It blinked its fierce eyes as it shifted its gaze from one scene to the next. The time had almost come for the act to take place. The countdown began, feeding on the force of its rage and anger as the eye’s focus turned to the tall girl dressed in pure silken gown who sat ever near the water’s edge. Her tears fell, causing a ripple effect which went on for a moment only to fade away as had her cries for help in the night, and because of that she also was angry.
A fish surfaced belly up in the hour when day and night embraced each other in loving embrace, only the embrace of night seemed more constraining, forcing from day her very breath. A rough wind began, causing her gown to whip about her forcefully as she brought herself to her feet. She was nearly blown away by the force. In that moment also, birds began to take flight from the brush and trees and she knew without a doubt that something was about to go terribly wrong.
The countdown reached zero and the ground upon which she stood was destroyed by the power of the collision of nuclear missiles. The last thing she saw before her body was destroyed, was the eye of the white raven as it flew down toward her and sucked into itself her spirit. And she became the white raven.
The white raven was the symbol of their society. The society of the United World after the fourth world war.
It had been assumed that after the missiles collided, nothing would be left and that no one would survive. As it turned out however, people did survive.—if it could even be considered surviving.
Two thirds of the world’s population was destroyed. Completely destroyed. That included mothers, brothers, fathers, sisters, aunts, uncles and countless others within that number. Not even the third that survived made it through truly, because one half of them underwent genetic mutations that left them less than human, deformed and without any sense of right and wrong. For them it was only what was right for their collective—those that were like them and even then there was a great deal of treachery and deceit amongst their ranks.
And those that lived—those who could be said to have truly lived were left without homes and had to scavenge for what food they could find without the benefit of a set leader. That is…until the white raven selected him.
It was the white raven who had selected there king and even right away the people themselves did not accept him. There were still fights amongst themselves as well as amongst those of the badlands which made it nearly impossible to sleep without watching over your shoulder for your enemies and in some cases even those you viewed as friends.
This senseless way of life went on for two years, until the people began to come to their senses, nearly too late to save them from those of the badlands who sought to pose war against them. But on the night when they were to attack, the people had been ready and had come together under their king, mustering enough power to drive those of the badlands back behind the mountain which was their marker.
They did this only to find that on the next day the raven was nowhere to be found.
They searched high and low for the white raven until the day when a boy found the white raven, dead, four eggs beneath her wings.
Immediately after this discovery, the eggs were taken to be protected; with the thought in mind that the lack of their presence would eventually mean that the people would forget her. And as they had said, so it happened. The years passed and after twenty years the white raven was forgotten, left to be nothing but a myth through The Community.
The eggs eventually hatched, and that was kept a secret also and they all continued to stay on in their same place—all that is except one. Only three of the four turned out to have their mother’s power, but one of the three was more powerful than all the rest and so consumed the powers of one of the others. Concerned for the safety of the weaker white raven, they took the stronger to a place to be cared for where he would no longer be any danger to his sisters.
