Young Writers Society

I'm in high school and I've been trying to write my own novel. Here's what I have written so far.. Please let me know what you think of it, good or bad, how I can improve it, and if you found anything out of place or confusing....

Also note that the character narrating the prologue and the boy in the main chapter are 2 different people.

THE ACHERON CHRONICLES

By Joe McCreavy

“The mind is its own place and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven,”

-John Milton, Paradise Lost

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Prologue: Deus Ex Machina

(New York City - January 1st, 1933)

I don’t regret killing them. They all deserved to die… Every single one. Unfortunately, however, my brethren fail to see the prospects of my actions. I was just doing my job after all. My purpose, my very reason for existing, has always been to watch over this land and its inhabitants as one of its guardians. And so, naturally, a little discipline may be in order here and there…

I now find myself forsaken and humiliated, no longer among the eternal beings who uphold the peace and order. One less star in the night sky. Shunned from the Kingdom and cast away into a realm of darkness slithering with the foulest and vilest creatures in existence: Humans.

Forced to live among the savages I have learned to detest and resent with an icy passion. Let the punishment fit the crime I suppose… But in all honesty, what wrong have I committed? As Death’s Messenger, the task placed upon me had been to judge the souls of humanity according to the deeds conducted in their lifetime, and then provide a suitable placement for them in the next world. That’s how it’s always been. Somewhere in these recent centuries though, the scale tipped… Balance was lost… I found myself banishing more and more of these ungrateful shits to an eternity of damnation and misery for outrageously devious crimes. We gave them the gift of life and they spat in our faces… We gave them a paradise and they tore it apart… With every passing day, the revolting greed and lust of mankind disgusted me to no end. I ultimately decided that these atrocities mustn’t be allowed to continue. Something had to be done immediately. Being the judge and jury wasn’t enough. I needed to take up the role of executioner.

I did it with the best of intentions. Was I not constructed to protect this world from those who wish to do it harm, my dear Creator? Why have you abandoned me? Everything I did, I did in your honor. Is this my reward for distributing justice: Exile from your dominion?

After eons of serving as a soldier in the army of righteousness, for the very first time I feel lost and confused. Nothing makes any sense to me now. Everything I have ever known has been pulled out from beneath my feet.

I’ve been left completely alienated in this hostile world. I can’t even find the strength to lift my sword. The rain pounds violently against my armor as thunder and lightning clashes in the heavens above me…An echo of my Creator’s wrath.

In the midst of this storm, I sit upon the torch held in the outstretched hand of this colossal statue. A symbol of Liberty built by the humans. I glance across the harbor at the city giving off tremendous light in the darkness. It reminds me of home.

Am I wrong? Have I truly fallen from grace? Have I become a mirror image of the Morningstar? I don’t know who I am anymore… I don’t know what to think or what to do… What will become of me? Am I doomed to wander the Earth aimlessly until the end of time?

No. I refuse to accept this fate. Whether my Creator acknowledges it or not, I am still the Angel of Death. Maybe this whole thing isn’t so bad after all… Now I’m free. Just like what this monument represents; freedom… I’m free to do whatever I want. I don’t need to them… I’ll follow my own path and fulfill my own destiny.

After all, this is New York City. If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere…

Chapter One

(December 2nd, 2099)

The cold tile floor was hardly a substitute for the warm bed the young man preferred. As he lay there in the remains of the abandoned chapel, the morning sunlight pierced through the shattered stain glass windows and blazed down upon him. Irritated by the glow, he turned over onto his side, realized the sun wasn’t going to let him be, and then slowly began to sit up.

Scratching his head in a daze, he gathered his thoughts and remembered where he was. His eyes slowly adjusting to the brightness, he glanced around what had once been a beautiful catholic church. He was sitting up at the front of the shrine, where the priest would have spoken to the Sunday morning audience and performed communion. The building was gargantuan and several hundred people could have attended mass there every week.

But that would have been a long time ago. Decades. No one had been here in ages. Dust and cobwebs seemed to occupy every square inch of the church. Now, this supposed ‘House of God’ only served as a shelter for spiders and vermin, as well as a refuge for the young teen who had stumbled inside during the storm that evening. Drowsy as he was, the boy noticed that a small puddle had formed nearby from the rain leaking in through the crevasses in the ceiling. He leaned towards it and began to lightly splash his face.

Staring back at him through the rippling pool of water was a 16 year old boy. He donned a head of messy, unkempt and uncut brown hair and a pair of icy blue eyes. Both of his ears were pierced and it was evident that a razor hadn’t touched his face within the last few days. A silver locket dangled from his neck, the chain rusted and corroded. His expression in the puddle was blank and apathetic.

He cleaned off his damp hands on his greasy white T-shirt, then turned around and grabbed his worn-out, raggedy backpack that he had tossed aside upon entering the church. After unzipping it, he pulled out his black leather jacket and quickly slid it on. Reaching further into his pack, he retrieved a second item; A sleek, silver pistol. He examined it, turning it over in his hands. The revolver could hold up to twelve rounds. Within this gun, eleven shots remained. One had been fired already.

He tucked the pistol into the back of his pants and concealed it with the end of his jacket. Peering into his bag again, he observed several other personal possessions of his: A Swiss-Army knife and dropped it into his pants pocket… Looking into the bag again, another object caught his eye. Giving a heavy sign, he slowly reached in and pulled it out, holding it level with his face.

It was a child’s toy; A stuffed elephant. It was a purplish-pink color, faded with age. It had been torn and sewn together many times, patched stitched all of its petit body. The boy stared at it for a long time.

Shaking back into reality, he placed the elephant back into his bag. The boy got to his feet and slung his backpack over his shoulders. As he did, he could feel something rolling around in his coat pocket. He reached in and pulled it out.

It was a fortune cookie, somewhat squished with bits and pieces of it chipping off. Curious, he began to break it apart. A tiny slip of paper slid out into his hand and he unfolded it. Printed on it in bold black letters was:

“IF YOU’RE GOING THROUGH HELL, KEEP ON GOING!”

He closed his hand around the fortune tightly before placing it inside his empty locket and shutting it inside. Then, after taking a long, deep breath, he made his way towards the end of the church, pushed the large wooden doors apart and stepped outside into the ruins of New York City.

The boy shielded his eyes from the sudden burst of daylight. Squinting, he noticed a nearby sign, half embedded in the dirt, indicating that this was Staten Island. Or at least what was left of it. Stepping down from the stones steps outside the church, dust kicked up as his muddy hi-tops planted themselves into the soil. He could only speculate what this place could have been like before the war. Old timers usually whispered something about this city being known as ‘The Big Apple’. All it seemed to be now was a discarded, rotten core, withering away more and more as the days went on. However, if the rumors were true, then he was close to the place he was seeking…

Ahead of him was a debris ridden street. A flock of crows took off flapping in all directions at his sudden appearance. Aside from them, he was all alone in this dead, ghost town. It had been like this since before he was born and it would remain forgotten forever. The nukes made sure of that.

The metropolis known as New York City had been swallowed by the atomic fires of the Third World War. Buildings had been knocked down in the midst of the explosive shockwaves, toppling over any neighboring structures like oversized, concrete dominos. Loads of destroyed cars and other vehicles lay abandoned by their drivers in the streets. The boy could picture the stampede of panicking citizens running in the opposite direction of the blast, feebly attempting to escape the inferno.

As the boy stood outside the decimated church, he noticed a cemetery had been built nearby. A sea of tombstones, which had been reduced to mere piles of rubble, seemed to stretch on as far as the eye could see No one had come to visit them in years. No one had come to leave flowers or mourn their loved ones. Corpses of family members lay forgotten within the earth as did the town they once inhabited.

In the middle of the graveyard, something caught the young man’s attention. Towering over the rubble and debris was a statue. Although it had taken damage from the catastrophe that had befallen the city, it had somehow managed to stay in a good enough shape to appear mesmerizing before him. The statue was of a tall man, dressed in robes, holding up a long sword triumphantly. His long, curly hair flowed frozen in stone. His face, chipped and cracked, had still retained a look of bravery and courage even as it had begun to wither away.

A pair of long, feathery wings stretched out tremendously over the statue, as if they were ready to wave down and take off into the sky. He could only wonder what had kept them from crumble into pieces over the last few years. Inscribed on a plaque beneath the statue was: THE ARCHANGEL – SAINT MICHAEL

The statue looked as if it had been placed there to watch over those who had passed away, as a shepherd watches over and protects his flock, guiding them towards a higher plain of existence; The Afterlife.

The boy sneered at it. It was another desperate attempt of mankind to implore some kind of reason and hope into this twisted world. People wanted to have faith in something. They wanted to believe that there was more to the world then the chaos and bloodlust that took place everyday all across the glove. And so people invented God.

But the teen did not believe in God. He believed, plain and simple, that some people are able to endure the trials of life and manage to stay alive, while others, no matter how futilely they struggle or squirm against their fate, do not. Survival of the fittest. That was all.

Wasting no more time, the boy turned and headed down the road that awaited him. This place reeked of death and decay, as did the destroyed New Jersey he had ventured through only days earlier. The boy kept moving towards the north. His destination was even closer now; he could sense it. It was as if some kind of invisible force drew him into that direction like a magnet. Something deep inside him, though he knew not what it was, urged him onward…