[AoS] The End is the Beginning

Sebastian sat in front of his congregation, watching as they trickled in for the service. They greeted each other and took their seats, but their greetings seemed automatic. Their smiles seemed empty.

It had been a particularly bad week at the end of a bad month in the middle of a bad year. Just last night there had been a fire that had destroyed a warehouse full of grain stores. Someone had tried to raid it, and in their haste to escape and through their selfishness, that person or persons had set the building on fire rather than get caught and punished for their crime. There had been deaths this week, too. Two of the elders in the community had succumbed to heatstroke before Sebastian could get to them. A woman had died in childbirth. The baby had been given milk from another mother in the congregation, but wasn't doing well. There had been a water contamination scare.

The people were growing weary. They were losing hope. They looked ... hollow.

They needed something to fill them up, something to believe in. They needed something or someone to give them hope.

Sebastian stood, then lifted his arms and his voice to his congregation.



“Remember how we got here!”

As if anyone could forget those days. The explosion had been bad enough, killing several who were close to him, those that weren't immortal. Then after, the city torn apart in fire bombings, then in riots. The city, and the whole world, was consumed with fire. Everyone lost homes and loved ones. Everyone had been affected.

“The countries of the world, hungry for power, greedy for more land, more money, more influence, more... more... more! Those countries formed alliances with each other and against each other. They drew so lines on the ground with enemies on one side and allies on the other. They made borders here, fences there, and walls to divide them. They put these lines on their maps and divided the world. Eventually no one could tell who was a friend and who was a foe.

“Then, there was one accident, one misunderstanding, and it became an excuse to go to war. Their hate, OUR hate, tore this world apart.”



“Now that our world is destroyed and our homes and families are in pieces, we feel lost. We feel alone. But we are not alone.”

“Bombs destroyed our cities, our states, and our countries, but they also destroyed the barriers between people. They erased the lines on the map. They tore down the walls that we had built up, the walls that separated 'us' from 'them'.

“No more are there Americans, Canadians, or Mexicans. French, German, Russian, or Pakistani. Nationality is no more! No more is there black, white, red, yellow, brown... or even blue or green,” That got a few chuckles from the crowd, they seemed to be livening up a little now. Sebastian smiled at the young man in the third row that actually had green skin, then continued.

“Race is no more! No more is there mutant and non-mutant. Differences are no more! We are all humans, part of one single human race. “There is no more reason to hate each other! We are all of us brothers and sisters.”



Sebastian's eyes swept the crowd. Up in the balcony he thought he saw a small figure cloaked in a veil, with just a bit of red hair showing. Recognizing her, Sebastian spoke in her direction for a moment, knowing she would understand this part of the message.

“Since the fires that tore this world apart, we have formed our own little groups. We've made new 'families' to help us survive.”

Murmurs throughout the congregation showed that they all knew who he was talking about. Amazons. Ferals. Townies. Raiders. Fighters. Farmers. All of them were at each other's throats.

“Perhaps each group can look out for its own members. Perhaps they will even survive, bound together like this, but if all these groups feed off of each other, we will eventually destroy each other.

“Will we again let ourselves draw lines and build walls between 'us' and 'them'? Isn't that what got us into this mess in the first place?”



“Our world was destroyed once by hate. Let us not let it be destroyed again.

“The world as we knew it has ended. Now it is something new, a blank canvas, washed clean and white, ready to be filled with color. Will we paint it with the same dark colors it was filled with before? Will we paint it red with blood once again?

“The world is waiting for our decision.”



“We must unite all the survivors of that horrible apocalypse, or we will not survive. Unity will save us.

“One people, one race. Unity will save us!

“We must work together. We must pass on this message. They must hear this word: Unity will save us!”

The congregation took up the chant, “Unity will save us! Unity will save us! Unity will save us!”



Sebastian raised one hand to silence the crowd.

“The world has been destroyed, but we can work together. We will bring unity to our people. We will begin again. We will rebuild this into a new world. A world without hate! A world without divisions! A world worth living in, for us, and for our children!”

The immortal stepped down from the pulpit and let the music director step in. The crowd sang until the end of the service, then filed out, their faces once more filled with hope for the future.

Once the crowd had left, Sebastian turned toward the back of the sanctuary. He used the rickety old stairs that led up to the organ master's seat. Not that they had anyone who knew how to play anymore. Perhaps no one in the whole world knew how to play anymore.

He twined his way through the brass pipes, lined up like soldiers ranging in size from child's toy to wider than Sebastian himself. Behind them was a door, then a ladder that led to the top of the belfry. The antediluvian perched himself in the opening at the top, through which the tolling bells called his believers to the church to hear his inspirational words each week.

He peered out at what was left of the world. The heart of the city was green, a park that had been designed to give the residents pleasure and exercise now sustained them and gave them life. Broken sky scrapers rose around the park like a shattered rib cage, providing little in the way of protection. Beyond that was wall to keep out raiders, and as far out as he could see was desert and wasteland.

It was a sad little place, with the constant reminder of what had happened, but Sebastian needed to be here. He needed to think and to be alone. He needed to take off the mask, to not be god for a few minutes. He needed to face his own secrets and doubts.

He never let even the closest of his followers in on the secret, on the fact that he wasn't sure if this idea would work. Unity for the whole world. He had laughed at the idea once, and now it had become his mantra. He felt guilty that he didn't even believe in his own words.

The reason he kept going, the reason he kept up this whole charade, was that these people needed hope. They needed it more than they needed bread and water. They needed to think that they could make the world a better place, that they could have children and that their children would have a better life than they did. If they didn't believe it, the human race would die out.

And so each week Sebastian took dreams and fantasies and spun them into words. He braided the words together into threads the people could follow towards ideas and actions. He twisted the threads together into speeches of hope and threw it to the congregation like it was a lifeline. So far, they kept holding on. So far they had stayed alive. Most of them, anyway.

He could only hope that the lies that held his rope together didn't unravel the whole thing.

Sebastian had caused this mess and now he had to fix it. He had to save humanity or he would have the rest of eternity to watch the world die away. He would have the rest of eternity to live alone atop the world's corpse as it rotted into nothingness.