The Unbegotten: The Dark Ages - Blood Moon

PROLOGUE

GOD IS GONE!

At the conclusion of the last Celestial War, the world finally had proof that God existed. However, instead of the world becoming a place of peace, the proof of God’s existence fueled a backlash of resentment amongst the human populace. In an effort to help quell the rapidly-growing discontent, Vanifera Ramone became the Ambassador for the angels and gods, now called Mystics by humanity. She attended a conference at the United Nations in order to address the world and explain the Mystics’ intentions. Meanwhile, God was going through his regeneration stage where he ends one existence to begin another. Azelikeen, Queen of the Orphum, used the Solitary Stone at the exact moment of God’s departure to eliminate all faith on the planet. Elsewhere, Barhim Hajj experienced visions that foretold the end of all that is. Before Azelikeen could complete her act, Hajj sent a message inside a jewel called a God Gem to Doctor Thaddeus Blackthorn, his alternate self in the parallel universe that was being created. Now in possession of the God Stone and uncovering the message within, Doctor Blackthorn must find the woman named Vanifera and restore faith to the world before the future Barhim Hajj envisioned comes to fruition. And now…

Blackthorn

Journal entry 480842

It has been seven months since August 8, the day that I received the message from Barhim Hajj. I’ve given that day a nickname, Infinity Day. Eighth month, eighth day. Turn the numbers sideways. You get the picture.

Each day since then I’ve watched my world sink more and more into chaos. You would think with our advances in technology, medicine and science, humanity would exist in peace and harmony. However, the powerful have always found a way to corrupt our scientific achievements. They’ve created a totalitarian society, using our advancements to further their own selfish agendas.

Their will is being done.

Fear has gripped the populace and blame is being placed on everyone from the President to the garbage man. Famine and disease are on the rise and quarantines have been put in place for certain areas of the world. Money is no longer used to control the masses. Instead, the chance for food and healthcare are the tools of manipulation. Those who are deemed unworthy are forced to fend for themselves. Common people were turned into barbarians. Humanity has become a more violent and intolerant race. It’s as if the world had nothing good to believe in. We’d lost our grace.

When I found the gem and discovered the message, I immediately did some research, believing there was a connection between our current state of affairs and Hajj’s message. Using my connections with the government, I found that the international science community had been studying a series of temporal rifts over the last several months, giving credence to the story Hajj relayed about a woman named Azelikeen doing something to change reality. I began to form a hypothesis. Could the absence of these Mystics truly be the cause of the decay of society’s moral compass?

When I presented my theory to the Vatican, the headquarters of the international science community, I was met with skepticism, which was normal. For so long, science was our only belief. We lived by a single creed. What can be proven is what we must believe.

However, what if there was something out there, something that could not be proven but was just as real nonetheless? Was there something larger than ourselves? Since we are a people of science, I was asked to substantiate my assumption. I sequestered the American government for funding to find out what impact a belief system would have on our society. After months of negotiating, I got the money I needed and founded the Department of Faith and Science. Our sole purpose is to find out if there was any validity to the theory I now dubbed as faith.

The concept was very intriguing, believing in a higher power that could not be scientifically proven. My research started with aggressive lab animals. It revealed that their behavior was modified when fear was introduced into their lives either through pain or by the depravation of desired things. These fears seemed to make them question their innate actions. It also made them more subservient and receptive to training appropriate behavior. Being a person of science I found it intriguing to see if people would be as responsive to such conditions.

In this day and age, the notion of faith was considered the ideology of mentally disturbed people or individuals of low intellect. However, if my findings could yield proof that through fear-induced faith we can modify the violent actions of the populace as well as curb the dictatorial actions of those in authority, perhaps the world could find the grace and peace it needs in order to exist in harmony.

The President asked me to find empirical evidence to support the validity of faith. Of course, human trials had to begin immediately. Since the beginning of time, the human race has been known as nothing more than vectors, host for whatever species decided to use us for its purposes. Whether it was a virus germinating in its host or an extraterrestrial grafting its DNA onto ours, humans have always been the most ideally compatible subjects. Sadly, instead of these alterations to our basic nucleic structure leading to outstanding scientific achievements, they instead led to horrific outcomes. DNA splicing became a way for those who could not survive outside the republic’s reach to even the score against more powerful and heavily armed militia.

Case in point, I was given some information earlier today by one of my aides about several bodies that have been found. They were people that went missing over the last few weeks. Though this normally isn’t something that would concern my department, there are some peculiar things about these cases. For one, each person had chunks of their throats ripped away, like something bit into them. At first I believed a wild animal did this, but an animal wouldn’t have stopped at simply ripping out a chunk of the throat. The entire body would have been mauled. Also, all the blood had been drained from the bodies.

Some eyewitnesses stated they saw what was responsible. They claim that beings called Blood Eaters or Hemophages committed these acts. These Blood Eaters are some of the altered humans, or Chimera, who’d been genetically spliced. Their ravenous desire to consume blood is driven by a drop in their hemoglobin levels and their only option of survival is to consume the fresh blood of others. Their street name seems much more fitting…Vampires.

These Vampires are among the many Chimera running amuck in the world. I should know. I created them. It is a part of my plan, unleashing a violent horror upon the world and causing so much fear and chaos that people would seek out something that they feel would give them an edge against these monsters. That’s where faith comes in. I believed that by inducing fear and making society believe in things so evil that they would look to whatever teachings existed that would provide them a degree of security. Believing that there was something more powerful than the monsters that could tear them apart was the only thing left for the struggling poor and weak.

The food shortage, along with the spike in diseases, has caused many people to resort to desperate acts. In fact, the government has been spraying chemicals in the upper atmosphere in order to quell some of the violent behaviors in the more savage areas of the country. I’d also heard the government was experimenting with a genetic virus, trying to promote the next evolutionary stage of super soldiers to fuel their totalitarian army. There was also talk of this virus being released on a certain populace of the people in order to study its effects. They were trying to maintain control, while I was trying to start a revolution.

My clinical trials increased by grafting other creatures onto human DNA. It was a process started by my predecessor, Doctor Jonathan Hackstein, who believed he could create wolf-like creatures by grafting the canine cells onto human DNA. He could create an army of wolf-like soldiers that would do what they were told. With decades of findings, I was able to see his idea take flight. Now, these same wolf creatures I call Lycanthropes run in packs patrolling the populace and protecting the helpless. The elegance in their strides, the power in their gaze, even the feral smell they emit is a wonder to behold. The good doctor would be extremely proud if he were still here today.

Despite all these scientific advancements, it was sad to admit that the entire world had gone mad, but that was a good thing for me. Soon, all of the world would be hungry for something powerful to believe in. Fear will grip their lives and they will shiver and shake with horror while hoping all the while that something will come down from the heavens and save them. Only then will I reveal my big solution, the one thing that will bring forth an idea that will turn this world on its ear and force us to honor our more gentle ways.

However, there is one interesting theory that could throw a monkey wrench in my plans. If the Mystics were real, then there is a chance they are still out there, somewhere. There was still so much for me to learn about this concept of faith. As a man of science, it would be the find of a lifetime if I were to discover and bring back these Mystics. It would be even more interesting to discover what impact they would have on the world. Would this world be a better place if everyone had faith? This is a big and dangerous universe. Would it be so bad to know that someone or something we couldn’t understand was watching over us?

Nevertheless, science prevails. I’d been taught that matter cannot be destroyed. It can, however, be changed and if that is the case the matter that constituted the Mystics should still be out there waiting to be reconstituted into its original form. Perhaps the Mystics weren’t wiped out but, in fact, changed into creatures that are unrecognizable. Maybe they’ve become human or perhaps they are the creatures we created that people are reporting as monsters. I believe there is something to this theory and perhaps this is what it means to have faith, believing in something that has yet to be scientifically proven.

In the meantime, I will continue my research. If the Mystics did exist, maybe they can be brought back by simply trying to reach out to them. Perhaps this thing called faith is a two way street. The only way to restore things as Hajj mentioned was to bring back the Mystics. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, but it was hard to fathom life being any worse than it is now. I will continue my search for the woman named Vanifera as well as my research on the power of faith.

End of journal entry.

Clorian

It was a cold night but the air wasn’t just nippy. It had a clammy feel to it and the scent of death hung heavy in the bitter gusts. The rancid stench of something rotting was especially pungent, as if I were standing next to a corpse that had been decomposing for over a week. However, this was not the smell of decay. This was the scent of a fresh kill, the kind that has a salty, yet metallic essence to it. The older smell was from the prey we were tracking, the person who committed murder only a few hours ago.

I could smell as well as taste the presence of the fresh blood of his victims in the air, along with the stench of eviscerated intestines that splattered its contents across our quarry’s clothes. This monster had been on the loose for quite some time, killing the helpless for sport. Yet, it would appear his rampage was at an end. When this night was over, I was determined to add another