A story for your perusal. No pointless Destiny bashing/whining/bitching, Its not the perfect game Activision was marketing it as. Get over it and enjoy whats there instead of what isn't.
1.1
I don't remember much, though I'm told what I do remember is far more than most.
It happened on a busy day.
It was a day like any other truthfully. I got up, went work, relaxed and browsed some forums between various projects. It was a normal, busy day.
A day like any other.
I was heading down the main avenue, little traffic and a straight shot to home, just one signal at a crossroad between me and my destination. I had noticed that the signal was on the verge of turning green, so I hadn't bothered to slow down as I approached. I had a date later that night I think, and I really wanted nothing more than to get home, shower and relax for a little while before heading out.
It was a sunny day, bright and cheerful. It had been a good day and it was looking to be a good night, perhaps even a good week as well.
Then some fool decided to try and murder a woman by throwing her into the path of my car. It was pure luck that saved her life as I slammed the brakes and desperately tried to turn away from her in time to avoid a fatal collision.
Well, I assume I didn't kill the poor lady, It certainly didn't feel like I hit anything as my car skidded to a stop sideways in the middle of the crossing. I could feel the sweat beading on my forehead as the adrenaline of the near miss hit me in full.
It was moments later as my tunnel vision cleared and my mind returned to me that the bus hit me at full speed.
There was a massive crunching sound, an intense feeling of inertia, a brief moment of pain, and then nothing.
I died.
---
This is the one/the offering/the sacrifice.
Yes/indubitably/inevitably.
It is pathetic/pitiful/inadequate.
You're sight/vision/perception is too narrow/limited/deficient. This is the pebble/whisper/spark.
Very well/acceptance/toleration. The choice has been made, let it be so as it always has been.
---
"Can it be? I've found you at last."
---
Ever since I was a little child, I have always been an alert yet deep sleeper. That doesn't really make sense but to put it into context, I slept deeply but any sound out of the ordinary, even the sound of my parents gently testing my doorknob to check up on me, would wake me instantly, yet my alarm clock consistently failed to have any effect for years. During my life I had developed this rather annoying talent into something more practical in the anime infested mind of my teens to achieve awareness but not otherwise react. Learning to wake up without changing my breathing patterns alone had been the product of years of by itself, but I had it down fairly well.
"Guar-"
All those years of effort and self training promptly went to hell as I woke up instantly in the midst of a panic attack thinking I was about to suffer death by blunt force as applied by bus.
"What the fuck, oh god, what the fuck oh godohgodohgod, holy shit." My hands shook as I buried my face in them, breathing desperately as my body was wracked by fear induced tremors.
My vision narrowed and darkened around the edges and I shivered violently as shock set in.
"Guardian? Guardian! Eyes up Guardian," my head jerked up after registering the other voice for the first time. I was confused, terrified, furious and relieved at the same time. Holy shit I was alive and I wanted answers, because what the fuck was- " -efore any Fallen patrols pick us up on their sensors."
I stared.
There was some sort of device floating in front of me. Its appearance was that of a small spherical blue eye surrounded by a set of small pyramid like shapes around it, giving it a diamond like silhouette.
It returned my stare, it had similar protrusions on its back as well, I noticed numbly, and they rotated as the little device bobbed in front of me clearly waiting for a response. I swallowed my suddenly dry throat. As I willed myself to speak through my shock.
"H- Hello?"
The device seemed to twirl faster in response to my scratchy voice as it replied.
"It worked! I'm glad. You need to get up Guardian, we need to get moving before night falls."
I looked at the little device that was talking to me, slowly getting over my shock. Taking a moment, the more ruthless and practical side of my brain viciously suppressed and locked away my growing panic, and most of my emotions. I needed to know what was going on, I was either hallucinating, having a nightmare or I really was dead and this was some strange kind of afterlife. I felt my jaw close, I hadn't even realised it was hanging open to the wind, and slowly dragged my focus away from the floating impossibility in front of me and looked around.
My first thought was that I was in a jungle canyon of some sort. The air was hot and muggy and there was greenery everywhere. The trees were reminiscent of those of a rainforest, vines hanging low and disrupting line of sight further than ten to twenty meters. Beyond that rose a sheer cliff, surprisingly also covered in greenery.
The eeriest thing about it was that there was no noise save that of the insects buzzing around, not even the running water you would expect to be around in a canyon like this. My inspection complete I turned back to the little machine still hovering patiently in front of me.
"What are you? Whats going on? The last thing I remember was me…" I couldn't find it in myself to say it out loud, maybe I was in a little denial.
The floating thing seemed to perk up at that, a strangely human movement that seemed odd coming from a machine, even one that spoke.
"I am a Ghost, well I'm now your Ghost, as for what's going on, you've been dead a long time. About 700 years actually. Thats quite interesting, its not often that humans from before the Traveller came can wield it's light, after all-"
I had stopped paying attention.
700 years.
I had been dead for the better part of a millennia and this thing had just come along and revived me in the middle of a jungle? I smelled bullshit somewhere. Questions where whirling in my mind. What did it mean it was 'my' Ghost? Who the hell was the Traveller he just mentioned? How did it even revive me? If I had been dead for 700 years I should have been nothing but dust, if even that.
I was about to ask all these and more when an unearthly howl cut through the air. It went straight through my ears and down my spine, and all I could do was lock up as fear coursed through me. Something was out there, some sort of wild beast and it didnt sound friendly.
The little Ghost had spun around in alarm at the sound before turning back to me equally quickly and darting towards my face, disappearing in a flash of blue light. Before I could react, I heard its voice echoing in my head.
"Don't worry, I'm still with you. I know you have questions, lots of them, but we aren't safe. If the Fallen find us, we're dead, and I can't revive you a second time. I have to get you to the City, and that means we have to get out of the Dead zone they've set up. So getting out of the ruins of this city before nightfall if we can is our top priority."
"And if we don't?"
The Ghost appeared in front of me in a flash of blue light, there was a set to its eye that unnerved me, a sense of grimness that alarmed me deeply in the animal hindbrain we all have.
"Then we'd better hope luck is smiling on us."
I had only more questions from this, but a second howl called out. This one was closer, I hazarded a guess that it wasn't moving directly at me but it was moving in my direction. Leveraging myself up from the ground, I gave a quick glance around. This was a city? Whatever happened to it in the past 700 years, it must have been bad if humans had not reclaimed it.
Another howl, closer.
"We need to move, now."
I cleared my thoughts, time to focus.
"Lead the way"
