Moot
The world ended and then we began…
Preface
From the writings of Jonah:
Date: February 14th290 ALO. (After
Lights Out).
This journal is the property
of Jonah Albert Baker, Bridge Street Bakery, New Birmingham, England.
There’s been a splutter.
That’s what the whisper is. Nearly three full
seconds they reckon.
Didn’t see or hear anything myself. Plenty of folk claiming they have though.
Davy Lockwood, the printer says he heard music
coming from somewhere. Old Days music he reckons, like before the Dark Nights.
I’m serious. Electric music.
He ain’t the only one.
Some folk are
talking about fake lights blinking on, some of them up high, shining through
the leaves and branches. Could be, no one climbs the ruins, not if they want to
keep all their limbs attached. Corp has made it very clear. Anyone caught in
the old blocks will be tried, sentenced and punished as spies. Considered to be
infiltrators from behind the walls.
Swift justice if you get me?
I got not intentions on ending up on the scaffolds.
Don’t care what’s up there.
There’s been some amazing stories.
I even heard tell a screen at the old picture house
on Lynton Street went on. Moving pictures. I’d do anything to see that, even
for a couple of seconds.
Course a lot of folk
don’t buy into it. I don’t know…
It’s been three hundred years near enough since the
lights went out, since the power failed,
since they say the world ended.
My neighbour
Joe, is an apothecary
He ain’t convinced. According to Joe even if
whatever ‘broke’ the electricity, stopped it working after the catastrophes
suddenly reversed, switched back on we still wouldn’t have power. No powers
stations you see, no source.
They were all destroyed in the floods, and even if
they weren’t they’d need to have fuel burning, something to light the spark.
Not possible… he reckons.
I’m not so sure. We know in the old days they used
all sorts of stuff to make the power; wind, sun, waves even. There’s still Old
Days generators here and there… so why not?
Perhaps the old God had a change of heart after all
this time, if only for three seconds.
Coffee shops are buzzin with rumours. Some folk
reckon is all a trick. A Corp trick. To keep people guessing, keep, people
scared. Folks are waking up it seems. Not believing every word they read in the
Corp rags, starting to dare to dream there might be a light on the horizon, an
end to the purgatory.
I’m not holding my breath.
Whole lot of people think it’s The Clans. Making
trouble again.
Can’t be. There’s been no sign of them lot for
nearly a century. Lots of folk don’t even believe they’re still out there,
killed off by infighting some say. Course others think they were massacred by
the others…them in the forest.
Me? I’m sure the Clans are still going. Not just
pockets of outlaws mind, I mean the actual Clans. They’re alive…I’m sure of it,
but this splutter talk ain’t down to them, don’t feel right. Not their thing.
One thing’s for certain, the army’s ridden North.
Nearly a thousand of them I heard.
Now why do you suppose a force like that would
leave the walls of New Birmingham? It’s the splutter, got to be.
We all heard the histories. We all know about the
bunkers. They’re looking for signs. Lector Hollow smells gold!
He can have it. As far as I’m concerned what’s buried
should stay buried. Them bunkers have been sealed for three hundred years.
Nobody knows what’s inside. If that’s what them soldiers are looking for I pity
them.
I’m a man of the Gods, I think if you go opening
tombs, you should expect to find nothing more than the putrid embrace of death.
Let them lie. Let them lie.
