New York/Canadia - 2112
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Eyes
Frank Burns Jr felt as though he had just awoken from a long, deep sleep, only to enter into a nightmare of reality. He was in the middle of New Times Plaza, or what was left of it, surrounded by people dressed as clowns, half of them running and screaming in all directions, half of them lying dead on the ground in positions not entirely unexpected of someone in a circus. But this wasn’t a circus. Everything was flooding back to Frank in waves, the appearance of the Archangels, his sister-in-law’s off-grid haven up north, taking his family to- his family? Where were they? He looked around frantically, cursing himself for seemingly forgetting them. There was no sign of his wife or his two children among the runners nearby, and he couldn’t bear to look for them among the dead.
Frank realized they all must have been taken into Saraquel the Jester’s clown horde, but why were they suddenly freed? His question was answered as soon as he had time to think it, as he saw a green glow approaching from across the plaza. An army was coming, the soldiers of Gabriel by the looks of it. These people had not been made into clowns, but their heads were enveloped in the telltale ephemeral light of angels, like a helmet in the shape of an eye. Frank was desensitized to most of the horrors of the age of angels, but the way the eyes spun frantically around in all directions, taking in every iota of their surroundings as they marched ever closer was enough to chill him. Frank was frozen in place for a moment, unable to do anything but watch as the ocular army approached, but all at once the front line halted.
A strange hum sounded from a distance, and grew as it apparently swept along the line and each eyeball closed, glow intensifying. Then as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. There was a moment of utter silence as even the recently freed clowns had ceased their panic to look on in awe. Then, with the sound and the static in the air of a thousand bolts of lighting, the entire line of soldiers exploded in a twenty foot wall of neon green flames. Frank’s ears were ringing and he looked as the crowd began to run away in all directions once again; they were all screaming but he couldn’t hear them. His neck felt hot and putting a hand up to feel it he realized his ears were bleeding profusely. Then, the ground shuddered, and Frank became very dizzy. He vomited on the ground in front of him and watched as the black and bloody bile slid swiftly away from him. The explosion had destabilized the plaza and the ground was giving way into the tunnels below, now burning with the green rage of Gabriel.
Frank turned and did his best to stay upright and run away, which proved rather difficult with his inner ears ruptured. He lurched to the side to avoid a vending machine that was sliding down the swiftly steepening incline of the pavement. Then he stumbled the other way to dodge a pile of outdoor tables and chairs from some restaurant that had all been bike-chained together into a twisted metal tumbleweed of death. The path ahead seemed clear for a moment and he made some distance from the army and the pit of flames behind him, though he saw others around him lose their footing and careen away to their deaths. Somehow, a bit of his hearing was returning in his left ear, and through the ringing and the screaming and the roar of flames, he heard what sounded like twelve grand pianos having a car accident.
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A second later, he realized what it was. The calliope of the plaza’s carousel was being jostled around in the center of the wheel like loose change as the whole thing had been upturned and was now sliding towards Frank roof-first. He looked for an escape but saw no way to get out of the carousel’s path. But before he had time to accept his fate, the carousel slammed into a large kiosk and spun sideways. Its descent slowed for a moment, and Frank thought he was saved, but then it started rolling. There was a sort of rhythm to the discordant calliope as it rolled faster and faster, like some demented vaudeville chase scene. Frank knew he wouldn’t be able to get out of the way now, so he lay flat on the ground and hoped the outside supports of the carousel would miss him as it rolled past. Luckily it did, and he looked on as the wheel full of fantastic creatures rolled sideways right into hell.
Frank got back on his feet, turned, and ran with conviction up and out of the plaza. He didn’t stop running for two dozen blocks, and when he finally did it felt like every muscle in his body cramped up at once. He had no idea if his family was alive now, or if they had been half an hour ago. For the moment he was safe at least, but he had to keep moving. He looked back toward Times Plaza and saw the jester-hat form of Saraquel rising into the air over the skyscrapers as Gabriel’s flames licked at him from below. Frank suspected New York was not much longer for this world. He was near a parking garage so he went in and hoped his luck would hold. He checked a dozen cars before he found a solar-powered sports car on the roof that was unlocked, and the keys were in the driver seat. He assumed the owner must have been clownified, otherwise they must have been a clown all along, but in either case he thanked their spirit as he started the car and exited the garage.
With no idea what else to do or how long it had been, Frank headed North. He hoped his wife’s sister would still welcome him, but if not he would still rather take his chances as far away from the Archangels as possible.
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Eighteen hours of non-stop driving later, he arrived at her address. He got out of the car, opened the gate at the end of the long gravel drive, pulled his car forward before closing it again, and then made his slow, rumbling way down to the house at the center of the large property.
As he pulled up to the modest log building, tears welled in Frank’s hollowed eyes. There on the porch, eating breakfast and laughing together, was his beautiful wife and their two perfect children.
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