In 2017 A.D. the world as ordinary men and women know it ended. For you see, thousands of years into the past, the Inhumans roamed the world. The things that Africans called the Orishas, what ancient Hebrews called Angels, what the Pagans called Gods, Goddesses, Monsters and Giants. The bad news is that all of these things are real. Everything from centaurs and nymphs to witches, dragons, elves, gnomes, ogres and all kinds of other entities. Also real are angels and demons, along with dwarves, sea monsters and all kinds of other entities. Exactly ten thousand years before the twenty-first century, these Inhumans were banished from the planet Earth by an unknown force.
That force was Yahweh, oldest and most powerful of the Great Ones. In time, He would be worshipped as the Most High by Hebrews, as God or Jehovah by Christians and as Allah by Muslims. Yahweh fought relentlessly against the ancient forces which called themselves the Gods of Paganism. The Olympian Gods of Greek and Roman mythology, the Ennead Gods of ancient Egypt, the deities of ancient China and Japan, the Aztec Gods, and also the myriad Pagan Gods of pre-Christian and pre-Islamic sub-Saharan African kingdoms and nations. Yahweh banished these beings of great power from the planet Earth, and locked them away. They were kept outside of reality by a barrier guarded by the Archangels of Heaven.
Well, one day, Yahweh's ancient enemy, the Archangel Lucifer, also known as the Devil, managed to breach the barrier separating the Ancient Ones from the planet Earth. The Ancient Ones first order of business was to unleash the Inhumans upon the planet Earth. This happened on January 1, 2017 at 1. A.M. The monsters swarmed across the globe. Men and women living in the modern age, with their cellphones, computers, and largely secular mindsets found themselves surrounded by the stuff of myth, the stuff of nightmares. The things they once thought only existed in fairy tales. Policemen in New York City, U.S.A. faced off against thirty-foot-tall humanoid Giants. Centaurs chased women in the countryside of Galway, Ireland. Dragons swarmed the skies of metropolitan Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A sea serpent all but destroyed the City of Tokyo, Japan. A pack of Werewolves hunted down men and women like sheep in the streets of Johannesburg, South Africa. Hordes of Vampires descended upon the streets of Melbourne, Australia. Everywhere the non-humans showed up, chaos followed. And human beings died.
In every city, town and village, in North America, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, people faced creatures the likes of which they have never seen. Things far more monstrous than anything comic book artists and Hollywood science fiction writers could create in their wildest fantasies. Chaos reigned everywhere. The Republic of India launched its nuclear weapons against the non-human forces. Other nations such as the United States, Canada, France, Iran and North Korea launched their own nuclear weapons. While the nuclear warheads killed quite a few of the non-humans, they also reduced the human population of the world by such a wide margin that it was like handing over the globe to the non-humans. There were nearly seven billion human beings living on the planet Earth in January 2017. By March 2017, that number was almost cut in half. Humanity has fallen. The world now belongs to the non-humans.
Twenty seven years after the Fall of Mankind and the Rise of the Inhumans, mankind is now prey to the non-humans. Can there be a tomorrow for mankind? That's what the Old Man wondered. Long had he walked through the ruins of cities across the world. From South Africa to Germany, from America to Mexico. From Iraq to Egypt and Tunisia. From Nigeria to Italy. From China to Pakistan. Everywhere he went, he saw...them. The non-humans. Giants traveling through the remnants of New York City, plucking rag-tag groups of humans out of their hiding places. In the space of a generation, ordinary men and women who once thought of themselves as the dominant life-forms on the planet Earth, were now like vermin. When humans ruled the world, roaches and rats hid in the darkness, feasting on scraps left behind by almighty humans. Now humans were scavenging on the fringes while the Giants, monsters and other freaks roamed the world as the top predators. Most humans had given up. They accepted the new order of things. Some resisted, and were slaughtered by their seemingly invincible enemies. Well, what else could they do? Nuclear fire cannot pierce a dragon's hide. Radiation cannot kill a centaur. A bullet from a shotgun cannot stop a Giant. A submarine cannot vanquish a sea serpent. That's what mankind learned during its brief war against the non-humans.
And yet, in the strangest of all places, the Old Man found hope. He was walking through the streets of the City of Cap-Haitien, Republic of Haiti, when he saw a Giant attack a family that was hiding inside the remnants of a Cathedral. As the gigantic monster got ready to slaughter his would-be victims, someone intervened. A tall, slim and dark-skinned young man stepped out of the shadows. With his bare hands he charged the Giant. The Old Man froze, certain he was about to witness the death of another hapless human being. That's when something amazing happened. The Old Man had seen many strange things both before and after the Fall. And yet, for once, he found himself at somewhat of a loss for words. He watched, mesmerized, as the dark-skinned young man leapt at the twenty-foot-tall Giant, and struck him once in the temple. Down the massive humanoid went. From being struck once by what appeared to be an ordinary human being. The would-be victims of the now dead Giant looked at their savior, seemingly more frightened of him than they were of the gigantic predator that lay dead at their feet. The young man looked at them, an unreadable expression on his face. Then, he left.
