Bicentennial

by I.Magickal.Vivian

There's a careful veneer covering the face of the world and people believed whatever was convenient for them to believe. they didn't want the truth only a pretty lie. The Bicentennial Grande Festival had come at last and things that were better hidden were coming to the surface, his eyes moved to Cynthia and he laughed to keep from screaming, "Now I kind of wished we both drowned."

2. Zero

"Never will the whims of the landed set the People of the Water against one another."

-ooo-

The great lighthouse as ablaze with the colors of warning, the warning of death and destruction carried on the tide. The screams of men and the wailing of the sirens had long since become one with the booming of the waves below his vantage, the turmoil of the city below white noise to calm otherwise frayed nerves. Surely, if he had been one of the souls below fighting valiantly to set the heavy nets, dredge the bottom of the bay and fight back the demons he would have been caught in the desperate panic that seized those who knew these were the last hours of their lives. Instead he was to ensure that the signal fires were lit, from here across the mainland to the islands far to the northwest and from there across the sea. News would travel on the trade winds that Olivine has fallen to madness and that its doom was sweeping across the world.

With the return of the Demon Tides the People of the Water would have to place their faith in the Leviathan God and their Mistress, hold strong to the time honored traditions despite the scorn they received from the landed. Slowly a dim halo of blue and red began to wreathe his left and right arm respectively, surely, truly, this was just punishment for the hubris of the landed and just another test for the People of the Water. A test that his people would pass, their endurance and determination a finer blade and shield than anything the hands of men could bring into existence.

The halo grew brighter as he turned to look down the stairs, eyes like pale green fire raging in the crazily dancing light from the signal beam three stories overhead, the reflection of the fires outside, the light his own body was creating. With a savage snarl he brought the tactical shotgun to his shoulder, in his hands the Remington Model 1100 was far more comforting a weight than it had been when it was hanging across its body supported entirely by the sling. Thumbing the safety off the halo of purple light blazed with a new intensity as the shadows of the demons brought by the tide grew shorter, it should have been hard to see through the light blazing from his flesh but the light made the horror softer and somehow easier for his mind to process.

And then suddenly the world was gone, all the highly charged emotions of the night replaced by a feeling of perfect calm and serenity. There was no storm battering the city outside, no fires, no men dying. There was no bang as he pulled the trigger, no kick of recoil as the first of the monstrosities to rush him was blown backwards into companions just as eager to fall upon their own as they were to fall upon him.