Pact: Nullification : Lost

by SerriTovoka

Ryan's story.

((Shit is going to kick the fuck up in the next chapter. Enjoy the last bit of pretty music, comment on how you felt, and get ready for the end.))

I took up the glass and downed its entire contents.

This is a story that I hate telling. I can almost feel the excitement of running through the fallen streets of Georgia on a summer day again.

"Rose, I used to be an average person, doing average things. Working a nine to five job as a carpenter. Then, slowly, an entity began to present itself to me. Through signs in life. Through things all around me. Ideas began to pop in my head, words, images, feelings. This entity was trying to communicate with me in a way that wouldn't make me immediately question my sanity. This entity called itself DEA; or, Goddess."

Rose ignored everything else, taking a deep interest in what I had to say. Which was good. Because if that double-barred cross had anything to say, she'd need to know all that she possibly could.

"DEA told me, through signs in life and thoughts in my head, that a series of events would soon occur. That the end of things was on its way, with an unimaginable force. See, our government was already failing. It was beginning to take the rights of our people. It was trying to rule us, not lead us. Like here."

The mare nodded slowly, "I can almost see what's going on here...finish, please."

I returned the nod.

"I was to start a resistance. It was to be called The New Republic of America. I started it, the group took off, and we began to set up tactics and ideas pertaining to what we would do if the Federal Government got out of hand. I was apprehended outside of my home before the take-over began. Literally, right before they began to round up citizens and deport them to detainment camps. I was sold out by one of my best friends, and I also watched my house burn to ash."

Yeah. I watched it swallow my family. My mother, my father...my little sister. I watched those flames lick up the side of my house with a rage that I had never know in my life, and would never know again. I watched my every reason for living die in a billow of smoke. I felt the sting of their ashes litter my body.

I wiped my eyes before I got choked up at all, and immediately caught myself.

"I was detained, but the New Republic wasn't. They ambushed the APC I was in, and saved me. Not that it mattered that much. The next day, everything in the damn sky went out. No stars, no sun, nothing. Just pitch black unless you had some kind of artificial light. Then the terminus came."

"The Terminus..." , Roseluck repeated.

"Everything went to shit. To say the absolute least. Death went from being two steps away, to constantly in our faces. Lamp posts would swing wildly into the ground and make a bloody smear out of anyone that went too close, things would fly around and TRY to hit us, the ground would open up and swallow people...it was almost impossible to survive. That went on for almost 3 days before I began to randomly show up in different places."

The mare nodded, looking me dead in the face.

"And now you're here."

"Yes. And now I'm here. And I think that the Terminus has made its way here as well."

She thought for a moment. Her eyes tracing grout lines in the tiled floor as she pondered.

"I'm ready. If it's coming, then I'm ready. I'm ready to die. I have nothing to live for...but Ryan..."

"Yes?

"Don't leave me...please. Please don't leave me here to die alone..."

I saw it. The darkening feel of impending doom.

It's like being on the business end of a rifle that just shot. You feel the pound of the firing pin against the button, the explosion of the gunpowder, and the thump of the escaping shell in your ribcage. You hear the deafening 'crack', and your ears ring.

You can feel it, see it, smell it, and maybe even taste it, but it doesn't really make sense until you hit the ground and see the blood.

The stars evaporated into nothing, the aurora was mercilessly murdered, and I felt the cold creep up through the floor.

The lights, the slowly increasing drone. The screams of a dying reality. The twisted orchestral introduction of an even more twisted and wicked show.

That was indeed a cross in the snow.

And this was happening.

In the few moments that I had, I took Rose's hoof in my hand.

"I hope I ended up here just to die, with you."

Crack...

This is it. It's here.

Time to get to work.