1 Act Zero: Principium Et Finis (Beginning of the End)

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Deus and he was like…

No no no, wait. That's too cliche.

Let me try again.

Ahem.

To be or not to be.

That is the quest--

No no no. That's stupid.

Why try to copy Shakespeare? I guess I've been reading too much of Hamlet recently, haven't I?

AHEM.

Life is crazy, right?

There are so many challenges that we face AND…. Now, I sound like a documentary narrator. Or is it someone else? It's hard to say. I'm doubting myself too much.

Come on! Think, Deus, think!

Wait...

You know what?

I should stop.

Why should I copy other stories' beginnings and intros and such?

Just because it worked for them doesn't mean it works for me.

(To be honest, it doesn't really mean anything but eh.)

It's not working for me…. So let me try again…

Ahem.

Set this scene.

Imagine the scene I'm about to describe.

Don't think too hard about it. Don't ask questions yet. Don't ask anything for a while. Maybe for a long while.

But, just dream.

So, imagine this scene:

Dirt.

Imagine dirt.

Imagine the dirty streets of London, England with the dry earth as a floor.

Imagine the grimy stone and brick walls covering the city.

Imagine the smell of mold. Imagine the extra-ordinary strength of that smell.

O-wee!

It would be strong to you but everyone else, completely natural.

Imagine the lack of emotion in the air. Imagine the absence of laughter in the air. The absence of soul. The absence of really anything.

And what the only thing that replaced that void was fear.

Finally, imagine this, this crucial detail to the setting that we are in:

Imagine piles of bodies.

Imagine piles of bodies, riddled with swollen pulps in the skin, and with fleas flying over it, decomposing what little was left in the lifeless corpses present in the streets.

Did you imagine it all? Did you captiulate on all of that?

If you did, then welcome to the bloody streets of London in the year 1352.

Welcome to the Beginning of the End.