Beyond Boundaries.

Beyond the boundaries of the galaxy, it formed.
Tiny and irrelevant pieces of dust bonding together, forming their complex dance around each others tiny gravity to bring more complex forms together.
The time was endless and eternal.
An eon, an age, a generation, time itself, all these things meant nothing.
And then in the boiling fury of the new, a spark awoke and was aware.
And there was meaning in time.

Forever is an unnattainable concept to anything that is finite. No matter how you try you cannot comprehend.
Yet it felt like forever, an eternity of nothing, of growing ever larger, piece by piece. A voice that did not speak, a mind that did not think, a soul? All these things were of it and none.
Size was unknown, how can you know size when you are the only thing? And yet it grew, and more than that, it grew angry.
Across the gulf and vastness that was the universe another like it achieved more. There was more to it than rock, there were sparks that danced across it. And in the growing, a sound was made and the sound travelled. For millions of years it travelled.
At the fringe of all, the angry awaited. Now it knew it was not alone. But it was alone. How could another like it achieve what it could not?
Then it knew will. Then it knew purpose.
Then it planned.

And now, It Comes.






End of the Prologue

Desert Down

Albert "Jolly" Trasbiis lightly touched the controls on the Black Hawk, turning the machine to the north. His co-pilot, Jacky Wilkes, stared out of the window at the desert - bored again. Albert couldn't understand how the man could be bored. He'd only just been shipped out to Afghanistan, a replacement for Albert's former co, who'd been killed by a snake - of all things.
It was only the second day of deplyment for Wilkes, and he should have still been interested at the landscape around them.
"What's up with you?"
"I fucking hate this country, it's hot, dry and I miss my wife."
"We all miss our wives man, don't sweat it."
"Easy for you to say. My wife is twenty two, body like a pornstar and the libido of a nymphomaniac. If I don't get home soon, she'll have fucked the entire male population of Chicago by the time I get home!"
Albert rolled his eyes, everybody had a reason to get back. A nympho wife was a good one, but other guys missed their kids, a couple were single parents who'd had to leave the rugrats with the grandparents. He couldn't feel that bad for the guy.
In the back were the rest of the crew, as his thoughts drifted to them, the alarm sounded. There was just enough time for him to hear Wilkes yell "Fuck. RPG, three-o-clock!" before something exploded at the tail rotor.
Alarms began to blare out like a crazed electronic concert as the helicopter began to spin. Wilkes was screaming and being no help, so Albert was forced to attempt the landing by himself. The ground came up to meet them at a hundred miles an hour and the world came to a stop by his nose in a screech of rending metal and the screams of mutilated men.

Albert awoke in enormous pain, he could see his legs were crushed and trapped uunder the weight of the console which had been slammed into them by the force of the crash.
Looking to his left he could see Wilkes' head had been damned near ripped from his shoulders, he couldn't make out anything behind him, but there was no movement from the crew, he thought they must all be dead.
All the moving about had exhausted him and he passed out.

When he woke again he could hear shouting from outside, Arabic, angry sounding and there was the familiar noise of an AK being cocked.
Albert was feeling weak, the slight warmth he had felt low down earlier was now cold and he realised that he was bleeding to death while he sat there. He felt very light-headed and was almost relieved when a bearded face peered through the smashed windscreen.
"How ya doing?"
The man spat at him then turned to look at Wilkes' body. Then he laughed.
"Funny fucker, ain't ya? I love a good joke. Told one so funny my buddy here laughed his head damn near clean off."
The man stared at him, then in clear English said "That was some joke. Here is another. We will burn this flying machine of hate, and cook you inside. How is that for funny, fucker?"
Albert stared for a moment then began to laugh wildly, insanely and unstoppably. The tears ran down his face and his cheeks hurt. Air could not get into his lungs and he thought he might actually die laughing.
The man stared at him and his expression of confusion spurred Albert to laugh even harder.
Then a noise from the left made him look. Wilkes' arms were patting about, as if looking for his head. When they found it they settled it back in place and grunted.
The Afghani man screamed in horror and emptied his clip into Wilkes' already ruined body.
"Would you stop that?" asked Wilkes "This day has been really shitty so far. You aren't helping."
The man screamed as Wilkes wormed his ruined body out of the harness and across the cockpit before ramming a piece of metal into the man's eye.
"He was really annoying. Stop laughing would you?"
Albert had continued to laugh the whole time, and Wilkes' hurt expression made it even worse. He could feel himself losing conciousness again, this time he suspected it would be his last time. The final sight he had in the world was of Wilkes' put-upon expression as the man said "You can't leave me here in the desert like this. I just died and I fucking hate the desert!"

Bubba's Bad Day

The water from the tap dribbled out over Bubba's huge hands. The blood was taking some time to come off. But that was fine, the rest of the crew would keep any guards from coming in until he was done. Sparing a glance for the corpse of the mouthy limey, he started to whistle as he scrubbed.
The guy had been a royal pain in the ass on his first day in. Damn psychopath had shredded his girl on a street or somesuch. Kept going on about how he wasn't meant to be in New York, how he'd been a London boy born and bred and never left. Well fuck that fool, anyone who doesn't respect Bubba's need to eat their food doesn't get to keep breathing. Prick had even been given two warnings, one more than normal on account of his being a limey, keeping up relations and all.
Then last night the stupid fuck had bumped into him on the stairs and not stopped to grovel his apologies. Somehow he still thought he was the big everything.
Well, a shiv through the ribs and into his measly little heart had put paid to that idea, and ended any others he might ever have had.
As he shut the water off, Bubba turned for a last look at the fool. His eyes widened in utter shock as the guy was stood there staring pure hatred in his direction.
"I get launched across the world. The best little cocksucker I ever found who also liked it up her arse explodes all over one of my best suits. You Yankee fucks put me in this shithole. And then a big bald, fat black fuckstick stabs me with a fucking sharpened toothbrush? Do you know what, I've fucking had it. First I'm going to kill you, you useless skin wearing lump of shit, then I'm leaving this fucking place and taking as many as want out with me. But not you. Because you'll be dead."
Bubba's mind raced, the guy was dead, he had been sure of it. How could he have missed, it's not like this was his first stop at the kill-all-you-can eat buffet.
"Hey man, how the fuck?" But Bubba never got an answer, instead he got his own weapon returned at speed through his right eyeball. And unlike Mike, he wasn't going to stand back up after it.

Ten minutes later, six more dead cons from Bubba's gang behind him, Mike led the rest of the prison towards the main gate. Most of the guards had fled after shooting him to pieces, only to see his grinning face staring out behind a mask of blood as his shredded skin flaps sewed themselves back together and then he pointed in their direction.

One hour later, two thousand of New York's most dangerous were loose on the streets and Mike was heading to JFK. Ten thousand dollars in cash in his pocket and a fresh suit, courtesy of a lawyer who had really been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"I'm coming home." Mike muttered to himself, "I'm going to find out who sent me here and I'm going to fuck them up something chronic."
The reason behind his miraculous survival didn't bother him. He was alive, many other people weren't, that was all that counted.
Mike wasn't a nice guy before. But now immortal and angry, there wasn't a person on the planet you want to meet less in any circumstances.