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  Ignited

  The Epoch of Niles LeClaire, Volume 1

  Nicholas Cyr

  Published by Nicholas Cyr, 2022.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  IGNITED

  First edition. July 1, 2022.

  Copyright © 2022 Nicholas Cyr.

  Written by Nicholas Cyr.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Prologue:

  Chapter 1:

  Chapter 1.1:

  Chapter 2:

  Chapter 2.1:

  Chapter 2.2:

  Chapter 3:

  Chapter 3.1:

  Chapter 4:

  Chapter 5:

  Chapter 6:

  Chapter 6.1:

  Chapter 7:

  Author’s Notes

  Prologue:

  In the beginning, there was only one world. Solitary and immovable in its position as the center of creation. The god who made it was pleased with most of it, however, no matter how hard they tried, no life would grow.

  For millennia, the god toiled and struggled until a moment of clarity struck.

  “My life for another. I can make life, if I give it my boundless existence as a foundation.” It proclaimed.

  Thus, within the eternal expanse beyond the planet the god spent its everything on, a microscopic hope began to shine in that self same god’s eyes before vision faded into nothingness.

  Unfortunately, they didn’t realize that by performing such a benevolent act, they would shatter the world and create a form of existence it had never planned for. Shards of divinity scatter across the cosmos and the multiple universes, only to one day rejoin the collective and remake the sleeping creator’s vision.

  Chapter 1:

  Invasion Escape

  It was a day like any other. Mid-Autumn, leaves were changing colors. Birds flying south. Kids getting bundled up by overprotective moms and dads. For the small town of Wawa, Ontario nothing was out of the ordinary.

  In a humble home on Queen Street, a young man in his early 20s was typing away at his computer. On the monitor, big bold letters show the purpose of the email he’s writing. A thank you letter to a business that has given him a full college scholarship. The time on the computer? 11:30AM.

  He stood up and stretched, headed to the kitchen and pulled a bottle of water from the fridge. Inside were slices of lemon and lime. He put the bottle down on his desk and went to the washroom. Time; 11:40AM.

  A little bit later he finished the letter and quickly proofread it. 11:55AM.

  He changed a few words and fixed some punctuation, saved and sent it out. 11:59AM.

  He turned away from the computer, not noticing the ‘did not send’ message in his inbox, pulled out his phone and called up a number for someone named Dom. 12:00PM.

  His phone shocked him, and fell as a result. The PC tower next to him turned off and the room became silent. Confused, he grabbed his phone, which looked no worse for wear. His computer wouldn’t turn on, but thankfully he had data on his phone, so he checked the local news feed for power outages. But before the app loaded, a flurry of notifications from social media blasted his cell. He switched to see what’s going on. Posts from people all over the world saying their power is out and that things just suddenly vanished before their eyes.

  Thousands of people, scared and confused. From what he could see, everything that has gone missing have been weapons that could only be called modern. Things like guns and ammunition for them. Immediately, rumors popped up about military armaments disappearing too, everything from hand grenades to even nuclear missiles, just gone.

  For a second, the young man doubted this, but when more and more people posted about their missing stuff, he had to check. So he ran down to his basement where his dad’s old three thousand dollar gun safe is located and spun the dial. 6-4-5-3. The tumbler clicks on the last number and the heavy door unlocks.

  Within the thick steel walls where he had left the gun he’d used just a month and a half prior for hunting, as well as his dad’s, was nothing but the shoulder straps and two empty boxes of ammo.

  Eyes widened, he turned and ran back up to his bedroom. Under his bed was a case for a pellet gun he would use for self defense. Even that however, was completely empty, save for the instruction manual and a small aluminum tin containing some five hundred metal pellets.

  His eyes wandered.

  “There’s no way anyone broke in. I’ve got a security system and all my neighbors were keeping an eye out when I went hunting. Not to mention I had my gun at that time.”

  He took a deep breath and returned to his phone. The notifications all have the same word in common now; Mirror.

  Swallowing what little moisture he had in his mouth, he couldn’t hold his curiosity. He bolted across the hall to the bathroom to see if there was anything strange. But there was nothing. It was the same slightly tanned skin, auburn hair and beard he was used to seeing. Though he did take a second to clean his glasses, just to be safe.

  Sighing at his rush of curiosity, the young man continues to read. “Flash of white light”, “Giant crater” and “Strange feeling of acceptance” are all things that are repeated.

  The internet became filled with posts that seemed to be made by folks high off their rockers. Unfortunately, before he could make any sense of the ravings of a bunch of possibly delusional messages and ramblings, his Data stopped working and his cell service dropped. The internet and any current day forms of communication, stopped working then and there.

  For a split second, he panicked, but something outside snapped him back to reality before it could set in.

  Screaming and shouts of bloody murder filled the streets outside. Terrified by what he might find, he slowly steps to his living room window. There, he finds a scene straight out of a horror film. A macabre parade of his neighbors blood and guts in the streets. The sky, a mix of red, gray and a dark violet, no wind blowing, just the sounds of the people he grew up around yelling for help as they are assaulted left and right by monsters thought to be from myth and legends.

  Green, wrinkled skin draped haphazardly over lumpy torsos and lanky arms. Human sized birds with wingspans as long, if not longer than a pickup truck. Wolves with mastiff bulk and wild faces of crooked teeth exposed without the skin on their snouts and pure white eyes.

  Goblins, Harpies and Dire Wolves.

  A fantasy geek’s best dream and worst nightmare.

  The young man backs off. He knows he’s hidden and so far, it doesn’t look like anything is interested in him. It’s cold, but he knew there was nothing he could do for those poor people. Not himself against all those beasts of carnage. He only had one course of action.

  He went into his hall closet between his bedroom and the bathroom and pulled out a large camping bag. Giving it a once over, everything seemed to be in place. Rations, water bottles and a canteen, a spare set of clothes, and everything he’d need to survive. He carries it to the kitchen, making sure to stay away from the living room window just on the other side of that door. There, he peeks through another window beside the counter into the backyard. He spots another creature he couldn't recognize bashing into the crab apple tree that was planted by his Grandfather when his dad was born.

  That monster, being a quadruped the size of a black bear but with the anatomy of a pig, seemed to simply be frustrated and unable to tell if the tree is an enemy or not. Either way, it was distracted and the only thing behind his house.

  Content with that fact, the young man continued his preparations. He pulled a duffle bag from under the sink and grabbed the large bowie knife, which thanks to the sheath clips onto his belt, and a smaller knife which he put in
a side pocket of his camping bag. In a china cabinet beside the dining room table, he takes an old wooden bow and arrows he made in his highschool woodshop that his dad put up on display.

  Finally, near the stairs leading to the basement, he grabs two jackets. One gets rolled up and tied to the bag, the other thinner one he puts on. It’s his autumn coat. The dark green plaid is good for sneaking in the woods, but not great in town.

  He checked out back again, but no change. The beast was still squaring off and beating its head against the surprisingly sturdy tree.

  He held his breath, hoping that the old heavy doors of his house wouldn't squeak as he opened the backdoor on the opposite side of the table. Brandishing his bowie knife, he stepped out cautiously and made minimal movements so as to not be seen. Step by step, inch by inch, he prayed and appreciated every little thing that is currently on his side. The monsters at the front were too distracted by the loud food in the streets, the seemingly visibly impared beast in front of him fighting a motionless plant, and there being no wind to carry his scent to either side.

  The house next door belonged to good family friends, so there was no fence separating the yards, but there was a hedge blocking sight and any visible path between the buildings.

  He surveyed the sky to make sure he wasn’t being watched by harpies, and stepped along the curvature of the ground, a skill he’d picked up while learning to hunt in order to minimize noise and energy lost traversing uneven terrain.

  His heart stopped whenever the beast behind him would stop and grunt. Praying each time that it wasn’t because it had turned around and spotted him. By the time he made it to the furthest side of the neighboring house, it had made him stop roughly nine times. Before rounding the corner, he looked back. The beast just stood there. Eyeing down the apple tree.

  It looked sluggish, but it had so much power that the tree was quite dented.

  The young man was about to turn away to get out of the creature's field of view, when the beast stepped forward. Not charging. A slow walk up to the bark. It sniffed the tree and huffed, apparently realizing it’s mistake.

  A small grin came to the young man’s lips at the comedy of that moment, but it quickly went away with that monstrosity’s next action. Its entire head extended and turned ninety degrees, going from looking like a rounded faced boar to having the jaws of a dinosaur slowly surrounding the deformed trunk. And with a single motion, snapped it like it was nothing but a water soaked cookie.

  The young man held his hand to his mouth right away, not wanting any sound of surprise to leave it.

  “What the f-... Like a candy cigarette? What the hell is going on!” He exclaims internally. “Nothing about any of this makes sense!” As that thing chews on the wood of the old crab apple tree, the young man bites his cheek to calm himself. Turning around, he sees a narrow but clear path to the front of the house between it and the next yard’s fence. He holds his ten inch blade firmly as he gently tiptoes through.

  On the other side, he can still hear the loud gnashing of wood from behind, but there doesn’t seem to be any noise coming from the front at all. So he peeks around, keeping himself glued to the outside wall of the house. One Harpy and two goblins seem to be arguing about one of the corpses, but the bird-like creature grips it in its talons and flies off with it, causing the goblins to give chase. From the look of the street, the monsters cleared out after eating all those who were in the vicinity, either to look for more elsewhere, or having been satisfied, they went to make themselves nests and homes to live in.

  The young man, only knowing basics about animal behavior, could only assume as much. Without any more bodies readily available and the blood trails leading into town, it was the sole logical conclusion that he could rely on.

  At any rate, he still had a ways to go. His plan required him to get to the forest just down the block. That way, he could eliminate one of the primary threats. An aerial assault by Harpies would be difficult to deal with without a roof over his head, but the canopy of the wooded park nearby is a good alternative. If he stayed in his house, it’d be a matter of time before he ran out of food and needed to leave anyway. This way, he could also have a chance to dodge the wolves and goblins, since a house would restrict the number of routes he could take in his escape.

  Now that he had a better visual of the sky, he could clearly make out smoke and flames on the horizon to the west. Therefore monsters didn’t just show up in this place, but all over.

  Resolute in his choice, the young man, with the movements of a trained hunter, quietly made his way down the street to the east. Several houses on the way appeared to be wrecked and tossed. Windows shattered from the outside. Bloody and chaotic being the only way to describe the scenes he glanced at. Yet still no active signs of struggles or ‘feeding’. Maybe he was lucky to not be among them. Or perhaps that thing in the backyard was something of a deterrent, scaring away the other threats from his neighborhood. No matter the answer, his face remained pale and stiff.

  It took roughly twenty minutes to simply walk to the corner, being careful to not make his presence known to any lingering predators.

  From there, the fence opening was just a minute away, but something caught the young man’s attention. Another young man, tall and thin with long curled, jet black hair going down just below his shoulders. He was dressed in mostly dark denim and had several piercings on his face. They were running from a pair of goblins hot on his heels.

  The young man threw the knife he was holding to the ground and took out his bow and arrow. Aiming for the one closest to their prey. With a quick ‘THUNK’ the arrow dug deep into the eye of its target, busting through the back of the socket and piercing the brain. Instant death. The second being too distracted to notice his kin’s murder, was too slow to react when the archer ditched his bow and ran up with the knife he picked back up. The taller fellow jumped out of the way as the blade lunged into the grossly large maw of the small humanoid, cutting straight through the back of the throat and cleaving the spine, a second instantaneous kill.

  Crimson fluid drips from the bowie knife. The goblin corpses lay silent. The young man wiped the blood off with a tissue from the side pouch of his bag before turning to pick up his bow and retrieve the arrow he shot.

  The taller man, roughly the same age as him, sat up, catching his breath.

  “You never were the endurance type.” The young man said with a smile.

  “Yeah yeah. Whatever... Thanks Niles.” replied the man sitting on the ground.

  Niles, the young man we’ve been following, stuck out his hand to help him up. “Weren’t you supposed to be in the Sault? When did you get back?”

  “My sister’s birthday is tomorrow. Of course I’d be here.”

  “Right! Where’s your family? Are they okay?”

  “Yeah, They’re with a big group who are gonna meet us on the other side, on the 101. I figured if anyone was going to sneak out of this, it’d be you. So, here I am.”

  Niles shook his head, disappointed in how stupid his childhood friend is for coming after him. The two of them argued in whispers while hiking through the forest. Dominic, the other man, explains that the west side of town got hit hard, but he, his family and a crowd of people made it out by sticking together and standing their ground, making the monsters hesitate to attack. They even managed to kill a couple of Harpies and a wolf, though, not without suffering a loss or two. Either way, their plan was similar to Niles’. Escape town and find shelter elsewhere. Though, there isn’t really any ‘shelter’ out there besides tree cover, and that many people would need to follow the highway in order to move at a fair pace. Still, moving as a group isn’t the worst idea in this situation. The more people you are, the more support you’ll have in the long run, so long as you avoid making enemies.

  Niles led the way, knowing the park like the back of his hand. They walked east until Anderson lake, then northeast along the lake and beyond to highway 101. Once the two arrived at the main road,
they saw that the group Dominic spoke of was a little ways ahead of them. Not wanting to be caught by the aerial threat, they kept to the side of the road near trees, running the whole way until they caught up.

  “Thank god you’re both okay!” shouted a middle aged woman. Other than her height, she resembles Dominic quite a lot. Of course, it only makes sense seeing as that was his mother. The girl standing next to her with tears in her eyes was his little sister, and the man behind them, the father. “Honestly! Running off like that, what were you thinking?”

  “Trust me Denise, I said the same thing when I pulled his ass out of the proverbial fire.” Niles laughed towards his mother.

  “Thank you.” Danica, the sister, cried as she ran to hug her brother.

  It’s a touching reunion, but no one was really feeling the moment, after all, there’s still the chance of being attacked at any moment. Niles looked through the crowd and spotted a couple of people who looked to be leading everyone.

  One of them was wearing the uniform of local police, meanwhile, the other was dressed up in formal attire. Best guess would be a lawyer or an official of some kind. But Niles, not being interested in politics, didn’t care for the answer to that. Instead...

  “Where are you taking everyone?” Niles yells to them directly.

  The policeman turns around. “Hawk Junction. It’s the closest place we can go.”

  “I wouldn’t go there. It’s likely no better than Wawa.”

  Surprised by that statement, most of the people looked between the two of them.

  “And what makes you say that?” asked the suited man.

  Niles looked across the people’s faces. “First of all, like you said, it’s the closest place. Meaning that if monsters showed up in Wawa, they’d most likely end up there too. And in case you weren’t aware, weird crap has been happening for a while today. Social media blew up about vanishing firearms and crap. I’m sure even your gun went missing, didn’t it, mister officer?”