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THE END
By Roberto
Fernandez
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My name is Hyperion and,
with my partners, we are known as Squadron Supreme. For years we had fought
together to make of this a better world. And we had made mistakes to do it. I
believe that, after all, we were ready to handle events like this. But I’m afraid that
we weren’t...
We are a thousand miles over
the Earth’s surface while we are watching a strange entity from
another dimension try to devour our sun. The conflict forces strange alliances
and we have turned to sometime enemies to save our world. Someone said that with our joint effort we might
move planets. How wrong they were...
My name is Stanley Stewart
and I’m the fastest man alive. I’m afraid that still won't give me enough
time...
Now that I can see my life
in
perspective, I can say that I had a good life. Since I was trapped in a
mysterious cloud years ago and I gained the capacity to move at formidable
speeds, a world of wonders opened to me. I have to admit that I was not very
sure about all this matter of the costumes but, with the passing of years, I have managed to feel that old yellow costume as a second skin. With
it I had no limits and life was always bright and exciting. Only the coming of
my beauty Madelyne could compare to the sensations I
felt with it. Thanks to it I met those to become my closest friends, those who
become my own family.
And now I am here, hanging
on the vacuum, observing how our last effort to stop the greatest menace that
we have fought fails noisy. Fifteen years of investigation of the brightest
mind on Earth on a world were any scientist dream is already real, the combined
power of every notorious superhuman on of the planet... and we are unable to
stop that... thing that is consuming our universe. In my hands, the machine that
would save us, has just blown up, as the rest of them on my
companions hands. I don’t need to see their faces to know that they are so
scared like me.
-
Noooo!!. It’s impossible!!. They did not have to reach mass critical so soon!!. They did not have to fail!!.
THEY DID NOT HAVE TO FAIL!!! - exclaims terrified
-
But they failed. And with them could have gone our
last opportunity- says Hyperion with worrying coldness
-
¡¡¡BURBANK, STUPID!!!. I put
on your hands the knowing of every age!!. I can get
you all the time you need for not to fail… and it’s the only thing you have
done!!!. ¿¿¿DON’T YOU KNOW THAT NOW WE HAVE NO
TIME???- the screaming voice of Scarlet Centurion
flooded the communications system, reflection the panic all we feels.
-
One moment, Centurion. Maybe we had one last stand.
Your chronal technology would be the key. You only
had to... – Hyperion shouted to him
That’s right!!! Maybe this
few seconds were enough…- Centurion murmured while he was manipulating the
device’s controls-. This is your end, scum. I don’t know how I could thing that
you were on my league…
-
NOOOO!!!!. Take me with
you!!! I don’t want to die!!!!- shouted
As the only response,
Hyperion grumbled of scorn. Incomprehensibly distant, he prepared to give orders to continue.
-
Spectrum,
you...
>SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAARRR
GGHHHH....!!!!!
clic!
The communicators remained
overloaded with Lady Lark's last shout. Anybody could see it directly but
nobody could put out of their mind their image, imagining their agony while her
body was consumed by the Anomaly. A shiver crossed my body, being for the first
time conscious that probably we would not go out of this one
I had a terrible headache
and feels how my ears begins to bleed. Lark’s scream
not only ruined our communications but nearly terminated with us too.
Bewildered, I could not notice to the calls that my companions were doing to
me. Terrified, I noticed that there is no more time for me too. The Anomaly is
still growing and is pulling me in now. I tried to escape, to move away from
its event horizon but it was useless. I had not enough speed.
I hated this costume for the
first time on years. I hated it because it separated me from you, from your and
from our beautiful Tina. Oh, Maddie!. I wish I was with you... I know this is the end and you must not be alone. I
only wish that it will be fast and you won’t suffer. I know I failed you and I
will not be able to fix
it.
So I decide to end it here.
If I had to die it will be as I decide. If I couldn’t prevent it is better to
end now. I face the Anomaly, throwing me at maximum speed against it. I run
faster and faster, thanks to the anomaly’s attraction force, breaking down all
my limits... For an instant, all fear disappears. And the only thing that
remains is a sensation of freedom without limits, something that I had not
lived since my first days as a runner. I feel the world at my feet and
everything is okay at least.
Yes, I had a really marvelous life.
Everything thanks to you.
I love you, Madelyne.
My name is Joseph Ledger and
I’m the greatest coward of the world.
I know that anybody listening to me would think
that I’m crazy. After all, I'm one of the greatest superheroes in the world,
aren't I? And before it I was astronaut. There’s nothing on my career that
indicates it.
But, would not be scared up
to the death? That damned thing is “eating” the space itself!.
It’s like a black hole that absorbs anything that we are throwing at him. And
we have to give thanks to God because it appears between us and the Sun. If
not, it should absorb too much matter from it and would force it to exploit.
And instead of dying on having turned into "nothing", we would die
burned in the middle of a supernova... What difference does it make, really?
I never feels
so impotent like this time during all my life, especially since I had my power
prism, the marvelous artifact of the universe. I’m sure that my old partner
Tom Thumb would have bored us with a large scientist
description, trying to explain us their functioning. I describe it simply like " to have on my hands a fragment of the matter with
which the dreams are done " because, basically, is that exactly how it
works: making real anything I desire. And a man with my needs would desire many
things, you know??
It’s true that I had no
intention to use any costume and fly away from a window but, my damned sense of
responsibility appears again (or you thinks that I was going into alien
spaceship as a hobby???). In addition, Hyperion was monopolizing any press
cover and any tv program. He
needs someone to share all that popularity with, don’t you think?? I think that
with my hood I could not enjoy completely that fame, but was funny watch all
that admiration and respect from normal people to me. Many times I tried to
tell everybody that I was Doctor Spectrum but I never had enough value till Project
Utopia. Didn't I say to you that I was a coward?.
Now I’m here, hanging like a
puppet on the vacuum of the space, with Lark’s final scream inside of my head,
while I feel how my blood is folding from my ears and nose. Stunned, I see
Hyperion gesturing, trying to say me something. Desperate, I try to make him
understand that I can’t hear anything, when I feel the Anomaly is near me. The
fear invades me when I feel its force attracting me. And then I see it. It was
only a blur., when
Lark’s scream crash our com
links, annulling any possibility of reorganizing ourselves. If even my body has
been affected by her shout, I cannot imagine how they have to of my companions
feel. I tried to let a few seconds for them to recover, but I’m afraid we don’t
have that seconds. Spectrum seems to be too affected, too stunned. He must
recover!! We don’t have more time!!!
His face change. He’s seeing
something that fears him. Disconcerted, I am a witness of the death of another
good man: the last race of the Whizzer. A pity, he
was a great man; but we do not have time to complain. If
Spectrum could use his prism for....
But Spectrum is already not
here. Maybe the lost of his friend was too much for him. I see him flying away
at maximum speed. I think they could resists better.
With him, I see going away our last opportunity…
I stay in silence in front
of the Anomaly, with the bitter taste of failure over me. I’m Hyperion, the
most powerful man on the world. I dedicated all my life to help the helpless. I
never gave up myself, because with my strength I always find a way to working
out victory. But not this time. With all my power I
can’t do anything against this force of nature.
And for the first time in years, Hyperion cries.
My name is Zarda, but the newspapers
insisted
on naming me Princess Power. I never cared for that name but it was very
popular.
Of all my companions, I’m
the most experienced. The first time I left Utopia was in 1920, being a part of
the retinue of our ambassador to the creation of the Society of Nations. One of mankind’s
commendable attempts to find peace and
harmony and to build a better world. The utopian government was supporting this
offer, since those are the ideals that my people always defended. In that
occasion I remained fascinated by your culture, so passionate and
unpredictable. All of us were agreed about your great potential. That’s the
reason because I stayed among you when my people emigrate
to space on 1945, when you discovered atomic energies’ military applications. Your were kids using
fireguns,
unconscious on the consequences of its use. I was the only one that I continue
believing in your potential
I don’t repent about my
decision. Here in your world I discovered comrade, friendship, man’s spirit of
overcoming... I found the most noble soul I ever met:
Howard Shelter. The years spent with him were the most wonderful ones of my long live.
But I always want to make a
difference. And now that I effort my last moments I can see
that I failed. At least, I did more damage than anything trying to
impose my view of life. Mankind had to reach that perfect world to value it. I
had to learn it by the hard way.
I can see on the screen,
terrified, how the energy wave ends with my friends’ lives:
Lark, Whizzer, Hyperion...
Mark limited himself to remaining immobile, static, hung in the space hoping
that the anomaly was reaching it. If even he has given up ...
Discouraged, I sit down,
thinking about it. Surround me the air is full with the scent of ozone coming
from the broken telecommunication system, mixed with the exotic scent of mystic
herbs coming from the end of the cabin.
I turn to see a scene more
bizarre that the one I was seeing outside the craft: on a room no more of 6
meters long, illuminated by electric sparks; with the rest of the exploited
body of the poor Inertia; with the most brilliant scientist on earth crying
like a child on a corner; and at the end of it, with all the chairs separated
to leave a clear space, a dark skinned elder remaining seated in the middle of
that chaos with his colouring suit covered with blooded pearls. His hands are
shaking over the head, throwing little blood drops to the strange symbols and
runes wrote everywhere with the same liquid, giving to the room a really
grotesque aspect. Their lips doesn’t stop to move,
singing on a language that was already old when the world was still young. A
song that brings images to my mind, images from a world older than the man’s
world. Images that fears me more than ever. I try not
to listen it, but it’s unsuccessful.
His amulet, called “The
Third Eye”, is floating in front of him covered by creepy light. Many people says that this amulet, a jewel with human eye form inside an
inverted triangle, allows to the wearer to see and to access to higher level of
conscience. Only a few men had developed their mind and soul on an enough level
to use it, and that men earn high respect among my people.
Imam earned my respect a
long time ago, when I met him on Second World War. I never understood why he
decided to abandon all his duties with mankind and exiled himself from
everybody and everything. But I thanks that he is with us on this moments. I
never believed so much on their mystical stories in spite of having
contemplated with him the strangest things.
In front of him, feared and nearly on a state of trance, you can find my friend Arcana Jones. We should never have brought it to this hell and less in her condition.
Everything began
as a game. I resolve mysteries with my husband and child. God, we were like a bad
television series... Magic was always part of my family, but I was the first
one that stopped hiding. Squadron Supreme appearance, the largest posthuman organization since Golden Agency, gave to me and
to others like me, feared people with special abilities, the opportunity to go out to the light. I only made me
a promise: I’ll left this business the day I put in danger to my family. And look at
me now...
I know Imam almost from always. He had business with my
family from to much years to remember it. I remembered
his fleeting visits on our house when I was a child, always bringing us
presents like a grandpa. He was very funny, always with a smile on his face.
But that smile never appeared on my mother’s face when he was near us. But I
was so young to give importance to such things. I have no idea what was
expecting to me.
But I never believed
something like this. Look at me, seated, on the verge of breaking waters in any
moment. Instead of being comfortable waiting on a hospital I leave myself to
convince by this man on his eighties to travel to deep space because he says
that I can help him to communicate with the cosmic anomaly that is going to
destroy our universe. >AGH!< Please, don’t born
now!!
The mystical energies Imam are using on this ritual are too powerful to me. I feel that
if I loose my concentration these energies should destroy us. But the pain
began to be too intense. The time is running out and I don’t know if we could
get it. I look for Zarda to find consolation. You were correct, my friend. I’ve should have
remained on Earth.
¡Agh! Pain anew. ¡You must Concentrate,
Arcanna! Imam
stopped whisper the spell. He seems to be successful and made contact with the
anomaly. He speaks words without sense: star’s power... father and son... united.. Black Sun... Lightner... Nth projector... What kind of
madness is this? It had no sense...
IMAM!! The Entity or the
energy had be too much for him! The blood runs across
his skin. His eyes disappear behind blooded teardrops meanwhile his words suffocates
by a red stream
that departs from his mouth. His body collapses breaking the spell circle and
untying without control the mystical accumulated energy. The fire floods the
ship and I am too exhausted to continue…
-
What happened, Arcanna?
-
It’s over, my friend. We have failed. We couldn’t stop
it…- says to her, crying.
-
Shhh… quiet, my girl.
We tried it, Arcanna. We do more than can we expected…
-
Are you scared?
-
Of course. But it’s good to be scared.
The Anomaly is near us. Its
light illuminates all the cabin while it began to
dissolve the hull. Zarda uses her shield to protect
us, by pure instinct but she knows it will be useless.
-
My only regret is that I never saw the birth of my
son..
Somewhere over
the old U.S.S.R, near
My skin burns. The air is full of burned hair,
wood and land scent. I never wonder that being death would be like this. But I
feel Arcanna moving and I understand that, at the
end, on the last second, we did it. We saved the day.
But I open my eyes and notice that we aren’t on
a spaceship yet. Around me, on a circle 300 meters long, everything had burned.
Here and there I could see trees blowing down as something had exploited in the
middle of the forest. Our bodies are covered with a thin cap of ash coming from
the vegetation around and from our own costumes. Only the amazing endurance of Zarda’s shield had protected ourselves
of being burned like the rest of the forest.
Where are we? The air is cold. I try to
identify any stars or planets that I can use to determine our position. I
can’t see any stars because the smoke from the fires around us
don’t allow me to see the sky. But thanks to them I can see two more
figures lying on the ground. They seems to be human
bodies. One of them is shaking on the floor, but the other begins to get up. I
put Arcanna behind me and put me on guard. This last
one is a big and muscled one. He gets up as the fire or the explosion didn’t affected him in any way. He turns right and now the fires illuminates his face. The only thing I can do is
smiling. Mark is alive and is with us too.
-
No! No!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....!!!!!!!
At my feet, Arcanna is moving in a hysterical
way. I try to hold her on a attempt to avoid she damaged herself with the remaining
fires on the field. Her face, stained by
the ground’s ash, is full of terror. Her voice, a horrible scream before, is
now only a whisper repeated steadily: “... my son... where is my son...”
Terrified, I notice that her pregnant woman’s belly
had disappeared, as she never have been expecting a
baby. Her nails were sinking in her skin, up to making wounded, as if in this
way she could find it. The only thing I can do is embrace her, trying to find
words that can console her, but I know anything I
can say will be useless. Arcanna, at least, begins to
cry. I can’t imagine how Mark can be there, standing as nothing was mattering
for him.
A new scream of the other one gets at least a
reaction from Mark. He goes where he is, and help him
to get up. Only when they are near us I recognize Stan, with all his body
burned and his costume broken. Without any shield or invulnerable skin, he gets
the worst part of all. But the most disturbing thing of all was his look.
Something happened to him worst than the wounds...
-
What
happened Mark? Where are we?
- I don’t know more than you, Princess Power. The Anomaly had to work as some kind of gateway. I had tried to orientate myself, but there’s something strange on the sky, something I can’t identify.
-
Your
glasses?
-
I
had the glasses covered by my hand when I get into the Anomaly. Thanks to that
it takes no much damage. Some sensors are burned, but still works.
-
What
will we do now?
- The more logical option would be to quarrel where we are. Whizzer and Moonglow are crippled, so we must take care of them. We will search for a haven and then decide what will be our next step.
And this way we rise in the air, silent and
crest-fallen, while our thoughts fly to the destiny of the companions and dear
beings that we leave behind. Have they died as
The farm looks semi abandoned.
Without any light, all the windows closed and the entry full of bad herbs, we
can’t expect to find here some help. But by the moment it’s the driest haven we
have found, so we’ll stay here till daylight.
Without effort, Mark started the old door from
its site… only to receive to shotgun impacts directly on his stomach.
¡¡BANG-BANG!!!
We must be very tired to be surprised
in that
silly way. From the interior, two cannons of a shotgun shine in the darkness
and after them, the face of the farmer full of fear on having verified as the
bullets they have bounced against Hyperion's skin
A child’s cry flow from somewhere
below the house.
A woman’s voice tried to calm him. The former, nervous, moves back to the
bottom of the room, his hands shaking while he’s trying to reload the shotgun,
shouting to voices. That’s all I need.
Thanks to my position as ambassador of Utopia,
I have great knowledge on languages. I can’t speak this one fluently, but I
know enough to try to calm him.
-
Щту
ьщьуте
здуфыу!! Цу
фку тще пщштп
ещ ргке нщг!!*
*One moment please!!! We are not going to hurt you!!
And that’s was the way we met the Murashkevich: Alexei, Kalinkha
and the little Alena. Once we were past the first moments
of fear and confusion, they offered us their help in the most altruistic way
possible. Thanks to them we gets the first news about
The Great Barrier and the way it changed the world. They told us about the
fear, the hungry and the chaos that rules this part of the world. Without a sun
that feed the fields, the crops had been getting lost. They spoke about the
fall of the government and the rise of the chiefs on the more rural zones. They
talked about their taxes and their plunders. Mark and I look to each other,
speaking without words. We looked that things on our
world, after Overmind’s scheme. We have expected not
to live it anymore...
The delicious scent
of warm food floods the room. At the door, Kalinkha
invite us to share the dinner with them. With all their hardships, they offers us a whole banquet on their possibilities. That
nobility!! Without any question, they offers they
hospitability to strangers like us. The warm soup encouraged our spirits more
than our bodies, and we realized between all of those chunks of dry meat and cooked
vegetables that existed on the table.
The basement’s
short-wave radio station interrupted the dinner with infernal noise. Alexei
answer the call while Kalinkha told us that’s the only communication way they had since telephone
or television stopped working weeks ago. Thanks to it their friends can advice
them about plunderers and hide before their arriving.
Alexei come back worried. Beyond the
plunderers, worst thing are living on the outside world. Since the Barrier
event, many fantastic creatures comes to live
everywhere. And one of the most dangerous were the
dragons. They fly over the north of
Mark’s face filled
with determination.
- Ask him where they are.
-
What
do you say? Are you thinking on going? Mark, you can’t. You must rest. After
everything happened to us…
-
We
can allow this for everything happened to us.
Alexei indicated to him a few lights at the bottom of the valley. Without saying goodbye, Hyperion took off. I stayed there, to take care of the injured men. But in this moment I’m more worried by him. He has something on his looks that worries me.
While women and children runs everywhere
terrified, some brave men try to make front the creatures with their fire guns. Some young men gather in crowds near the
granaries with their weapons in hand waiting to be able to expel to the beasts.
Their fury's shouts fill the street while they unload their shotguns, being
these so effective as the same shouts. Their skin is
so hard to so light weapons. But the breath of fire of the dragons is more
effective and the beast don’t hesitate to use it.
In the middle of the battle nobody notice my
coming, striking with brutality against one beast's back. The other one takes
off. I see it flying on circles over the village, while the people screams and
run away.
-
Clear
off of here!! Go away all!!
Damn it!! I forgot that anybody understand me.
I search my flying friend. I see it coming, on an assault formation. I can’t
allow him to discharge his breath over the village, with so many people already
on the streets. I fly away trying to surprise it.
As I expected the dragon shot to me. As I hope
my skin has no problem to resist the heat. But my visor... without him I’m
totally blind! Everything became dark. I feel two enormous volumes of air
moving around me before some kind of incredible force strikes me throwing
against the soil.
If I had beer more carefully, I would not have
>Ungh!< this
enormous problem: 15 tons of scales and claws that already have struck on me. “Go
away! Move from here before it holds you!.” I push my strength and rising I manage to
escape of its prey. Maybe I can’t defeat it, but you have its attention. It
will follow you instead to continue strike the village. But I don’t know how many time I would do this. I’m doing a blind flight. The
only thing I know is that the beast is behind me. I can hear their wings
beating, I can feel the movement of air provoked by its wings, and I can scent
its stinky breath!
Four explosions ends
with my concentration. The dragon shouts and its voice lost below me while
rocket noise dance around me. I hear cannons and phasers
shooting till the dragon stop to cry. I don’t need to see to notice that now
that weapons are aiming me.
-
Who
are you?? What do you want?!
- Silence!! You are under arrest in the name of DOOM!!!
Thank you very much
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