Apocalypse Book 1

Dom’s heart was pounding through his chest, and sweat rolled down his face as he raced forward through the narrow tunnel. Just a few lights along the long tube illuminated the way forward. His prey was just ahead. It had taken so long to get this far, and he had abandoned and forsaken all to apprehend his foe. Dom was the hunter chasing his prize, getting closer, and no one would stop him now. He yelled at the top of his lungs. “Stop where you are! Or I will blast you two out of sight!”
No answer, and the two fugitives ahead kept on running. Dom did not actually intend to shoot them. He needed his prey alive. He needed to interrogate them to find out the answers to the questions he had. All the answers Dom needed were in his adversaries’ heads. Dom’s partner, Jack, fell behind as Dom picked up the pace. He could hear Jack yell, “Dom! Wait up! Don’t go it alone! They may have reinforcements!” Dom picked up speed. He was close—so close he could hear his prey’s footsteps ahead. Their boots made a rhythmic thumping noise; they were in synch with each other in a military marching cadence at high speed. Dom’s thumping footsteps matched their beat. The two were almost within his reach.
The heat was unbearable. They were in a small utility tunnel. The humidity must have been one hundred percent and the temperature over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. The tunnel walls were lined with pipes that radiated more heat, adding to the already unbearable temperature. Dom’s clothes were soaked with so much sweat it looked as if he had been caught in a thunderstorm. Just a little more. He was just within arm’s length of the two fugitives when a bright light shattered the darkness, bathing the tunnel in pure white with the intensity of the sun’s light. Raising his hands to his eyes, he was blinded, but he continued to run at full speed. Dom veered slightly to the left and brushed against one of the super-heated pipes. “Arrrghhhh!” Losing his balance and falling face first, Dom tumbled for about fifteen feet before he skidded to a stop. Dazed, he squinted his eyes. The tunnel still reverberated with the blinding white light. He called out to his partner who should be just behind him now, “Jack! Jack! Where are you?” No answer. Did they somehow get his partner from behind?
Dom no longer heard the footsteps of his prey ahead or his partner behind him. There was just an eerie silence. The light was blinding, yet warm and comfortable. An intense feeling of peace and calm came over Dom. Then a loud voice seemed to come from everywhere all at once. It was a male voice, deep and resonating with strength, and something else—an emotion filled with a pang of sorrow. Dom couldn’t make out the sound; it was muffled somehow. The words were spoken clearly, but his mind could not process them to make any sense. The light intensity grew stronger and stronger as it blazed through Dom’s closed eyelids. Then, from a state of pure blinding white, everything went black. Dom descended into cold, dark, blackness void of light, sound, and smell. His sense of touch was even rendered useless. All of his senses were gone, and he was floating in a sea of nothingness. A fear came over him that was like nothing he had ever felt before in his life. It was as if all the world had disappeared, and he was left alone in darkness. Madness, despair, and hopelessness came crashing over him.
Dom woke up yelling, “Aaaargh! Make it stop!” His face was dripping wet, and his blanket lay crumpled on the floor, thrown off during his nightmare. It had seemed so real. Dom sat at the side of his bed, his hands shaking from the dream. He said to himself, as he had on many occasions when he’d had this same nightmare, “It’s just a dream, Dom. It’s just a dream.”
Dom’s mind wandered. How did it all come to this? The way we live now like robots. Is this all life will be for me? Born and raised to a predetermined position in life. And what a life he lived. Simon Christopher Halos (also known as Dom), catcher of criminals—judge, jury, and executioner.
Dom levered himself up from his bed a bit more slowly than usual that morning. His forty-year-old body wasn’t what it used to be. Standing nearly six feet tall with two hundred pounds of toned muscle, Dom was still fit like an athlete just after his prime—only with a few extra pounds around his waist. But his years of hard living were starting to take a toll. While brushing his teeth, he looked in the mirror. His face was fair in complexion with European and a touch of Middle Eastern features. A few winkles had formed around his eyes, and his wavy, dark-brown hair had started to show a few grays around the edges. Mumbling to himself, he said, “Getting old, Dom.” He thought of how he had got to this point in his life, living alone in a small apartment. Every day was either mind-numbingly boring or potentially his last day alive. Being a detective in these times was 98 percent routine boring work chasing down leads, and the rest was total life-or-death action.
Dom jumped into the shower and let the steaming hot water rain down on him. His mind drifted to the far past, what little past he knew. He thought about what had been taught, and what he had learned from others during his years on the streets. He thought about how the old world had come to an end and how the new world—the world he now lived in—had risen.