The Road We Walked

Chapter One

**In The Beginning**

My name is Lucas. Yes simply Lucas although others called me Lucas Wormwood.

You may wonder, how come about my name. I will tell you.

I hail from the distant lands of the Brownies or so I was told. A people reckoned with a sophisticated lifestyle and civilization unmatched by non other. My race hailed from the land of Nod.

Nod was a place unequaled in beauty and majesty. The riches of the earth had it's best use in our land. The houses Tower high into the skies like giant trees, with clean air and crystal skies.

At Nod, there was no low caste citizen as every family had a good means of survival. Life was generally peaceful until the day of the doom.

"Why doom"? I once asked but no one could tell me. All I learned was that the Nodians are a people highly advanced in knowledge and technology, they sought to create a perfect weather condition of their own, different from what the other places experience and that was where the catastrophe struck.

In a blaze that lasted a few minutes, the whole city appeared to shrink leaving no sign of any habitation behind. How I got to survive, I do not know. But they said, I was found in a tub, which seems to look like a capsule ejected out from the mist which was rising to the skies.

There, my origin lies, and that's where my story begins.

**Lucas**

This is queer, said the old farmer as he looked at the transparent vessel that landed some way off his farm.

Old Pete, has lived his lonely life in the woods away from the city after the tragic loss of his wife and only son in a fire incidence at their house.

Pete's, family was all he had in the world, his wife Marie was his only companion and when their Child Lucas came into the picture, Pete had a reason to hope upon life and smile again. He felt his strength which was initially ebbing away suddenly coming back to life.

Pete had had big hopes and dreams for his family of three, but everything turned into a fleeting shadow the day the tragic loss of his family occured. And although, the neighbours around tried to console him, his heart refused to be consoled leading him out to the outskirts of town.

For 10 years, Pete had lived a lonely life in this bush apartment, doing the same routine and tending his little garden, he never dreamed of a day like this to behold.

Out as usual, in his farm tending the field, although it was day, but a radiance almost as blinding as the sun seem to illuminate everywhere for some moments and just then came a crashing sound not so far off from his farm. Awestruck by the sight, at first he was afraid but latter, his wobbling knees found strength to hold him and his feeble feet's take him to the sight of the crash. Amazed at what he saw, it was a human figure tucked properly in what seem a giant transparent tube. The child gazed at him, surprised just as Pete himself was surprised.

At lost completely of what to do, Pete thought to feel about the tube and just as he made contact with it, the glass screen slid open, revealing the innocent face of a child who was completely mesmerized at the sight of his surrounding and at the figure looking at him.

Carefully, Pete, reached into the chamber unstrapped the child which had already began to protest in very high pitched wails and while he tried to calm the child, his gaze for the first time turned toward the direction where the tube containing the child had appeared from, it was then it occurred to Pete that the beautiful city he had always admired from the distance with it's towering buildings and auspicious landscape has turned into a sea of nothingness. An empty latitude bearing an expanse of clear sight with only what seems to be a lull of smokes ascending from a few areas.

Pete had recalled, that the land of Nod had been renowned for their prolific intellectual prowess and an insatiable quest for knowledge, and knew that this quest of knowledge and the desire to do new and unimaginable things must have brought about the complete annihilation of the Nodians.

At that instant, streaks of tears escaped his eyes and as though the child understood what was happening, it stopped it's cries, looked Pete in the eyes and held tight his index finger as though it was saying I feel the same thing you are feeling.

Immediately pangs of pains, rushed into Pete's heart, the incident which led to the loss of his beloved wife and only child seemed to play like a movie scene before his eyes, bringing back the age long pain he had had to endure and struggle to forget.

While he held the child in his arms, pressing it tightly to his chest, his feet wobbled again and could barely take his weight. sluggishly, he found a clean spot on the ground. Sat with the child and looking at it's beautiful face he finally said, "Lucas I will call you, for your eyes remind me of what this cruel life took from me"