The Beginning of the End

For the past 300 years, all of humanity has been on the edge of collapse under the rule of an undying tyrannical emperor by the name of Victor Kraus, a strong, stout, and dogmatic man with armies counting in the millions and technology never before seen by the outside world. There is also the head of the rebellion, who is completely anonymous and has never shown his face but is rumored to be a massive charismatic leader who fights on the front line, leading his armies to victory with a prowess for war that is said to put Napoleon to shame, whoever that is. Ever since I was a small child, I had always heard the stories of the great tyrant ruling over the earth by means of raw militaristic power, watching and cowering from the safety of one of his luxurious homes scattered across the planet or on a rare occasion some armored bunker in some remote secret place. There were also stories of the great rebel leader, this strong, kind, gentle man leading through charisma and firm beliefs. 

After hundreds of years of bloody conflict, with millions of lives lost, the Supreme Council decided that an arbitrator was needed to mediate a resolution to the conflicts between the emperor and the rebellion. The council made a ruling to nominate and select an arbitrator, and there was an announcement that there would be a meeting between the two leaders mediated by a random citizen with no affiliation to either side to make some big decision.

As I would soon discover, that random citizen was me, some nobody with a dead-end job, no family, and a small crappy apartment in the middle of nowhere, too far away from my office. This discovery was delivered unexpectedly by two large mechanical crows, commonly known as watchers, about the size of a large human with absurdly large beaks, who showed up at my door with a holographic message saying that I had been selected to take part in the meeting of the two leaders the next day, where to go, and to look presentable. When it was over, the birds were gone almost immediately, most likely flying away back to their nest in some government building.

That night was rough; I couldn't sleep a wink, and I spent all night tossing and turning, ruminating on my new responsibilities. All that morning, since I got out of bed and slid into my wrinkled button-up shirt, black pants, and tie, there had been an impending sense of dread looming over me like a storm cloud. I glided through the streets in the slums of the city, dodging piles of rubble and potholes and the scanning patrols of the man-made flying beasts, on the hunt for anything suspicious. The “watchers” are mechanical flying sentries that can swoop down and tear to shreds criminals with their chainsaw-esque rows of teeth lining their black, blood-stained beaks.

On my way to the empire's grand hall, I was suddenly stopped by a hooded man darting out from a shadowed doorway with a knife to my chest. He demanded my wallet, but ran away when he was seen by one of those damn birds. Two watchers descended on him like lightning. I ran as fast as I could away from the scene; I don't know if he survived, and I am glad I didn't stick around to find out. Those birds have always been the stuff of nightmares for me ever since they were released into the streets when I was a kid, and I saw a man flying the rebel flag get shredded like a piece of paper outside my school. Ever since, I have always been worried that I will be deemed suspicious or useless enough to be snatched off my feet and never be seen again. 

Arriving at the grand hall, I realized that I'd never actually been here before, and never in my life had I ever experienced a structure even remotely close to as imposing or off-putting as this one. The massive marble pillars and arched doorway stretched all the way to the top floor. When I approached the door, a large metal eye slowly creaked open to stare directly at me so intently it might as well have been looking through me, and I assumed it was there to confirm who I was and that I was supposed to be there. After a few seconds, when it finally slid closed again with a metallic clicking sound, the door opened to let me in with not as much as a single creak. Inside, there was some lady with a communication headpiece and a smile so wide that it was almost inhuman. She appeared to have double the number of teeth as a regular human. After an awkward hello, met with silence, she led me through the labyrinth of expansive marble halls, statues, and paintings of the emperor and his lineage, though I never looked at them for fear that they would be looking back. All along the entire walk through the building, I noticed how whenever the ceiling got particularly high, there were large woven wire bundles and metal rods that appeared to be perching or nesting spots for the birds everyone had grown to fear so much.

When we finally reached the door we were looking for, I saw that it was guarded by yet another two of those hellish crows.

“There sure are a lot of those damn birds in here, aren't there,” I said in an attempt to lighten the mood, but she just kept smiling at me, motioned for me to go in, and then walked away.

When the door finally opened again, almost an hour later, two well-dressed men walked in. One was tall and muscular, wrapped in a thick cloak with a well-groomed beard and the look of a man hardened by battle with the scars to prove it. The other was an ugly, short, stocky man with an overwhelming air of superiority, walking with an ornate golden cane and a general “holier than thou” demeanor.

“Hello, and thank you for selecting me to participate in this great moment,” I said with a slight bow, trying to hide the nervousness in my voice and the sweat dripping down my brow.

“You need not bow to this disgrace of a man,” rumbled the tall man with an obvious disdain in his voice.

“Do not listen to this brute. You will continue to bow until I tell you to,” declared the fat man, his voice venomous and piercing.

“I am your emperor, and you will look me in the eye and stand up straight,” a voice said as I looked up to see a large man looking down at me, still wrapped in that same thick cloak that I had assumed belonged to the Leader of the rebellion. I straightened my back and looked between the two men, wondering how all the stories were so completely wrong.

As the two began to devolve into a screaming argument, I began to pace around the room, wondering what I could possibly have been called here to do, when without even realizing it, I found myself face-to-face with the handprint on the wall, everything else began to fade out of my awareness. My eyes focused solely on the strange artifact. I slowly began to inch toward the handprint. The closer I came to making contact, the more intense the pulsing glow became, as if beckoning me closer until finally, my hand snapped to it as if it was a magnet pulling me in. As I tried to pull my hand off the bizarre device, it began to shine brighter and brighter until suddenly, it chimed, my hand was released, and it stopped glowing entirely. The entire panel opened into four segments, and a panel with a large button released that green-blue glow from before resting atop it. I realized then that the two

bickering man-babies behind me had gone silent and begun to stare at me with suspicious eyes.

“What have you done?” demanded the large man I have come to know as the rebel leader. He was about to say something

else when the intercom suddenly sparked to life, drawing the attention of us all. 

“Hello and welcome, dear arbitrator. I like to avoid long speeches when I am able, so I will just cut to the chase. What you see

before you on that panel is a button that, when pressed, will completely reset all of existence back to the dawn of humanity. Now, I know this is a lot to take in all at once, but this is rather urgent. You were chosen, and you must decide the fate of the world and reality itself! Welcome to your destiny, chosen arbiter.” Then, just as quickly as the voice appeared, it was gone.

“Now, let’s be calm here. We are all rational adults, and I’m sure we can talk this through amicably,” Victor reassured me. 

“Are we, though? You two have done nothing but yell at each other and fight like children since we got here! Why should we

discuss this! Why should I be inclined to listen to either of you? Neither of you actually want what’s best for the people of this planet! You just want what’s best for yourselves. By the time this idiotic war you two have ignited and kindled from the very start is over, everyone and everything in this world will be gone, dust, nothing more than a distant memory in the back of your minds

as you beat each other senseless over what? Land? The people? No, all you care about is power and wealth and making sure nobody but you has either of those things!”

The two of them just stared at me in stunned silence, completely still, as if I had frozen them. The longer I looked at them, the more this feeling of disgust and disdain grew within me, and before I knew it, I was moving against my will, turning and raising my arm as everything seemed to slow down. I could feel them lunging toward me and yelling at me to stop as my clenched fist lowered to the button in a single moment that felt infinitely long. But I didn't notice them at all, my fist propelling the button down just as I was tackled to the ground, only a moment too late.

The room almost instantly filled with an impossibly bright light as the world faded away, and my vision was filled with nothing but emptiness, and then, everything was gone.