Final War - Coliseum

This place was once crowded with tourists from around the world. The kingdom of concrete and steel enveloped the landscape with a sense of awe and man-made miracles. The civil engineering would be historic but there is no one to write that history down. Not anymore. The day the world went away was the day all of that no longer mattered. It was the day that would run deep in what was left of our morality. The scars that would not heal, the blood that was never spilled, the chaos that caused the silence, the day everything just stopped.

This coliseum was once filled with thousands of screaming fans roaring for violence. Armored men dashed back and forth on this playing field, smashing into one another to score what the game called touch-downs. The iron goal posts no longer stand high. Along with most of the construction, the iron became twisted like left-over spaghetti, all dried, gnarled, and hard. There was no longer the smell of freshly cut grass in the field, the emerald green replaced with black ash, crusted mud and the stains of blood. The carcass of a giraffe lounged half eaten by crows near the 40 yard-line, the aroma of melting flesh in the noon high sun drifted downwind for a touch-down.

A lifetime ago I was one of those men. My number was 37, I was a linebacker. I used to live well, rolling high at the casinos and drinking heavily at the clubs. I had women flocking around me. I was a king, the city was my village, and the fans were my followers. Now everyone I knew are scattered in the wind and sea. Ashes are all that remain of them. Everything was so quiet now. I’m a stranger to those that survived. My title, the game I played, the popularity, the money, the power. It was all gone. I became a victim like everyone else. As if this were a reset to things that went terribly wrong.

For all that we could have done and all that could have been, this is where it ends. I should be thankful I was alive but I’m not. Why could I not have died along with the rest of humanity? What plans are meant for me? I’m not a spiritual man but this has had me thinking. What does God have in store for me? Was I simply forgotten?

“Jeremiah!” Nate said out loud as he walked into the stadium from a dark tunnel filled with garbage.

I turned around to look at the unshaven man. He wore a white button up shirt, what used to be a name brand now resembled a rag rather than some stylish fashion trend. His hair was unwashed and dripping with oil. The split ends of his bangs tucked neatly behind his ears.

“I found the trail. We have to continue moving north. A local farmer pointed to the pilgrims heading to Washington. He told me the pilgrims heard a recording over the radio. Bolling Air Force Base I think,” Nate announced to me before he dropped to his knees and began to cough.

I rushed to his side after he puked what looked to be chunks of blood and food, “So we keep going north?” I asked him. I didn’t know why we were following these pilgrims anyway.

We had lost their trail sometime ago and after wandering the jungle of overgrown weeds and relics of ruined houses from a time before this. Nate was certain that there was a reason for this entire insane plot and that these pilgrims were a key to finding out the answers. He never told me where he found out about them.

I didn’t have any reason not to follow him. After all, what was there more to do? Society had crumbled and it’s hard to find people that weren’t out to protect themselves. Nate wasn’t one of those men and I think he needed me as much as I needed him right now.

I kneeled by his side and placed my hand on his shoulder, “Nate! Bro, are you alright?” I asked him sincerely as he shook his head. He wiped his mouth clean of the warm blood. He looked at me with blackened eyes sunken deep in his skull. Food was scarce in this new world and the radiation poisoning took its toll on all of us. We had no choice but to keep moving. There was nothing else to do now.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” He gurgled before spitting up more phlegm, “Lets pack our shit and keep moving. It’s still a distance from D.C.”

I helped him up and wrapped his arm around my neck and shoulder. I carried him partially. His body was weak and powerless. I feared he wouldn’t make the trip on foot in this wasteland. Washington was still days away, that was walking at a good steady pace. Motorized vehicles no longer function, fuel was scarce to come by. Horses and other cattle were all taken by vagabonds and sold at a price we couldn’t afford. Clean food and antibiotics sold the highest in this new black market.

“C’mon Nate, let’s pack camp.” I said with as much reassurance as I could muster. It seemed to me that Nate truly felt a connection with these pilgrims. He said they were “The Forgotten” whatever that means. Sounded more like a cult in this faithless new realm.

Convict

There is too much confusion here, so many things and so many people. The walls are closing in on me and the world has made itself a little larger without me. I am trapped in this shackle, this shell of a man; behind these bars I watch new fashions replace old trends. I see the world turning and the sun rising and the moon falling.

Each night is like the last, each tomorrow is like today. The things I thought once were important I have now lost interest in. The things I thought were less than important have now become the things that inspire me most.

I once thought that the world revolved around me and that I was the light shining down on a cruel harsh reality. I was parting the dark clouds over the horizon or the hand of God himself giving back to those less fortunate than myself. I was here to serve the will of mankind. I was here to serve a greater purpose.

I was wrong for thinking this way and only after I lost everything was I able to understand that I was nothing important to anyone or anything. The world still moved on while I stared out from behind iron bars. The birds continued to sing their melody and the clouds still parted to let sunlight through without my assistance. Miracles were still being performed and I had no part in any of it.

Quietly I loathed at this and it took me time to consider my faults, my fallacies, and my misguided intentions to judge and be judged. Sitting here in my concrete castle of barbed wire and steel I stood vigilant. I watched as the primates around me ran the asylum, those in control did so only because the inmates allowed them to.

I got into a routine, I kept to myself and I received a reputation of being some zealous mad man. I quickly found a group of men that were also of my same kin. Without them, I would have been torn asunder like a rag doll. Like Jesus himself walking down the alleys of Jerusalem during his last days, so was I walking this fateful line.

I considered the fact that I was not Jesus, I wasn’t even a man. I was treated as an animal. Some nameless face, my name replaced with a number. I was inmate 164325. I even considered my number, the sum of each couple was a seven. Ironic, I thought to myself. It confused me at first but it had to have been coincidental.

Somewhere in this perfect tragedy there was a sense of purpose. I could not save anyone outside the walls of my castle, but I could manage to bring my ideas to the convicts within it. These men would become my disciples. It was only after I succeeded in inspiring these men that I realized that I was not the man I thought I was. There was something more, there was something much darker. I was somewhere between Earth and Hell. A liaison to the devil himself…