All Four: Invasion: All four, #1

By Eddie Shannon

All Four: Invasion is set in the future. Our world is on the brink of annihilation at the hands of powerful aliens called Hero's led by a curiously evil boy. All hope for humanity lies in the abilities of four individuals sprinkled across the planet Earth with unique energy. Although their presence is revealed to Earth, they still must be found. All Four is composed of 4 individual stories, intricately told with exciting and colorful story telling that culminate into one suprising ending. The plot seems fairly simple, but the author weaves suprising twist into the story, exploring the politics of nations and the role of the U.N. 100 years from now. The saga begins with the arrival of a strange red planet to Earth, a planet with dark intentions. As moments pass, your anticipation will build with every turn of the page. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eddie Shannon
• Release date: Oct 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393199045

Book preview

WARNING: This book contains graphic descriptions of violence and gore.

Reader discretion is advised.

Part 1

WAR

Sometimes peace can only be attained through acts of aggression. When two sides have debated and yelled at one another till they are blue in the face, the realness that the other side is just stupid or incapable of hearing the truth may begin to seep into one’s thinking mechanism. Unchecked this begins permeating their thought process, poisoning all logic and reason. When this happens one side or another may begin to see the other as the very antithesis of what is rooted in them; that which is permeating every fiber of their very self. It brings one to a confrontation with their own honor and beliefs. Sometimes this is the cause of the violence that brings peace.

Other times, frequently actually, peace is attained through violence because resistance is no longer an option but a means for survival. For example such as when a small animal manages to kill a much larger predator while trying to protect itself. When the aforementioned smaller prey is fighting the larger predator, it loses all concept of WHY it is fighting. Its only focus is that it is just fighting and to lose would be a costly sin. Oftentimes when either of these instances occurs, the cause or motivation for the disagreement of the sides is an afterthought, and the narrative becomes lost in the fray of violence and ever-growing hate. In the aftermath of the failed rationale, only continuing and escalating malice emerges.

This may go on until eventually, one side abdicates to the other or, in the latter, of the scenarios one side is dead. Either way, no matter the time elapsed, both sides are ultimately convinced until the end that they are correct in their resolution. That victory, through genocide, murder, and carnage, or whatever means necessary, PEACE will be had. So maybe the word peace isn't appropriate when engaging in war with another? The thought that something so beautiful and tantalizing as peace is regularly attained through such barbaric, primitive minded means is ironic. The word peace is dubious at best. Perhaps maybe the victor achieves the trophy or the prize instead of peace? Seems like a more tidy fitting description given the level of fought competition to achieve it.

Maybe this writer is just a softy or too heady, a hipster hell-bent on bringing trendy coffee shops and skinny jeans into your present entity. Maybe this writer is a Former U.S. Marine Machine Gunner who has witnessed carnage and participated in the carnage himself. Perspective is all relative so I suppose the reader will just have to judge this writer's theory based on what WAR and PEACE mean to you...Peace.

2096 - Earth

It has been three years since a strange planet arrived in our solar system. The red world just appeared one morning, bursting into existence through a giant ball of fire and ore. It emerged from the explosion as if it teleported. The red mystery stationed itself in our orbit, offset slightly between Earth and the moon.

It is noticeably red, very similar to the red burnt surface of Mars. From the Earth, it appears huge and looming given how much closer it is than the moon. On occasion, an inquisitive child can be seen trying to reach up and touch it. But in actuality the planet is small, perhaps not even ¼  the size of Earth.

Many attempts by many nations have been made to send envoys and welcoming committees to the small planet, but all have failed by way of forcefield. Visible from just about all of earth, it is a constant conduit of curiosity doubling as a billboard in the sky, advertising gloom, and uncertainty. It's very arrival, inactivity, and silence make the planet appear to be all the more maligned in darkness. Every conspiracy theory and potential explanation has been explored, but none validated. The U.N. and world peace organizations are at a loss. They have no answer for Earth as to what the planet is or why it’s here. The only certainty to be had is that we are uncertain and cannot attack this planet, as it has not yet attacked us.

August 22nd , 2096 - The Red Planet

A boy kneels atop a rigid, red mountain beside a piece of wreckage bearing the serial number 813. He is approximately sixteen years old and is tall and grizzly. His hair is red, bushy, long, and unkempt. His eyes are round and glowing, giving more fear to his appearance. He sports a terrifying grimace on his face, showing his sharp, jagged teeth.

The boy's nails are long and dirty, caked underneath with dried blood just as the corners of his mouth are. He is a feral looking thing, well-built but lanky. He wears no shirt and no shoes, only pants torn at the calves. His world is cold and dusty, much quieter than the busy Earth. Frosty winds swirl all around him, winds cold enough to stifle a normal boy. But this boy is not normal.

He stares off in the direction of Earth. His gaze focused and fixed as if he was intensely staring at one particular needle amongst an ocean of them. The corners of his mouth crack into a grin as he puts his hand on his knee and rises. He is ready, he thinks to himself, walking over to the wreckage that lay broken and useless beside him. The boy’s hands are not large or extraordinary in any way. But they are big enough for him to, without any complication, grasp the nose of the craft and raise it with ease above his head. I’m definitely ready, he vociferates excitedly. The boy winds his arm back at a 45-degree angle and in almost the same motion, thrusts his hand forward hurling the craft towards Earth with the precision of a well-aimed dart.

At precisely 0400 hours Eastern time, a beam of light is seen entering the Earth's atmosphere via German satellite imagery. At 0401 hours, the beam strikes the White House, killing the U.S. President and his wife. The world is baffled by this occurrence. Global stock markets decline and the world economy is thrust into an economic tailspin overnight. In the ensuing chaos, it is found that 26 people were murdered including the president and first lady. Furthermore, in the aftermath of the wreckage, the remains of humans who did not die in the White House are discovered.

Their bodies are old and parts of them skeletonized. Faces of some of the bodies still dawn tight skin, showing looks as if screaming out their last breaths instead of taking them. Their toes and fingers curl, suggesting they endured prolonged unenviable, and torturous deaths. Those present in the aftermath of the crash wonder how the wreckage is so intact. How could these bodies have all stayed preserved through such a harrowing journey into the White House? The night continues to bring more questions than answers when a discovery is made by one of the F.B.I. crime scene investigators. Flight 813 was a space expedition en route to Mars that disappeared in space ten years prior. What’s even more alarming is that all the bodies of the wreckage bear signs of cannibalism coupled with mutilation, before and after death.

August  23rd , 2096 - World U.N. council meeting

Representative Carl Mansley is a short stocky man. He is unremarkable in appearance with an odd disposition for rubbing his left temple while speaking. He addresses the U.N. council sounding serious and on edge.

Council members, yesterday's attack on the White House cannot go unresponded to. His voice projects loudly through the floor of the U.N. building. The speed and force with which that spacecraft smashed into the White House was no coincidence or accident. This was an intentional attack on the U.S. resulting in an assassination of the highest power in the world. We must organize a response, a global one, or next it will be China or perhaps Canada who will be attacked!

He slams his fist on the podium. his voice is shaking now, enraged. To do nothing will make us look weak! He surveys the room looking for a hint of support across the old hardened faces of the Final Twelve.

A computerized voice rings out, Representative, as you know, the panel of twelve was assembled after Thailand bombed South Korea in an attempt to assist North Korea back in 2075. This effort resulted in the decimation of the entire country North and South using the great bomb 'The equalizer' without a care for the rest of humanity. Mansley dreads hearing the council recite this story every time the Red Planet is brought up to them. We were assembled to vote on if ANY country may aggress another in an act of war to ensure this will never occur again. Mansley breathes an annoyed sigh through his nose and crosses his arms. He is sure he will not gain these panel members’ unanimous vote after this lecture.

"And as you know, any country that attacks another will draw the ire of every nation of this world per the Treaty of Continents. This thing, this planet, has a force field surrounding it. We sent hundreds of space fighter pilots on numerous occasions to engage it and they all crashed back to the earth." The councilman’s translator box around his neck brightens to a fluorescent red every time he elevates his voice.

You need a unanimous vote of twelve from this council to gain permission to war with another, and I can definitively tell you that this is one vote you will not get. We will not jeopardize the fate of the world against an enemy we know nothing of. The councilman pauses and removes his glasses. Furthermore, if that planet did send the craft here do you understand the power of the technology that would be capable of creating such havoc? says the Councilmen, looking left and right at his colleagues. Anything else representative? Manley runs his tongue across his dry, chapped lips and swallows hard while simultaneously rubbing his left temple.

"Yes, sir. The Treaty of Continents prohibits war against another country. This planet is not of our world and therefore we should be allowed as a sovereign nation to attack without reprisal from the U.N."

The councilman raises his hand to press the button that will ready his translator box. "Representative, if the U.S. decides to attack this planet and jeopardize the world's safety, EVERY NATION will attack you in a coordinated effort, as per The Treaty of Continents. You do not have a unanimous vote nor permission to proceed with an attack. No vote shall be taken as I, the ranking member of this council, have already voiced my vote as NO! Anything ELSE, representative?"

Mansley rolls his eyes at the councilman and drops his head. He knows he will not win the support needed to retaliate. He knows that when he returns to the United States he will be relieved of his duties and regarded as a political pariah, a national failure for failing to do so. He swallows hard again, No, your honorable councilman. Thank you for your time. Mansley removes his translator box from around his throat and places it gently on the podium. He stands for a second or two in place, then turns around, walking off the floor looking dejected. He is sure this is not the last time the U.N. will see an argument for war with the Red Planet. He along with all twelve councilmen in that hall knows it was a preemptive attack on not just America, but the world. The murder of the U.S. president was essentially a declaration of war. If Earth doesn't attempt an assault, soon the red planet may very well start attacking until we are no more.

October 17th , 2096 - Tokyo, Japan

It’s hot as fuck for October thinks Chin as he walks along Rujin Boulevard in Toyko. It's usually 23 degrees around the middle of October, but this year it's gotta be 30 degrees out. This is his first year as a police officer so he hasn't quite gotten used to walking and patrolling for hours at a time. The academy could not perfectly replicate the physical grind of a patrol beat. Nothing really happens on his route so he has to constantly be on guard from complacency. It is around 12 a.m. when Chin reaches the Kao Zhu district. The Kao Zhu district is a tourist attraction. A pop-cultural haven of vending machines featuring everything from used panties scrunched up in tiny plastic containers to mind-numbing family Mcdonalds, complete with playgrounds for the kiddies....right next to the vending machines with used panties.

Chin strolls along and takes in the mixture of bright lights fusing in colorful harmony as the gentle sounds of the bands serenading the streets carry him along. A chorus of strangers’ conversations echoes incoherently in the background. There goes that complacency sneaking in again, he thinks as he passes an inebriated man and woman propping one another up as they make their way past him. It's almost lunchtime and Chin readies to call in to command. Command post, command post this is 3112. I'm going to lunch, do you copy? Chin begins to visualize that Ramen that he is going to inhale for lunch. Mr. Cho's has the best Ramen in Tokyo, no Japan, no THE WORLD. You see, Chin’s a daydreamer, and this dream is the kind that puts you in a booth, lingering over a hot steaming bowl of some pork ramen at Mr. Cho’s.

Command post copy, blasts his handset.

Sweet, now I can go live the dream, he says to himself. Chin floats towards Mr. Cho’s booth. Man, so good it lifts you off your feet, whispers Chin, nearing closer to his destination. But this dream is premature because Chin is being lifted off his feet too soon; he is literally being lifted! Chin can peripherally see that colorful harmony of bright neon lights begin to disappear and blend into a hot orange, peppered with grey silhouettes of boulder and metal.

His dream has transformed into a nightmare. The serenade of soothing jazz bands is morphing into the sounds of screams and explosions. Soon those horrific sounds turn to nothing, but an inaudible blankness followed by a piercing long and distant beep ringing in his head.

His world is dizzying and transforming all around him. It is being disassembled in slow motion. Chin can feel bits of concrete and debris patting his face. He can feel the vibration from the impacts of the giant this or that falling all around him smashing into the earth after he hits the ground.

An explosion has rocked Tokyo. Chin is on his back now. He can see the people all around him scurrying, panicking. Someone runs past him, then another and another. He steadies himself to get up, rolling to his side onto his elbow. In an instant, he is off-balance again.

He is being shoved on his left shoulder. Chin is somewhat baffled to see a stranger, a woman, kneeling down next to him yelling something.

Chin tries to mouth that he can't hear her when his front teeth and part of his tongue fall onto his stomach, rolling down onto his left thigh. This ball of muck, blood, and flesh soaked in his own crimson-colored saliva brings home a reality, his reality. In an instant, his senses are rushing back to him like a long-forgotten memory. 

He suddenly can hear the woman screaming. HEY, HEY! You have to get up! The expression the woman wears is one of unchecked fear. She pulls on Chin, but he does not budge. He is still lost somewhere between the dream and the nightmare. Even though he has gained back his sensibilities he is dazed. He focuses for a second in a moment of clear thinking about how he just wants to go back to living the dream. Chin looks down at the two bloody dislodged teeth on his lap and is briefly distracted by the flesh still attached to them. His clarity is suddenly interrupted by his radio.

All units all units! Converge on downtown Kao Zau District! Tokyo is being attacked by something. Reports are saying it's.... It's some kind of creature or alien. Chin's daze is beaten off by his sense of obligation and duty. Before he can fully process what has happened Chin jumps to his feet. Get outta here now! he barks at the lady who is slightly bewildered by Chin's sudden reanimation. She still kneels beneath him when Chin turns and sprints towards downtown.

His mind is a speedway racing with thoughts as he runs towards the still ongoing explosions. Hundreds of people run opposite of him. He is being bumped, elbowed, grabbed, and pushed as he makes his way downtown with his Nambu model 60 service weapon drawn and ready in his right hand.

This is it, he thinks to himself pushing past the crowd. This is the action I have been waiting for. Chin can feel himself sweating, he can feel the sweat of others as they rub against him, shuffling sideways and spinning around one another. Despite his heart beating so loudly he can hear it, he is only concerned with making it to the action. This is what he signed up for, and no matter what he encounters, he has resolved himself to fight.

The screams become quieter and quieter while the explosions get more violent and brighter as Chin nears downtown. It has only been a minute or so of running before Chin suddenly realizes...he is all alone. It is quiet aside from random explosions and occasional moans of the wounded, and there are not many, just a lot of dead laid all about the silent park.

A little more apprehensive now, he fixes himself to cross this park that will lead him right into the heart of the action. Silencing his handset, he draws both hands around his service pistol and begins to slowly step into the park. The sky is pseudo-bright, artificially illuminated with explosions and fire. Smoke and large fires rise high from what seems to be every building downtown. The booms are deafening to Chin, making his way across the grass trying not to make a sound giving away his position. He jogs lightly through the sprawling park when he is halted in his tracks.

He raises his head to the starless night sky surveying the massive blue and black space. He can hear something, something like a siren; no, it’s yelling. It's far, but quickly becoming close and he is sure it's in the sky. His eyes search upward horizontally, and then he sees it. Chin spots something cartwheeling, rather someone cartwheeling, and that someone is screaming.

Before Chin can fully register what is happening, the cartwheeled man is over his head and then past him, screaming akin to a woman in a horror film as he whizzes by. Chin’s head is tilted up and his mouth agape. What the hell did he just see? How or what could throw a man through the air that way?

Chin tries to steady himself, looking down at the pistol in his shaking hands. I have to do this, I HAVE TO DO THIS! Chin chants to himself, voicing these words against the unvoiced opposition in his head. He turns towards downtown and readies himself for a second, then charges like a wild man. He is sprinting with tears streaming down his cheeks.

He is amped and charged up, running AWAY from downtown! FFFFFUUCCCCCCKKKKK THIS! I signed up to protect and serve, not to die! This is a job for the military! he exclaims loudly. As Chin sprints back towards the evacuating crowd, another explosion occurs followed by a distinct POOF! Chin pauses and turns to see what looks like a whirlwind tunnel trailing a flying man?

This is impossible, he thinks to himself as he stands paralyzed. He is not alone. Other fleeing people have stopped running for their mad dash to cover. They are statues paralyzed by what they have witnessed too. They stand with their heads all tilted upwards to the sky, mouths fixed open. With the explosions now stopped, soon they are replaced by a litany of sorrowful cries, followed with the bravado of celebratory cheers. It is over, at least for now and people are grateful to have survived. Thankful he has been spared, Chin falls to his knees and exhales loudly.

Some of his teeth are gone and he has lost part of his tongue, but he is alive. With his arms and head drooped, hands dangling on his inner thighs he begins to cry. Hey, sir, are you okay? Let me help you. Everything is going to be fine, yells a paramedic, rushing over to Chin. Carefully, Chin is helped to his feet by the man, still thinking of what he just saw in the park. He wonders if the man who is helping him up saw what Chin saw.  No, replies Chin, rising. It's not okay, and we are not going to be fine either.

By the end of the second day of the attacks, the being, later known as a Hero, has secured all of Japan’s airspace defeating the Japanese Air Force effortlessly. Within three days it has established his base in Okinawa Japan, ordering all military personnel out of Japan within 48 hours. The Japanese military refused and was nearly obliterated within a week.

The Hero enslaved Japan, and all of its inhabitants, securing them in a forcefield around the island. The forcefield effectively has cut the island off from the rest of the world. As a result, Japan has now come to be referred to as a dark spot. This would continue for the next three years.

Part 2

GOD

Sometimes this writer ponders religion. Religion has been the most debated topic to date in whatever timeline you are reading this in and probably forever will be. No one but you knows what religion you are. You may be religious and despite me not being religious, we perhaps have often had some of the same thoughts and ponderings over the subject. Sometimes my mind wanders off into that room filled with unanswered religious questions like is there a hell? This is followed by the thought of if there is a hell am I going too it? Maybe this happens to you too while sitting through mass or if you are like me when you’re smoking a fatty contemplating your own existence. 

We may be unalike in our religious beliefs, but we are very much alike in our own individual desire for the answers to religion. I remember when I was a boy my mother and father would take me to church. I won’t specify what religion, but we went every Sunday and Wednesday as well. It was loud and energetic, and as a youth, even now I found the literature full of wisdom, also full of hypocrisy. I enjoyed it overall sometimes, the atmospherics and harmony.

But I never could really connect, really believe the word which naturally caused internal strife inside me. Later in life, I learned that was not unique to me as an individual. Of course, I couldn't know that then so I was torn. I was torn between feeling that I was SUPPOSED to be spiritual and the realness that I was not and never would be.

My mother and father, both Southerners, were raised in the church just as their parents before them and so forth. This realization hit me in a manner that felt like it was supposed to alert me to something but instead exposed me to my biggest unanswered question that teases me to this day. If I was born in the rocky terrain of Utah, USA and raised in the Mormon church, would I have at some point become a practicing Mormon? Had I been born in the sandy scorched deserts of Iraq and raised Muslim would I currently be a Muslim? What if I had been a Muslim through the Crusades, would I have converted to Catholicism and renounced my faith had my life been put in the balance?

I can’t possibly ever answer that because there is simply no way to know, that's why the question plagues me. To say what I would do when hypothetically placed in a scenario in which I could never possibly be in is moot and unrealistic. No one knows what they will do until they have had too; this I know from real-world experiences. So that being stated, I guess ultimately my question to myself plainly would be: Is religion taught to us? Could we come to embrace a sect or religion on our own if not being spoon-fed the very idea of religion from adolescence?

I think back to when I was a kid and remember me and all my friends in Sunday school hating being in church, but not church itself. The disconnect between us kids and the adults was stark on the matter of Sunday service. Us kids made up games and tried to keep one another's attention while trying not to get caught. I also remember growing up and some of those same friends being Saved and completely rejecting any of our past vices.

What changed them and not others? I'm sure if the reader is religious they will say God changed them. If not perhaps you'll say a need to belong to something, a group of sorts is what drew them. I will not disagree with either of these conclusions as this is an epic story, not a debate. If you’re curious and I assume you are not, this writer believes in God, just not religion.

Towards the end of World War II in 1944, the German government told the German citizens that their army was still winning the war and progressing. This of course was not true and the German Army surrendered shortly after. Despite this lie, the German citizens believed the horseshit they were being told by the German government and carried on about life as if victory or PEACE was in reach. Perception is reality, right?

We all know the following, but the comparison I aim to draw is not religion to the Reich. Instead, it is that we as humans tend to be a product of our environment and believers of what we are told to believe. This is especially true when constantly being conditioned to believe that any other truth is an affront to your own. There will always be war, why? Because to acknowledge the validity of another religion is essentially a denouncement of your own fundamental beliefs. Many nations dictate policy(War) based on religion and therefore the world will remain in the state it has been since religion became a way of life.

But enough preface. As you read this chapter, I implore you, reader, to wonder the parallels of your mind and require of yourself to contemplate another question that provokes my thought process daily as it does countless others. What makes you or better yet what makes us truly, truly believe?

October  24th , 2099 -Okinawa, Japan

The morning is ordinary as Allah takes to his throne. He is of flesh and bone, some metal, and intelligence. But Allah is no man. He is a Hero sent from the Red Planet posted high above earth. At 8'8" and nearly 400 lbs, he is an imposing figure, looming over any potential human opponent inhabiting this planet.

Allah's feet consist of three toes, each crowned with a sharp, pointed claw protruding from the tip. He has no ability to fly but can glide. This although is not needed often, as the pile of muscle and thick tissue that make up his legs are more than capable of propelling him to impressive leaping displays.

His gigantic thighs support a core that is reminiscent of an oversized red oakwood double door. His shoulders are broad and stocky, not defined much but still a large, lethal composition. From them hang his bionic cannons masked as flesh wrapped in arms that are capable of distributing great destruction if used at maximum strength.

The Hero's neck is a long narrowing concentrated highway of muscle that leads to the huge massive red fleshy boulder that is his head. It's mainly comprised of a V-shaped column of holes allowing him to breathe in 20 times the amount of oxygen needed to supply a human. He needs this oxygen for his four lungs which allow him to fight without reaching exhaustion. He is one of two Heroes designed by the boy and he is by far the most durable.

This red beast has no nose, but the V-shape of holes designed to give air is overshadowed by a giant cyclops eye positioned above them. Its pupil is a red vertical line converging into sharp tips on both ends, something like a snake’s eye. The red pupil is surrounded on both sides by a piss yellow, swirling hue that makes the cyclops invoke a feeling of inadequacy in his opponents once one stares into it. The reptilian nature of it many times leaves one feeling a sense of none recognition, stirring feelings of man vs. the unknown. It distracts you, consuming you until you are lost in it. Due to that effect alone, many times the fight is won before the first punch is ever thrown.

A giant set of wings used to aid him in his descent back to solid footing during fights hangs down his back. They are as red as every part of him is. The wings are thin and cartilage-based, coming to rest over a long rusty red tail riddled with spikes, about nine feet in length. This tail is another cannon, one he has used as a sneak attack on many occasions in his campaigns. Allah discharges it between his legs at his opponent in a moment of distraction.

Allah has conquered many planets in the galaxy by his lonesome. He takes no pride in killing as he has no emotion or sensitivities, a design trait given by his creator. Killing weaker beings is no different to him than it is for you to eat a bowl of oatmeal in the morning. It is just simply something he does.

Despite having no emotion, Allah is well thought out and finds himself often comparing the Earth to past conquests when he is mulling around waiting for word from his creator. The