World Cleansing Chapter 2, a misc. books fanfic

I could hear footsteps. In fact, those very footsteps were the first sound I had heard in quite a while. I listened to the lazy flopping of those footsteps and savored them. My hearing wasn't very acute; the steps sounded muffled and far. But I knew I had better listen now because after this, I would probably go back into death.

Death was a strange place for me. It seemed that I had been there multiple times. It wasn't a hellish world filled with burning pits and screaming souls or a heavenly place filled with happy beings and winged angels. It was more of a dark room where you could sleep for eternity without being disturbed. The guardian of this room would stop me at the entrance and relieve me of my five senses then help me over to a bed lying in the darkness. He would help me down into the soft mattress. Cushioned by the soft object beneath me, I would close my eyes. Sometimes I would close them unwillingly, battling to stay awake to explore the world I had just encountered for such a short time, desperate to know what occurs in the world around my prison. But every effort to stay awake was as futile as the last. Deprived of rest, or locked into a circle of incarceration, I would always close my eyes and sleep, forever it seemed, only to once again wake up and hear something of the outside world.

But I felt something strange today as I listened to shuffling steps. Something unique, something I had never felt before.

I felt alive.

I cannot explain. All the other encounters with the outside world had been very restricting. A few sounds here and there, maybe the touch of another object. But today, it seemed as if I could open my eyes then and there and once again become a part of the world I had always desired to know. But I didn't know how to open my eyes.

I felt a cold chill run down my body as I noticed my ill fate. Now that I could see, I would never learn how. I noticed hearing was very automatic, sound is entered into your ears, you don't have to take action to listen.

Then I noticed. I had felt the cold chill. I had felt it everywhere it had traveled. It was there. My bloodstream seemed to be regaining strength. All of a sudden, I felt something else.

Fingers grazed against my scalp. I yearned to yell out to let that person or thing know I was alive. But I couldn't. I had no control of my body. A perfectly living mind inside a useless and futile body, that's what I was. I heard footsteps once more. They were getting clearer; that was for sure. The muffled scuffle of feet against floor had turned into clear shuffles. I felt fingers graze my chest.

I could feel my body slowly start to come around. I could feel my eyes well within reach. I knew how to open them, but the time hadn't come just yet. My mind fought a hard fight to restore all connections to my limbs. Meanwhile I listened some more.

A scratching sound, some speech, more scratching, footsteps. This was definitely a human. What was going on? If I did manage to open my eyes today, what would I find? It was hard to imagine, I hadn't had a real view of the world in a very long time, I didn't know what to expect. My mind tensed. I wasn't sure I was ready for the big moment.

I heard the footsteps fading away; they seemed to turn to murmurs. No!!! This couldn't be happening! I was so very close to waking up this time. I begged my body to respond, I needed to awake today. The footsteps were getting quieter. Then out of nowhere they stopped. I realized my time was over. It was once again time to fall into a deep slumber. But something happened that destroyed those thoughts.

I saw a flash of white. My eyes had whipped open and now I could see. But other than the wall of white light before me, I couldn't see anything else. My eyeballs rolled quickly in my eye sockets, trying to take in all they could in case my body decided to fall asleep once again.

At first glance, I could see I was in a small white room, square in shape. Some equipment I had never seen surrounded me. I looked down at myself. I was stripped bare of any clothes other than some white boxers. I could see a large line of dots running diagonally down across my chest. It looked like I had been ripped open in that very spot and sewn back together frantically. I looked up and saw him. I had to communicate. I tried speaking.

"Doctor…" I said; it was the only thing I could manage before gasping for air. Throughout my observation of the room, I had completely forgotten to breathe.

The man jumped. He slowly turned towards me, a horrified expression covering his face. His blue eyes were widened, his eyebrows were raised, and his mouth was slightly open as in disbelief. If I was surprised that I had woken up today, the man in front of me was surprised tenfold. He showed no signs of responding, so I spoke again, wishing I could hear the true sound of a human voice at last.

"Doctor…"

I got a similar response: Silence. I tried to move my arms. I knew I could, but for some reason I couldn't move them in their full range of motion. I looked down.

To my dismay, every one of my limbs had been shackled down to the bed I was laying in with heavy metal chains. I didn't bother struggling against them. I knew from the cartoons that I had watched when I was very small that only Superman could break free of chains like this. I looked at the man standing by the door. He was still looking at me with a sense of awe. Why wasn't he speaking? Then I had another terrible realization. What if I'm not alive? What if I've finally slept for too long and passed on?

I addressed my concerns to the doctor. I was relieved when he finally responded.

"You're alive, child. You survived a very deadly operation, and now you are the only human of your kind…"

I looked down and looked at the scar tearing across my chest.

"What exactly did you to me, doctor?"

The man had a troubled expression on his young but old face. He seemed to be contemplating something. "You'll know soon enough," the man managed. "But you must rest now. You'll need all of your energy for the purpose you are about to serve."

The man opened the door and closed it behind him. I was alone.

I looked at the metal shackles holding my wrists and ankles to the bed. I knew struggling would do no good, so I just laid back and looked at the ceiling. I wanted to rest. Even though I had slept for an eternity, I felt exhausted. But closing my eyes was the last thing I wanted to do right now. I was much too afraid. I felt that if I ever closed my eyes and tried to sleep again, I would fall right back into the circle of death I had lived in not so long ago.

My eyelids felt heavy. I let them fall over my eyes. I waited a second or two; then flashed them back open. I just wanted to make sure I was still alive. Apparently I was. I let the lids of my eyes once again fall into their resting places and let them lay there. Angelic music seemed to fill my head and in mere seconds, I was asleep.

…

I felt a tiny prick in my arm. I stirred. Something seemed to be bothering my arm. I opened my eyes, relieved to see I was still in the white room. It was a boring place to be, but at least I was alive. My vision was a little bit blurry, but I could fairly make out someone standing next to my bed. It was the same man who I had met only…

God, when was that? I was completely disoriented in this room. There was no clock, and the sun was nowhere to be found. I didn't know what was up and what was down.

I looked at the man. As my vision cleared, I was horrified to see what he done. Three needles had been jabbed into the veins in both of my arms. They were attached to tubes, which I followed with my eyes. They traveled up to a large bag labeled, "Anesthetics." Was that much anesthetic even safe?

"Doctor, are you doing?" I exclaimed. I tried moving, but I could feel the drugs taking effect. I felt almost no connection to my arms, and a flash of cold zipped through my body as I started to feel what I had hoped would never happen again.

I was slipping back into death.

I cried out, I begged the doctor to please stop. The look on his face was the saddest thing I had ever seen. He looked as if he was doing this against his will. It was strange, I felt sorry for him, but quite frankly he was trying to put me back in a coma. My vision blurred, I began to feel very tired.

"Please…Stop…the……drugs………" I managed, my voice slowly losing tone and annunciation. I put my head on the pillow under me and tried to take control of my limbs, but nothing would work. I felt death creeping up over me. I could feel him smiling. How could I believe I was actually alive? It was all a big…joke……………

My eyeballs rolled around desperately in their sockets. I took one last look at the doctor. My vision was scrambled and came in short bursts, but I could manage to see what was happening well enough.

The Doctor was at the door looking at me, halfway out the door. There was a suitcase in one of his hands that seemed to be brimming with items. His other hand was rested on the jamb of the door. He dropped his head and his mouth moved. Then he looked at me one final time and said…

"Good luck, Adam."

Then he exited the room and closed the door behind him. That was the last thing I -----

…

.:-----------------------------------:.

Hades sat down in his metal chair and placed his arms on the table. The table was elliptical, and constructed, or rather, carved out from a block of brushed steel, about five feet wide and about fifteen long. It was very large, and very heavy. Everyone who ever sat down at this table trusted the triangular braced metal structure underneath to prevent the table to fall down and crush their legs. Hades knew it was perfectly safe. Some of the best engineers in the world had been hired to build the entire complex and paid mass sums to ensure the building was the most secret, undetectable, and sturdy it could be. Hades couldn't lie; they had done quite a tremendous job. Just like this table, most of everything in the building was constructed of solid metal, any type of technologies concealed under about five inches thick of the steel.

Hades looked at two small reflecting points on the table. On its two foci were small holes drilled into the steel, about five inches deep. They were covered by small panes of circular cuts of glass, and under these, two small projectors were concealed. They used knew technologies that shot special forms of bended and distorted light into the air. The two projectors combined the images they were generating in mid-air and created something of a simple hologram.

It was crude technology, and had only been recently released by scientists working in the complex. The images it produced were mostly one sided and only two-dimensional, but it was completely rigged so that the image could be controlled by human touch. It was much like handling the touch-screen capability of a screen, but applying the technology to an image floating in mid-air. It worked by using a small camera hooked to roof and pointed directly down at any currently projecting image. When someone or something touched an item on the hologram, the camera gathered the XYZ coordinate information and sent it down to a large computer sitting underneath the floor the table was located. The computer studied the feedback the camera was collecting and responsively moved articles on the hologram as they were intended to. It was a very simple technology, used today in many aspects, such as projected calculators in schools.

Hades looked into the image the projectors were generating. The left-hand side of the image was a picture of the President of the United States. It was an image that had been taken from the internet and showed the man at his Inauguration, addressing the multitudes before him. His face was serene, powerful. It seemed the country had picked the right man for the job. He seemed to always be calm under heated pressure.

Hades smiled, "Ha ha, it's ironic, because he's having a mental breakdown now. The world doesn't realize that anyone, no matter how powerful, can be taken down with a few simple words."

To the right of the picture of the President was a series of numbers arranged like the buttons on a telephone. An eleven-digit phone number had already been input into the system, and above the numbers, the word Dialing faded in and out of the projection.

A dial tone surrounded Hades, being transmitted from a package of Bose Acoustimass Series II speakers. It made even the simple beeps of a dial tone have depth to the sound they created. Hades liked to think of himself of an intricate man, and he preferred to have even the tiniest details revealed to him.

The phone rang once, twice, three times.

Then, Hades finally heard what he had been waiting for.

"Hello?" the voice on the other side seemed frightened, jittery. It sounded afraid, like a small child realizing he got caught for failing a test, and expecting the doom that waits.

Hades responded with a cool and calm voice, "Hello, Mr. President. How are you?"

"Well, uh…, you know; the same-old, same-old."

"Really? Mr. President, if you don't mind my saying so, you don't seem to very enthusiastic about your job. Is the duty of being President not as great as it's cut out to be? Because you sure don't seem to be very happy about it…"

The President paused, then he cleared his throat and began speaking again. "No, no, it's a great task. It's a very large responsibility. I enjoy the job very much, it's just…"

"Is it the fact that I seem to be terrorizing your country right now?"

The President seemed to utter a small and forced chuckle, "Ha ha, yes, that is part of it."

"Well, Mr. President, I thought we had moved past this fear a long time ago? Didn't I explain the entire process to you? As long as you keep your side of the bargain, not a single human will be hurt."

"Yes, I understand."

Hades produced a small laugh. "It's these moments that sort of make you regret taking this job, right? What the hell possesses people to take a job like this anyway?"

"Sometimes even I don't understand." The President's voice gained just a smidge of confidence. Hades understood: the President was trying to veer away from the ill-fated conversation they were supposed to be having. Hades easily noted the President slowly coming up for air and brought him right back down.

"Whatever, let's discuss the matter at hand--" Hades thought he heard a whimper at the other side of the call. Good, he thought. "You do realize the time is almost upon us, to… you know, press the button." Hades continued.

"Y-yes, that's right." The President went back to his old jittery self.

Hades let a bit of frustration and lack of patience enter his voice, "Mr. President, you don't seem very sure of yourself. Are you having regrets?"

"No, it's just-"

"Mr. President, let me remind you that this is an unstoppable event. You and I agreed on all the compromises necessary to make this event possible. I have kept all of my promises, now it is time for you to come through with your part."

"Yes, I realize…"

"And, I'm sure you already know, but if you do not comply with you half of the bargain, we will take matters into our own hands. If you do not trigger the event in your country, we will, and things will get very complicated in the United States."

"Yes, yes, I understand. Don't worry, I will follow through."

Hades relaxed his voice once more, laughing inside his own mind. "Thank you, Mr. President. I realize you have doubts, but we trust you to help us in our mission. The New World Order is upon us, and when the world once again becomes cleansed, the world will look to you and thank you. Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. President, and with that, I must leave you."

Hades pressed a button on the projected image before him. End Call, and the call was lost.

.:-----------------------------------:.

…

The world was silenced for thirty minutes. All was quiet, but minds were tearing; Human minds. One second, the world was bustling and sleeping, working and resting, watching and listening, and the next, everyone stopped. Humans suddenly stopped what they were doing and stood up straight. Their eyes reset to a static position, their arms hung limp at their sides, their faces straightened. All seemed serene and peaceful in a terribly odd way, but inside the minds of every human affected, chaos and terror raged.

The human consciousness was the only thing they still had control of, as if suddenly, they had been withdrawn to a part of their body where they no longer had any connections to their bodies. Human minds could still think, they could still process information as well as they could before, but they no longer had any control over their bodies. Every person in the world was suddenly disconnected. Everyone was a prisoner inside their own body.

And even then, among all the struggling to break free from this strange spell, there was a voice: A woman's voice. It was peaceful, it was inviting, and it urged all congregations to listen. This is what it said:

Do not be alarmed, citizens of Earth. This is only a minor step required for the new Earth 2.0. Today we will strive to bring you a new era, one of peace and justice, but there are some necessary precautions that must be taken to ensure that our efforts are as effective as possible. And for that to occur, human beings must cease to run under their own will power for a few years as we cleanse the world from all the wrong you have polluted it with. The world has always been in a state of peril. Wars rage, religious conflicts bustle, global warming destroys the health of our beautiful planet, and pollution ruins the state of our atmospheres. And all this is the effect of the irresponsibility of the human.

The world was once a peaceful place. In the Holy Bible, Genesis tells about the Garden of Eden, a wondrous place filled with all the absolutely necessary things humans need to daily survive in comfort. Adam and Eve were the first conscious beings to be placed here. They lived well for a time, until Eve was confronted by the Serpent. The Serpent being Satan's vessel for destruction. Eve defied God's adherence to stay away from the fruits of the Serpent, and she and Adam rejoiced in the poisoned fruit. God banished them from the Garden of Eden forever, and forced them to become independent of themselves.

Adam and Eve, in a sense, ruined it for all of us. Imagine a world where they didn't make this mistake. Imagine if they hadn't taken the fruit, we'd all be in our own Garden of Eden right now.

But no, this one sin, this one mistake, this one moment of blindness ruined the future for everyone. So, why did God give humans free will? Why did God entrust creatures such as humans with Earth? All they bring about the world is Chaos and Confusion.

Look at you all. To make your lives easier, you create machines that pollute the Earth, you dump pollutants where you will, and you destroy each other for pieces of land, when there is enough to go around if you would all just all cooperate and keep your peace. You all deny people equal rights because of ethnic or religious background, and you will kill all those that will not agree with you.

This planet has been corrupted beyond belief. Humans have destroyed and wronged it on many levels. You have rejoiced over violence since the beginning of time. If blood isn't pouring, there isn't enough violence. You are entertained by killing your own kind; it's in your TV shows, your movies, and your video games, everywhere. Bloodthirsty monsters you are.

So it's time for change: Change that has been happening for hundreds of years already. We've brainwashed world leaders numerous times throughout history into joining our cause, into the New World Order. But there was a compromise.

We couldn't wipe two-thirds of the population, as was originally intended. World leaders knew there was still hope for you all.

We strongly disagreed, but the compromise had to be made.

World leaders urged us to wait a bit longer; they said humanity would pull through. They said there was good in humans, they said you would all change at one point or another, that one day, all wars would stop and the world would rejoice in peace.

The woman's voice became harsh.

But let us enlighten you. Peace does NOT exist. It never has, it never will. Peace is just a dream, a hopeless dream that isn't worth imagining, simply because peace is untouchable. Every time the world comes a little closer to uniting, someone has to step up and ruin things for everyone. Wars once again begin, and we're right back where we started, angrier and more bloodthirsty than ever.

We realized you would not make the change yourselves, so we had to take matters into our own hands. You have brought your own demise upon yourselves. But don't take it as demise, think of it as a rebirth, as a good thing. We will keep you under this robotic condition for the benefit of everyone. You will do everything you are commanded to do, you will respond to no one else, and any mind refusing our commands will be brutally exterminated.

The woman's voice went back to its kind and peaceful tone.

It's will all be alright in the end. Trust us, our process is foolproof, and as long as no one decides to rebel, we will be kind to you.

And with that, I leave you. Cleansing of the world begins in twenty minutes. Please restrict from fighting the spell. There is no way to withdraw from our influence. Simply relax, and let Cleansing begin. Earth 2.0 is something you want, trust us.

.:-----------------------------------:.

The message was run through every human's brain. In the brain, the message was deciphered by a part of the brain used to detect and use languages. The message was decrypted, and the message was heard in a subconscious state by the human mind. Around the planet, minds heard the message and began withdrawing from fighting the strange spell. Others kept fighting the futile war, but there was nothing they could do to win.

.:-----------------------------------:.

The Cleanser Base was located in a hidden area that had been in the process of building for more than two-hundred years. Hidden deep in the Amazon, the Cleanser Base was inhabited with only two-hundred men and women, twenty of them great world leaders. Their names had never been written down anywhere, they had never mentioned their names to anyone else in the Base. They all went by codenames: Codenames not to be used anywhere but inside the Base.

The chief operator of the Cleansing was Hades. Hades was, of course, a codename. His cloudy green eyes were focused on the screen before him. The size of two cinema screens put together, the screen provided him with an extremely in-depth look at particular stages of the Cleansing.

The majority and center of the screen displayed a world map. Stretched out before him, the map was littered with billions and billions of dots. Each dot represented a human being and all human beings in the world were currently being transmitted on Hades' screen. Dead humans were the only exception, and they had been excluded from the display.

Everyone else was there and their dots told Hades what status of Collection they were in. Yellow signified a rebellious mind, one that had not yet given into the voice of the Cleansing. Green dots had already succumbed to the Cleansing and were ready for Extraction. At the corner of the map, there was a percentage displaying how much of Earth's population was ready for Extraction. So far, 85% was ready, and the number was slowly climbing.

Hades heard someone approach him. Stiletto heels clicked on the marble floor. It was Murai, the female chief operator.

"How goes the Collection?" she asked. Hades looked at her. She was wearing a black leather jacket and jeans. On her feet were the black stilettos whose clicking annoyed Hades to hell. Her hair was let loose and covered Hades' view of her face. It was long, black and silky, reaching down to about her elbows. Hades turned back to the screen

"Look at the numbers, 87% done," Hades replied annoyingly. He hated questions that had answers in plain sight.

"Hmm, persistent little animals aren't they?"

Hades nodded, "Humans have a tendency to fight for their lives. Freedom is one thing they'll refuse to give up until the last drop of blood has bled from their bodies."

"Hmm, well, if there are any rebels still fighting in five minutes, we shall terminate them, correct?"

"Yes, there's not enough time to wait until all of their spirits weaken. Its fine, a few hundred million losses won't bring terrible trouble to the Cleansing."

"Of course not."

Murai looked at the percentage. "93%, we're almost there."

"Soon the world will begin cleaning up the mess it created, the Cleansing is imminent."

Murai gave him a slight smile. She turned and walked out the door, black stilettos clicking.

All around the world, people were starting to fall back. The ones who had fought were weakening, their minds wouldn't hold out the spell for much longer. And if they did, death awaited them in the most brutal way.

"98%" Hades observed. He felt a swell of pride sweep over his entire body. Finally, after 200 hundred years of careful planning and deception, his grandfather's legacy was about to come true.

99%

There was still some who fought. Hades looked down. Before him, on a metallic pedestal, was a small button enclosed in a glass covering. Could he wait and see if the entire world bowed down to his command? Or was it already too late? He wasn't afraid of executing the rebellious minds, and he was considering the idea heavily. Hades opened the glass cover.

His finger grazed the button.

He pressed.

.:-----------------------------------:.

A young girl was held in the back of her head like all the other humans on Earth. She was a fighter though, and she knew that no matter how tough the spell got, she would not give in. She was, after all, winning the war against cancer. How hard could it be to hold off a minor mind restriction?

Not hard at all, actually. The signal invading the mind of every human on Earth was coming from radars and satellites both on Earth and in Space. It was extremely high frequency, bordering on the threshold of pain and the inability to hear it at all. But if the victim controlled their mind, they could partially block out the sound.

The girl had been able to support it for 29 minutes. Her efforts, unfortunately, would not be rewarded. As Hades' clock struck 30 minutes into the Collection, the little girl felt a burning in her thoughts. She wouldn't have been able to feel it anywhere else. Her brain was being fried. The last thing she saw was a burning white light, and she died.

.:-----------------------------------:.

"100% COMPLETE, COLLECTION IS COMPLETE." A speaker announced.

Hades smiled, "Excellent."

But then something strange happened.

"ERROR: MALFUNCTION IN UNITED STATES UNIT. 99% COMPLETE. RUNNING FULL DIAGNOSTIC."

On Hades' map, three red dots had appeared in the United States. They stood out like sore thumbs, among the sea of green representing humans ready for Extraction. It was strange though, if a malfunction was to be reported, Hades would have thought that escapees would have been in the same general area. But that wasn't the case here. They were scattered. One was in California, another in New York, and the last in Texas.

"What the hell?" Hades yelled to himself.

"ERROR: HUMANS ESCAPING THE COLLECTION. HUMANS HAVE BEEN LOST. COMMUNICATIONS LOST."

The red dots disappeared. They didn't turn yellow, they didn't turn green. They just disappeared.

Someone had escaped the spell. And now, their positions had been erased from The Cleansing Base's computers in order to escape an error. Hades' jaw dropped. One escapee was OK; he could easily be spotted among the rest of the Collected, but three?!

"This is not good. If they band together, things could become very difficult," Hades said to himself.

Murai ran into the room, hearing the speaker and Hades. She caught her breath and looked at the screen.

"What's going on, what's wrong?"

The speaker began talking again.

"COLLECTION 100% COMPLETE. CONFIRM EXTRACTION."

Hades ignored Murai's inquiries and pulled a small Palm device from his pocket. The screen had been unlocked and was now signaling two buttons. Yes and No.

Hades pressed yes.

But he knew there was a stipulation. There were three humans out there, they had complete free will, and they could rebel.

Hades knew they would.

I better just keep this to myself… he thought.

Earth 2.0 was in danger.