STRANGErs In The Night

Prologue: Fall From Grace

In the twelfth day of the fifty-eighth century of the Immortal Tube, Thursday Plurbonym-Boyporridge, God-Emperor of the necromancers, was picked up and hurled bodily out of HEAVEN. As he fell, the God-Emperor wondered vaguely what would happen to him when he hit the ground, and inexorably his thoughts turned to his mother, Strange Æons. (Author's Note: you may think her name is Teya, but what you don't know is that his real name is STRANGE ÆONS.)

Thursday wondered what she would think now that he had failed his mission, and as he fell, he cursed HEAVEN's Queen for her deception, but as the wind whistled around him, he couldn't help but marvel at the surreal landscape he was falling towards- a patchwork of barren ground, toxic oceans, and the Sprawl- a towering megalopolis gradually collapsing in on itself, which emerged from the planet's most striking feature- a gash the size of a continent, with a web of iron and nickel still spilling out of it into space, frozen as it had been since the wound was first scored in the planet so long ago.

The God-Emperor's contemplation was abruptly cut short when he made contact with the ground, creating an crater the size of a small tank. Dazed but unharmed (he was a long furby after all) Thursday wriggled upright, breathing in the stench of the city. Swiveling his head, he stared blankly at the people cowering in the shadows.

In the distance, sirens began to wail, accompanied by the whir of helicopters taking flight.

LET THEM COME, Thursday whispered, his voice echoing dully like the slamming of a thousand coffins. THE FULL MIGHT OF THE QUEEN'S ARMIES IS NOTHING TO ME.

He turned away and slithered into neon-stained night, the rain pouring down around him.

DO NOT WORRY, MOTHER. I AM COMING TO FREE YOU.