But here are my notes for TWOA. I have yet to make more revisions, especially because I feel like the writing is too formal in many aspects. It's like it doesn't flow correctly to me. This is the first chapter, but I've revised it many times and am still looking for that "Eureka Seven" type feel mixed with a cyberpunk Russia. At least, it will be a cyber punk Russia. This one doesn't really convey that because I had more of a vision of 1800's Russia in my head at the time. But cyberpunk... That's a good idea now that I think about it. =D I wrote this first chapter back last April, so please excuse my writing. My beta reader has never seen it.
Commence lire: The Wrath of Adelais: Katerina's Story**
Power: it's the one thing that all of humanity strives to maintain. We fear that which we do not know and destroy that which we fear. By ensuring reign over the Earth above all other creatures, we feel at ease. The defensive manner in which we treat potential threats to our power has only led to our downfall. The forces that we don't understand may just be the key to our existence, yet we continue time and time again to crush said forces.
Did we ever stop to think about the consequences of not attempting to understand the unknown? If we had, the world would not be in its current state. I entrust the following account of past mistakes to the future of this world, the Earth's youth, in hopes that the same mistakes will not be repeated by future generations.
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I grew up in a small village just east of Peterhof, Russia. I was born in 2994 to Anya Vasiliyevna Chmakova and Grigory Illyovich Sokolov. My mother passed away when I was very young, leaving my older brother and I to live with my father. By the time I was old enough to understand what was going on in the country, chaos already began reigning over the world.
The day of my 17th birthday, May 12, 3011, a disaster struck the world. Skyscrapers caved in, bridges collapsed, power outages swept throughout the world, and earthquakes killed millions. Everyone was so concerned with what was happening that they didn't realize what had caused the whole mess.
In my own country, people were left in poverty, cities were left in ruins, and children, especially those who had been orphaned by the massacre, were forced to quit school to help rebuild them. The Russian government named the event Nibiru to keep from frightening the public by the use of the word "apocalypse." A few weeks after Nibiru, a large group of rebels staged a coup and overthrew the government. The country was left in chaos.
Russia wasn't the only country to be affected by Nibiru. Even strong countries like the United States had become barbaric empires. A few months after, the states declared war against each other, separating the large country into fifty small ones.
Scientists and researchers went mad. Some were thrown into an alternate state of mind, living in a vegetable-like state. Many clung to precious or valuable belongings that truly meant something before the disaster. Even a few of the citizens and military officers had contracted the illness. After witnessing the first breakouts of the disease, doctors were quick to diagnose patients with schizophrenia, but their irrational diagnosis was proven wrong due to differing symptoms further into the progression of the illness.
The illness began with hallucinations and sometimes paranoia. Those affected became attached to something valuable to them, whether it be an object, a person, or an animal. Upon entering the second stage, the patient ceases all social interaction. They begin to enter the vegetative state, living in constant fear. What they feared was unknown to psychiatrists and researchers. The main hypotheses were that an unknown force was affecting the people, or they were just extremely paranoid.
The third and final stage began with the patient losing all appetite. Some couldn't keep food in their stomachs if they tried. Doctors were never able to find a cure, so every person diagnosed with the disease would be put into a coma. The illness took a course of four or five years before slipping into an eternal comatose, but even so, sometimes I thought those people forced themselves into unconsciousness, as if it were a coping mechanism to preserve the health of their minds.
After the earliest cases had progressed into the final stages, the schizophrenia diagnosis was quickly repealed and renamed tristis. The epidemic quickly turned into a pandemic.
As for my own family, my father worked for. By the time we were forced to quit school, I was almost eighteen, my brother Rurik, nineteen. We were put to work running errands for a nearby landlord. My father always tried to give us the best life we could have, and--in my opinion--we were given more than we deserved.
«o»
[ca c'est fin de chapitre un (comme ci, comme ca)]
I think I'm more into the Russian thing because I like their names. Also, artwork I made last year for it:
Yes, very much so based off of Eureka Seven, but I have a feeling that will change after I change the setting to a cyberpunk world.
**The story is subtitled "Katerina's Story" because I wanted to make a counter-story that fits in with this one using a character that will eventually show up in it. Katerina, and her American counterpart, Nora, will eventually meet and that is what would cross the two stories mostly, but as I have developed this story very little, I am not sure as to whether or not I will actually make a counter-story, but as with most of my work (Especially BTtS and SOTS), everything that happens is to set up for future events or sequels that I am sure I want to happen.
