The Power of Glory

The war ended weeks ago, but the fires left over from the battles continued burning as if to celebrate the devastating losses of millions of humans across the globe. To rub it in survivor faces, to remind us that we could be next at any point.

They called themselves Agents of Doom, and we never saw the attacks coming.

I remember when I was a child, hiding in the basement due to a tornado warning in the area, and I clutched my mother's arm with as much force as small hands in terror could manage. She sang softly as the fierce winds slammed debris against our home, and I worried aloud about our house being gone when the tornado was done tearing through the countryside.

My father, at that point, took me from my mother and walked me upstairs to look at the power of nature. We watched the dark gray sky churn angrily together and he squeezed my hand.

"It's devastating, but nature deems it necessary. Sometimes, what the world decides is necessary isn't a personal truth. In those times, you need to find your own power to overcome the truths others destroy the world with." He pulled a small, heart-shaped locket from his jeans pocket and placed it in my little palm. "Let this be your power, Glory, and let power be your peace."

I sat in the basement of my home, clutching the necklace over twenty years later, grieving his and my mother's deaths in the wars started by the Agents of Doom. "Let power be your peace," I whispered, opening my now-larger palm to look at the aged thing. I had so many memories with this necklace; I wore it when I graduated middle and high school, in plays, and I wore it when I came home for the final time after my six years in the military.

They'd find me eventually. My father's words kept echoing in my head, and I focused hard on them as I popped open the locket. Let this be your power, Glory, and let power be your peace.

I suppose I expected something grand when I opened it, but I knew that in all my years of owning it, I'd never kept a single thing inside the locket. Something about this moment felt like the locket would come into play, but it wasn't. I just saw the empty, carelessly designed insides that might be large enough for a pebble, and snapped the locket closed. I secured it around my neck and stood from the basement floor, knowing I couldn't camp out forever.

Having dug out plenty of old military wear of mine, I dressed like a soldier, and I felt the strength of my past battles rising up to give me the strength I needed to venture into the newly destroyed world owned and dictated by the Agents. The explosions and fire raining from the sky brought back plenty of unpleasant memories, but my need to be stronger than what the world wanted to do only grew as I slipped my old uniform on. I had no idea if I would make it out alive or not, but I decided that if I died, I’d die trying instead of hiding.

Arming myself with ammo, my two pistols, and knives slipped down into my combat boots, I headed up the stairs and felt the locket around my neck warming against my skin. Approaching the front door cautiously, feeling my tattered home shudder with a distant explosion, I held the locket for a moment and closed my eyes.

“Power is my peace.”

I spoke the words aloud to myself before kicking my front door open, dramatically entering the fire-ridden land around me, and watched as survivors coated in soot rushed their young children down the roads.

“They’re coming!” a woman shouted at me, terror blazing brighter in her eyes than the reflections of the flames.

“I know.”

I stepped out into the street and walked in the opposite direction of the survivors, knowing I could never face an entire army by myself, but I was more at peace approaching my fate with all the power in the world savored by the heart on my chest, and the one within. There were no more nerves about death. I just wanted justice, however it ended.

Expecting to encounter the Agents quickly, I withdrew one pistol as I walked, and shouted in surprise as it began to melt in my hand. I dropped it immediately, looking for signs of damage on my hand and found none.

I watched the pistol cease melting as soon as it hit the ground. Bending down slowly, keeping my peripheral vision on point to watch for Agents, I placed my hand on the pistol again and watched it continue melting. I pulled my hand away, and it stopped at once. It felt no different than touching cool water.

This wouldn’t work. If my hands were suddenly melting weapons, I wasn’t going to have any chance against anyone I fought. And if life were making me think words like “my hands were suddenly melting weapons” I figured I must have lost my mind in that basement at some point. I went to pull a knife out instead, a complete lack of surprise in being greeted with the same melting experience the pistol endured in my grasp. I dropped it, frustrated, and pulled a pair of gloves from my pants pocket. Not wanting to ruin my last gun, I pulled the other knife out. It melted.

Throwing the gloves and melted knife to the ground angrily, I stared at my palms trying to figure out what had happened. Radioactivity in the area? Was I about to become some kind of superhero?

No sooner than the thought crossed my mind, I felt the locket turning icy cold against my chest and gasped at the shock of the cold. I’d never felt anything like it. I ripped open my jacket and yanked my black tee down, seeing the locket frost over on its own, even surrounded by ashes and embers that kept the air heated past normal temperatures for the season. I stared in wonder as the ice spread from the metal to my chest, and a sudden pain overtook my entire body.

I screamed, dropped to my knees, clutching at the locket with desperation but having no success in moving it as the ice crept across every last inch of my flesh. As soon as it finished forming its lightning-like pattern, the ice sank into my skin and turned black, leaving behind a free full-body tattoo.

Sitting in the middle of the street, staring in awe at my hands and chest, I crawled over to an abandoned car and gazed into the side mirror. What had originally looked like icy lightning strikes were now blackened ink across my cheeks and forehead, making me look like a tattooed supernatural warrior. It was delightful to take in my new appearance at the moment. I looked down at the locket again, knowing it had something to do with this sudden change.

It was open. I hadn’t opened it. In the very center was a small, swirling white light, which I touched gingerly with my fingertip. I heard my father’s voice booming around me.

“You have your power, now make your peace.”

The light vanished, and my body ignited in flames along the lines of the ink. I couldn’t feel them. I just felt alive.

I stood slowly, a sort of trance coming over my body as I removed my army jacket and walked toward where I knew the Agents were. I didn’t need weapons. I was the weapon.

Turning a street corner slowly, I noticed a stray Agent on her own, armed with weapons I’d never seen in my time in the military. Whatever the people creating all of the Doom were doing behind closed doors, they’d obviously had massive success, but I couldn’t imagine any of her weapons having an impact on a body bursting into flames.

I approached her with a smirk, feeling confident that this battle would end my way.

She turned, hearing my footsteps, and spoke into a wrist device: “Found a survivor but they’ll be dead any minute, they’re on fire.”

A crackled voice replied, “Then keep moving.”

As I got closer, the fear on her face became more evident. She spoke into her wrist device again. “Sir, the survivor is still approaching on fire.”

“Then take them out and move on, this isn’t a game Georgia.”

I stopped and tilted my head. “Georgia, is it?”

She trembled at my obvious lack of reaction to being on fire, pulling a futuristic weapon up and aiming directly at me. The resemblance to a rifle was mildly present, but additional tubing and small glowing blue gems were laced throughout the design. I listened to a whirring sound that was followed by a ball of black, crackling energy, and she shouted, “I’m warning you, you’re an Undesired and you will be eliminated!”

Pulling the trigger, I watched the black energies come at me in slow motion. I placed the palm of my left hand against my locket while my right hand raised up; the energy hit my right palm and I stumbled slightly, feeling the energy soak into me and giving me more power to work with. The flames on my body intensified.

I smirked again.

“It was nice to meet you, Georgia.”

Throwing my body forward with every ounce of strength I possessed, I tackled her to the ground, hoping to watch the flames on my body consume her until she was the one left dead in the road. Instead, the flames on my body snuffed out, and I quickly threw my hands around her throat in case I’d lost my protection; I had no weapons besides ensuring I cut off her air supply and I still didn’t understand what power this was that seemed to come from my father and his gift.

As soon as my flesh came into contact with hers, I watched her eyes turn solid black. I gasped and threw myself off of her as she trembled into a full-blown convulsion, quietly concerned about just how badly I’d harmed another human being, even though she had been trying to kill me moments ago. It's not like this was my first time trying to kill someone, so my emotional reaction surprised me as I grasped my locket again.

Her body ceased movement and I scrambled over to her, checking for a pulse, when she gasped and sat up. I noticed her eyes were now blue.

“You saved me.” Georgia spoke quietly, breathlessly. “How did you do it?”

“I have no idea,” I replied honestly, examining my hands. “What do you mean, I saved you? We were about to kill each other.”

“No.” Her chin trembled as her emotions started to rise with the words she shared. “Agents are all enchanted, they have access to things you’d never believe, they told us there’s no cure once we take the serum that gave us advanced senses. But you just cured me. I feel like me.” A tear glistened as she looked at me in awe.

I reached a hand out and touched her knee comfortingly. “I don’t understand this entirely, but I think I know what needs to happen now. We need to cure more Agents. Will you help me?”

My power would bring peace. I understood what my father once said a lot more than I used to, and I smiled at the joy I knew he would be experiencing seeing me go to war to save lives rather than destroy them.

“Who are you?”

I shrugged.

“I am Glory.”