Author's Note: There will be artwork and a soundtrack provided on my tumblr (same username as here).

EXORDIUM

world on fire with a smoking sun
stops everything and everyone
you know there's something
coming down from the sky above

In the year 2013, the world changed.

Two things of note happened. On May 15th, a great lesion was torn into the tenuous fabric of the cosmos. The sky opened up, and a vast and yawning chasm spilled Heaven down upon the earth in a brutal display. Angels were falling—cast out of their home and into the foreign world far below. They descended in fire, wings eaten up by flame, mass confusion and unfathomable pain surrounding them in a chaotic shroud as they plummeted. The earth quaked and shuddered under the assault of what transpired. The oceans, they churned. Mountains groaned from their vigils, despairing. The winds howled and cried, mourning the great loss. One by one, in tandem, the stars fell out of the sky in great burning trails that knifed through the clouds.

Falling, as Lucifer did.

Humanity stood by in fear, in awe, rushing to put a name to what was happening. The end! they cried. Heaven had fallen, and so many were convinced the sun wouldn't rise that morning, that it was over and all was lost.

But the sun did rise. And, with it, something eminently worse. For it wasn't many months after the angels were cast out that a Knight, fresh from the ashes, rose up in a tyrannical stunt of power. No one would forget the day when Abaddon announced her name, her arrival, to the already mortified populace of earth. She stood amid a mass slaughter—demon, human, and angel alike—blood painted over her face as one did before war. After her overthrow of Hell, she promised Creation would be conquered next.

As Abaddon's empire rose, she cast fresh horrors on the Earth, throwing it into destitution and havoc, but nothing was so devastating as the plague she brought forth. It was a sickness that spread faster than Man could document, faster than could be defended against. It left Earth awash in ruin, in death.

A plague known only as: Croatoan.

The year is 2014.

I'll return from darkness and will save your precious skin
I will end your suffering and let the healing light come in
I will cover you when the sky comes crashing in
sent by forces beyond salvation
brace yourself for all will pay
help is on the way