Wings - Prologue

Warning: Major Spoilers from the Big Damn Movie

Beta read by the lovely Your October

--6 Months Ago--

(These are just a few of the images we’ve recorded.)

An eerie silence swept over the room, the screen hanging behind the bar attracting all of the occupants’ attention. They watched in terrified fascination as shots of decaying corpses flashed across the screen.

(And you can see... it isn’t what we thought.)

Mumbles spread across the crowd now.

“Is this some kind of joke?” a man at the end of the bar snapped at the barkeep.

The barkeep turned towards the outraged man for only a moment, but said nothing. He only shrugged, a quick dismissive motion, informing everyone that this was not his doing.

(There’s been no war here and no terraforming event. The environment is stable.)

The women on the view screen was visibly distressed. Her words were careful but held a meaning that no one seemed capable of comprehending. Tears welled in her eyes, but only those sitting closest to the screen noticed.

(It’s the Pax. The G-23 Paxilon Hydroclorate that we added to the air processors. It was supposed to calm the population, weed out aggression.)

She hesitated again, but only for a moment.

(Well, it works.)

In the back of the bar, at the table closest to the entrance, a man dressed in stained denim pants, whose color had long since faded away and solid blue t-shirt, sipped generously from his glass.

He watched the screen, his face conveying no emotion. He simply leaned back against his chair and continued watching intently.

(The people here stopped fighting… And then they stopped everything else.)

Voices erupted throughout the bar, whispers of confusion and uneasiness. The barkeep, feeling unsettled about the sudden change in the demeanor of his customers, changed the channel only to find that the wave was transmitting on all frequencies.

His stance became a bit panicked, though his own curiosity won out in the end. The blond man in the back of the bar noted t