Paragenesis: Stories of the Dawn of Wraeththu by Storm Constantine Page B

stare at
him, this creature of dream with Adam’s eyes. ‘But how...?’
    ‘We gave you our blood, our
difference. This...’ His hand sweeps across my body, and I swear I
feel electric heat pouring from it. ‘This is our gift to you.
Humanity’s time is done. It is our time now. As Homo sapiens
replaced Cro-Magnon, it is time for us to replace humanity. Nature
has made us stronger and faster than man, as well as giving us
other gifts, including the ability to make man into our own
image.’
    ‘Then what am I?’
    ‘As I said, you are har, no
longer man, but one of us. Don’t be afraid of the changes. From now
on, Mikey is dead and gone. As of this morning, you shall be known
as Boline, the light to my darkness and the darkness to my light.’
He leans over me and exhales. The steam of his breath conjures
pictures in my mind: new possibilities unfolding, of dark days
filled with riots, rage and flames; of a glorious glowing city
filled with others like ourselves; of a new world rising from the
ashes unlike anything anyone could have ever imagined.
    Something within me blossoms in
the darkness of my soul as those images fill my mind, a glowing
bloom of light that fills me with a new sense of purpose, a new
reason for being. I am no longer Mikey, the frightened and ugly kid
from the suburbs of Carmine. I am Boline, the blade who will help
usher in a new world.
     
     
    The Dawn of
Hope
    Suzanne Gabriel
     
    Human death came in quick
flashes from the muzzle of the gun. The echoes continued to
reverberate around the old garage for longer than it took for the
bodies to fall. Some gambles don’t pay off, we should have known we
were pushing our luck. We’d gambled and we’d lost.
    Civilization had crumbled to
the point of non-existence; it wasn’t very civil anymore. The city
was a burned out war zone; a shell. Those humans with means or
influence had fled to safe, fortress-like gated communities and we,
the lost and disenfranchised, found safety of sorts in gangs that
fought for survival against other gangs of humans; and we all
fought ‘Them’. We all feared Them – they called themselves
‘Wraeththu’, but we had other names for them. They were strange,
terrifying beings: faster, stronger, wild and unpredictable, and
far more deadly. Sometimes they made their presence known, winning
strategically impressive assaults against human strongholds and
sometimes they appeared out of nowhere, silently dispatching their
victims and then disappearing without a trace.
    We’d lost this one. Our gang
had been harrying a group of these strange creatures for a few
months, but we’d fallen into a trap they’d set for us.
    More shots rang out, and one by
one more bodies fell. I felt nothing other than a hopeless sense of
resignation. These were not my friends, these were my fellow gang
members; humans thrown together, as there was strength in numbers.
In this part of the city it was almost certain death to be on your
own, so membership of a gang was essential. I feared my fellow gang
members as much as we all feared these Wraeththu. I was the last
one left standing, being held firmly by two of Them. I hadn’t
fought; it seemed pointless.
    Their leader approached me,
sneering. “Been watching? If you got anything to say – better say
it now.”
    “Goodbye cruel world?” The
insolence of my tone and words certainly didn’t match what I was
feeling.
    The Wraeththu threw back his
head and laughed. “You’re a pretty thing. You’d make a good little
plaything.” He grabbed my hair and kissed me roughly.
    I fought then. I knew – or
thought I knew - what happened when they “played”; I’d rather be
shot.
    There were a lot of them,
kicking and punching, and only one of me – I lost, fast. Balled
into a foetal position, I prayed for a quick end.
    The leader rolled me onto my
back and placed his knee on my chest as he drew a knife from his
belt. The knife was big, silver, and cruelly serrated. He drew the
blade across