Watch Me Rise

Chapter 1: The Lives We Lead

Just introducing a few central characters in this bit. The epic tone of the Prologue, appropriately named Watch Me Sink, is not really continued here. We're just seeing how life is going for the world now. Actual action is coming soon, though. The bit introducing Marcus is basically all the doing of my good Canadian friend Calvin Burrell. I just made it look like I wrote it. All credit for the character and introduction goes to him. Roar is the concept of another friend, Richard. I just rewrote him. All credit for that character goes to him. Enapay, however, is my own creation. Enjoy. :3

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Act I: The Rotten Apple - Chapter 1- The Lives We Lead

A young, handsome, light-skinned black male huffed as he pulled himself on top of what used to be a seven story hotel. What was once a popular rest spot now stood as a broken, decrepit memorial to times long past and the only things that lived there now were big, mutated cockroaches. The were the reason this man had climbed up the side of the building rather than try the stairs inside. The stairs didn't seem all that sturdy and he didn't want to chance them collapsing and him falling into the cockroach nest. He shuddered at the thought. He hated cockroaches before the Cataclysm and he somehow managed them even less once they grew a foot long, sometimes larger.

The climb turned out to be not as much of a hassle as he had originally figured. His powers too morph the make up of his body made it as easy as sliding upwards, like a flow of water, defying gravity and moving in reverse. He was wearing a fully zipped, dark grey hoodie with a hollowed out, black 5-point star on the back, the star being the symbol of his former gang, dark blue jeans, and dark grey shoes. They had been every since the event. These clothes were a part of him, now. He could change them if he felt like it, but he hadn't seen a reason. The only difficult part of the climb was remaining solid enough to hold onto his backpack that kept his supplies. The backpack wasn't part of his ensemble at the time, so he had to be careful with it.

He peered southwards, surveying the landscape. After a few seconds, he pulled a shoddy pair of binoculars, sporting a cracked left lens, from his backpack, which was at his feet. This portion of the city he was inspecting had been completely abandoned for three years now. The Cataclysm had caused an earthquake which forced the buildings to sink into the ground, which earned it the nickname of "The Pit" and allowed Marcus to see much of it from atop the seven story hotel, about two kilometers far. The survivors managed for a couple years but then strange things happened, people disappeared in the middle of the night and there were rumors of long tentacle-like vines snatching victims and pulling them underground. Marcus was hoping to see if they had left anything behind that might still be usable and hoped that the rumors were just that. Rumors.

"Like the landmines were rumors, right? Marcus? Marcus? I'm talking to yooou, " said a voice in his head.

"Shut up," Marcus responded in his thoughts.

"Hey, don't talk to me like that," replied the voice.

"Yeah! Don't talk to him like that," said another.

He had tried to deal with them for the better part of two weeks now.

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Marcus had been farther north, near the Shining Towers, and the wall that guarded them, looking for general supplies and avoiding a particularly rambunctious flock of pigeon crows when he accidentally stumbled onto a landmine. They had been placed there in the early days of construction on the Shining Towers to keep out the 'riff-raff' while the upper class got their homes built. The landmines had been long forgotten.

He ran from the creatures, he stepped on a disk, a click as it was set, then a deafening boom sounded as he lifted his leg, then nothing. At first, he thought he was surely dead. There were no words to describe what he was feeling. When he was just getting a handle on his powers, he had tried using his powers to split himself once and felt disoriented for two days afterwards, but this time he wasn't just split into two, he was entirely blown apart.