Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

What Can't be Undone

Smoke rose in a sow, lazy ribbon against the backdrop of lightening blue sky. Beyond the mountainous horizon, the sun was just beginning to show its face over the jagged peaks. Spears of golden light cut over the slowly lightening landscape, the first shred of dawns invasion.

Adam stood with his face to the sun, breathing in the smoke given off by his childhood home feet planted firmly on the hilltop which overlooked the town proper. In years past he remembered standing in just this spot, his bare feet cool against the grass looking down on the town he had called home. If he closed his eyes he could remember the lazy haze of summer and the cars passing below him down Main Street, passing by picture perfect shop fronts . He remembered the sound of bugs buzzing in the late afternoon sun, and the burble of water through the creek that ran at the base of the hills.

He turned slowly, as if in a dream. Visions and memories passed before him, and the haze of summer turned into the cool chill of fall. The ancient tree to his left was resplendent in the rustic finery of a fall evening, its leaves crimson and orange, just weeks from falling. The ancient tire swing rocked lazily in a cool breeze rubbing against the old, scarred bark from where it had sat since time immemorial.

The smell of smoke wafted into his face, and the visions faded.

The feel of grass beneath his toes vanished, and he found himself standing alone atop a desolate hill. The grass beneath his feet was black, and crunched when he walked. Much of Orion Mericanda had been decontaminated using the Aerosolized void spray, and while the ground was no longer writhing with the sticky remnants of infection, the void had still left scars. Where once the town had been a quiet emerald jewel surrounded by quiet suburban neighborhoods, it was now a grey and blackened wasteland of post-apocalyptic horror. To his left the tree was still there, as was the tire swing, but it was likely that old tree would never sprout leaves again.

All the plants that had been infected by the void had fallen to ruin and died. The threes that had been turned to bone had not regained their bark once the infection was over, but simply withered and died. The animals were a bit more lucky. Family pets, housecats, dogs and the occasional fish had been inoculated against the Void and would make a slow recovery. Most of the animals had lost their fur, appearing to all the world like street animals inflicted with some horrible mange. The void had left many of them with open sores on their bodies, and weeping wounds, which Adam insisted be treated.

The families would want their pets back

If they were still alive.

There had been no call to evacuation for the citizens of orion. From what they could tell from the void cite, the infection had spread unnoticed for some time through the walls and floors of the cite be before some catalyst had spurred on the sudden and unrelenting spread. The UNSC had no time to react, and everyone they sent in to help remedy the problem had died in the attempt.

It had been left to Adam and the Arcadian army to clean up the wreckage.

All around the globe similar stories were being told.

Void cites all over the globe were being systematically shut down, some taking longer than others. Adam imagined he would lead the charge to rid another city of the void, but that would take some time.

Overhead Adam watched as three massive military carriers passed overhead distributing a between them a cloud of the void antidote into the atmosphere above orion and the surrounding areas.

The radius of the infection went further, and deeper than they had anticipated, The void spray had gone into production en mass before the week was out, and it was now being used to inoculate entire cities. It was being injected into the groundwater, and into city water supplies. Plans were being made to detonate a mass capsule of concentrated void antidote into earth's upper atmosphere in multiple locations.