Initium The Start x Book 1 of “The Divine” Series

Present Day: 

The stench hit my nostrils before I could see the cause. It had taken my brain even longer to comprehend the scene in front of me. I couldn’t even begin to make sense of it all. Everything happening all at once, too fast to keep up with.

Flames dancing before my eyes, like hands reaching up to the starless black night sky. 

A vision of chaos amidst a blazing inferno that began engulfing the city.

Deafening screams of horror and despair from the injured echoing loudly, drowning out the wails of sirens from help that would ultimately fail to succeed. 

People fleeing for their lives, running blindly through the streets,

that were thick with black tar-like smoke. I could see them choking upon it as it filled their lungs, their panic stricken eyes widening, as they unknowingly faced their untimely demise.

Heavy drops of rain had begun falling from the sky, like Mother Nature’s feeble attempt to neutralise the flames. As if s few spots of rain could stop the fires from below, as if released from Hell itself. As if a small spattering of rain could even try to control them as their wrath clawed through the earth like the Hell Hounds, unwilling to relinquish their control on the irreparable damage ripping through each and every building. 

It’s insatiable hunger for destruction, leaving nothing but death in its wake. Everything and everyone who would cross paths with it, would all end up in the fiery furnace. Nothing was sacred, no one was safe. Not matter how hard they tried to hide.

Lurking in the shadows, behind the thick bellows of smoke, I watched it all unfold from beyond my physical body. Relishing in the way that I could see it sll. How I could feel it all.

Revelling in the destruction of all of her hard work, enjoying how it was being dismantled piece by piece. Torturous for her no doubt. For once I was uncaring of her thoughts, her feelings, all of her creations will burn, her depiction of her perfect world shattering before her very eyes. Useless and unable to prevent what was yet to come, The pain, the panic, the devastation; all that coursed through this city, through this country even. 

This city was just a snapshot of the total annihilation,  the impending doom that faced them all. Mirroring scenes identical to this, from all over the world, at this precise moment in time. Even if she was able to prevail though it all, there would be nothing left. 

Only a desolate wasteland that I had once called home.

What had taken her over several millennia to fashion, would take a mere matter of minutes to eradicate. Unravelling all of her hard work, her labour of love, by pulling at one single thread.  

This would bring the end to the world, to all life as we know it. The world will burn until there is nothing left; relentless in its mission, until everything was scorched, decimated. Leaving in its wake piles of ash as tall as the buildings that had once tall and proud. A  graveyard of bones trailing across the lands, instead of the thriving societies she had once lived there. That she had once been so proud of. 

All of this may have been started by her.

But it will end with me.

This was not the result of the world-scale war that was on the cusp of fruition.

Not because of the impending missile attacks threatened from beyond the seas. 

No, it was not caused by any of that.

The cause of this catastrophic destruction, on this worldwide magnitude was…

Me. 

***

POV - Unknown:

“Hello?!”

“What should we do?”

“Hello?!”

“Why don’t we try-“

“Hello?!”

“Do you think we should -“

“HELLO?!”

Muffled voices were surrounding me, their presence slowly suffocating me. I could feel my lungs depleting, as if the the oxygen was being sucked out of them as the crushing pain  in my chest intensified.

If I was going to die, I wanted death to hurry up and consume me. This arduous, prolonged torture of never ending pain, was something I could not take anymore.

I really did just want to die.

These voices were distant at first, but each time one of them spoke, their voices drew closer. They weren’t just growing in volume, their voices were laden with emotions, no matter how handled they thought they were trying to conceal them.

I could hear the urgency in their hushed exchange. I could feel their uncertainty Overwhelming me. I could taste their fear, the salty droplets of their perspiration as they leaned over me, their faces now inches from my own. 

I didn’t need to open my eyes to know who they were, to know what they wanted. I didn’t need to be able to see my surroundings to know where I was or why I was here in the first place.

I knew everything and everyone.

I even knew what was coming, before it had even happened; events that were coming, looming over us all like a heavy oppressive cloud. A series of occurrences that no one could prevent from happening, that no one would see coming, until it was too late.