• Location: New Harvoc
    Date: 5-10-1843
    Note: Crescent Minds recently invaded

    My name is Hedrick Lawrence, and I am a citizen of New Harvoc, the most wonderful city on earth. Or at least that’s what they want you to think.
    Only one month ago, New Harvoc was the sprawling metropolis that was known as the “world’s city”. It was the most wonderful place to live, if you liked your every move controlled by bureaucratic, self-righteous dirt bags like Leon Tesh. Leon Tesh is the prime minister of New Harvoc, and what a bull talking idiot he is. Leon Tesh decided a long time ago that New Harvoc would be the world’s most peaceful and civil city. He achieves that by setting up a whole 1984 scenario. You know, the surveillance cameras, the daily schedules, all that stuff. Not to mention that he has a strange little quirk of lining his pockets with government and tax money.
    He calls it tax money. Yeah, okay! I was around when taxes were still used. Making people work for no money and saying that their pay is the wonderful world the government provides them is not my idea of “taxes”. He even took it upon himself to change the calendars! Me and a few others have been keeping track. It should be year 2436. Tesh says its year 1843. He says because it was one thousand eight hundred and forty-three years since man truly became civilized. Only god knows where he got those figures from.
    Along with Tesh’s bureaucratic was of governing, there are the AMNH and the APNH constantly looking down our shoulders. That’s the armed military of New Harvoc and the armed police of New Harvoc, if you didn’t know. Since they illegalized guns over a year ago, those have been the only people allowed to bear firearms. And that brings us to our biggest problem in this magnificent conurbation.
    The Crescent Minds.
    No one really knows who these freak shows are. They walk around, bald, half naked, and with weird tattoos all over them. But that isn't the bad part. The Crescent Minds have these weird powers. Not many people can describe them. The only ones who have been victim to it and not have it blocked out by selective memory say that they hear a low, screeching sound, and then everything goes black, and they see nightmares. I don’t know, I’ve never understood psychology so I don’t get the nightmare part, but that isn't important. The victims end up in comas, or sometimes dead. And the genius prime minister Tesh won't release the prohibition on guns. He says that if we have guns, the city will go into utter chaos. I don’t mean to be rude, but we had guns a year ago you idiot! We didn’t all start killing each other then, now did we!? It doesn’t matter anyway. Tesh refuses to acknowledge the existence of the Crescent Minds. They are an old cult, even briefly mentioned in some historical documents (which by the way, Tesh wants destroyed. He says we have no reason to remember the times when society was imperfect). Tesh prioritizes pride over life. He would do anything to preserve his own ill-gotten honor.
    Just the other day, the news was on and they reported several Crescent Mind attacks. Shortly after, that station was brought off the air, permanently!
    Our city looks perfect from the outside, Tesh makes sure of that, but the inside can rot for all he cares. When looking upon our town, you see gleaming skyscrapers and housing complexes that fit three thousand homes. Some are even over eight stories tall. There are no bustling roads or sidewalks. All the transportation is public. And as for walking, why would anyone want to do that? I myself, being an AMNH member on break, tend to be a bit more fit than others. For instance, most civilians can run about a block before they are exhausted, while I can go three miles. Same difference. I have a home gym. It normally wouldn’t be allowed (I think Tesh illegalized home exercise equipment because he is in constant fear of a whole bunch of buff macho-men overthrowing him) but I got one because I am in the AMNH.
    The Crescent Minds problem might have been remotely solvable if not for the actions of the APNH, or I should say their inaction. They refuse to do anything about the assaults, which are going up at an exponential rate, by the Crescent Minds. Tesh didn’t even have to do anything to get them to do this. They did it on their own! They are even more corrupted than Tesh is. If the central government doesn’t acknowledge the Crescent Minds, then the APNH won't get any problems for not doing anything about them. And if the APNH have a way to get out of doing work, by god they’ll jump on it like a lawyer on a single mother with a coffee burn.
    Well, enough ranting. Time to go to work.


    Location: New Harvoc work facility
    Date: 5-10-1843
    Note: my work facility is right in the number one area for Crescent Mind attacks

    I work in the steel factory. Not many people work in the manual labor centers because not many people are adequately fit. Most of the manual laborers are either ex AMNH and APNH members, or are on break from their duties. It’s really hot in the steel mill. I mean HOT! It averages one hundred degrees at most times. We are not allowed an air conditioning unit because the Administration of Laborers Technicalities believes that a relaxing environment created lazy workers.
    All I really do is watch the machine that pours the hot steel and make sure it is pouring the right quantities. Some guy got burned the other day by the hot steel. He got third degree burns to the bone. I think he got his leg (I think it was his leg, I'm not sure) amputated. It really takes a lot to get an amputation. Prime Minister Tesh doesn’t want people walking around his city who are missing limbs. He says it makes his city look like a primitive war zone. Yeah, a war zone with hotdog stands on the corners, right?! Oh, but that won't be a problem for long. Tesh is trying to pass a bill to outlaw private street vendors because it encourages people to “roam the streets”. He’ll probably get the bill passed; all he has to do is bribe enough people.
    Back to the issue of my work.
    I haven't heard anything on the Crescent Minds lately. It seems the stir has died down. Oh, too soon to speak. Someone is walking up to me right now with a story about a new Crescent Mind attack he heard on the news.
    “Did you hear?" He says, “another one got hit by the Crescents! He was Jilm from the forging area. He’s in intensive care now.”
    The man goes on about something else I ignore.
    Jilm. I never liked him. Even his name sounded stupid. I mean, Jilm? What kind of sick parents name their kid Jilm? It's like a combination of Jim and some other name that no one has ever heard of. I bet his parents were thinking of naming him Jirge (Jim and George) but decided to make it a combo of Jim and the word kiln, only pronounced incorrectly, just to mess with the general public. Yeah, sounds odd don’t it. But I tell you, people in this town get bored and do some weird stuff for entertainment.
    Back to the original subject. My job. I would continue telling you about it, except some bald tattooed guy in a loin cloth is approaching me.
    Listen to me, I'm speaking all mysterious, like you don’t know who I'm talking about. It’s a Crescent Mind. I don’t panic. Panic never ends well. If I panicked when my hotel caught fire the other day the administration might have found me swinging naked from the shower curtain with the ice bucket on my head (yes, I know they haven't used ice buckets for over two hundred years. I got that from a comedian. I dug up some of his material on a website about ancient civilization).
    Anyway, back to the Crescent Mind approaching me. He walks slowly for an assailant. I am hearing a low noise, like a whistle, but low. Impossible to describe. The room goes dark. I see a dark figure approach me. The figure’s form becomes apparent. It is my mother. I don’t know how I know that. None of us know our mothers; we are born a lab and never meet them. I just know it is. I begin to cry.
    Why am I crying?
    I can't understand why, but I am overcome with this feeling of incredible sadness. Like I miss my mother. I don’t though. I never met her.
    It all goes black.
    I wake up. What the hell was that!? I yell to the person next to me. I takes me a while to realize where I am. It is a white room, the curtains are pulled back and letting light in. I young woman in a white uniform is standing next to me.
    Am I dead? I ask her. Funerals had been performed in with a white theme instead of a black one for a long time. Tesh thinks black is too morbid. It’s a funeral, hello!
    The woman tells me I am in a hospital in west New Harvoc.
    That’s a relief, for a second I-
    West? I ask her. She confirms.
    There is no west New Harvoc, only regular New Harvoc. I assume I was in a coma from the paper I see her holding that has the word coma sprinkled across it. This is one thing I actually am thankful for Tesh doing. The new medical system. If it was one hundred years ago, I would be paralyzed or something, but I feel fine. A little stiff, but fine.
    Oh yeah, the west thing. I ask the nurse how long I have been out.
    Three years!
    Apparently Tesh did so little about the Crescent Mind problem that after the city went into chaos, he divided it. West for normal New Harvocans, and east for the people who have been victim of the Crescent Minds, not to mention the Crescent Minds themselves practically make up a third of the east New Harvoc population.
    And one more thing. Leon Tesh is dead.
    It would seem that a year after he split the city, a Crescent Mind found him and killed him. His brother took over. Prime Minister Joshua Tesh. An even more self involved hoarder than the original Tesh (if that’s at all possible).
    The image of my mother is still clear in my mind, except for her face. That seems absurdly inconvenient. I would go to a psychiatrist about it, but guess what. The new and improved Tesh model II got rid of them. He claims that a perfect city doesn’t need them.
    My house is still intact. Just how I left it. The only reason I haven’t been relocated to the east side is I was an acting AMNH when I was assaulted. I am to resume my duties in two days.
    Good! I would feel much safer with a gun at my side. My good old signature 44 magnum. Favorite gun of all. The one Clint Eastwood used (I looked him up on the same ancient civilization website).
    I enter my home to see someone else is already in it.
    A Crescent Mind.
    Damn, I try to leave, but my legs won’t move. The Crescent Mind gestures for me to sit down. I do, although not of my will.
    He bends over to look at me, stares his cold blue eyes into mine, as if looking inside my mind.
    He speaks. You are the one I used the lort on. He has an oddly kind voice. I assume the lort is the “nightmare” thing.
    He looks upon me kindly. “You must help us” he says. I am unable to respond, literally. He must have some mental hold over my motor functions. Strangely, I don’t feel threatened.
    “I shall show you our mission” he says. He touches a cold finger to my forehead.
    I see it all.
    How we were four hundred years ago. I see how we were three hundred years ago.
    I see two hundred and ninety-seven years ago. When the nuclear bombs dropped. It was some massive war going on between almost every powerful country at the time. The word ‘world war three’ comes to my mind.
    I see someone build the world back up in his own way.
    He is Kevin Tesh, Leon’s distant relative.
    I see the Teshes pass the world down from generation to generation, like some personal heirloom.
    I see them slowly eliminating all that defines us as human.
    I see the Crescent Minds rise up to bring the world back to how it once was.
    I see their mission: to implant images of the world we once had into the people of this world. Some of them die by mistake. The comas are what come from the mind trying to process this information.
    I see the people who were once victims of the Crescent Minds, reawakening with the knowledge of what a human soul truly is and the power to give others this knowledge.
    I see them become Crescent Minds themselves.
    I see a bit of the future.
    I see a single Crescent Mind, tattooed like always and bald and thin.
    I see him saving many people from the terrible fate the world has come to see, although those who are saved don’t always recognize it.
    I see the Crescent Mind turn around
    I see myself.