A fiery crash awoke the whole hamlet. Stepping out of their metallic houses, their inhabitants carefully trickling out of their homes. This wasn’t a regular occurrence. Around half a mile from the outskirts of town, there was a crater, and in it sat a figure. A naked man crying into his hands. He was shockingly beautiful. A serene but unsettling beauty, one not seen before. As the villagers readied their arms (for a man falling from the sky is truly a terrifying sight), and prepared for trouble, he uncurled himself. His physique was like that chiseled from marble, and just like the statues he emulated, he was completely naked. He seemed to shine and glow in the moonlight, like a deity sent from the gods to be their salvation. His body was clean, showing no signs of the fall it had taken just minutes before, and clean of the dirt that drifted through the wastes. He was free from the clinging corruption that seeped into everyone in the village, and some dropped their weapons in sheer surprise.
He walked to Brewer’s fallen weapon and picked it up. He calmly and serenely unloaded it, all the while smiling this inhumanly beautiful and bright smile. He crumpled the weapon into a small ball and discarded it, he spoke, in a voice of angelic resonance, “I am Adam. I mean peace.” This was too much for one man, Walton, who fired a shotgun blast into U’s face. The pellets tore apart his perfect features, leaving only a bloody, but majestic mess where his face had been. He fell slowly, but like a dancer, graceful and purposefully. His dead body made one man cry, “It was like watching a dead angel. I couldn’t bear it.” he would later say. All the villagers left, not being able to bear the dead body, not even to bury it. They all gave Walton a disgusted look but none confronted him.
By daybreak, the villagers had mustered the courage to bury the body. It was put upon Walton, for he had killed the boy, hadn’t he? Walton made the short trek carrying a heavy iron shovel and dragging a coffin behind him. But there he found blood stains, and bits of skull and brain and such, but no body. Had Rust Cultists taken it? No, that wouldn’t have been possible, Rust Cultists weren’t this far south. So where had the body gone? This was answered as Adam tapped Walton on the shoulder.
There he stood, just as beautiful as before. He had that same smile, and Walton felt the sting of tears well up in his eyes. Adam took Walton’s hand, clasped it, peered into his eyes, and kept smiling. Walton continued to sob and collapsed onto the floor, kneeling as if he was praying. All he would say was, “Please, please, forgive me, forgive me.” Adam picked him up and threw him into the coffin he had brought. That was when Walton started to scream. Adam closed the lid on him, sealed it, and picked the coffin up. It was a long walk back to the town, but Adam could see it in the distance. After a few minutes of walking, it occurred to Adam that his captive might need to breathe, as he punched a hole in the side of the coffin. Now blood leaked from the coffin, but only as a slow drip, as a broken faucet might.
The entire town saw Adam coming, and they saw what he carried. They also saw the dripping blood and made their own educated guesses from there. He grabbed a girl, Jacie, as he entered the town square and pulled her close. He whispered something into her ear and then sat the coffin down.
Jacie half-ran half-crawled to the middle of the square, where she shouted, “Adam,” she pointed to Adam, still naked in all his shining beauty and brilliance, “has told me to tell you guys, the um, village, as he puts it, to lay down your weapons.” Adam approached her, leaving the now blood-stained coffin behind. He whispered more into her ear. She kept speaking, but in a shaky voice, “He, he, wants clothes. He also wants to be pointed in the direction of our, well, our leader? I guess he’s talking about the new Waster Queen? But, he also asked for, um,” Adam whispered more into her ear, “a motorcycle, I’m not sure if we have any, but he’s very insistent on that point, and um… he says he will only talk to me.” At this point, the crowd surrounding them started to murmur.
Adam held up his hand and a wave of silence washed over the town. Their adoration was slowly melting into a deep fear, fear of something they couldn’t quite understand. They had never felt this type of fear before, but it’s what the Luddites felt, it’s what all older generations have felt, it’s the feeling of being replaced. The feeling of knowing that something better is on the horizon, and it’s only a matter of time before you’re gone, and all that remains is it.
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