The rumblings of a fuel-starved RV carved through the stale air, sputtering along a trail of asphalt and paint which was slowly being reclaimed by the earth below it. Charles cursed under his breath and ripped a sigh through his teeth, knowing that his next few hours would be spent recharging the cells for his improvised engine sooner than he had planned. The rust-covered behemoth finally came to rest near a small patch of forest, which was less than ideal due to the fact that the lanky black… things which now roamed the earth were known to use trees as cover. He supposed that mounting a turret on the roof of the RV would prepare him for the worst if he needed to react in a hurry and defend himself. One could never take enough precautions in regards to what could be waiting outside the safety of a reinforced, improvised all-terrain vehicle.

The ghost town of Bretham stood as a dilapidated monument of wells, wagons and dusk-lit showdowns. A convoy of jeeps—camouflaged with military patterns of beiges and ochres—approached from the west, traversing a forgotten road which carved through a sun-bleached desert that stretched for miles in every direction. Sergeant Brock sat quietly amongst a row of soldiers flanking him on either side within the canopied bed of the foremost jeep. His nose twitched as he sensed the transmission shifting down a gear—the objective in question was close at hand. He was rarely nervous during routine Bag-and-Tag operations, but his recent promotion was a game-changer, potentially setting the groundwork for a high-ranking government position in the future. An entire platoon was now under his command, and beads of sweat jostled upon his brow in accordance with the heavy bumps of the road. With a heavy exhale, he forced his mind to wander. His thoughts routinely drifted towards his small circles, and those circles almost always seemed to involve Jordan.

How did things ever come to this? Charles often wondered, but never in a resentful way. It wasn’t much too long ago that he was dubbed the Shining Savior. Charles the Invincible. The Chosen Champion. These were the titles which helped to forge the path of his childhood towards his final confrontation with the evil Emperor Raven Da’Routh as a scant seventeen-year-old. He was victorious in the end, as prophesized. Bloodied but victorious. He observed with introspective analysis that his journey had almost felt at times like he was going through the motions. With the world’s confidence backing him, how could he fail? The celebrations were long and joyous, the erected statues grand and visionary, the women loose and insatiable. Yet his mind drifted even as his desires were thoroughly quenched, comparing the befores and afters of a world where ‘good’ prevailed and seeing no discernable difference.