dr. Kurt Donell, I was a physician working in the Divide for ten years. Have you found what I've been looking for?"
Kurt sat at a small table across from a man sitting behind an interrogation lamp. Behind him, a one way glass window hid the faces of those observing the conversation. He only saw his own gruff, unshaven, and exhausted face in the reflection. Kurt tapped his fingers impatiently.
"Why won't you people give me any answers?" The man behind the lamp sighed and sat forward. He too, had a sleepless face, but his outfit was cleaner and more organized.
"Dr. Donell, my name is Detective Grant. I am a member of the Firefall Relapse Advanced Control Team Undercover Regiment."
"FRACTUR?" The agent gave a smirk. He pushed aside the lamp and nodded slowly.
"Yes, doctor, FRACTUR was created after Incident Firefall. However, that's not why we're here today. I want you to tell me about Incident Divide." The doctor moaned angrily.
"You people keep using that code name. I told you all," He looked to the window, "The god damn Arclight fell out of the sky, and it carried some… some 'thing' with it!" He sat back in his chair and stared at the detective for a response. Grant passively sat forward and returned the gaze.
"I mean, Dr. Donell, that we need to hear the story from the beginning once more. We need to make sure we have all the facts straight. Understood?" Kurt threw up his hands in frustration and stood up, knocking his chair over in his haste.
"Again? This is the third time! I've told you everything I know, don't you people believe me?" The detective only nodded slowly again and motioned for him to sit.
"Yes of course we do doctor. However, we have many different stories coming from all around so I need to verify everything and piece it all together." Kurt stared at the stone faced interrogator for a minute, then sighed and fixed his chair. He sat down with a huff.
"If I do this, would you please help me in finding Tanya?" The detective nodded. "Alright. Well, I'll start back to before the incident then."
Part 2: Downfall
It was back right before the fall harvest. People were finally getting their lives back into order, finally recovering from the Firefall incident. I myself had just gotten married to a lovely little woman from the Divide named Tanya. You see, I wasn't actually from the Divide. I was actually from Chicago, and moved out here to do some studies on cures for the Firefall meteor pieces that struck the divide. You see, many people around there were suffering from odd outbreaks, mostly due to the radiation.
They didn't call it the Divide for nothing. When one of the asteroid shards struck the small town, it created this giant rupture right through the middle of town. Even worse, it connected to a huge nearby lake, Lake Tarous, and the ocean, causing a new river to move right past the old liquor store and the barber shop down on Main Street. The people learned to cope of course, and they built a new bridge. My doctor's office was right next to this river and I would have to admit, the river was actually pretty nice for the town.
You see, I had been experiencing trouble finding the actual cause of the radiation. I assumed it must've been way underneath the coursing water from the shard that caused it in the first place. All day long I used to walk up and down that river looking for some sign of the radiation for nine years. That is, until I met Tanya.
Her full name was Tanyanam Broschtev, a Russian immigrant studying to become an asteroid miner. She was living in the Divide in order to practice strip mining in hard, rocky environments. She stopped me one day and pointed out that I was thinking about this all wrong. The reason for the radiation wasn't that it was underneath the river, it was the river. She had found what little pieces of the space rock were left up at the lake, and the radiation was flowing through the water, the water that people were using.
I was stunned, utterly stunned. It had never even occurred to me. This woman was the first to ever strike reason into me. Not only that but she was the most beautiful thing in the world, I mean the way her eyes-
"Doctor, I know you have strong feelings about this, but… The radiation?"
"Oh yes, I'm sorry. I tend to do that a bit much."
Anyway, with her insight, and my research, we were able to purify the flowing waters and the amount of sickness in the Divide dropped drastically. Me and Tanya basically became the saviors of the town.
It was about… Three months after that I believe. Tanya was to depart back to her company to report about her personal progress for the last time, and then they were going to ship her out. I don't recall where, some nearby comet coming in for a few months. Corpious I think? Well anyway I was planning on popping the question, trying to get her to stay or I would go with her if I had no other choice. I had just left my building, closed it for the day and was stepping out to the riverside. But something was wrong. I could feel it in my fingers, my body was tense. I observed something about animal instinct when it all started going down.
At first, it was just a loud boom maybe something like a huge firework. I turned to look at the sky, but an incredible gust of wind blew me over, almost right into the river. Trees fell over, shingles collapsed. It was frightening. But that was just the beginning. Everything went dark next, it was worse than an eclipse.
Then the real shit started.
Sirens in the air. Screeching. A head cracking pop, and then complete silence with a total blinding light. Everything collapsed as the earth shook right out of its foundations.
Something was falling right out of the sky. Something huge. Burning, smoking, splitting into a million pieces it came tumbling to the surface. To anyone on the ground, it looked as if the moon itself was crashing to earth. But there was something else. Something… ominous. Of course you and I know now that it was the burning wreckage of the Archlight. But all you could see was the black mist being expelled from the ship, spilling out a gas that looked similar to ash from a volcano.
I watched in stunned horror as the giant ship sailed across the sky, and then began to split into pieces. First three, then twenty, then hundreds. Even still, each piece could easily destroy a city with ease. A loud explosion came from above and a huge piece of the bridge fell towards the Divide. In the few moments I thought I had left, I prayed to god that Tanya would survive all of this. The smoking ship crashed into the bridge that connected the two riversides, and let back a burst of wind, water, and debris that caused me to fly through the air. Before I knew it, I had blacked out with only one thought on my mind.
"Shit. The world has come to an end."
Part Three: Separation
I awoke later on to find myself saved by landing in a shallow end of a person's pool. I had no idea how long I had been there, because the smoke had blackened out the sky. All around me fires burned keeping the town bright. I heard women screaming, car alarms screeching, and children crying. It was truly a hell on earth. I sat there for what seemed like hours listening to the chaos until I remembered her, Tanya.
My mind and body broke loose of the rigor that held me. I scrambled to see what kind of situation I was in. I got to a street lined with houses, only to see that all hope was lost. The city on my side was ablaze. People stumbled out of their houses in search of help, of comfort or rescue, but I could already tell that it would never come. Obviously we weren't the only ones in trouble. I ran to Main Street to see if I could somehow get across the bridge. I nearly fell to my knees and wept at what I saw.
The bridge was completely gone. All that remained in its place was that huge spire-like bridge from the Arclight. The purple-black smog fell from every opening in it. I simply stared at it, wondering why this had to happen. Then, a cry from a nearby store rocked me from my daze. I ran to the nearby convenience store to see a man trying to frantically grab as much supplies from it as he could as a woman watched in horror. It must've belonged to her. I tackled the man in a hasty attempt to control him. He panicked under me.
"What-What are you doing man!" I pinned his neck to the floor with all my weight.
"Stopping you from robbing what does it look like?" The man calmed down and tried to coax me down.
"Listen, I just need some supplies for my wounded men. They are hurt, badly." I glanced over his shoulder to peek at the items in his hand. It was true. It was just some simple first aid and a couple tins of medical alcohol. I backed away slowly. The man got up and turned around, rubbing his neck.
"God for a little guy, you sure know how to hurt a guy." He offered his hand "Sergeant Douval, second class." I shook his hand.
"Doctor Donell… Citizen." The man's eyes widened.
"You're a doctor? What good luck! I need to you to help me, the soldiers from the Arclight are in some serious shit doctor and I need you to-"
"Wait you said the Arclight. The Arclight? You mean the huge super-city class spaceship that was about to embark?" The man nodded slowly.
"Yes sir. The hell you are in is all due to man kind's greatest mistake."
The soldier return to his packing, I slowly began to help him, a million questions filling my head. The first to leave my mouth was the most obvious.
"What happened?" He stopped and then quickly left the store. I followed him. "Douval! Tell me what happened!" He turned around, fear deep in his eyes. His hand shaking in a cold sweat.
"Hell happened Mr. Donell. Hell dropped from space itself and brought down the light of humanity." He turned to keep going again, in the direction of the river as I thought about his grave words. I kept up behind him a short distance.
"What do you mean?" He threw up his hands.
"I mean that something boarded the damn Arclight, flooded the damn engines, and burned to the god-forsaken planet!"
"'Something'? What the hell does that mean?" He wheeled around on his heels and shook his head is frustration.
"Look doc, I'm just a soldier. I'm not good with all that sci-fi stuff… It just… came from space. It was like the Firefall… a giant meteor. Except, it was black, like "black hole" black. Everyone on the ship panicked as it came closer. But it just moved around us, like a fog. Everyone started to calm down until they realized it was coming in through the engines. It started eating up the crystite like a fucking parasite! Once we had lost all power, we had no communications, no engines, no ability at all. We fell into a… decaying orbit they said. We thought we had screwed millions of people over. But then the fog… it changed." He started to panic now, his eyes wide remembering something horrifying. He turned around again with a grunt and kept on running. "It started to consume people and the ship itself."
I shivered in horror at what I heard. A new type of substance that ate everything it could get its hands on. This sounded worse than any disease or substance I had ever heard of. We reached the river bank, and Douval ran to a small pod with soldiers sitting all around it. A few were already dead, bled to death or it looks like some sort of skin-eating virus mutated over their skin. One of the soldiers moaned as the Sergeant patched him back up. He motioned for me to come over.
"You ever seen anything like this doc?" He pointed to a black growth on the man's neck. It looked similar to a plague wart you might've seen during the bubonic plague. I swallowed hard.
"It looks something like an infection, a sort of skin disease that might occur over a few weeks time. How long has he had this?" Douval swore under his breath.
"Two hours." I stared at the soldier in disbelief. A few hours? Impossible. A few days, maybe. But something like this in a few hours? There was no way that man could survive something this horrific. It was probably spreading more and more by the minute.
"Then he's a goner" I groaned slowly. Douval swore again.
"I was afraid you would say that. He's not the first one."
"Why? You saw this on the ship?" Douval nodded slowly.
"Yes. Almost all of the crew had this within hours. But then it got real serious, when they came back to kill us." I smiled until I saw he wasn't kidding.
"Wait, this isn't a zombie movie. What do you mean?"
"I mean they fucking got back up, looked us in the eye and started trying to claw our brains out. They started mutating into something else, something alien." The words hung in my ear, ringing. Alien. It was something mankind had always joked about but never actually encountered. One of the dead bodies began to moan to life. Douval turned around and shot it in the head. It collapsed to the ground in a heap and he sighed. "It's pointless to try and save them if they have it. Nothing works."
All of a sudden a flare shot up from the other side of the river. I panicked. Tanya was over there somewhere in all this chaos. Was she okay?
"Will the civilians on the other side of the river be alright from these things?" Douval shrugged and turned away.
"Look doc, the way it is now. We're all officially screwed. We can't stop these things. Everyone on the other side of the river is as good as dead." I felt a bead of cold sweat drop as those words hit me harder that the spaceship that hit the earth.
"Well I mean what about response forces from around the world? Surely someone is coming?" Douval looked me in the eyes and put a hand on my shoulder.
"Look buddy. The Arclight was filled with these things. And now the Arclight is in pretty much every single country on earth. Forget getting rescued, we're separated even from the other side of the river." My throat dried as I tried to come up with some sort of plan. All that could escape my mouth was my last hope in my life.
"Tanya."
Part 4: Downfall
I was desperate at this point. I needed to get across the river. Luckily, so did Douval. He told me that there was a transmitting box that had been ejected before the crash nearby. He said he was direly important to retrieve and return that box to his superiors.
"Why? I thought you said we can't get rid of this stuff?" He nodded in agreement.
"Yes. We can't. But perhaps the boys down at Centauri Company can. After all if they know what they're up against it might be possible to figure out a way."
"Speaking of the Centauri Company… What happened to the men who were in charge of the Arclight anyway?" The sergeant was quiet. He obviously didn't know, or was too uncomfortable to tell me.
"Well… You see the Arclight was led by two main men, Tomas Knox, the Captain, and Admiral Orestes Nostromo, a veteran of the Crystite Wars. Once this shit started going down, they both had disagreements on what should've been done. Knox said we should've gotten off and let everyone get to safety, Nostromo said we should stand and fight. In the end, Knox ended up disappearing once the… the… 'Melders' hit. Everyone assumed he abandoned ship and ran."
"Melders?" I looked at him questionably as he picked up a round device out of the escape pod and clicked a few buttons.
"Yeah, that's the only name we have for the cloud parasite. It literally attaches itself to any living, or energy producing thing, and then drains them of life and converts it into some sort of mutation. All except Crystite which it seemed to grow off of."
Detective Grant held up a hand to stop. He pulled out a notepad and a pen and passed it over to Dr. Donell.
"Did you see what it did? Can you describe it more?" The doctor held the pen tentatively and sighed. He sketched a man with the growths on him.
"You see… it gets into the blood stream when someone inhales through the lungs. It's basically a gas so it easily slips in. Then, it kills off living cells by stealing their stored potential energy and converting it to fuel their own mutation process. It then does… something to the brain to turn it to its side, thus creating a zombie-like follower." The detective nodded and looked toward the glass window. "However, with metals and elements like the ship, it was like an acid, yet it would break it down, and then recombine somewhere else creating a stronger creation." The doctor drew the bridge, and an arrow pointing to a plasma rifle. "It was fascinating. This fog would even take the energy from the plants and animals nearby and start switching them around as well. Melder was a pretty apt name in my mind."
"So what about the Crystite. Why did Douval say it was different?" Kurt looked out into the distance with a sigh.
"Well let me explain."
The device that Douval had activated was a tracker for this module. Apparently it was on the other side of the river. He groaned.
"Right in the middle of all the little buggers." At the time I didn't understand the joke. We crossed when the sun was high above the smoke, barely piercing the thick smog. I had guessed it had been somewhere between one to four hours when the crash came down. The whole time there was screaming, panic, crying, pleading. The town was a wreck. Douval on the other hand, was silent with what I assumed dread. He packed up a gun and took a string of plasma ammo. I stared as he took a few grenades as well.
"Why the hell are you taking that stuff? Are you expecting the citizens to riot again you?" He grunted and shoved a medic's gun in my hands. He was cold and heavy, but teeming with little regeneration robots called MeDs, or Medical Emergency Drones.
"I already told you. Those Melders will take anything dead and turn it against us. The other side of a city is crumbling and burning. Don't you think there's a sure supply of corpses for it? Not to mention how it can mutate animals as well."
"Animals? You mean it doesn't just affect humans?" He looked at me like I was crazy.
"Doc, do you think that malicious fog gives a shit what dead things it grows on? Of course it mutates anything. Dead plants, dead bugs, dead animals, dead people, and this whole town is filled with it." I looked around, and I realized he was right. The smog had already started to turn dead grass black, and pulsing. It made me shiver. As he began to run away I followed him with the large medic's gun rocking in my hands.
"Well how can we take on these things alone? It took down the only super-destroyer class ship we had. You really think one soldier and one doctor can handle it?" He sighed and sped up his pace. He was obviously racing against the clock, probably the point where the whole town is burned down.
"Look doc, the transmitter is only a block away from the bridge. We hop in, hop out, and we get back in time to watch our dooms in front of fire. I have no choice, this is my job as a Centauri soldier. Besides, I suspect foul play in all of this." He wouldn't say anything more after that. He slowly approached what was left of the bridge and the huge spire sitting in the middle of it. The black smog rolled off the sides and poured into the river, which had become a nempty black. I shuddered to think what would happen to anyone that fell in there. A skeleton floated to the top to confirm my suspicions. I jumped back to the Douval's side as he looked around the smoldering bridge for a way to cross.
"I don't think we can get through. This thing feels like it'll collapse any moment." He ignored me and walked towards the command spire, and ripped off a side of the hull that looked like it was bursting with that black "melding" smog. I looked through the man sized hole. It looked like the black gas had formed a perfect path through the command deck onto the other side of the bridge. Douval sighed and climbed inside, I followed while the hairs on the back of my neck stood up straight. He turned on a suit light on his shoulder and we crossed the less than 50 meter distance. It seemed fine, but you ever get that feeling something was watching you? It was like that, but a thousand times over. It was as if that smog itself was watching your every move, waiting for you to make a mistake. As we stepped out back into the chaos, a wave of relief swept over me. That small walk made me feel as if my life was literally shortening every second I was in there.
"Something's not right. It's too quiet on this side." Douval said shouldering his weapon. I didn't realize it until he had pointed it out. This side of the town was ten times worse. I looked back at the command deck to see a giant hole in the side, spewing the melding out all over this side of the Divide. The town was empty and silent. No crying people, no burning buildings, only a black ground and empty buildings. Douval checked the sensor again and nodded. He pointed to an old restaurant I recognized, except for the huge hold in the ceiling and the black smog spilling out the sides.
"It's in there. Should be right in the middle of it, judging by that hole in the roof. We'll make this fast, and get out." Douval sighed and started for the ruined building. I knew something felt off, but I couldn't really say what for sure. I followed him. We stood at the doorway looking at the bleak and dark inside. It was hard to see anything in the wreckage really. Douval gave a small grunt and pointed at a small blinking light in the corner. He pushed me toward it and nodded. "There's the transmitter." I nodded slowly and noticed he was backing off.
"So, you'll go get it then?" He chuckled as if I was joking.
"No, doc, you are."
Part 5: Overrun
"What! Aren't you the soldier who has to get it in the first place?" I said resisting his push. It was no use really, he must have been ten times stronger than me.
"Doc, I'm going to watch the door while you run in there and grab the transmitter alright? It's just going to be a nice and easy run." I shivered and slowly stepped in. Douval turned around and watched the quiet street. "All you have to do is press the big red button, and take out the holo-player once it slides out alright? Then we take a nice walk back to the other side." He raised his gun and I slid in closer. There was something about the melding that made you shudder. Like that you would see faces, horrible tortured faces, in the smoke around you. What was probably a few feet seemed like I walked miles. I approached the capsule and kneeled down to it. As Douval had said, there was a large red button on the side with the word 'eject' on it.
I pressed it. That was a huge mistake.
The machine gave out an ear popping screech and a loud beeper continued to go off. That's when everything went to hell. The whole town came alive with blood chilling yells and screeching. Douval screamed something but I couldn't hear over the beeping. He turned around and pointed the plasma gun at me. I ducked down and turned to look at a giant bug over me, melding spores all over its body. It exploded in a burst of plasma, covering me in its corpse. Douval turned back around and began firing all around the building, bugs pouring out of every building. More creatures too, like weird large looking sabertooth cats, wild dogs, or giant rodents spilled from the streets, Douval laying them down with his single gun. The beeping stopped and a small holo-player slid out. I grabbed it and ran for the door. Douval yelled something and pointed for the bridge. I didn't wait to clarify what he had said. I dashed to it with as much force as I could. The mutations kept coming, and Douval followed me back, laying down firing support. I reached the Arclight's towering wreckage and stood by the hole. By the time I turned back, I saw what we had truly run into. Hundreds, maybe thousands even, of the melded, mutated, twisted monsters came from every opening. Animals now twice to ten times their size, everything with those melding growths all over them poured into the main street. Douval reached the bridge, and for a moment I thought we had made it to the home stretch.
God, the world just hated me that day.
A bug latched on to Douval's leg, and then another to his gun, he fell to the ground in a yell of agony and he turned to me. He screamed something but my ears just wouldn't process any of it. A monster on top of his back shook me back to reality and I charged back to save the one man who knew what he was doing. I grabbed his gun, and bashed the bug over its face, crippling it. Douval pulled me down close to his face, pain everywhere.
"Get the recording to them. They're coming."
He shuddered and collapsed to the ground, melding already climbing over him. I yelled at him, not sure what to make of his sentence.
"Who is coming Douval? Who!" With no answer, I did what was left. I made a run for the ship, monsters on my heels. As I made it into the hole, I took one look back to Douval, but I could swear he was standing, running towards me as the hole closed, and darkness surrounded me.
"WHO IS THERE…?" Something moved around me. My lungs became tight, the air moving around me. I could feel breathing, on my face.
"I-I am Doctor Kurt Donell, w-who are you?" It chuckled. Slowly.
"WE ARE THE CHOSEN." I shuddered at the name. "WE DID NOT COME FROM YOUR WORLD. WE ARE A HIGHER BEING. STRONGER. FASTER. SMARTER. DEADLIER. WE COME FOR THE CRYSTANTILE."
"W-what is crystantile?" Again, it laughed.
"Kukuku… Watch your silly recording… and you shall figure it all out. We are the chosen, and we have come to take your world as our own as he have done… hundreds of times."
A mutated face appeared in front of me, skin pale and melding all over it. I screamed and turned to run in what I had hoped was the exit. A light shone at the end, and a person stood there. I gasped.
"T-T-Tanya?" She only smiled, and held her hand out to me. I took it as the voices overcame me, melding flowing over my vision, and fear creeping into my heart.
Part 6: The Beginning of The End
The detective tapped his fingers as he waited.
"And? What after that Dr. Donell?" Kurt only looked at the detective as if he was insane.
"And then I woke up here! I assumed Tanya took me here." The detective sighed and stood up. He walked over to the single door and knocked, it opened up and he stood in the waiting room with two men in lab coats.
"So, what did the readings show?" The men looked at each other and handed the detective a chart.
"He has massive growths in his brain. We thought they were tumors at first, but it's some sort of radiation in his lobes. It would explain why everything freaks him out so much. This must have come from the asteroid he had been sent to examine." The other man stepped forward.
"However, we found that these growths are actually closer to the melding samples taken from the crew of the Arclight. They cause hallucinations to the person infected, and eventually will lead to death."
"So what does this have to do with his story?"
"There… was never any miner named Tanya in the town sir, in fact we found this man laying on the bridge when we arrived. We may think he made up this fictional woman in order to deal with his seclusion."
"So you're telling me his whole story was a lie?"
"No, sir, Sergeant Douval was actually in the Arclight. I don't think the doctor could have just made him up. However, we never did find Douval's corpse…"
"So what do we do? Did you decode the holo-player he had yet?"
"Yes sir. It's here." One of the men handed the detective the small panel. The detective pressed a button and Captain Knox and Admiral Nostromo appeared in what looked like the captain's room.
"What is the meaning of this Admiral, asking our crew to try and fight something we have no clue how to fight? Have you gone mad?" The Captain pinned the Admiral to the wall.
"Captain, you don't seem to understand what I am suggesting. I am not saying we fight, I'm saying we let it in."
"What?"
"Captain, you may not know this, but this is not our first encounter with the Melding."
"The what? When have we seen this before?"
"You see Captain, our first expeditions through Arc-travel put us in touch with the greater beings, calling themselves the Chosen… They are superior to humanity. In every way. And they have chosen me to be their Prophet to their rise."
"You are the cause of all of this! You led them here!" A gunshot comes from the player. The Captain stumbles back.
"I did not lead them here Captain. I have induced their great rise to power. Soon all of humanity will aid the Chosen in their evolution. Soon the Crystite will be fed to the greater beings!"
"Y-you're crazy! Out of your mind!"
"No Captain. I am Chosen."
The holo-player ended with the yell of the Captain and a scream of pain. The detective and the two assistants all stared at the player, expecting something more. Until the detective gasped.
"So… What do we do with the doc?"
"Sir… Anyone with the growths has been order to be executed… It seems it causes paranoia and extreme stress causing them to turn on the person next to them. He is no exception."
"And what of his story? Are we just ignoring it?"
"He won't tell us anything new. It's the exact same story each time. We have everything we will understand from him. All he does is ask for his made up girl."
"Very well." The detective entered the room again with Kurt, who looked to him with hopeful eyes.
"Hello! Who are you? Can you tell me where I can find Tanya?" The detective looked at him sadly, and sighed.
"Yes, Dr. Donell. We will make sure everything is alright."
"Thank god. There's no way I can be separated from her. She told me she had chosen me."