No one knew how it happened; they
only knew that it had and that they had somehow become part of it. One simple act from someone somewhere may
have ignited something else from somewhere else. Perhaps it was a large group or merely a
meagre few who first initiated what politicians would come to call a global insurrection. Perhaps it had been an ideal gone awry, a
demonstration of rage against a regime that had misled the populace with
understated remarks concerning the threat that Eventide was posing against the
Earth; but then perhaps it had been just one man, woman or child who had
thought fit one day to pick up a rock and hurl it through a window. Nevertheless it began seemingly within a
matter of hours.
A fire had broken out in the pre-dawn hours of December 18th close to
the River Thames in an old abandoned building, derelict, cold and empty. The fire lasted little more than seventeen
minutes but managed to consume most of the supporting beams, which amounted to
an impressive and thunderous cave-in to disturb anyone sleeping within a two mile
radius. The fire department was quick to
act; there were no fatalities and the damage was inconsequential being that the
building itself had been condemned.
It was the ensuing fire twenty-eight minutes later and half a mile away
from the first that began to unnerve the department. Initially believing that a single arsonist was
at work, the police were quickly on the scene alongside SOCOs and
reporters. No evidence was discovered to
link the two fires simply because there had been no time for any evidence to be
gathered. A third and much larger fire
had broken out just under an hour later, this time a little further inland on
Bridge Street. The flames shooting from nearly
every window of Portcullis House were reflected in the slumbering river,
lending the water the semblance of still molten lava. Motionless and luminous, the eerie glow was
arrested only by the adjacent black and leering shape of Big Ben, whose distorted
silhouette against the dawning sky stretched across both the water and the growing
wide-eyed faces of those who had travelled from their homes to witness the
event. Plumes of dense smoke rendered
the multiple chimneys atop Portcullis House as levitating monoliths. The south facing windows began to detonate as
though being fired upon from the inside dispatching shards of tempered glass
towards the ground as fire-fighters continued the skirmish against a seemingly
relentless monster. This was merely the
beginning of something that would soon become quite indescribable. It became a thing, a happening and an
alteration of the human race into something unrecognisable. People had become angered not from the thought
of their approaching demise; rather it was the all-too-brief time they had been
allocated to offer their cheerless farewells both to life and loved ones across
the world. The plaster had been ripped
too quickly from the skin to expose a deep and penetrating wound that had no
time to heal.
Just hours later the ten Parliament Square statues of statesmen had been
beheaded, knocked down, dragged around the city by cars and left to drown in
the Thames. By mid afternoon the
following day groups had been formed by no one in particular. It was easy to find common ground amongst
those whose fate had been sealed not only by the approach of Eventide, but by
the very government whose indubitable foreknowledge of events had immediately
separated them from the common man. As
for that common man, it now seemed that his goal was to turn anger, panic and
the fear of death into one insurmountable force, a force that began slowly at
first, forging a momentum, acquiring strength in numbers and each manipulating
the other until the other became themselves.
The destructive force of the mob was only just beginning to be understood
by those who also began to panic, to secure their houses, their families and
their wits during a time that would undeniably stretch into unyielding mayhem.
Over the course of three days the majority of all political discussions regarding
the state of the nation had halted.
Self-preservation had set in. Politicians,
after all, were also people with families and the desire to remain breathing
for as long as possible. The Prime
Minister could no longer plead to the nation to remain calm. The truth was out; it had taken to the
streets and run amok. The people had
listened, the people had reacted and, for just one moment stretched into a few
dark days, the people had been united.
A mob can include members from all faculties of life since it is so
often the defence of life and liberty, their continuation or threat of
termination that becomes the common ground rather than links to occupation,
class or creed. Each member bleeds effortlessly
into the other until a single voice is born, one that screams not from the
mouth but from the soul. Here were many
souls each housing fear, panic and trepidation while others of a more drunken inclination
announced proudly that they were more than happy to be present at the world's
end; after all, they had been absent for its beginning. It would be an event, a concert of apocalyptic
chaos to which all had been invited.
Tickets were free and it was front row seating for everybody, but before
the doors opened and the show began the mob would have its day and seize its
one-time opportunity to release its inhibitions.
So it was that crude barricades were set up by clerks, accountants, bus
drivers and lawyers. Missiles were
hurled at the advancing riot police by small business owners, shop windows were
smashed by pensioners and house windows shattered by children. The majority sought comfort in destruction,
each joining the other to form a ruinous indestructible beast that roamed the
streets seeking destructible prey. Every
new member was an extra limb, another appendage to lash out at everything and
everyone that opposed it. The beast was
without conscience; its attention had been diverted from what approached and
its hunger was seemingly insatiable. It
fed greedily from distraction and digression, never contemplating and never pondering
the real cause of its hunger until, finally and perhaps inexorably, it cast one
of its many eyes towards the sky and to that one relentless immovable and
enlarging sphere. Only then did the
beast begin to consume itself.
Where previously shoulder had rubbed against shoulder in an effort to
affect an uprising, soon the very reason for that uprising became unclear. Where would it end and what exactly would it
achieve? The once angry and unified voice screaming for answers had suddenly
acquired internal rational dissenters each posing a much simpler question:
"Why?" It was an uncomplicated enquiry that remained unanswered. The meaning of everything was at stake. Life itself had arrived at a turning point
within a tapered tunnel. There was nowhere
else to go; there was nothing left to do but wait and, in the days that
remained, mankind announced all too loudly that it would not seep quietly into
shadow unheard and unseen.
By December 23rd London had
become a dark and ominous labyrinth.
Street lights had been smashed and shadows dwelled within shadows,
amassing in thick immovable clumps that dominated every corner, every street
and almost every man's heart. Some who
had accepted their fate remained in their homes behind locked doors, and behind
those locked doors was furniture, heaped, broken and stacked, once used for
comfort and now used for defence and security. Others, however, still fuelled
by anger, vented it indiscriminately and mercilessly, aiming rage at whatever
or whomever crossed their paths. They
looted without purpose and then turned on each other like unruly animals borne
from some dark place. The breath of the masses was suddenly everywhere,
permeating the walls of every office block, house and heart. The very air itself became rotten with rage,
spoiled by lungs heaving with fear ready to air itself in screams of fury,
which were more often than not accompanied by random acts of violence first across
London, and then the world.
The major cities were the first to fall.
After the global reports of London's upheaval, fear and panic began spreading
wildly from one country to the next like an infectious agent snaking its way
through the streets, targeting homes and mutating many of the occupants into
misshapen souls with barely a memory of themselves. Governments across the world
rapidly lost their hold upon their now distrusting populations that no longer
cared for pointless precepts and nonsensical authority. Few barely recognised friend from foe. Civil liberty had been drowned in the
asphyxiating smoke from smouldering flames and the gallop of gunfire. Most of mankind devolved while the world revolved
seemingly faster, quickening the hours and turning the hands of every clock with
a sickening swiftness that facilitated the final countdown, that interminable
tick heard in every human heart. Many innocents
had already begun to flee the cities in cars and on foot, either for the
countryside or anywhere where people's eyes and souls had not yet been
blackened.
All that was once good had been siphoned from society, tapped rapidly from cities previously swollen with life, only then to be scattered throughout the surrounding dying land like failing roots eager to discover a place in which to scream: "I still exist!" All that was once good was now bound to those fleeing millions whose homes had been ransacked and robbed. All that was once good was gone...
