It began as a shiver sliding like a cool breeze over the skin. Then that odd feeling against the back of their necks as wolven heads lifted upward and noses twitched to scent the air. There was something on the wind; something not right. Yet, there was no scent. No ‘newspaper’ to tell them that it was happening again.
The human populace moved through the streets and their daily lives. It was Monday. Mondays were always bad, so that feeling that dredged up nausea in their stomachs was probably something bad they ate at lunch.
In some of the deepest caverns the evil among men and wolf alike boiled upward with an unsteadiness that surprised those who followed the Father. Having been born of such evil, the darkness within their souls paid little heed to odd warnings that rippled along their skin. But, this was different. The Father was restless. One clawed hand laid the skull aside, leaving the mucus filled eyeball to dangle along the sunken cheek only to stare out at the odd coloring that was the center of evil. The black viscous trail began oozing from the rocks around the cavern, turning grey, then green and back to black.
As it was daylight, those who rested below the earth or within their expensive coffins began to wake. An undead body should not stir and wake until the darkness was descending. Yet, they did. The older ones first and then the younger began to stir awake. The Prince’s eyes flew open and the fangs elongated…something was wrong.
It was then that true Hell came back to the lands. There were no video feeds of Baba Yaga eating some dignitary.
There were no visual signs that something was coming or screams in the streets before the Order 47’s attacked. It began as a slow rippling outward in a gut-wrenching slow motion. Unseen by human eyes or heard by human ears, but it sent those preternatural beings into movement. Those who could head underground did so. Those who were already underground headed deeper. Those on the surface had no protection as the echoing sound like a rubber band hitting a pop can burst outward through the prevailing winds.
Within a 1500 mile area from the center point in California, the shockwave ricocheted outward in all directions. To the east and beyond – stone and glass buildings shattered as it rolled through LATMA. Humans standing within the blast, exploded within the first few hundred miles. Others had their skin sheared off them, then their muscles, vessels and bloody flesh disappeared in a red mist to leave a skeleton that shattered into dust.
To the West – the shockwave hit the shores of the Pacific Ocean and pushed the water backwards with such ferocity that it left the ocean floor wide open within a hundred miles. The ripple kept rolling outward until it gave its last breath with a sudden heave of the San Andreas Fault coming awake — the shockwave then imploded and rushed back toward the center bringing water from the West and sandstorms from the East.
They clashed like two fierce warriors when they hit the center point. It was the Second Fall and very few survived.
