“This is empire city news coming to you live right now!” The blonde news reporter nervously tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, clutching. The news camera turned away from her, and upwards until it pointed at a lone figure in a long tattered coat floating in the sky a hundred feet above the nearest building. “He has identified himself only as Reaper, it is apparent from his location that he is part of the wave of ‘meta’ humans that have been popping up all over the globe.”
A booming voice sounds out. “People of Empire city, I have no name, I am the Reaper. It has fallen to me to bring judgment to this city of evil.” The man suddenly turns in mid air and from his hand tendrils of energy lash the nearest building. Whatever the tendrils touch simply vanishes.
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In a dark alley a woman screams “NO, PLEASE STOP!” She clutches at her torn clothes backing up until she hits hits the wall of a building behind her. A police officer slowly approaches her. “Miss, I'm a police officer can you tell me what's wrong.” He holds out his hands in a placating gesture. “GET BACK, YOUR ONE OF THEM, YOU CANT TAKE ME BACK, IM NOT GOING BACK!” The police man takes a few more steps forward. “Miss calm down I don't want to take you anywhere I just want to know what's wrong.” Her face twists in terror. “IM NEVER GOING BACK!” she waves her hand and the police man explodes in a bloody mist. She hunches her shoulders and walks slowly down the alley clutching her clothes. “I'm never going back,” she whispers to herself.
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“I'm not powerless anymore.” He whispers in the ear of a man cowering on the floor. “Now your the one whose powerless.” He caresses' the shivering mans face with the back of his newly clawed hand. “You sent me away, you didn't want me.” The smell of urine filled the basement. “Please, son, please.” He continues to stroke his fathers face. “You don't get to call me that.” He stands and kicks the man in the stomach launching him across the room into the far wall. “YOU WERE NEVER A FATHER, AND YOU DON’T GET TO CALL ME SON!”
He walks over to where the man collapsed on the floor and grabs him by the throat. Lifting him into the air until his feet have left the floor. “Now you die, im going to squeeze your throat until you die.” He glances at the body in the corner of the room. “Just like mom, guess you’ll get to be with her without me in the way, like you always wanted.” He stands there squeezing until his fathers corpse hangs limply from his hand. He dismissively throws the body in the corner and looks at his little sister huddled, sobbing in the corner. “Your turn.”
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“Good afternoon, I'm Johnathan Manns, Welcome back to NCS news, Coming to you live from the west coast. First up on todays report, is the string of attacks by what the government is calling ‘super terrorists’ no one is sure what these people want or how they are accomplishing these staggering acts of mass murder and violence. But One thing is clear, if they are not stopped, and soon! The world as we know it will cease to exist.”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
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She wakes up suddenly, sitting up in bed she turns on the lamp sitting on her bedside table. The light reveals a figure standing at the foot of her bed. Her heart races, “who are you?” The figure walks over and sits on the side of the bed facing her. “Who I am doesn't matter right now. What matters is who you are Judge Hall. Last year you oversaw a case about the rape and murder of three little girls. You didn't allow DNA evidence or the killers confession to the crimes to go before the jury, and they found him not guilty. Then he went on to kill and torture eight more victims.” She clutches the blankets to her chest. “The police didn't catalog the evidence properly. Nor was his lawyer present for the confession.”
The man puts a comforting hand on her leg. “Shh, shh. Calm down I know all of that. Under different circumstance’s I would probably agree with you. I used to believe that it was better for a hundred guilty men to walk before we took away one innocent mans freedom. However that,” he abruptly stands up and shouts, “ANIMAL, THAT WAS ALLOWED TO GO FREE FROM YOUR COURTROOM,” the mans voice breaks with a sob. “Raped and killed my little girl.” Tears flow freely from his eyes. “Someone's got to pay” these words come out in a pained whisper.
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When I was a kid I used to read comic books about heroes and villains, Masked vigilantes and brooding anti-heroes, they would run about their cities in amazing costumes and engage in megalomaniacal banter.
Then one day super powers were real. I'm not sure how people got them, or if there was some selection process. All I know is I woke up one bright, sunny, Friday morning, and the world had changed.
There were no caped crusaders fighting the good fight for justice. There weren't any bright colorful villains robbing banks and shaking their fists when they got caught. There was just death.
What happens when a homeless schizophrenic man gets the power to warp reality. or when a heroin addict can suddenly turn concrete into acid. What happens when a cult leader living in the mountains can actually heal the sick and raise the dead, or a serial rapist gains the power to become invisible. What happens when a man who simply hates every other human being can create a nuclear explosion in the palm of his hand. Chaos, Destruction, Death. Hell come to earth brought to you by people with an axe to grind, and an unending hate for there fellow man.
Despite what we tell ourselves most people aren’t good or evil they are just normal people living normal selfish lives, just trying to make it from one day to the next.
There were a few good people that got powers. They tried to stop the tide. They weren't enough. There were even a few bad people who wanted to do good things that stood beside them but they also weren't enough.
We call it ascension day now, the day when normal everyday people became gods. The day the world changed.
