Chapter 2 - Chosen One

After returning to his apartment, Eric found a note on his door saying the guy to fix the heater was coming in a week.  He was annoyed he had to suffer through another week of cold, but glad he was nearing his bed.  He watched a few movies before falling asleep. 

A voice from the hallway whispered. “Are you sure this is the one Three?”  A similar, yet slightly lower tone voice replied. “I am definite; this is where the tome of names has sent us.”  Eric awoke at the noise, it was bad enough his apartment’s heater was broke and he had to sleep cocooned in the covers, now people talking while he tried to sleep.  This thought, jolted him up.  “Who’s there?” He called out.  There was a murmur of whispering from outside of his door.  Eric grabbed the metal baseball bat he kept near his bed, gripping it tightly he stared at his door.    He called out towards whoever was on the other side “Whoever’s out there, get out, I’m armed!”  The door creaked open, a bent over black robed figure slinked in.  There was no sight of any arms or legs, just a long tattered sheet of material that the torn bottom seemed to crawl on its own across the floor.  After passing the doorway it straightened up, it stood almost as high as the ceiling.  Thin and towering, the hooded figure wore some sort of reflective dome mask, hiding its face.  An identical robed figure entered in the same fashion, then a third.  Eric’s confidence in his baseball bat shrunk as the room filled with seven of these mirror faced giants.  One of them bent down, tilting its head sideways.  “A good thing you are armed, you wouldn't be any good without any arms”.

Eric stepped back, stumbling onto his bed. “Who….who are you?”  Another one of the robed figures moved closer and spoke in a voice similar to the others, but with much more age behind it.  “We are the Council of Seven, and you Eric Barlow of 753 Oak Avenue Apartment B 7 have been chosen!”  Eric stared at the towering group and let out a sigh of release. “Thank god, it’s just a dream.”  He set the bat down in its corner and crawled back into bed.  “If you don’t mind, I don’t feel like having any complicated dreams tonight.  Tomorrow’s Sunday and I want to be lazy.”  Eric pulled the covers over his head.  The Seven were quiet until one of them spoke in a young, more energetic voice, repeating himself from earlier.  “Are you suuuure he is the one, maybe you should check the book again Three?”    The one known as Three retorted “Do not question the Tome of Names One!  This Eric Barlow is indeed the chosen!”  Three pulled the covers off of Eric.   Eric Barlow of 753 Oak Avenue Apartment B7, prepare yourself!”  Eric sighed, grabbing the covers back and holding them tight.  “I said no complicated dreams tonight!”  With a flash of light, the covers were gone.  The reflective dome mask of the elderly voiced one changed.  No longer did it reflect Eric and his room, but showed images of a chaos filled wasteland.

The trees were barren and twisted, lava seeped from the ground to quickly cool into rock and hills.  The elderly voiced one spoke as the images in his mask changed.  “You Eric Barlow of 753 Oak Avenue Apartment B7 have been chosen by the Tome of Names to carry a great responsibility.  We are the Council of Seven, here to guide you on your path!”  Now that Eric’s attention had been gotten, the images in the mask disappeared, returning to its normal reflections.  Eric sat up in his bed.  “Ok, I will play along, stupid dream.  What exactly have I been chosen for?”   Another of the Seven, not quite as elderly sounding as the previous barked out “For great responsibility!” The rest of the robed figures nodded in agreement.  Eric spoke through a facepalm.  “I got that part, but specifics.  What am I supposed to do?”  After what seemed like a lifetime of silence the one called Three spoke. “Well, the Tome of Names does not tell us what, only whom and where they are.  Seven, do you remember the task at hand?”  The most elderly voiced one grumbled to himself before speaking. “Well, it has been so long, it is hard to remember.  The youngest voiced one chimed in “Great gramps, this entire trip was pointless!”  Another moved in front of the one that just spoke. “Keep it down One or I will feed you to Four!”  One scoffed “Four, that nutjob, he doesn’t even talk, do you Four?”  The robbed figure referred to as Four stood silent, staring at the ceiling.  In his mask were images of blue skies and clouds.  The Council of Seven broke into full argument about the importance of their journey, the Tome of Names, and a variety of other subjects.  When it got to the topic of which pizza topping was the best Eric had enough.

“You all are morons, and this is a stupid dream, get out!”  The Council of Seven grew silent, save for the one known as Five.  “Mortal, our minds have experienced the very creation of the universe, small details do not matter.  What we know is the time has come for one to be chosen. This only happens in times of dire importance.  The Tome of Names has chosen you, the ‘why’ shall reveal itself when necessary.  The reward for taking on this unknown responsibility is great power.”

 Eric yawned, laying back down, staring at the ceiling.  “No thanks, I don’t accept your oh so generous offer”.  All seven figured surrounded the bed, looking down upon him.  The one known as Six spoke “Silly mortal, you don’t have a choice”.  With that light spewed forth from their masks encasing Eric.  Various images cycled through their mask’s surface and seeping into the light that poured from them.  Images of badlands, swamps, forests, cities, monsters, wars, what seemed like heaven and hell all engulfing Eric.  His mind on fire he screamed.  He couldn’t move, the light trapped him, pushing him down against his bed.  He couldn’t hold on anymore and was blinded.

Eric lay there, eyes closed and motionless.  Paralyzed, he couldn’t even breath could still hear as his life slowly slipped away.  The council member called One laughed. “Yeah, we over did it, deep fried his brain.”  Three sighed “Mayhaps there were some pages stuck together in the Tome of Names.”  The eldest, Seven grumped “Well no worries, we shall consult the Tome and find another, hopefully the next will be able to handle it all.”  Two chimed in “Ham & Pineapple are still the best toppings”.  Shuffling and back to arguing about nonsense the Council of Seven left except for Four.  Four stared down at Eric, the reflection in his mask changing to a still heart, slowly starting to beat before picking up to a normal pace.  Eric gasped and sat up; somehow he knew this number Four had helped him.  Four leaned down so that he was face to face with Eric.  The image on his mask changed to an old abandoned hotel located on the edge of downtown.  Four quickly turned and left to join the others. Eric laid back down.  “Man I hate dreams”.

               When Eric awoke he felt more refreshed than ever.  He rolled over and stared at his alarm clock 10:08am. He never wakes up before his noon time alarm.  Weird dream aside, he got the best night sleep he has had in a long time.  It was Sunday, his day off, and Eric had an extra two hours than normal.  He made some eggs for breakfast, texted Tom an apology for storming out at lunch and surfed the internet to pass the extra time.  Eric’s phone buzzed back with a text.  It was from an unknown number. His hear t dropped as he read it “hey its chelsea got ur # frm tom”.  He quickly saved her number in his contact list.  An inner battle started, did she have a falling out with her boyfriend?  Was she upset that he stormed out after ordering?  What could he possibly say in response?  Eric thought for a few minutes before tactfully replying “sup?”  He waited, and waited and waited.  No response. It felt like years before finally getting a response “im off today coffee at novas?”  Eric hated that place, Nova’s was a coffee shop internet café mix where all the trendy hipsters in town hung out.  “sure, meet you there in an hour” Eric sent the text to set the meeting in stone.  He would suffer Nova’s for Chelsea.

                Eric’s jeep barely made it to the other side of town to reach Nova’s.  He had entered the more wealthy side of town.  The world of teens and college kids who would never really have to work a day in their lives.  Eric despised them out of a mix of jealousy and intolerance for people with lack of common sense.  He thought them idiots, glued to the screens of their smart phones talking about nonsense while being blind to their surroundings.  Chelsea was from a rich family, yet instead of feeding from her parent’s financial tit she was a waitress and had her own place.  Eric respected her for not falling onto the same course that her environment would dictate. 

Luckily Nova’s wasn’t very crowded for a Sunday.  The place was themed to appeal to lovers of digital.  It reminded Eric of the many cyberpunk movies he had seen, albeit a bit too clean.  Those clean sterile locations in cyberpunk where always where the antagonists made their home, the ones against independence and freedom.  Those ticking away at their laptops and the café’s desktops were a prime example of this.  Then, there was the one defiant against her digital surroundings. Chelsea was already there, reading a book and sipping from her stylized mug of coffee.   Eric waved to her as he went to the counter to get a drink.

“Welcome to Nova’s Digital Café what can I get you?” proclaimed the cashier with great enthusiasm.  He looked like he had taken a swim in the coffee before manning the counter.  Eric was annoyed at the cashier’s very body language.  He was fidgety, he twitched ever so slightly and his hands wouldn’t stop moving, fiddling with things on the counter.  His eyes though, unblinking were locked on Eric’s.  Eric was actually a little creeped out.  “Yeah, I’ll just have a regular coffee”.  “And what kind of coffee would that be sir?  Eric stared up at the LCD monitor menu.  The names were overly complicated, Telnut-meg, Fragachino, presso.EXE, and many more computer related coffee puns.  None of them looked like normal, everyday coffee.  “Just, whatever is closest to normal every day gas station coffee.” The cashier laughed “You want the Cbasic then, or if you need more caffeine we have the C++.” Eric didn’t know why this was funny. He looked at the name tag of the cashier; it simply said Coffee Dude.  Eric grew more annoyed the employees didn’t even have real names. “Just the Cbasic, no cream, no sugar, no anything added to it.” Coffee Dude grabbed a pen. “What size?”  “Just, medium.”  The cashier chuckled again. “Which medium would that be?”  Eric thought to himself on how much he hated this place.  “How the hell can there be more than one medium?  There is small, large, and in the middle, medium.”  Coffee Dude lost his chipper smile and his tone grew more condescending. “Well, SIR, if you look at the menu you will see we have two mediums, the 56k and the broadband.”  Eric restrained himself from yelling, he didn’t want Chelsea to see him angry.  He leaned in and spoke low to the cashier. “Listen, just get some coffee, put it in a cup and sell it to me, it’s not that hard.”  The cashier did as Eric said. Eric took his overpriced coffee and sat with Chelsea.

“It’s good to see you outside of Gardello’s.”  Chelsea marked her page and put her book down.  “Tom told me what happened with your sister, and you looked so upset, I thought maybe if you needed to talk…”  Eric sighed, looking down at the table as he spoke “look, I’ve talked about it with people, the more people I talk to, the more it gets brought up.  I’d rather not talk or hear about it again.”  Chelsea let out a soft “ok” before taking a sip of her coffee.  Eric needed to change the subject.  “What are you reading?”  She grabbed her book to show him the cover.  It had a vampire guy’s face; half of it was a skull the other half normal.  Above the face was the title ‘Blackthorn Diaries’.  “It’s about this vampire, Julius Blackthorn who was outcast from his clan because he didn’t agree with their ways.  Now he is traveling around looking for recruits to make his own clan, return and fight his old clan, because his lover was the Baron’s daughter and he wants her back.”  Vampires were a big thing at the time.  A lot of movies came out with different takes on them.  They weren’t bad, but have been a bit overdone recently.  Eric drank some of his coffee, despite the trouble getting it, it was surprisingly good.  “What happens when the Vampires go into sunlight?”  Chelsea smirked.  “It’s not like that crap series I was reading before, the vampires in here burst into flames like they are supposed to.”  Eric laughed.  Last time he saw Chelsea with a book was during her break at work.  It was another vampire focused novel, but nothing was traditional about the vampires at all.

“I’m surprised the boyfriend let you out of the house”.  Chelsea’s smile disappeared.  “Well, that’s part of why I wanted to talk to you.  I’m thinking of breaking up with him.  Lately he has been treating me like crap and…”  Eric’s brain went to mush and he was struggling trying to listen.  His heart raced, he had been waiting for this day for a long time. Eric was soon yanked down from his cloud of happiness as he caught the last bit Chelsea said “…I dunno, I can be distant sometimes, he probably deserves another chance.” His heart crushed Eric focused on his coffee.  “You know Chels, you don’t ever seem to be able to get away from the guy except while you’re at work.  I don’t see how you can be distant.”

She fiddled with a coffee stirrer that was left on the table. “Well, I mean.  Sometimes he gets a bit aggressive and I tend to shut up and don’t talk to him, it makes things.  Easier?”  Not thinking, Eric placed his hand on Chelsea’s. “If he ever hurts you…”  She yanked her hand away “Don’t do that, I haven’t broken up with him yet”.  “Chels, I’m sorry I just worry he is going to do something crazy.”  She shook her head “James may be a little possessive, but he wouldn’t hurt me.”  She stared at Eric’s hand which was still on the table where hers had been.  “Listen, this may have been a bad idea.”  
“No, look, I’m sorry for touching your hand like that.  I didn’t mean it to be intimate or anyting.  I just, worry about you.”  She smiled at him.  “I should go anyway, I need to be home when James gets off work.  I have a long talk to have with him.  Everything will turn out ok.  Stop by Gardello’s tomorrow and I’ll tell you how it went ok?”  Eric nodded “Sure, I’ll be there.”

                Eric spent the rest of the day running errands and thinking about Chelsea, the asshole boyfriend James and his strange dream from the night before.  He wished the Iron Pit was open so he could go to work, where he felt at home.  He hated the mix of emotions that bubbled within.  The situation never seemed to be good for him.  What made it worse was Eric knew James more than Chelsea was aware of.  James was banned from the Iron Pit for starting fights.  He even broke Toad’s nose before.  No one had ever beaten Toad in a fight before.  James however was one of those gym obsessed frosted hair, popped collar asshats who had the bite to back up his bark.  What made it worse was James’s father was high in the city government.  It made him untouchable by the cops. Sleep came quick for Eric that night, but it was not peaceful.  He dreamed of the night his sister died, but this time James was the killer.  James was the one who committed those horrible acts and got away with everything.

                Gardello’s.  Eric was glad he got up in what the normal waking world called the afternoon.  It meant beer for breakfast and no one would care.  He took his normal booth in Chelsea’s section, wondering if she broke it off with James.  “Welcome to Gardello’s my name is Julie, I’ll be taking care of you, what can I get you to drink?”  Eric was confused, he looked around to make sure he sat in the right section.  “Chelsea told me to stop by today to talk to her.”  Julie’s customer pleasing smile disappeared.  “Oh, well she is working in the kitchen today, she’s not feeling well.”  Eric’s stomach churned with a moment of fear.  He knew something happened.  He jumped up from the booth and headed towards the door to the kitchen.  Julie called after him “You can’t go back there!”  Eric flung the door opened and called out “Chelsea? You back here?”  He saw her, washing dishes, keeping her head down.  One of the cooks put his hand on Eric’s chest stopping him from going further into the kitchen. “Hey man, you need to get out of here.”  Chelsea muttered “It’s ok, he’s my friend.”  He let go of Eric who went over to Chelsea.  “Chelsea, what happened?”  She started to cry.  “I made a mistake, I can’t break up with James.”  She kept her head down.  Eric bent down to look at her face.  Her lip was split and bruises decorated her eye and cheek. Anger welled within.  He knew something like this would happen.  He should have done more to warn her. “Eric, don’t…”   Eric was already storming out of the kitchen.  He stopped when he saw Julie “get my number from Chelsea, if her boyfriend comes in here, call me.”  He ran home.  Maybe his dreams weren’t all crazy.  The one last night pointed James as the bad guy Eric thought.  He reached his room and gripped his old baseball bat tightly.  It didn’t matter that James was good enough to beat Toad.  All that mattered was teaching him that he could not hurt Chelsea or any other woman.  Eric knew he would not let James get away with this.   

Eric jumped in his jeep and sped off towards the upper part of town.  He had dropped Chelsea off at James’s apartment complex before and knew his car.  He saw it, a bright yellow sports car, new and expensive.  Eric ran up the stairs, bat in hand.  He knocked on the first door he came to.  A little old lady opened the door “you’re not selling anything are you?”  “No ma’am, just looking for James’s place, he owns the yellow mustang.”  She frowned “He lives right above me, loud music all night, you tell him to keep it down before he gives me a heart attack!”  She slammed the door in Eric’s face.  He ran another flight of stairs.  There is was, D12, the den of evil.  The door opened and Eric was met with that smug “I’m better than you” face; the one that struck Chelsea in a fit of insecure rage.

                Eric struck quickly, without saying a word he jabbed the end of the bat into James’s nose.  It cracked and blood seeped down his face as he staggered back from the initial strike.  Eric stepped in and slammed the door shut. “YOU WILL NOT TOUCH HER AGAIN!” he screamed as he swung, striking James’s arm.  He struck again and again, pushing James back into the room until he toppled over the couch and knocked over an end table.  Eric breathed deeply catching his breath.  “Learned your lesson?” Instead of words a lamp flying through the air answered Eric.  James had thrown it while getting up filled with rage.  It broke against Eric’s face, who fell with the shower of ceramic shards to the carpet.  Dazed he pulled himself up slowly, gripping the bat.  James ran over and kicked Eric in the stomach.  He reeled onto his back as the air left his lungs.  James dropped down, a knee on Eric’s chest and his hands around his throat.  Blood poured from his broken nose as he screamed “I WILL KILL YOU!”

                Eric started to panic.  He couldn’t breathe and James was much stronger than he.  He grabbed at James’s arms to try and free himself but to no avail.  Eric stared into his eyes, cold and bloodthirsty.  James really did plan to kill him.  Eric’s vision started to become blurry and his chest burned needing air.  He flailed, thrashing out with all he could.  James screamed and let go, falling back grabbing his face.  Eric had connected with the broken nose.  Gasping for breath he grabbed his bat and stood over James.  “You don’t even know what you have.  How could you hit her?”  James laughed “It was easy, I made a fist and struck the cunt.” James started to get back up, and Eric swung, knocking him back down.  “Say it…say you will never touch her again!” James spit out a tooth “Fuck you!”  Eric struck him again, his knuckles white from his grip.  James screamed, holding his face.  “Fine, just let me up!”  Eric took a step back and let James stand.  He spit again extended his arm and extended his middle finger in Eric’s face.  Eric swung again, but James grabbed the bat and yanked it from his hands and tossed it from reach.

                Eric was struck hard.  James was strong, too strong.  He hit the floor holding his throbbing eye. James stomped down on Eric’s face.  “Not so tough now are you pussy?” he kicked Eric in the privates hard as he could.  He vomited and strained to pull himself from the floor.  James picked up Eric’s bat.  “Think you are gunna be a hero, try and steal my girl away?”  He brought the bat down into the back of Eric’s skull.  “You ain’t good enough to fuck her, she’s mine!”  He swung again, striking ribs.  Eric was dazed but not out.  He wrapped his arm around the bat, holding it against his newly bruised ribs as hard as he could to keep James from swinging it anymore.  He wasn’t able to pull it back from Eric’s grip, so he let go.  “Stand up then fucker”.  Eric did just that, using the bat to push himself up.  “You will never touch…”  He was interrupted by a jab to the stomach.  He gripped the bat, pushing it into the carpet to keep himself standing as the air left his lungs. James threw more punches, after two more connecting Eric blocked with his bat, the metal ‘ting’ caused James to pull back, gripping his hand.  Eric swung, but missed.  James grabbed him by the collar and flung him into the wall.  He grabbed Eric by the ankles and drug him outside the front door.  He tossed Eric down the stairs, watching him tumble down.  Eric was in pain, he thought his neck just snapped.  He coughed a small mix of vomit and blood as he sat up. James threw the bat down, but missed Eric.  He ran down the stairs, kicking Eric to the corner of the walkway.  He pushed Eric’s face into the cement, slamming it a few times for good measure.  “You leave that boy alone!” James stopped.  His downstairs elderly neighbor had come out to see what the commotion was.  “Shut up you dried up cunt!”  He slammed Eric’s head to the ground again.  “I warned you!”
The old woman pulled the trigger, the wires shot out of her tazer and into James.  He went into convulsions and fell off of Eric.  She leaned down next to him.  “Don’t worry son, I called the 9-11 they will be here soon.”  Eric’s head was ringing, he was just glad the fight was over.  He closed his eyes.  “He hit your noggin hard, you gotta stay awake…”  The woman’s voice grew faint and he did not feel like taking her advice.

     Eric fell unconscious slipping into a deep dream.  He heard the faint bickering of the robed figures from the strange dream he had before.  They were nowhere in sight.  He looked down, the sidewalk before him was broken, turned to jagged rocks jutting up to strange forms.  There were craters in the streets and empty cars littered the road.  He wandered towards the sound of the Seven, calling out to them.  The noise grew fainter and disappeared completely.  Eric found his footsteps no longer produced sound.  He called out again, but he had no voice.  There was total silence.  A feeling of dread filled Eric and began to run.  Something was chasing him, but he didn’t know what.  He ran and ran before realizing how cowardly he was acting.  He stopped, tightening his fists and turned to face what waited behind him. 

                He was met with a blinding light and a voice that pulled him away from the dream.  “He suffered minor head injuries and has been…”  “Doctor, he is awake”.  Eric blinked to focus the blurred images in front of him.  He was met with bright sterile white with the doctor and nurse looking over him.  The glow from a small flashlight pained his pupil to shrink and he pulled his head away.  “Mister Barlow, I am Doctor Adams, you have suffered minor head trauma and were unconscious for a few hours, can you hear me clearly?”  “Yeah, I’m…a few hours?”  Eric looked around, blinking groggily as everything came into focus. “Oh crap, I’m in a hospital”.  The nurse giggled a bit before the doctor cleared his throat to interrupt her.  “Well Mister Barlow, we need to conduct some tests to see exactly the extent of the damage.  I have an MRI scheduled for in the morning.”  “Morning? That’s ok, I need to get out of here, I don’t even have insurance.”  The doctor added some notes to Eric’s chart.  “No worries, your expenses are being taken care of.  We just need to make sure you are well, that is the important thing.”  His tone sounded scripted and uncaring.  “Nurse, see to it Mister Barlow is comfortable.  She nodded as he finished his notes and walked out.          “Well Eric, my name is Nancy, anything you need just ask.”  She was a portly woman in her forties, but had a kind face.  She seemed much more compassionate than Doctor Adams.  Eric reached out for a hand shake, which she obliged. “Just don’t call me ‘Mister Barlow’” he said in a mocking tone.  “It’s Eric and a beer would be great”.  She smiled “Now I can’t do that, but I can get you a soda, that with the pain meds should do about the same thing.”   

                Eric kept fighting sleep that night.  His thoughts were filled with too much dread.  Soon as the let him out, was he going to jail for attacking James?  Who was bankrolling his hospital stay?  What is Chelsea going to do when she finds out?  What will the regulars at the Iron Pit say when they find out douchebag James put him in the hospital?  All these questions rushed through his mind until finally he could fight sleep no longer.

                His dream picked up where his last dream left off.  Eric had turned to face what was chasing him in a broken city of silence. He had turned to a rolling darkness consuming everything in its wake.  Cars, buildings, trees, everything fell to total blackness.  Tendrils of shadow stretched out and upwards to crash down upon him in an abyssal wave.  Eric had never seen anything so ominous.  His fists lost their strength and he ran away from the ever growing sea of darkness. 

                “Eric, it’s time to wake up.”  Nancy’s voice saved Eric from his nightmare.  “Good morning sleepy head.  I need to check on some things before you get your MRI in the next few hours.”  She took his blood pressure, checked his breathing, poked and prodded until Eric was slightly annoyed and she was satisfied.  “You are doing surprisingly well; your bruises are gone already.  Must not have gotten knocked around as hard as we thought.” Eric did feel surprisingly refreshed despite his nightmarish sleep.  “So, no MRI then?”  “Oh, we still need to do that, just to make sure you are ok on the inside with no nasty brain trauma or anything like that.”

                Going through the MRI machine was a new and uncomfortable experience for Eric.  The MRI technician didn’t ease the situation either.  He told a story how one guy who went through the machine had too much iron in his blood and it ripped him apart.  Another woman’s pin in her hip shot out like a bullet, and other gory tales.  Thankfully nurse Nancy showed up and stopped the frightening stories. 

                Eric was made to stay another day while all the test results were finished.  Whoever was paying his medical bills was paying to get him out of there quickly.  Doctor Adams sat down with Eric. “Mister Barlow.  You have somehow fully recovered from all traumas you initially showed up here.  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you.”  “Well doc, you and Nancy did a great job then.”  The doctor shook his head.  “You don’t understand, we just kept your pain in check, monitored vitals and ran tests.  You made this recovery on your own.  I would like to do a study on you; whatever about you made this a possibility could help so many.”  “No offense Doc, but I’m not a lab rat, I probably just got lucky.  I mean, I’ve broken all kinds of stuff over the years.”  The doctor handed him a business card.  “If you ever change your mind, contact me directly.”

               

Eric signed off on a mountain of paperwork and said goodbye to nurse Nancy. When collecting his things, his bat was with them.  “How did this get here?”  he asked the person behind the counter. “Oh, the little old lady who called 9-1-1 brought it.”  He checked his voicemails.  Some were from Zeek asking why he wasn’t at work, and one from Chelsea.  Eric listened to Chelsea’s message and grew pale.  He instantly called her.  “We are sorry; this number is no longer in service…”

               

               

Denizens  © Copyright 2012 Brandon Woodward