Hypocalypse

The bell’s tolling was supposed to usher in the apocalypse. At least, that’s what they’d decided.

The statue at the top of the hill loomed high over the ground, in clear sight for miles. It did nothing but watch over the land, but many thought it to bring prosperity to the world. The soil all over was rich and crops grew in abundance. Water was plentiful and lush green covered everything in grass and forests.

The Bell never tolled—it never made a sound and it never moved. The day it did would mean the end for them. For everything.

They always refused to acknowledge the possibility of an end. They called it an apocalyptic occurrence: The Bell’s Toll would be as possible and as likely as a zombie apocalypse. Everyone laughed at the thought.

A breeze whistled through the streets, the sound filtering into the house. Alexa turned to look out the window, the trees rustling in the wind.

“It’s getting strong out there,” her mother said. “I hope it doesn’t get much worse.”

But it did, as if she’d cursed it with her words. The wind quickly picked up in violent gusts of dirt and leaves and broken twigs, strong enough to pull each from the trees they’d grown from and thrown across the land like rubbish into a dumpster.

They could hear the ferocity of it, almost felt it through the windows. Alexa’s parents stood and lifted their children to their feet, hurrying them away from the windows and into the hall. Her little sister, a clueless, three-year-old Raylee, looked up at them. “What’s wrong?”

“Stay here. Whatever happens, do not move from this spot. Can you do that?” Their father spoke to both of them, gentle hands resting on their shoulders.

“What are you doing?” their mother asked, worry lacing into her tone.

“I’m going to see how bad it is. Stay with the kids.”

He headed for the front door before she could protest, and a heavy push opened the door before he could open it himself. The air shoved through him and to the girls. Their mother stumbled and the two children fell to the floor, scrambling further into the back of the house.

The floor quaked and pushed Alexa back to the ground as she tried to stand. A loud, blaring ding echoed through the air and deafened them, as dirt made its way through the front door, down the hallway and clung to their glasses.

They couldn’t see their father anymore, couldn’t hear their mother as she screamed out for him, couldn’t see her when she forced herself to the door to find him. They couldn’t see their parents as they disappeared into the wind.

Despite their young ages, they knew what was happening. The bell was tolling, destroying their home and their town like it meant nothing. Destroying the people like they meant nothing. They crawled into the room closest to them—Raylee’s bedroom—and slammed the door shut. They’d be safer in there.

Meanwhile, the people caught outside wouldn’t be so lucky. Dirt and twigs slapped them in the face and clouded their vision. They were thrown around by the wind’s strong hands, shoving them left and right like ragdolls in the town they’d made home. It was harsh and biting as they tried to fight their way back indoors, and they forced into themselves the will to fight, to persevere, to have hope.

But with every passing minute they were stuck outside, the more their little flame of hope would flicker until they finally gave up. They stopped fighting, submitting themselves to the Bell and their hope wasn’t to reach safety anymore.

Their hope was just to survive to the end.

Alexa pulled Raylee into her arms and held her tight, slumped against the door and away from the window. She could feel her little sister trembling in her arms and hoped she couldn’t feel her shaking as well. She sunk further into the ground with every time the Bell sounded.

With each heavy toll, the air grew even more tense. Every eerie ring, every rough gust that threw them to the ground, every quake and crack of the buildings around them. They were all physical reminders of the day no one thought would ever come.

The day the ancient bell on top of the hill would toll. The day the Bell would usher in the apocalypse. But the apocalypse was unlike anything they’d expected.

Alexa wasn’t sure how long they’d spent in Raylee’s bedroom. The window had shattered, she heard the crumbling of the ceiling across the house and did everything she could to keep them both safe as they cried. They already missed their parents.

Once everything had finally calmed, the Bell had stopped tolling, the wind had died down and the ground had settled, Alexa cautiously opened the bedroom door. She peered out and watched her step as she headed into the hall, Raylee following close behind tightly clutching her hand, as if afraid she would disappear if she let go.

The ceiling had fallen in sections, leaving piles of dust and debris in their path. They navigated it carefully, pausing at the front door as they saw the destruction that lay beyond their home.

The houses were completely destroyed; windows were smashed, doors ripped from their hinges, brick walls with gaping holes. Alexa made sure her sister was as close as possible as she walked outside.

People lay face-down in the dirt, motionless and covered in bloodied cuts and bruises. She was grateful for the grime covering her lenses; the systems installed in her glasses could identify the corpses laying in the street, but she didn’t have to physically see the damage caused to them. She didn’t have to see their injuries, their pain. She didn’t have to see the brutality they suffered while she was locked indoors.

Raylee was too in shock to speak, but the filth had stuck to her glasses, too. She stumbled after Alexa, following blindly as her older sister tried to locate their parents in the destruction.

But no matter how many times she scanned the people in the streets or how much hope she had, her parents were never found. The only part of their parents located was their mother’s heart shaped locket, torn from her neck and thrown carelessly in amongst the chaos. The family photo inside was still perfectly intact.

Alexa had remained in Gazania her entire life, while Raylee was banished after a long, unknown number of years of living under someone else’s control. But Alexa had never been involved with the people in town, scared she would somehow bring them misfortune, while Raylee had perhaps been too involved. The group she’d been with, the skills she’d picked up in that time meant nothing now. The group had been exiled with her, but they blamed each other. They were no longer a united pack—it was every man for himself, now.

Raylee separated from them following an argument just after their banishment. She left her best friend behind, and that argument was the worst of them all. She could still feel the hurt in Darcy’s eyes when she cursed Raylee to hell as she walked away. Saying goodbye to Alexa was the hardest part of her expulsion, but ending what was a strong bond and genuine friendship was a close second. Darcy grew to be so important to her, taught her so much, but she needed to let go.

She hadn’t seen or heard from Darcy or the group since, and everything she’d grown to learn was useless in the destruction of what she could only refer to as a wasteland. Technology was scarce and any device she’d found was broken beyond repair. She’d been given a pack of food and water to keep her going for some time, but despite her rationing, she knew there wasn’t enough to survive much longer. A month, maximum, she thought.

The sun beat down on her, exposed copper skin burning and the rest boiling under thin fabric. Her glasses covered the world in a sheet of grey to combat the glaring rays, but the more she walked, the less there was to see.

Anything interesting happening was either back in the city, or right under her feet. The self-named Chironines roamed in their underground lair, controlling everything in Gazania from under the surface.

They’d expected the Bell’s Toll to usher in the apocalypse, but this was unexpected. They’d labelled it the Hypocalypse; an apocalypse from below. Everything that controlled them, that controlled the world, was doing it from under the surface. Everything that made the post-toll world so miserable was making it that way from underneath them. Some even suspected that the Chironines—whatever they actually were—had caused the Bell’s Toll, too.

But none of them could do anything but succumb to their power.

The area of wasted land stretched for miles; far beyond what she could see. She kept walking with hope that she’d find somewhere that would take her in, or at least fill her bag of rations and send her on her way. But the longer she spent staring out at the desert, the further her hope faltered.

Raylee kept walking, breathing laboured and steps weary. The sun was setting, the harsh rays cooled as they fell further behind the horizon and lit the sky in a beautiful pink glow. Near it was the Bell, perched peacefully on top of a hill in the distance as if it hadn’t caused major devastation to the world around it. It sat silently as if it had never tolled. Raylee’s steps stuttered until she stopped, glaring. Being exiled from Gazania was one thing, but to be exiled into such harsh conditions was another. It was the Bell’s fault for her suffering now.

But still, she found an unusual urge to go towards it, to see it up close. She wanted to find what made it toll, why it did and why it caused so much destruction. She wanted to find out how it was powerful enough to destroy everything, to kill people.

Her hand wrapped around the locket hanging from her neck. She wanted to know why the Bell killed her parents.

Raylee’s glasses brightened as her surroundings dulled in the night, and she forced herself up one more hill before she froze, staring in awe. Barren as the land was, one thing stood out. Through the skeletal trees and illuminated statistics lighting up her glasses, one building caught her eye.

It was mostly intact, a few notable cracks and fallen debris taking nothing away from the beauty of it. A large wooden cross protruded from the top of the building, the white paint chipped and timber eroded. A surge of adrenalin bolted through her, sent her down the hill and through the distance separating her from the church.

Raylee couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen one—the Chironines had knocked the remains of Gazania’s chapel down when they took over, just after the Bell’s Toll. She could barely walk back then, had barely learned to talk. Alexa would try to explain what it looked like, but her descriptions were vague and unreliable. It was probably decades ago that it was demolished, and Alexa had experienced so much in her life that the details of when she was a child were lost on her.

She understood that completely. Raylee couldn’t remember much about her life, either. Motivation sparked within her and she quickly forgot about her aching limbs, determined to get to the church. If nothing else, it would provide a roof over her head for the night.