+++SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - NOVEMBER 21+++
Gale-force winds battered the opera house as rain drops fell like bullets, driven by vicious raging winds. Around the forlorn building abandoned cars and trucks were picked up like toys and sent flying by the furious gusts. Sheets of lightning flashed in the sky as bolts of electric terror continued to rain down. Small fires began to ignite, quickly doused but sending embers to reproduce the terror. Trees were casually sent flying by the strong winds, sent careening into buildings and smashing into what few vehicles still tried to move on the roads.
A dozen bolts of lightning struck the opera house. White tiles cascaded off and the building itself exploded into sudden flame. A dozen feet away, another lightning strike blasted a crater in a nearby car-park, cars exploding and burning around the smoking pithole.
Jackie Anderson was a mother of four and quite terrified. Huddled in the store attached to a petrol station, she looked around to her children, the oldest just under eight.
"Mummy," one of her twin girls asked. "Where's daddy? Is he alright?"
"I can't say," she grimly admitted, then stole a glance from a nearby window. Water was pouring down the street in a massive unstoppable tide, smashing aside scattered traffic like it was nothing, driving straight through houses and businesses as it rushed unstoppably upon them. Brick and wood crumbled beneath its advance, and the detritus, mixed with what might have been corpses, was driven ahead constantly as the storm surge continued through the city, a roaring juggernaut of destruction.
It was seconds from reaching them when lightning struck and Jackie's world turned to a brief flash of fire and pain.
Elsewhere, skyscrapers set alight were beginning to finally crumble under the assault of the wicked flames and vicious winds. Like tottering giants, they begin to tilter and finally crashed down on the streets below, killing thousands as they smashed into groups of survivors. Perverse dominos, some crashed into each other and precipitated the collapse of the next, falling in turn with a sickening finality.
There was no light, no power, and no communication. Many drowned or burned for lack of warning; as the floodwaters poured into the underground, the train stations became sites of dreadful death by drowning, the people skulking inside unknowing of the watery doom soon to approach.
For five hours the storm reigned supreme and the sun was gone from all sight and knowledge. But then a wind came out of the west, belated but strong. It seemed that the wind was struggling with the storm, and at first it seemed impotent against that raging elemental might - but the wind blew stronger and stronger yet, and the storm was driven back, and over Sydney at long last the sun shone forth again, bright and at its zenith, as the triumphing breeze blasted the clouds of Morgoth away eastwards. Over the sea they dwindled and fell apart, dissipating in a cool western breeze and fading away.
+++TWO DAYS LATER+++
Sydney was devastated.
The city looked like it had been the site of an atomic explosion or two. All but a tenth of its buildings had been destroyed or otherwise rendered unlivable. Two million people were dead and five hundred thousand missing. A few fires still cast palls of smoke over the ruins. Water flowed through the streets still, and in many districts the only transportation was by helicopter. There was no power and the airport was in ruins.
A cargo ship lying on its side covered half of the famous opera house, now a smoking ruin. Many other civic buildings were simply gone, wiped away as by a hand on a blackboard.
Sydney would never recover.
Even as journalists rushed in to recount the devastation, scientists were puzzled. The storm, dubbed Hurricane Cynthia, had made a massive increase in strength mere minutes before landfall. If it had not done so, the city might well have better weathered the disaster.
Not that Sydney had been the only victim. Hundreds of miles of coastline had been devastated. Whole towns had been swept out to sea by the storm surges, leaving nothing but swiftly-onrushing water behind. But Sydney had been struck with almost the full power of the hurricane, stronger than any since records began.
It would not be a good summer for Australia.
+++VALIMAR+++
It was night in the Blessed Realm and by all accounts things should have been glad. But there was a darkness growing of late in the hearts of the elf-kindreds within, a shadow of distant fear.
Its cause was easily noticeable if one looked at the sky. In the places between the brilliant stars of Varda Elentari, in a central segment of the Walls of Night, was a crack. It was hairline-thin, but it was a crack. One glance made it obvious to sight - it seemed blacker than black, the ultimate darkness beyond even her night sky. A gnawing malice was behind that, and those who looked too long swore that they saw some horrific indescribable thing looking back at them with bottomless malice. Fear was abroad in Valinor.
The silver bells of Valimar, the city of golden roofs and diamond streets, were silent as from one of the central towers Elrond Peredhil looked pensively. His vision looked westward unencumbered by any horizon (for no such thing existed in Valinor, which was not bent like Arda nowadays), scrying northward to the hunting halls of Orome and the wrestling grounds of Tulkas, glancing southward to the green-gold fields of Yavanna and the forests of Lorien, flashing to the silent mansions of Mandos and the last lonely tower of Nienna before the great obsidian gates of sunset.
Yet always his gaze found itself transfixed against its better judgement to that fissure in the night sky. It would not be long - all of Valinor knew that. Eastwards the Teleri were building an armada of ships, and with Tulkas and Orome the first warriors Valinor had known in many millennia were being trained. Between the Pelori and the City of Bells a series of low green hills rose disconcertingly in the surrounding plains, still silently waiting for their purpose.
But to see, to feel proof of Morgoth's imminent return - that was something new entirely. Through the long hours of night he continued to watch, and as morning came and Earendil shone to herald Arien the wound in the sky was obvious to all vision as a black fissure in the midst of steel blue.
Elrond turned his face away from the window and back to the circular dark-blue stone gleaming on its marble pedestal. It had been crafted by Feanor and its history had been long indeed. From Annuminas through strange roads it had gone into the West and been set here in this tower just one Valian year ago. Now it spoke to the Anor-stone.
Putting his hands on the crystal Elrond recieved a brief vision - of aged hands wreathed forever in flame - but with an effort of will pushed the image of the last Steward's doom aside and opened the connection. A handsome face framed by golden hair appeared.
"Master Elrond," the figure's voice spoke out of the seeing-stone into Elrond's mind. "It is good to see you once more. How go affairs in Valinor?"
"The Walls of Night cracked two days ago," Elrond said. "The wound is a blight on the morning sky. Perhaps now our people will truly realise the gravity of the situation."
"This concerns me. Have the Valar spoken?"
"Ulmo seems most gravely concerned. Of the rest I know not. How are affairs on Arda?"
"Morgoth has unleashed a terrible storm to strike at Men. So many of them died and there was no way they could protect themselves. It angers me that he is not sending forth his hosts. At least my blade could make good work of them, but even I cannot strike down the storm."
"The Valar trusted in you alone to help Arda prepare. You must do what you can quickly. Before long Morgoth's hosts will be prepared to make war on Arda. Then your sword will be of use, Lord of Gondolin. But not now. Not now."
+++DECEMBER 25 2011+++
There were many dreams that Christmas, and they were not good.
As families and individuals slept, preparing for the day of joy and frivolity to come, a shadow went over them. A voice went into whatever they dreamt of, asking them in mellifluous tones to 'come and listen'. In their dreams they walked through a nondescript door or portal, and found themselves in darkness. The voice guided them, urged them to continue walking.
They found their way through another door, and appeared on a howling pinnacle of ice and obsidian, walking through biting cold and scorching heat, forced to crawl on hands and knees by stinging winds. Then looking up they found themselves gazing at a throne of gold and black marble, and upon it a man made of swirling darkness. In his right hand blazed red-hot, swirling, smoking flame while in his left frost and ice sucked out warmth and life. All eyes turned to him, forced to gaze at the deep shadows of his face.
"I am coming for you," he said, and his red eyes blazed with dark fire.
"Do not hide. I will find you."
The malice which poured from him became almost overwhelming, and the only things in existence seemed to be the black throne, shadowy flesh and that fiery glare.
"Do not think you can run. There is no life in the void, only death."
"You will not be saved. I will find you, and you will die screaming like your world."
There were many early awakenings that day, and almost all were in terror and crawling fear.
The malice had begun its work.