The Redemption of the Lukos

[This is the first draft of the first chapter of a novel I'm working on. I was just wondering what anyone thought. My working title is: 'The Redemption of the Lukos'. Hope you enjoy it.]

PROLOGUE: Awakening

If you believe that reality is subjective and that, depending on a realisation or awakening, your universe can be destroyed and recreated in an instant of epiphany, then my birth, or at least the birth of my purpose, was jagged, raw, searing pain and the hard, wet, dull sound of metal fist against flesh-and-bone skull.

The non-duality of all existence was pounded unceremoniously into my head, and while the Sentinel’s glowing, green eyes coldly stared into the black pits of my own soul I wondered if this golden, iron monster understood or cared about the orders it fulfilled; or if it could possibly comprehend that it and I were one; and that I couldn’t possibly bring myself to harm it.

As the universe held its breath and clocks ticked through mud I knew that there was nothing I could do about the possibly terminal beating I was taking. I could not fight back. Hurting another intelligence, organic or virtual, would be like slicing out my own eye and I could not bring myself to do it.

The Gunslinger, keeping a fair distance from the other dozen or so Sentinels hell-bent on ending our lives, was rapidly reloading and firing, reloading and firing.

Looking over at me and probably thinking I was on my way out, he gallops towards me, slides under and between a Sentinel’s gigantic legs, and fires one round, blowing the assaulting arm of my attacker clean off; then he pops up to his feet and with the other arm, the one that isn’t holding a gun but actually is a state-of-the-art, Orga-mech pulse-cannon, shoots and explodes the Sentinel’s head.

On my feet again and next to my partner I tell him, “Garrison, I can’t do this. I can’t… hurt people anymore.”

“It’s okay,” he says, panting, “they’re not people.”

I look back at Cyan, the small, blonde, eight-year-old girl they call the Orphan of the Apocalypse, and wonder if all my pain and loss and sin was to bring me to this moment, to this realisation of the nature of all existence. If I could save her then surely my life would mean more to this world than the suffering and death of others.

Cyan is curled into a ball in the corner of the room. Garrison and I thought this place would be safe; that we could hide out here while we exacted our impossible escape plan; we had no idea of how far Strange would go to get this girl.

The Gunslinger is fighting a losing battle and I, with my newfound way of non-violence, cannot help him in the slightest. The Sentinels have now passed through all our defences on every floor and, having smashed through most of the wall, are pouring through it in a dirty, golden swarm.

We both know the girl is what is important. Her survival is more crucial than either of our lives.

The room is on the top floor of the second highest building in Castle City. I peer out of the broken window to the streets three-hundred floors below. This is how it ends. After everything we’ve seen and discovered I know that to stay here would be to sacrifice Heaven and Hell and everything in between. It would be better if we all died here and now – especially Cyan.

I see Garrison Hollywood, my only friend and the terrorist known as the Gunslinger, overwhelmed and crushed by the sea of Sentinels. I pick up the Orphan of the Apocalypse and do the only thing I can think of: I jump out the window.

[I'd love to know what anyone thinks. I accept any criticism - constructive or abusive :)]