The Beginning of An Apocalypse
Fifteen

It was sunny and then it was raining. It was light and then it was dark.

Cas stood there not being able to move. Not even realize where she was until she felt someone grabbing onto her arm.

“We’re very sorry for your loss,” They said. So many voices and people who were there but had no faces saying the same thing to her. “We’re sorry. He was too young. We’re so sorry.” they said it over and over again until they were gone. The voices were gone and Cas felt like she could breathe.

She could breathe until she looked down and she realized why everyone was saying sorry. Why she was here in this field of graves? She was at a funeral.

Not just a funeral. She was at a funeral for Marcus.

When she looked down she didn’t see a casket with Marcus’s body inside. She didn’t see the six-foot-deep grave covered back up with dirt. She only saw the gravestone and saw Marcus’s body laying at the bottom of the hole. He wore a suit that was way too big for him. He was lifeless, there was no way she could convince herself he was just sleeping. Marcus was dead and this was his funeral.

“Marcus…” She said even though it felt like it was spoken out of speakers that lay around her. She didn’t feel the voice coming out of her mouth. “Marcus. No.”

Cas fell to the ground just on the edge of the grave. Of Marcus’s grave. Tears streamed down Cas’s face even though she could not feel them. Her heart ached just like the rest of her body. She wanted to go back in time to see whatever caused this and take Marcus’s place.

Cas tried to push herself into the grave. She tried to reach in and grab Marcus’s hand. She tried everything but no matter what she did it was like there was an invisible field over it and she wouldn’t be able to break through.

“No. No. No…”

Cas banged her fist against the invisible field. She tried to replace a way in. She tried everything till her body wouldn’t move. Her mind screamed at her to continue, but all she could do was lay there. Her body wouldn’t move and she couldn’t force it no matter how much she wanted to or tried.

“It looks like you’ve found him,” Someone said as they stood above her. She looked up without moving and saw who stood above her, who talked to her.

Shane.

He wore a suit as he must have come to the funeral too. But he wasn’t there when the millions of faceless voices as well as people with no faces said their sorries and goodbyes.

“Shane… He’s dead. I-I couldn’t save him,” Cas cried. She didn’t know why she was saying any of this to him all she knew is that it made the fog inside her feel a little better.

“I know, you killed him,” Shane said. “And now it’s time for you to get up.”

Cas somehow found the strength to get on her knees and then stand up straight. She looked straight at Shane and saw no doubt and no empathy.

“What are you talking about?” Cas asked. “I wouldn’t kill him, he’s my brother. I love him.”

“We kill people we love all the time,” Shane said. “It’s a matter of fact, you will hurt or kill someone at least once in your life.”

“Why are you saying these things?! You were supposed to be the one helping me replace him!” Cas shouted at him.

“I tried to help you, Cassidy,” Shane said with a smile. “You lied to me. You sided with that backstabbing scientist. You did all of this. Not me, Cas.” Shane didn’t stay in one place anymore. With his hands in his pants pocket, he moved to the side and walked around the grave that Marcus lay in. He walked over to where Cas stood frozen.

“It’s all your fault so get up and face it,” Shane said.

“I didn’t do anything!” She couldn’t remember who had done something. She didn’t remember why Marcus was there. All she remembered was that Marcus was gone, she was trying to replace him, and Shane was there too. Whatever happened before or after that she didn’t know and it killed her. Killed her almost as much as seeing Marcus in that grave. She couldn’t save him from whatever had taken him and she couldn’t get to him now.

“What did this to him?!” Cas asked as she stared down at her brother. Shane seemed to know all about this, he had to be able to tell her what did kill her brother. Because she knew it couldn’t have been her.

She would never do something like that.

“You did,” Shane said. “You got rid of us all. One by one you did. Not him. Not me. Not even the sickness.”

“Sickness?” Cas asked. “Shane? What are you–”

Cas looked at Shane and saw that there was something wrong with him. He was staring at her with wide eyes that were slowly turning grey. He held onto his stomach like he was going to be sick. “Shane?”

Cas tried to move forward but she was stuck. She looked down because she knew she wasn’t just frozen she was stuck. Stuck in something. Cas looked down and she was right. It was like a river where the thick water had turned black. It was like mud but way too thick and way too determined to keep her down.

“What’s happening?!”

Cas looked back up at Shane but he was gone. He wasn’t on the ground, he wasn’t in front of her, beside her, behind her, he wasn’t anywhere. “Shane!” Cas shouted.

“You need to get up.”

Cas heard another voice and she knew whose voice was instant. Marcus’s. Cas looked down and saw the clear rectangular grave where Marcus was lying, dead. He wasn’t dead now. He looked dead, he didn’t move. He didn’t seem to be breathing either. But he was speaking with wide eyes.

“Get up.”

“Get up.”

“Get up now.”

“Get up!”

“Get up Ms. Tyler.”

Cas opened her eyes only to regret ever doing so. She tried to get up and this time she knew her body was moving because she could feel the numbing pain. She tried looking around through her blurry eyes seeing the blue room that she lay in.

It was all a dream, she thought. None of that ever happened.

Even though she knew it was a dream even now she didn’t know what had happened to get her here. She didn’t know who or what brought her here.

The more her eyesight cleared the more she could tell where she was.

She was in a hospital room.

“Oh, you’re awake,” a woman said. She stepped away from the machines and walked over to stand beside her. “Do you know where you are?”

Cas nodded her head. She knew where she was but that didn’t mean she knew how she got here and what was happening. What had happened to her forced her to be here?

“You got in a terrible accident over at the bridge,” The nurse said. “You got a dislocated shoulder, three broken ribs, a bad concussion, a punctured lung, and three broken fingers. You suffered a massive fall.”

What had happened to give her all these wounds? What happened?

“Accident?” Cas asked. She didn’t know if her words were coming out as clearly as she thought they were. The nurse looked at her with a little concern it seemed. Cas couldn’t tell between facial expressions at the moment.

The nurse nodded after realizing what Cas had said. “Something to do with the sickness business on the bridge. You were there with Mr. Everett and a few others. You are all here under our care at the moment.”

Mr. Everet… A few others. Sickness. On the bridge.

All of the memories started to flash like fireworks in her mind. Not all of the pieces were there, but she knew what happened.

She remembered replaceing out where Marcus was. She remembered going with Gabriel Everett to the blockades around the bridge. She remembered being told she couldn’t do anything and then she slipped away onto the bridge.

She searched for Marcus while looking at all of the damage he had caused. She saw almost all of the horrible things she saw on that bridge in her mind. She remembered replaceing Marcus on the nets that were along the bridge to prevent suicides. She remembered him being impaled by a ripped-open part of the car’s door.

She saw herself standing there and shouting for him. She remembered telling him I was going to be alright and that somehow she would replace a way to save him. She didn’t know when or how, but she saw Gabriel being there. He had called in a helicopter with people who had failed to bring Marcus to safety.

And that was when everything started to really go downhill. Gabriel had lost hope in saving Marcus and had ordered one of his men to hold her back so he could shoot him with that alien-like gun.

And then everything became hazy and then dark.

And then she had that horrible dream that she would rather forget than ever think of it again. “Do you know if my brother, Marcus Tyler, is here too?” Cas asked. She tried to force her body up but from the push from the nurse and her already hurting body, she only fell back onto the bed.

“No,” the nurse said. “Sorry. I saw the news, from whatever they shot on the bridge brought him down into the channel. Authorities are still looking to see if he lived.”

“Oh…” Cas gulped down air as she tried to think of something to say. She didn’t have another chance to speak because the nurse had already left. Cas was left alone in this hospital room by herself. For a short period, she was by herself.

She was given food to eat after a little while and her mind and body were more rested. Two fingers were broken on her left hand and one on her right. It was hard to use a spoon because of the pain, but her right hand only had one broken finger so it was manageable enough.

She lay there staring out the window of the room as if it would give her an idea of what had happened after she passed out.

Not only to her and everyone on that bridge but also to Marcus. The nurse said he fell into the channel under the bridge which meant that Marcus was somewhere under that 372 feet channel under the bridge. He could be anywhere.

“I wouldn’t look out there too far,” Someone said from the door. “You won’t see anything besides that tree line.”

Cas looked over and there was Gabriel in a wheelchair at the door. He looked almost as bad as Cas did. He was sitting in a wheelchair with a bandaged leg. A bandage wrapped around his head. But none of that matched to the entire cast from the top of his shoulder to the end of his hand. It was held in a blue sling that didn’t give him any room to move.

“You look almost worst than I do,” Cas said with a smug smile on her face. This seemed to be the best thing she had seen all day. It gave her some relief at least.

“I’m worse,” Gabriel said as he rolled himself in with his better hand. It seemed to be only scratched up. “Thanks to you.”

“You were going to kill Marcus. I wasn’t going to let you do that,” Cas told him. She wasn’t going to apologize for doing what she believed to be right. Gabriel went back on his word and not only that but he didn’t have the right to decide what to do with Marcus.

Marcus may be a threat to the civilization of the human race, but he was still a human too. Even if he didn’t die from being impaled and maybe didn’t even die from that explosion from the gun. He is still a human being.

“He was going to kill everyone,” Gabriel told her. “I did what I had to do.”

“That’s where you are wrong,” Cas said. “You went back on your word.”

“Oh, then why don’t you kill me?” Gabriel asked. Gabriel rolled in and stopped beside Cas’s bed. “You can hate me all you want, but everyone else in this world would agree with what I decided to do.”

“Would they agree with the way you did it?” Cas said. “I still can’t remember what exactly happened because of how bad my head is hurting, but I know you didn’t just send Marcus down into the water but also all those soldiers that were there. And the helicopter. If we were thrown then so were they.”

“And it is tragic,” Gabriel said. “But I did what was best for the country and that is what we need. We can not save everybody and you have to accept that.”

“Who died to make you believe that?” Cas asked half serious. She rested her head back on the pillow and looked back up at the Tv on the wall. She was watching some cooking show where they were making another salad with a few word names so it looks special.

“You go me in a lot of trouble Cassidy,” Gabriel said. “You broke my arm, my leg, gave me a head injury as well as all the other wounds. Liza’s leg is shattered and she may have lifelong consequences. You–”

“That wasn’t me,” Cas said. She didn’t give Gabriel the satisfaction of her looking at him and him seeing how he was getting to her. “You shot the gun and if the gun did that it didn’t matter if I ran into you, you shot that thing and it did that. You did it.”

“Yes, and I’m going to go back and replace out who caused the gun to react like that. But I shouldn’t have had to go onto that bridge and do the things I did if you didn’t stay put as I told you to.”

“I’m not going to fight with you like a child Mr. Everett,” Cas said. “Do whatever you want. But just like me, you aren’t going anywhere for a long time.”

Gabriel sat there for only a moment longer before he decided he wasn’t going to take this. He rolled himself out barely with his one hand. The nurse outside the door ended up helping him even when he said he could do it himself.

Instead of taking him back to his room, Gabriel had her take him to Liza’s room. She was shouting at a doctor when he got in there. He couldn’t tell what she was shouting about because the noise made his head hurt.

“Look at you!” Liza said when she realized he was there. She must have completely forgotten about the person she was fighting with because she didn’t realize it when he walked away. “You got all damaged too.”

“Maybe more than you,” Gabriel said.

“I got a bruised back and a broken leg,” Liza said. “I’ll be fine.”

Gabriel let the nurse push him to the side of Liza’s bed and then for her to walk away. He waited for the nurse, Mallory to leave before he looked back at Liza who was flipping through channels and eating a bag of potato chips.

“You let her on the bridge,” Gabriel said. “You let her try to take me down when I had that gun.”

Liza dropped her head to the pillow and groaned. The groaning lasted three seconds before she pushed herself up and looked down at him. “Yes, I did let her on that bridge and yes I did get her to stop you from killing her little brother. I’m not going to apologize.”

“I’m taking you off this,” Gabriel said. “I’m going to have you transferred somewhere else. Nowhere near San Francisco.”

“I didn’t like this city anyway,” Liza said and she wasn’t lying. Liza looked back up at the Tv and practically ignored Gabriel there.

Gabriel felt more and more agitated while he sat there looking at the TV without caring about what was happening and what would happen. Liza’s always been like this and it infuriated him. She didn’t care for what she did and she didn’t care about the consequences. Liza was smart but at the same time, she was the stupidest in the room, which made her dangerous also. Because he could never tell when she was being stupid or playing stupid.

“How’s Miss Cassidy doing?” Liza asked without looking at him.

“She’s fine,” Gabriel said. “Broken bones like the rest of us.”

“What about with the knowledge that you probably killed her little brother?” Liza asked. “I mean, you used that super cool technology gun to blast a hole in the Golden Gate Bridge. I’m sure that would at least put a damper on your relationship with her.”

“She’ll get over herself,” Gabriel said. “What matters is that Marcus Tyler is a gone resource and I need something else.”

“So it was you,” Liza said. “I knew you started this. That’s why you pushed to be in charge.”

Liza covered her mouth as she was laughing. She would let her laugh loose if it didn’t hurt her entire body too. “Good luck,” Liza said. “But the entire worlds going to kill you when they replace out about this.”

“And you aren’t going to tell them, Liza,” Gabriel said. He gave her a serious look and waited for her to look back at him. “Liza.”

“Okay, okay,” Liza said. “I’ll let you take the fall for this when you are ready to.” Liza didn’t say another word to Gabriel after her last sentence of doom. She smiled as she started to watch the comedy channel and easily got herself to ignore Gabriel as he rolled himself out of Liza’s room.

Gabriel got himself back in his room where he got himself onto the bed. He waited there patiently for George Lowe to show up. He had to get things in order and replace out what was happening outside of the hospital. He had the news, but he needed the real truths that weren’t shown on the news.

And in seventeen minutes, he had his chance to replace out.

“Did they replace the boy?” Gabriel asked when Lowe was comfortable standing there in his silence.

“No, they haven’t, sir,” Lowe said. “They are combing the Bridge’s Channel as we speak. They found two of the four bodies of the soldiers in the water too. They also found the car in the water as well.”

“So, they ultimately have nothing?” Gabriel asked as he messed with one of the bandages on his arm.

Lowe scavenged his mind for some good news for Gabriel. He should have known the soldiers’ lives would not be considered good news. But he had no other news. No one at the bridge had any new evidence. They had nothing.

Marcus was somewhere at the bottom of the channel or floating down to another place where he would be washed up and cause havoc there. If being impaled, shot by a gun charged with an alien power, and also all the shots he took, if he couldn’t die from that, then it was hard to believe that he would die by drowning.

But they could be hopeful right?

“Well, no,” Lowe said. He saw Gabriel give him the look that told him he had to be careful about his next words. If there was something then he better say it and it better be better than what he had come in here and said.

He had to think of something and something fast.

“We’ve got the deaths at the lab taken care of and no one suspects you of anything,” Lowe said.

“You think that’s good news?” Gabriel asked. “I already know no one suspects me besides the few minor people that don’t matter. And I knew the deaths would be taken care of by you. You would be completely useless if you guys couldn’t do that simple thing.”

Lowe knew that Gabriel saw them as useless pawns, but sometimes it felt like a stab that kept turning. It made him wonder what would happen if he were to quit. If he were to leave this all behind.

He knew what would happen.

He’d be six feet deep after an ‘accident’ took his life. Because in the end, he was also a useless pawn in Gabriel’s chess board and he did not have enough worth to last to the end of the game. He hated the day that he was brought here.

“Then I will go and replace out about the Marcus boy,” Lowe said. “I will not come back till I have him or know where he is.”

“That’s a lot of words,” Gabriel said. “But they are just words and I will not take them seriously until I see those words becoming actions.”

“I will be gone now,” Lowe said. He nodded his head and turned to walk out the door. He was only inches away from letting out a breath of relief. He waited for Gabriel to say something and stop him. He was waiting for something worse to happen. This was a little too easy to get out of.

But Gabriel didn’t say another word to him.

Lowe didn’t know which was scarier. Him speaking or him staying silent.