I'm back!  This is the second book in a series I started on my other account Mr_Aek.  I'm testing posting it here first just to see which account has more active followers.  PLEASE DO VOTE! Votes and high ranking do help motivate me to write more XD.  And enjoy! :)

*** The Week that Follows ***

Harriet L. Malaway, the secretary to the world they called her, walked down the large long hallway.  She was almost as new as the building, appointed book-keeper two months after the war ended, right when the construction to the building was in full force.  Now completed in record time the building had a single hall, twenty feet across with nearly a hundred foot high ceiling supported by a couple dozen large columns which reached all the way up to the domed roof.

Her pace sped up, causing the tips of her light brown hair to bounce against her shoulders while her heels clicked and echoed through the entire empty hall.  She had a tight dark blue dress on that reached all the way to her feet, always staying a few centimeters from the ground.  To the left and right of her were various off-centered halls, the same tall roof as the main passage but much more narrow halls.  It’s all empty now, three am.  Urgent news, she knew the director would be here with his officers still, they never seemed to leave – taking care of an entire world was an important job.  She stopped and turned slowly, checking behind her.  There’s been this little girl in the hall on and off recently, a ghost – she’d be there, then she’d be gone.  It seemed only Miss Malaway could see the ghost, it’s kept her awake for the past couple days and she’s been running on little to no sleep now.  The girl wasn’t there this time.  That’s good.

She turned forward once more; she could see the hall targeted as the one the director would be down.  She turned around once more, sensing eyes on her back, she only saw the ancient looking Roman art that filled the now empty hall from top to bottom—an artistic addition the Director insisted—the Romans wanted to rule the world but failed, and he does now. Miss Malaway was never sure if the paintings were an insult to the Romans or respect, she was never quite able to discern his reasoning behind them no matter how much she toyed with him for the answers.

She looked at the image of the coliseum a little longer that she normally would.  The edges of the painting were pealed and the entire thing was stained an off-yellow with dust sprinkled over it.  There’s been much speculation of the age of the painting, it may be a modern reproduction with intentional aging or a legitimate piece of Roman art, one that must have been shifted from private gallery to private gallery never meeting the public’s eyes until now.  Her eyes caught the controversial almost dirt-like scatter of red at the bottom edge of the painting.  That’s where the previous owner was murdered in the hall of his mansion and the blood flew up against the wall and painting.  Where he struggled to get the beast clinging to his neck off before he finally fell dead.  Or so the story goes, it could just be dirt from poor keeping after all. 

She turned back around, not sure why in the world she’d slow her pace to look at a painting.  The corner, she was right at it now.  Turning corners here always terrified her, that girl—she could literally be anywhere.  She looked in front of her; there was the end of the great hall, a marble staircase going up several dozen steps in a massive half circle that stretches from the pillars on one side of the hall to the other.  These stairs all cumulate into one massive bronze chair with a red velvet cushion and winding intricate carvings etched into its sides.  The Seat of the World it was called, even though no one actually sits there.  Another ancient metaphor the Director insisted on, this one a symbol of a time of kings and queens, emperors and supreme rulers.

She remembered a sentence from his speech the day this great hall was opened, “Whoever sits in this chair rules the world, rules humanity, controls a great planet of six billion inhabitants.”  It then goes on vaguely, about a war on what’s to come, a punishment to the devil in the skies, and the greatness of the human race to prevail and retaliate against a foe unseen. This speech, much better written and performed than Miss Malaway’s memory sparked an uproar of cheers that probably could have been heard by the eight million souls living in the now capital to the world, Fridgerde.  It also put in motion a rapid space race like never before.  Revenge was needed and though humanity doesn’t even know which way to fly one things for certain: a year ago Earth was attacked by something out of this world, three and a half billion people perished and the rest are still dying to prove no one messes with humanity.

She smiled remembering that through all his talk about the Seat to the World and the ruler of humanity he never actually sat in the chair—no one has.  It’s been put there and no one’s dared to touch it yet.  How can someone with supreme power and infinite rule not abuse that control?  How has he not even touched the chair?  He had it placed there to be a message to everyone under his control but he hasn’t even dared to use it.  When asked why his only response was that “We are not there yet.” For almost half a year that chair has sat barren and empty, gathering dust for not even the janitors of the place dare to touch it.  Maybe the chair is cursed, maybe it’s meant to never be sat in, maybe no one can really ever by the ruler of humanity. Maybe that was the point—a forever empty chair until the last possible moment—the point where the captain goes down with the ship. 

She blinked slowly and turned the corner.  The ghost wasn’t there. Just a narrow hall with six doors—three on each side, almost like the hallway of a school.  The door nearest to the corner had a light on and the first low-hanging lamp was letting out a dim yellow, the rest of the hall was a hundred or so feet of darkness ending with a steel door. She survived a night without being haunted, a huge plus.  She’s not sure why, but a strong urge came over her and she turned once more, just to check the bronze chair.  Her heart skipped a beat.  She was just barely able to see chair from the corner of the hall but there it was, there the girl was.

This was the closest Miss Malaway has been to the ghost, the girl looked so real.  She was no more than six or seven, long straight brown hair and a frilly pink dress so crisp it looked like it was taken fresh out of the store moments ago.  But everything else about the girl was deathly wrong.  Her arms and legs were covered with black smudges and what looked like bruises and little girl had a dried bloody mess covering her mouth and running down her chin—though none of it touched the brand new dress.  There were scrapes down the girls arms like she’d been running through thorns and a large bruise over one eye as if someone had thrown a brick at her face. 

The girl in her ghastly state was sitting firm in the Seat to the World her hands on each armrest and white knuckles clenching the orb ends of the chair arms.  Her back was perfectly erect and she seemed cool and calm, not looking at anything in particular.  Miss Malaway couldn’t see the little girl’s eyes at her angle, but noticed they were starting straight down the hall and off into the distance. 

This was when the Secretary realized her fingers were clenching the door to the conference room.  She turned slowly to the door and the camera mounted above it, then back to the throne.  The girl was gone.  She twisted and the door opened.  She forced her body into the light.

The Director was sitting at one end of a table with a screen below him. He had a black suit, black tie, short brown hair with gray hairs dispersed evenly about it.  His thick brown eyebrows looked as if they were fading and his face was rough and uneven from decades of skin problems and not shaving for the past couple days.  The man, without a real name known to the public, was rumored to be in his mid-forties, though he looks like he could be as old as fifty.  He had a few winkles on his fingers and creases around his mouth, but when he spoke he could silence a building and mesmerize a crowd—the soul reason he is the one in charge. 

Miss Malaway could see the security camera he had his screen tuned to was the one just outside the door.  She also knew he had to buzz her in otherwise the door would have never opened—so he saw her hesitation.  She made no hint of it now however, there was a meeting going on, she had to show no weakness.

She glanced over the rest of the room, there was eight men in total, three she knew off the top of her head, The Director—current leader of the world, Lucas Brawl—a young scrawny pale man wearing the typical American business attire, black suit, blue dress shirt, and a striped tie, also the reason the old American Regime fell and a world government centralized in Europe became possible, and Alexander Prescott—an elder gentlemen with calm eyes and all white attire, The Keeper of Faith they called him; some sort of religious leader that’s been trying to unify the ideals of all remaining religions on Earth.  As for the other five, there were a few she’s seen around, generic political types, and two complete strangers.

Of the strangers there was one man in front, tan skin and a faint red mark going across his face from his forehead and right down through his lips, she could tell surgery did this man wonders on what used to be a nasty battle scar.  Behind this man, who seemed to be the talkative one, was a second man.  A shady large figure with a dirty hat pulled down far enough to cover his eyes.  The second man who wasn’t much of a talker had a fat unlit cigar in his mouth and kept pulling it out of his mouth and flicking it as if it was lit.  The second man had heavy attire and didn’t fit the appearance or role of someone powerful enough to meet the current ruler of the world.

“Ah, Miss Secretary—good news I hope.” The director eyed the screen below him then back to the folder she had in her arms.  He then turned back to his middle-of-the-night guests, “Let’s stop jumping around the obvious.  Look.  I’m the current leader of the world and the masses agreed upon that.  It’s people like you that are preventing my reign from being 100% solid.  People like you with your greedy agendas that are ruining what’s left of humanity.  Give me one reason why I shouldn’t just have you killed right now.  No one would miss you, no one would even know—in fact I’m almost certain if the people knew who you are and what you did they’d beg for me to publically kill you.”

The man with the scar looked at the Director and the Secretary slowly.  Miss Malaway walked around to the Director’s side and placed the folder on the desk next to him, making sure to not cover the screen embed in the table.  She then helped herself to his screen touching it and opening a menu of all the available cameras. The director gave his visitor a glace, signifying him to start talking.

The first man spoke, “Something precious to us was taken and used without our will. Something very valuable and very dangerous.  But it’s not that something precious that we’re worried about, it’s the people who took it.  Someone with the means to take something very dangerous and control it still exists out there, a force that’s been trying to control this planet for thousands of years.  And now—conveniently—the there is a new world order and a pretty metal chair just waiting to be claimed.  You’ve literally built an empire for them and they are just waiting to pounce.

“So you ask what we want, why you shouldn’t just squash us?  We have the means to find this force you’ve been blind to and the technology to destroy it.  We don’t want much—never have—just a piece of the fame and glory that comes with controlling an entire planet. We want status and we will take out the trash you’re too afraid and blind to go against.”

The director glanced down at his screen, Miss Malaway had gone to the menu and selected the camera watching the bronze throne, and she was now rewinding and fast forwarding it looking for something.  “I doubt anything could go against us now—the world is simply too unified in a hate against the unknown.  A war is coming, a war with the stars, and the closer this war comes the further your hidden force will get from ever having any type of control.  The more unified the people are the less likely they are to stray.”

“Is she dead.” The man with the cigar spoke and with the way the rest of the room looked at him, for the first time all meeting.  Miss Malaway had stopped her screening through footage; she found what she was looking for.

“Is who dead?” The director asked. The Secretary hit play; it was an empty video of the Seat to the World, seconds ticked away.  She waited and watched closely, the Director occasionally glanced down too.

The hefty man chuckled, “The Queen, the Harbinger of Death, hell, the weapon—Lilly.”

The video on the desk flickered and went a hazy gray—there was a figure sitting in the chair, its pink dress the only light in the shot.  The Director saw this too.  After a few seconds he looked up at the man without any emotion to signify what he just saw, “Yes—of course she’s dead.  My solider Vicktor made sure of that—you know him from the statue outside.   He stabbed her through the chest with a three foot long steal harpoon, and then he blew her brains out with her own gun. We dragged her body out of the stone tomb she was killed in and even gave her an open burial were several million people saw her body.  Did we kill her?  What more proof do you want?  Do you want us to dig up the damn pit we buried her in—show you the eroding remains?”

The Director looked back down at the screen; the ghostly girl still sat there in his throne, frozen so much so he checked to make sure the video was still playing.  Then she was gone, vaporized into black smoke.  He looked back up at the visitors.  “Yes, we know all that.” The shady man spoke, “But…” he looked towards the screen; he couldn’t see it from his angle.  “Is she dead?”

The fact that the Director hesitated on the second response almost certainly gave away what he just saw on the recording.  Instead of answering the question he locked his dark eyes on the pair, “Go, I’ll send you my response in the next day.  If you’re not dead in a week consider yourselves lucky.”  He switched the screen back to the live feed of the camera outside the room as the two men stood up and made their exit.  He knew no one but him and the Secretary saw that recording, he was going to make sure it stayed that way. As the door closed the Director looked at his remaining associates.  “They know, they know much too much.”

“Yes they do,” Lucas responded, “We need to dispose of them or keep them very, very, close.”

The Director looked at the rest of the people in the room, no one objected, not even the Keeper of Faith who was normally against violence.