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fredbassettTitle : The World After
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 15
Characters : Claudia
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : Some called them the Stealers of Souls
A/N : 1) Written for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
primeval_denial art challenge for this wonderful picture by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tli. 2) My first fic for this prompt is now at around 10,000 words and still growing, so I decided to write a prequel…..
PART 1
They came in the night.
They came first for the young, the old and the homeless.
Children disappeared from gardens and parks. The old vanished, leaving behind few, if any, signs of a struggle. The homeless they took from shop doorways and under bridges.
For the children there was an outcry. Sometimes for the elderly there were tears, but the world was hardening and there had already been too many tears. For the homeless, there was nothing to mark their passing.
They came in the night, and behind them they left grief and fear.
And at first, they were nameless.
*****
Windows opened to the past, the future, even to other worlds.
Some of the creatures that came through were harmless, but others weren’t.
At first there were secrets and lies.
Then rumour and blame.
The nameless dread multiplied, streaming out of the fractures in time all over the world.
One by one, the lights started to go out. Isolated communities fell first; easy pickings for creatures made of perpetual hunger and rage.
Towns and cities were overrun and people died in their millions.
Chaos and fear walked hand in hand through a darkening world and smiled at what they saw.
*****
In a world torn by war and ravaged by disease, humanity stood little chance against an enemy that it couldn’t predict and didn’t know how to guard against.
The East blamed the West. The West turned in on itself, finally breaking apart.
Bombs were no use; they just created even bigger playgrounds, but those in power still pressed their red buttons.
Religions rose and religions fell.
Some said their god had sent the creatures to prey on unbelievers, but in truth, they were indiscriminate in their hunger.
The predators had a name now. Some called them the Stealers of Souls.
PART 2
The old books said that life on earth had arisen from the ashes many times, and so it was again, but nothing would ever be the same, they all knew that.
The world had been irrevocably broken. Mountains cast down and valleys deepened.
Where there had been sea was now dry land, yet in other places entire cities had been drowned, their people with them.
Survivors huddled together and learned to fear the lights that appeared in the night, for they knew the lights brought death, but it was the lights that they couldn’t see that they feared the most.
*****
They came in daylight now, not just in the night.
There were few left alive and even fewer with the will to fight.
But the world still turned and some sunlight still penetrated the clouds that obscured the sky.
The world took on a new shape. The remains of humanity clawed their way out of the rubble, but much had been lost. And the World After, as it became known to some, had to find its own way.
But still the Stealers of Souls came, crawling over the wasteland left by a war that had no winners, only countless losers.
*****
In time, those left took back some control of their world.
They built on the mountain tops and retreated behind high walls and barred windows.
There were no parks in which children could play and the unwary simply didn’t survive childhood.
Armed with what knowledge they could glean from the books that were left, the survivors scavenged and built, and in some respects the world they made was the same, but in others it was more different than they could possibly know.
And still the world turned around a careless sun and gateways to worlds beyond still opened and closed.
*****
As humanity laboriously rebuilt its empires, political divisions grew up anew.
It was not enough for men to fight a common enemy. That had never been enough. Humanity needed conflict to reaffirm that it had, once again, risen above the other creatures with which it shared a broken world.
Power struggles festered and multiplied. Cities that had once looked on each other as allies now glowered from afar.
Rulers sat in their stone eyries, and politicians schemed, while around them clouds gathered and distant lights winked in and out like the stars that now lay hidden behind the ever-present clouds.
PART 3
“I’m going to be a pilot like daddy when I grow up.” The child’s tone was both wistful and determined as she stared up at the huge airships floating in the sky high above the city.
Her mother smiled and continued to brush her daughter’s hair, teasing out the tangles and smoothing the unruly dark waves.
She made no attempt to change the little girl’s mind.
They depended on pilots for their security and to ferry in the supplies on which they depended.
It was a dangerous job, but flying was in her daughter’s blood, and that couldn’t be denied.
*****
The small funeral pyre crackled and flared.
Ashes rose with the smoke, whipped up by a light breeze.
It was nothing more than a symbolic gesture.
Her husband’s body had been consumed in fire along with the wreckage of his ship, but it was customary for the wives and husbands of the pilots and crew who didn’t make it home to burn a picture of their loved ones on the top of the tallest tower in the city.
The funeral tower.
And today it was her turn.
Her daughter stood by her side, dry eyed, staring up into the sky.
*****
The sky had fascinated her all her life.
On most days, massed clouds covered the sun, crowding each other like unruly children.
She knew which clouds presaged a storm and which meant only light rain.
She could judge how fast they would travel overhead and estimate how much power it would take for an airship to travel against the wind rather than with it.
Clouds became her friend, the one constant thing in her life.
On the rare days when a hazy red sun broke through, she would shade her eyes and wait for the clouds to close.
PART 4
At the age of nineteen she became a pilot, working aboard a weather-beaten old freighter called the Liberty.
The captain was a grizzled woman in her sixties who taught her everything there was to know about working the skies in all weathers, when to run from a storm and when to hide.
She also learned when the time had come to make a stand, pointing the nose of your ship into the wind and running your engines on full to avoid being battered onto unforgiving pinnacles and tall table-rocks.
Her knowledge of clouds and the sky were an ever-present friend.
*****
When the Queen called for pilots for her naval airships, she stepped up without a second thought.
Her first command was a nimble gunship designed to run blockades and resupply the main battle fleet.
Soon years, her reputation grew and her second command was a troop ship. She worked well with both soldiers and civilians alike and soon progressed through the ranks.
By nothing more than chance, she found herself running operations against the Stealers.
That suited her fine. Her father’s airship had been overrun by the skeletal killing machines and now it was her chance to even the score.
*****
She returned home when she could, but it was never easy.
There were too few airships and too many demands on her time.
When her mother died, a victim of lung-sickness, a symbolic pyre was still lit on the funeral tower. Her mother had earned that.
As the photograph curled in on itself in the flames and the wind whipped ash into the sky, Claudia Brown turned her face to the ever-present clouds, dry-eyed once again.
She was alone in the world now.
And her next command awaited her.
The demands of the World After left little time for grief.
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 15
Characters : Claudia
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : Some called them the Stealers of Souls
A/N : 1) Written for the
primeval_denial art challenge for this wonderful picture by tli. 2) My first fic for this prompt is now at around 10,000 words and still growing, so I decided to write a prequel…..PART 1
They came in the night.
They came first for the young, the old and the homeless.
Children disappeared from gardens and parks. The old vanished, leaving behind few, if any, signs of a struggle. The homeless they took from shop doorways and under bridges.
For the children there was an outcry. Sometimes for the elderly there were tears, but the world was hardening and there had already been too many tears. For the homeless, there was nothing to mark their passing.
They came in the night, and behind them they left grief and fear.
And at first, they were nameless.
*****
Windows opened to the past, the future, even to other worlds.
Some of the creatures that came through were harmless, but others weren’t.
At first there were secrets and lies.
Then rumour and blame.
The nameless dread multiplied, streaming out of the fractures in time all over the world.
One by one, the lights started to go out. Isolated communities fell first; easy pickings for creatures made of perpetual hunger and rage.
Towns and cities were overrun and people died in their millions.
Chaos and fear walked hand in hand through a darkening world and smiled at what they saw.
*****
In a world torn by war and ravaged by disease, humanity stood little chance against an enemy that it couldn’t predict and didn’t know how to guard against.
The East blamed the West. The West turned in on itself, finally breaking apart.
Bombs were no use; they just created even bigger playgrounds, but those in power still pressed their red buttons.
Religions rose and religions fell.
Some said their god had sent the creatures to prey on unbelievers, but in truth, they were indiscriminate in their hunger.
The predators had a name now. Some called them the Stealers of Souls.
PART 2
The old books said that life on earth had arisen from the ashes many times, and so it was again, but nothing would ever be the same, they all knew that.
The world had been irrevocably broken. Mountains cast down and valleys deepened.
Where there had been sea was now dry land, yet in other places entire cities had been drowned, their people with them.
Survivors huddled together and learned to fear the lights that appeared in the night, for they knew the lights brought death, but it was the lights that they couldn’t see that they feared the most.
*****
They came in daylight now, not just in the night.
There were few left alive and even fewer with the will to fight.
But the world still turned and some sunlight still penetrated the clouds that obscured the sky.
The world took on a new shape. The remains of humanity clawed their way out of the rubble, but much had been lost. And the World After, as it became known to some, had to find its own way.
But still the Stealers of Souls came, crawling over the wasteland left by a war that had no winners, only countless losers.
*****
In time, those left took back some control of their world.
They built on the mountain tops and retreated behind high walls and barred windows.
There were no parks in which children could play and the unwary simply didn’t survive childhood.
Armed with what knowledge they could glean from the books that were left, the survivors scavenged and built, and in some respects the world they made was the same, but in others it was more different than they could possibly know.
And still the world turned around a careless sun and gateways to worlds beyond still opened and closed.
*****
As humanity laboriously rebuilt its empires, political divisions grew up anew.
It was not enough for men to fight a common enemy. That had never been enough. Humanity needed conflict to reaffirm that it had, once again, risen above the other creatures with which it shared a broken world.
Power struggles festered and multiplied. Cities that had once looked on each other as allies now glowered from afar.
Rulers sat in their stone eyries, and politicians schemed, while around them clouds gathered and distant lights winked in and out like the stars that now lay hidden behind the ever-present clouds.
PART 3
“I’m going to be a pilot like daddy when I grow up.” The child’s tone was both wistful and determined as she stared up at the huge airships floating in the sky high above the city.
Her mother smiled and continued to brush her daughter’s hair, teasing out the tangles and smoothing the unruly dark waves.
She made no attempt to change the little girl’s mind.
They depended on pilots for their security and to ferry in the supplies on which they depended.
It was a dangerous job, but flying was in her daughter’s blood, and that couldn’t be denied.
*****
The small funeral pyre crackled and flared.
Ashes rose with the smoke, whipped up by a light breeze.
It was nothing more than a symbolic gesture.
Her husband’s body had been consumed in fire along with the wreckage of his ship, but it was customary for the wives and husbands of the pilots and crew who didn’t make it home to burn a picture of their loved ones on the top of the tallest tower in the city.
The funeral tower.
And today it was her turn.
Her daughter stood by her side, dry eyed, staring up into the sky.
*****
The sky had fascinated her all her life.
On most days, massed clouds covered the sun, crowding each other like unruly children.
She knew which clouds presaged a storm and which meant only light rain.
She could judge how fast they would travel overhead and estimate how much power it would take for an airship to travel against the wind rather than with it.
Clouds became her friend, the one constant thing in her life.
On the rare days when a hazy red sun broke through, she would shade her eyes and wait for the clouds to close.
PART 4
At the age of nineteen she became a pilot, working aboard a weather-beaten old freighter called the Liberty.
The captain was a grizzled woman in her sixties who taught her everything there was to know about working the skies in all weathers, when to run from a storm and when to hide.
She also learned when the time had come to make a stand, pointing the nose of your ship into the wind and running your engines on full to avoid being battered onto unforgiving pinnacles and tall table-rocks.
Her knowledge of clouds and the sky were an ever-present friend.
*****
When the Queen called for pilots for her naval airships, she stepped up without a second thought.
Her first command was a nimble gunship designed to run blockades and resupply the main battle fleet.
Soon years, her reputation grew and her second command was a troop ship. She worked well with both soldiers and civilians alike and soon progressed through the ranks.
By nothing more than chance, she found herself running operations against the Stealers.
That suited her fine. Her father’s airship had been overrun by the skeletal killing machines and now it was her chance to even the score.
*****
She returned home when she could, but it was never easy.
There were too few airships and too many demands on her time.
When her mother died, a victim of lung-sickness, a symbolic pyre was still lit on the funeral tower. Her mother had earned that.
As the photograph curled in on itself in the flames and the wind whipped ash into the sky, Claudia Brown turned her face to the ever-present clouds, dry-eyed once again.
She was alone in the world now.
And her next command awaited her.
The demands of the World After left little time for grief.
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no subject
Date: 2016-06-15 04:52 pm (UTC)A bleak world, the World After, but with a hint of promise and a lot of strength.
Great prequel. Looking forward to reading the rest of the fic.
no subject
Date: 2016-06-15 08:45 pm (UTC)*waves pom-poms* for the origianl fic idea.
no subject
Date: 2016-06-15 09:58 pm (UTC)That's amazing.
I was shivering from the first.
Scary, eerie, sad but full of courage.
Can't wait for the full fic!
no subject
Date: 2016-06-15 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-16 05:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-16 06:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-16 06:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-16 06:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-16 06:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-16 06:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-16 07:18 pm (UTC)Just about to post my offering, interesting to see the similar concepts the picture evoked. Definitely looking forward to your epic story :D
no subject
Date: 2016-06-16 08:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-19 09:17 pm (UTC)"but those in power still pressed their red buttons"
Of course they did, I wouldn't even be surprised.
And the rest is just as powerful and bleak, but even if they seem to have made the same mistakes again ("It was not enough for men to fight a common enemy. That had never been enough.") and least there is hope and there is our strong, determined Claudia.
Great prequel, I can't wait for the long story! *waves pompoms*
no subject
Date: 2016-06-20 07:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-20 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-20 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-20 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-20 05:00 pm (UTC)I hope you enjoy Dreadnought!