The beginning. (standard:drama, 516 words)
Author: jenne64	Added: Mar 31 2001	Views/Reads: 3730/1	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
All stories start at the beginning but very few end there as well... All feedback appreciated.

The Beginning . . . 

By Jenne64 

Copyright 2001 

It began.  A dark void that may or may not have really existed, it's
purpose, unknown.  Did it have a purpose?  Only it knew the answer.  It 
possessed no voice.  Communication with it was as alien as the being.  
Was it really a being?  This question was asked time and time again at 
the beginning.  Did anyone know the answer?  All the so-called experts 
were unsure. 

The dark void grew.  Experts speculated and formed opinions, voicing
concerns and dire warnings, but experts never agree, do they?  Ordinary 
people speculated on the void that filled the once blue sky above their 
heads.  The press spoke of nothing else. 

Governments met, and disagreed as always about the source and purpose of
the menace in the sky.  Web-cams and news channels spent every hour of 
everyday focused on the spectre.  Every person breathing watched it 
build.  Religious groups announced everything from the end of the world 
to the coming of the second Christ.  Some churches were accused of 
performing ancient rituals, accidentally invoking the Antichrist as a 
result.  Just like governments, religions refused to agree on anything. 


Three months after the black mass was first seen, it filled over thirty
percent of the sky surrounding an already fragile planet.  It hung 
there, an ominous omen, but beneath, people had almost become 
accustomed to its presence.  Shorter days and longer nights became 
accepted.  No one seemed to care any more about the mass that ‘just 
was’. 

Six months passed and people began to take serious notice.  They stood
on street corners gasping for air.  Air that once was taken for granted 
was slowly being sapped from the lungs of every creature inhabiting the 
world.  Gold was no longer traded on stock markets.  Small pockets of 
air found floating around were being exchanged for obscene amounts of 
money. 

"What price life?" papers boys cried, as various scandals were
uncovered. 

Ordinary people were collecting jars of air, trading it via the
Internet.  Dealers stood on street-corners openly peddling the stuff to 
anyone with the ability to pay.  New laws were quickly passed.  The 
distribution of ‘air for profit’ was prohibited.  People prayed each 
day to some higher deity for deliverance from the evil force hanging 
above their heads.  Scientists tried to figure out the key; why now; 
why here and how to stop it.  They, too, failed to understand. 

They all failed to understand the intentions behind my anger.  Anger at
the waste; the destruction that a single race could ravage on the 
planet that had feed, nurtured and clothed them.  I didn't mean to 
extinguish the light from the whole planet.  I really didn't, but they 
wouldn't listen.  So self-obsessed, so full of greed and angst, no 
thought for anyone else.  They blamed me in the end but it wasn't 
really me.  Had they only listened, cared a little more, then none of 
this would have happened.  But no; it was easier to ignore me; easier 
to appease fear with money. 

I'm still here, awaiting the new begining,  but where are they? 


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