The Overlord: A Post-Apocalyptic Novel

by Jared Paul

  A rising alarm then sounded throughout the entire forest. The Thralldom was being alerted for an imminent crisis. I was all by myself and it'd be some time before a transport could come to extract me. As long as I was still alone, I took the opportunity to investigate the opened warehouse.

  There was a buzzer ringing inside while a red security light flashed round and round. I shoved the end of my assault rifle's stock into the cracked door and pried it open. A cold breeze then blew out from the dark corridor within. Inside, a vast arsenal had been piled alongside either of the decaying walls. There were all sorts of weapons, suits of battle armor, and strange strappings that appeared to be nothing less than jet packs. Yes, jet packs.

  From years of isolation, the stash was all gathered in thick dust and dying fauna. I wiped off some debris from a helmet, only to be blinded by a sudden light coming from out of it. All around me, the supplies were powering up in rapid succession. The old room was glowing with energy.

  The Far Stranger then spoke out through the rusty loudspeakers above, "All ordinances, live and ready."

  I had a tough time convincing myself to set aside my desire to play around with the newly uncovered equipment. Deciding to exit the warehouse, I waited for my inevitable extraction. Whatever orders were coming my way, one thing was certain. The activation of the Blood Tech could only mean that its battery, the Wandering Star, had returned, but who had brought it back? Had a Space Wizard truly come from some Evening Galaxy, just as Zero had promised?

  Outside, morning light was still dark from the slow rise of dawn. In the shadows of the rainforest, though, I noticed a massive illumination coming from beyond the timber tops. It was a similar light to that of the Blood Tech I'd just seen, only larger in scale. Finding a better visual through the trees, I found that the bright glow was radiating from the Lair itself. It was as if my surroundings had actually been asleep all along, and were just then been awakened.

  Not long after, my extraction came. I was quickly whisked off as a legion of Thralls stayed behind to secure the Blood Tech. The only information that I could get was that the stockpile wasn't even close to what was available during the Last War. The forest cache was just a small portion that'd been successfully tucked away, and it was all that was left.

  Arriving back, the Lair was in disarray. Operatives were running around in a panic while alarms were blaring without any real reason. I entered the frenzy and was immediately greeted by Captain Sentria. Though we were both around the same age, I was ranked among the lowly Bottom Bunks while she had achieved the status of a higher level. She had her own squad and was well on her way to the top of the Thrall pecking order.

  Unlike me, she had beautiful dark skin, a complexion that complimented her unique features. A descendant with both African and Asian traces, she was a mind-blowing blend who could've gotten as far as she had using her good looks alone. All beauty aside, though, it was always the merits of her character, her strong will that put her into good graces with the Commander.

  Sentria and I had been entwined together for the past year. When I first saw her, her face was hidden beneath a helmet. I had never seen anything more beautiful than when her long hair broke free from the restraints of her face guard. The flowing strands swept across her eyes and cheeks like a lush waterfall. Despite her beauty, it was the unwavering girl underneath that I fell for.

  On the day we met, I caught her looking at me from afar. At first, I didn't think anything of it, but she kept on. Eventually, we loomed closer to each other, face to face. We had an immediate connection, like kindred spirits.

  I inquired to my mysterious onlooker, "Why do you keep staring at me like that?"

  She smiled at me with a fantastic grin, "For the same reason you keep staring back."

  Upon my initial enlistment, Sentria had been assigned to show me around. She had led the way that whole day. One year later, we were walking side by side, old souls in step with the other.

  "Did you see it fall from the sky?" she asked as we crossed through the mayhem of the Lair.

  "Yeah, I saw something," I replied. "I don't know what, though. Do you know what it was?"

  "How could anyone not?" Her answer was hard to take seriously, "It's the Space Wizard."

  I didn't quite know how to read into her response. She hadn't exactly looked me in the eye when she'd said it. Sentria just kept walking alongside me without any indication of joking.

  "The Space Wizard? You can't be serious." I continued, "Everything seems to be lining up toward the idea, but it's just a story, a made-up myth."

  Sentria remained silent as we slipped out of the halls and into the armory. She then began gearing up to mobilize. Clearly, she wasn't in a joking mood.

  "Whoever it is, Commander Zero has ordered my squad to intercept him," Sentria explained. "If you're so sure it's not the Space Wizard, then come get in on the action and prove it for yourself. Just so happens that my squad is down one operative. I need someone to substitute." In my hesitation to say anything back, she added, "You know you want to. You're not going to want to miss this. We're taking out jet packs. First time they've been used in twenty years."

  "Jet packs?" I excitedly pondered.

  "Crash-course is in thirty minutes," Sentria said as she walked off on her way. "If you're up for it, meet me in the training area."

  "Who is it?" I asked off subject.

  "Who's who?" Sentria stopped to shake her head with a muddled scowl.

  "You said your squad is down by one today," I clarified. "Who is it?"

  "It's Fossil," she made known. "He wouldn't really tell me why, but he's asked to stay out on this one. I can't really tell him no, even though I've got the rank. He's the oldest man in the Thralldom and he's pretty much earned the right to do whatever he wants. At least, as far as I'm concerned."

  "I should go and see him," I took it upon myself. "Find out what's up."

  Didn't matter if it was day or night, Fossil could always be found in the same place when off duty. Outside our barracks was a triangular altar. Big and flat, it sat at the center of our courtyard garden. An artifact from the old world, only the older generations knew the true purpose of the altar. Fossil was one of these elders and he never wanted to discuss it. He was always there, though. He'd sit on its plain edge or stand atop of it with his head tilted toward the sky. Fossil had been searching for something up there since the day I arrived. I'm told he'd been searching for it long before too.

  I approached the old Australian at his usual spot. Leaned up against the altar, I found him staring at the ground. Much to my surprise, he wasn't scanning the skyline like usual.

  With his head bent down, it came to me just how worn Fossil really was. Beneath a crown of salt and pepper hair, tired wrinkles wreathed his face. He was no more than sixty years old, but he had the look of one who's much older. Which is not to say he couldn't hold his own in battle. In fact, Fossil was one of the best combat operatives in the whole Thralldom. He had seen more fighting than most anyone.

  He was a Thrall since the days of the Last War. It must've been those trying times that aged him so far beyond his years. Everyone called him Fossil because of it. Whatever his real name was, it was forever lost to time. Most of the Thralls went by a different designation in place of the name they came in with. Fossil's title was just another mask hiding a former identity.

  At one time, the old Australian was a great leader, holding one of the highest ranks in the whole Thralldom. For reasons of his own, he stepped down from leadership in favor of becoming a lowlife Bottom Bunk like myself. Thus, he was completely under the bearing of his younger brother, none other than Commander Zero himself. Fossil was never one to take orders, though. As he always put it, he chose to follow them freely as he felt like it.

  I began toward the old man, "Sentria just offered me your spot on the upcoming operation."

  Fossil cleared his throat and took his gaze from the ground to meet my eye level. "Go on and give it a go then, mate. If y
ou think you're up for it."

  "I haven't given her an answer, yet." I went on, "I wanted to talk to you about it before I did. Why'd you want to sit this one out? Rumors going around that it's the Space Wizard of all things."

  "That's exactly why I'm not going," he told, point blank.

  "Not sure I understand," I disclosed. "If all goes as Zero says, this'll be the return to the power that we've all been waiting for. The world will have peace."

  Fossil barked, "That's a mouthful of bull dust! It'll only mean death!" The seasoned man then looked back up at the sky as he always did. He glared up at the atmosphere and let out a tired and begrudged sigh. "I've kept watch on these skies for years, hoping to never find that which I fear. There's much about the old world that you younger joeys don't know. I'll tell you one thing, there's no Space Wizard. He doesn't exist and never did, but there was a man like him once. Disappeared a long time ago. Whatever's left of that man, I fear he hasn't come to bring peace, but returns to pour judgment for the things that we've done."

  My concerned curiosity asked, "What man?"

  "The man who built the world as you know it, or the man who brought it down, depending on one's politics." He turned to me with grim eyes. "The one they call the Overlord."

  Abruptly, Fossil marched off before I could ask any more questions. I decided that the best way to find out my answers was to take Sentria up on her challenge. That way, I could find out what was really going on for myself. Whatever had crashed out there, it was about to set off a chain of dire events.

  There was no magic or myths as Fossil had said, just twisted science and a man who abandoned his nightmare here on Earth. Yet, after all that time, the Overlord might've actually come back. I wasn't going to miss out on being one of the first to see him. Besides, a perfectly good opportunity to do something extraordinary had presented itself. Who in their right mind would want to pass up on jet packs?

  3

  THE WANDERING STAR

  As for the interception of the so-called Space Wizard, I believe the events are best told by the intergalactic traveler himself. Through events that inevitably transpired, Commander Zero ended up with a mysterious journal in his possession. Left behind in the Overlord's chamber of the Lair, a couple entries shed some light on what exactly happened when he came back to Earth.

  Now a confiscation of the United Corps, the journal appears incomplete with several missing entries. Its only contents reveal nothing on what he might've been doing in space for all that time. It was as if the other entries had been purposely omitted, like there was something he didn't want people to know about. The world may never know what was actually on those lost pages, but at least his last two entries were found fully available. I think he meant for someone to find his last words.

  ▲

  I am Dr. Deadstock. In the old world, I was an energy scientist. Before that time came to its end, I was going by another title. The people called me the Overlord, but that was ages ago. Now days, I'm not really sure what I should be called. I've roamed through both light and darkness in the endlessness of the great void beyond. In doing so, I've become something of a lonely Space Wizard than anything as tangible or real as a scientist.

  When you look up to a clear night sky, what do you see? You see stars of course, but what if I told you there were stars between the stars? You just can't see them for they're as black as the night that surrounds them. In the vacuum of the consuming dark, they'll often lose their place and wander through time and space. I am such a dark and wandering star, a forbidden light. It sounds like a fairytale, I know, but I assure you it's nothing short of horror.

  These musings stem from a constantly agonizing notion in the back of my head. It tells me that I'm no longer human. My anatomy has changed from an experimental procedure. I've become my own monster. From the outside, I appear to be a man of organic matter, but underneath, I'm filled with synthetic life. My veins flow with the power of the Blood Tech and its secrets, the first human to ever make the symbiosis. I vow that I'll be the only one too.

  In my effort to keep the Blood Tech battery hidden from mankind's clutches, I took an inhuman measure to make it impossible to steal. Infused with my own heart, I have concealed the Wandering Star. The process changed me. It changed the world around me. I am unlimited now, invincible. I am the very energy that others so desperately seek.

  Along with the heart inside me, I took the monitoring intelligence, the Far Stranger, and fled the planet for good. The hope was to bring slumber to the mayhem, but upon returning, I fear I may have just reawakened the bloodshed. I knew I had to come back, but I didn't know what the cost would be this time. The Last War had its own price and it was all too high. Mankind won't survive that kind of payment again.

  My bloodline's predecessors, immigrants from a place called Kenya, used to tell me something in their primordial Swahili tongue, "Dunia duara."

  Literally, the motto means that the earth is round. More significantly, it means that wherever you go, you'll always end up back where you started. When need be, it was a way for a mother and father to express to their child that nothing ever really changes. Thus, nothing is really worth fretting over.

  At other times, it was a way of reminding me that I'd never be able to see and do everything. Instead, I should just focus on what was right in front me. As I grew older, its meaning translated into something far more despondent. Dunia duara, the earth is round. It never has an end. What will be, will always be again.

  Distant stars, planets, and galaxies alike shine out from the black expanse of this whole universe, but here in the Milky Way, this planet of water and earth has always seemed to stand alone to me. It's been more than two decades since I've stepped foot in its dirt. Last I saw of the world, a web of red veins was laced upon its shadowed face. From the surface, the sky was painted black and crimson. Flames danced across the ground. Cities burned as horrible lasers gleamed from every corner. War was being waged over every nation and territory.

  It's much, much quieter now. As far as my eyes can see, miles of desert wasteland stretch out in every possible direction. This morning, as I descended upon this familiar planet from the cosmos above, I came to two likely conclusions. I thought at first that there appeared to be a layer of dead skin that covered the whole of the earth, just waiting to be peeled away to reveal new life. I took hope in believing that the world wasn't completely dead.

  As my ship fell, however, a terror came upon me that the world was actually deeply scarred, unable to ever be what it was, incapable of sustaining any sort of life. Upon arrival, it seemed that my worst fears had come true. I've never known such dread as the possibility of being the only sentient being left in all of the earth.

  Crashing on some strange coast, I couldn't make any sense of my surroundings. The oceans had swallowed most of the continental mass. Geography had drastically changed as a result. I had no idea what sea I was in, let alone what national borders laid beyond.

  Stumbling out of the wreckage of my ship, I waded through the surf toward an unknown shore. I took a moment to gaze upon my own reflection in the waves, praying that I was not staring at the last of humankind upon those waters. In that mirror of the sea, the arching waves revealed something more than just me. A pair of eyes that were not my own were staring back through the reflection. The irises were bright green, vivid and glowing like a predator of the night. A face than rose from the surf to meet my own. A smell came up with it, an aroma of death like the mushroom clouds in the Last War.

  Disfigured and mutated, the creature almost looked like a man. Its skin was unclothed, scaled and draped with slime. It was marred with open wounds that would have slayed a normal person. Fins protruded painfully from the whole of its frame. The neckline was slit with gills, struggling to respire in the open air. As for the green eyes, there was no sign of intelligence staring back at me. If ever it was a man, it had become pure animal.

  Snarling with a few blackened teeth, the creature snapped toward m
e. I quickly seized its mushy neck with one hand, shoving my knife into its stomach with the other. It wailed a hissing cry as a fountain of green goo came gushing from its belly. I pushed the creature off of me and the waves took it away. What on Earth was that thing?

  The fight wasn't over, though. With its dying yelp, the creature had called its friends to avenge its slaughter. The waters around me began to spout and pop. From the dark sea, more amphibian humanoids emerged to feast upon my helpless position.

  I unsheathed my lengthy knife and lobbed it into the closest head. The ravenous life form immediately ceased its approach, glowing eyes dimmed. My magnetic glove, linked specially with my blade, then brought the hilt from out of its forehead and back into my palm. Again, I hurled the knife, brought it back, and flung it out once more. One by one, their assault was spreading thin, but they were splashing their way closer and closer every time.

  Suddenly, more backup arrived. The creatures of slime and goop were coming in packs, loads of them. Where were they all coming from?

  Switching to my sidearm, I slowly retreated back to my vessel as I sent a few wallops into the oncoming attack. Every round tore the gooey monsters apart, like blowing seeds from a dandelion after making a wish. Their slime proved flammable as every bullet sent their bodies ablaze.

  For all its carnage, taking time to shoot was just slowing me down. Every second, the aquatic arena got smaller. Ceasing fire, I turned to make a run for it. Frantically, I sloshed back to my celestial ship.

  I radioed out, "Far Stranger, power up the engines, now!"

  "Ability to fly has been compromised," informed my personal artificial intelligence into the radio. "Stranded. Craft will never make it out of the sea."

  I shouted back, "I wasn't planning on it, but prepare the ship for takeoff anyway. I've got an idea."