[center][h3][i]The Endeavour Six[/i]
[i]Chapter One, Earth[/i][/h3][/center]


[i]My life is an unending marathon across rocky roads, ceaseless because I am running from myself. The wounds of my past still haunt me, and I cannot forgive myself for my mistakes. In passing solipsism, I’ve contemplated my punishment, if perhaps all life abandoning Earth was my fault for abandoning my adopted family, like my biological family abandoned me. Desertion seems to be, or so it feels, my own personal story. I can only prove that I exist, and that my existence has a theme. That which I need eludes me, and I am never there for those who call my name.[/i]

The sensation of rain upon his skin awoke him, but it was all an illusion. The dry morning sky pierced through the ceiling’s holes and illuminated dust, which drifted upward with movement of an off-white blanket. Jin, with his exhausted soul, had camped roughly on the floor of an abandoned and previously ransacked house, tucked within a rocky woods of dead trees. Everything had been trashed, no less the king-sized bed smashed halfway through a large window. It was like that now, a world where people in their in desperation could turn an entire town upside-down. It was becoming increasingly difficult to find resources without functional society, particularly medicines for which most people would kill. Jin hadn’t yet fallen to an incurable sickness, but the thought plagued his mind. Paranoid, perhaps wise, he carried a solar powered air-filtration system at all times that he had scavenged from a deceased doctor’s house. It was more a psychological benefit than anything else, though it at least provided relief against the bitter taste of sand and rust. In contrast, it reminded him of better times, faint memories of fresh mountainous air on childhood family trips. In retrospect, he had lost so much more than grassy plains and crystal clear air, but everybody had lost something now.

Jin gathered his belongings, already half-dressed because the night was cold and there was little sense of security. He secured his pristine sword to his back, which he cleaned daily, and holstered a rusty revolver once belonging to his adopted father. Jin had recovered it from his childhood home seven months earlier, which he returned to for the first time in over a decade. Although the family home was in one piece, accessible from a key hidden beneath a garden gnome, there was no family to be found. Jin took the weapon as a sentimental keepsake more than anything else. He didn’t know what had happened to his family, where they might have been if anywhere on Earth, but it was all too late for a reunion.

With a heavy gulp, Jin finished his half bottle of water, reattached his air filtration mask to his bearded face, and bid farewell to his temporary dwelling. Outside, his boots crunched old gravel and light patches of sand as he re-emerged into his Earthly surroundings. It was particularly rocky in this region with many dead trees and few spots of green. Sometimes you could still stumble upon a small oasis of greenery and flowing water, but these havens were fast becoming a rarity. Navigating the fallen woods with a million questions, Jin wondered how anybody could stomach the anguish of survival, not to mention how anybody could even breathe anymore. The air had become noticeably tighter with a taste of dirty tin on its breeze, but still the human race stood. Some things never changed, and ours was perhaps the most resilient of species, but there was no overcoming this one. Unless you had been blessed to evacuate with The Ark, time felt ever more finite. The memory of hundreds of glowing ships illuminating the night skies still haunted him. It was awe inspiring, a sight of unimaginable beauty that meant no less than our end. The Earth was dying, and not even the greatest minds on Earth could save it, though many swore there was still an opportunity to escape it. Desperate voices gossiped of a failed launch or ship blown from the skies. Jin had heard the rumours, but he paid little attention to them. He mostly kept to himself and avoided the masses, living a life of aimless journeying and the occasional trip down memory lane.

After thirty minutes of thoughtful wandering, Jin cleared the forest’s edge, emerging into an expanse of sandy terrain, few roads, and a couple of distant towns. Rare spots of blue sky hung over neighbouring mountains, while a rusty road sign barely read [i]Alberta, Canada[/i]. The immediate area was seemingly deserted, but it wasn’t long before the calming hum of an electric pick-up truck brought trouble. Now fifty yards from an abandoned motor charging station, the rusty red machine honked with an abrupt horn, stopping Jin in his tracks. He knew better than to trust strangers, less so three scruffy men with the [i]Novus Ordo[/i] insignia branded on their military jackets' sleeves. This was bad news. Only one of them was obviously armed, bearing an old AK-47 that had clearly seen better days, but armed or otherwise, those associated with this rising power’s cause were guaranteed trouble. Not his first encounter and fearing the worst, Jin knew it just might be his last.

Overcome with waves of panic, Jin immediately and instinctively turned and ran. It was a reckless decision, knowing he might have instead reasoned with them by feigning interest in their cause. Worse so, trying to outrun an assault rifle was asking for death. But his legs wouldn’t ease up, powerful in every step as if adrenaline had turned him into an Olympic athlete. He was fortunate also that the trio’s reactions seemed delayed, but only momentarily. Their shouting was an unrecognisable blur, but the cracking sound of rapid gunfire was all too familiar, as well as incredibly brief. Murmurs of detonating the charging station and the remark of [i]stupid[/i] slipped into Jin’s awareness. He wasn’t convinced this old rust bucket could be ignited by a bullet, but he always was ignorant of the workings of cars and their stations. Either way, the gunman had ceased firing. The trio’s apparent bickering had probably saved him, aside from the handful of bullets deflecting off his sword, the force of which thumped through his spine. But the fight wasn’t over. As Jin closed in on the station, first scanning for an accessible entrance, he glanced back long enough to see his enemies in pursuit.

[i]“I’m calling bullshit!”[/i] he heard the gunman yell, English speaking with some European accent. [i]“I am taking my shots on this prick!”[/i]

Eyes widening and teeth gritting together anxiously, Jin dashed around the station’s corner, entering a car park abandoned of all but a damaged truck and two trashed SUVs. Strapped for options, he quietly ducked out of sight as the three men entered the area.

There was a moment of uneasy calm as the men stopped, one still brandishing his rifle while the others unsheathed their knives. Splitting into two, the gunner and a fellow man moved slowly for the large truck, while their third detached for the SUVs. They moved methodically, yet their navigation was somewhat unprofessional and overly confident. As they closely bordered the truck, Jin launched a surprise assault, jumping down from its roof with a rock smashing against the knifeman’s shoulder. As he hollered, Jin shoved him full force into the turning gunman, who reacted with accidental shots into the sky. Knowing best not to run again, Jin wrestled for the rifle, but was instead shoved forward by the one good arm of the knifeman. Stumbling to the ground, it was now a fight of reckless kicking and striking where all former training seemed to escape him in the panic. Before he knew it, all three men stood over him having exhausted his options. [i]Damn[/i], he thought. The initial rush was over, and undoubtedly this would be his end.

The rifleman, agitated and realising a spot of blood on the back of his head, raised his AK-47 and squared it down at Jin’s face. There was a moment of what felt like an eternal silence, and then [i]click[/i]. But the rifle didn’t fire. Reopening his squinted eyes, Jin looked up to yet a second [i]click[/i]. And then a third and a fourth. The rifle had jammed. Frustrated, the rifleman cursed loudly with a string of random profanities.

[i]“Fine,”[/i] he growled. [i]“We’ll do it the old fashioned way.”[/i]

Removing the smallest of the men’s three knives from his jacket, the sweaty thug inhaled deeply before kneeling down and grabbing Jin by the back of his head. After another hesitation, the rifleman moved for the final blow before a monstrous explosion froze him in action. The ground rumbled. All three men’s heads swivelled to the same direction, appearing flabbergasted. The rifleman, returning to his feet as if Jin’s existence had suddenly been forgotten about, looked back and forth between his fellow men. Their shocked expressions remained, and in the strangest of events, the gunman uttered something of a concentration camp before the three of them raced away for their vehicle. Still lying on his back, hurting from a stiff kick or two, Jin turned his head upward to his left. Emerging in the distance, thick plumes of black smoke poured upwards into the sky. He didn’t know what it was, but whatever it was, it had undoubtedly just saved his life.