When War Calls

Chapter One





One’s history defines so long as it is remembered.





Date Unknown





The world had ended.

It was the first thought in Jaden’s mind as he woke in the chamber, deep beneath the surface of the Earth. He was not sure how something so terrible had happened, for all of life to be wiped off the face of the planet so suddenly, but he knew it had something to do with the very thing that had kept him alive. The energy. The power. The thing that he had come to know as the immortal essence.

World War IV had been lost. Not by the World Protection Alliance, the Peace Movement or the United Resistance, but by every living thing, and worst of all, the people like him. He was one of the few who had found control over the mysterious energy that seemed to have consumed the planet. Jaden could still feel the power coursing through his veins. It had been up to him and the others to save the world, but they had failed, and only he remained. He felt a jolt of pain in his stomach as he remembered the violent volcanic eruptions, the massive waves from the ocean as the seafloor buckled dramatically, and the incredible heat as masses of the essence were unleashed upon the world, vaporising all in their path.

It had been a tragic and brutal end to life, and there had been nothing he could do to stop it. He could only protect himself as he fell into this chamber and sealed it from the horrors above. He had run. He had hidden. And now he faced a fate worse than death; he was now in absolute solitude, without a hope or a dream, savouring the nothingness of existence without life.

‘I remember that feeling.’

Jaden opened his eyes in surprise, as if he would see something in the darkness. He had heard a man speak. At first he thought it was a figment of his imagination, a sign of madness from his confined state, but it had been real. It was deep and comforting, a voice of a father to a son.

‘Who’s there?’ he asked.

The man laughed, seemingly finding humour in Jaden’s startled state. ‘You may call me Michael,’ came the reply.

Jaden looked around in the blackness. Before he had come here, before the world had ended, he would have called enough power to him to light this chamber, but after the damage it had caused, he feared even summoning enough of the essence to give a faint glow. He was sure he was not alone in this chamber, though. He wasn’t entirely convinced he was still sane, but the voice was definitely there, not just in his head.

‘How are you alive?’ asked Jaden.

‘The ability to manipulate matter is not exclusive to you,’ said the man.

It was true. Jaden was powerful, but others could use the essence as well. Were there others that had survived by using the power? It was possible. They would be scattered around the world, but it was possible. But this brought up a new problem; he had been alone when he fell, so no other could have been near him. There was too much destruction. How was this man able to speak to him now in this chamber? Was he able to move through the rock as if it were air? Did he know how to teleport himself? It made no sense. By all logic this man could not have been here with him, and yet here he was.

‘How did you find me?’ asked Jaden.

Again the man laughed. ‘I have been helping you since you first showed potential.’

‘When?’

‘Many years ago when you were sixteen, still living in Callibra.’

Home, thought Jaden. It was where he had been born, where he had last seen his family. The last moments of a simple life before war had beckoned him away. But the past was now in fragments. He could barely remember how he had left the village or where he went afterward. The years of trauma caused by the essence had taken their toll on him. He was but a shell of who he used to be.

‘I don’t remember you,’ said Jaden.

‘We have never met,’ said Michael, ‘but I have spoken to you more than once.’

Jaden was thoughtful, searching deep into his memories. He recognised the riddle for what it was, and knew it could only have meant one thing.

‘The voice in the wind,’ he guessed.

‘Yes.’

‘Who are you?’

‘I am the builder of the world you helped destroy.’

Jaden paused, trying to make sense of this extremely confident and apparently illusive man. What did he mean by saying he had built the world? Was he upset that Jaden had helped destroy it? If he was, he did not show it. Why had he been watching over him, and how could he have watched over him without being seen?

‘I don’t understand,’ said Jaden. ‘What do you want from me?’

‘It’s your time,’ said Michael.

‘My time for what?’

‘To succeed where I failed.’

‘You’re going to have to be more specific,’ said Jaden, sitting upright and holding his head up with his hands. ‘I can’t even remember my own failures.’