HavenGuarde

Chapter 2 - HavenGuarde

Chapter 2

HavenGuarde

- And they settled down, in vast towering citadels, in grim uncertainty -

Twelve years later...

The boy ran.

Knowing the streets like the back of his hand, he raced ahead of his pursuers.

I am like the wind, he thought. And today, even the wind cannot catch me.

Born on the eve of the Great Flare, Thonavar Ironhand was said to be cursed. This was also due to the strange pigmentation in Thonavar's hair; for Thonavar's hair, though predominantly black, had streaks of pearly white. He had little to no friends. The children in the neighbourhood mainly avoided him. His parents had come by ship to HavenGuarde, along with the multitudes of refugees that poured in from all over the earth. Hasty settlements had to be built for the teeming masses, and for the many more that were still streaming in, eager to escape the terror that had engulfed the world. Thonavar's family was given a crude dwelling in which to live in, having nothing in possession that was of worth to purchase a better home. They had escaped the arctic and its frozen wastes with nothing but their lives. Only five of the great host of very many ships had returned unscathed. The rest were lost at sea.

For on the day of the Great Flare, tectonic movements deep below the earth's surface and dangerously close to its molten core, subjected the earth above to a relentless series of massive earthquakes, tidal waves and ion and electric storms, of such scale and magnitude, that had altogether wreaked such a destruction upon civilisation unlike anything the world had ever seen. And as a result, the earth had been changed forever. The world had been redrawn. Its geography, weather patterns and natural landscape no longer remained the same. New lands had sprung into being, some rising from the depths of the sea, and some became submerged, forced into the dark murky depths of the deeps, lost forever. It was as if a new earth had been created, albeit a harsher and more terrifyingly beautiful one than its predecessor.

But the Unity swiftly rose to power, cruelly crushing anyone who dared oppose them. Their actions culminated in the first civil war in which tens of thousands of revolutionaries died at their hands. Those remaining were swiftly rounded up and publicly executed.

Those were dark days indeed. Fear pervaded the air like a cloud, for the Unity made a public spectacle of all executions - a clear warning intended for those who dared to entertain thoughts of rebellion. Then, once power had been consolidated, steps were taken to establish a new identity for those who had arrived, and those that were left. First, they gave the land a new name.

HavenGuarde.

It was a new start. The displaced, wandering and war-weary peoples whose eyes had witnessed considerable death and destruction would finally experience peace. For they reasoned, and with good measure, that the chaos of the outside world would not reach them within the city's high and lofty walls.

Imprisoned, frustrated, restless, constrained and claustrophobic but, alas, this was the price of a future unblemished by the prospect of unrest and uncertainty. Within the mighty citadel they would survive. Broadcasts and playback screens constructed in every corner, street, college, building and at every level of cityscape fed the peoples with their daily dose of government-endorsed information. Harsh, almost draconian measures aimed at dissidents were taken, swiftly quashing any inkling of rebellion or uprising. The static prisons were full of idealistic and innocent troublemakers and the wardens who guarded them were given strong mandates to ensure they never left.