Some years ago, I started a novel, a post-apocalyptic dystopia with mixed-in pseudo-religious and fantastic elements. Namely demons and devils. I have to say I'm not the religious type of guy. But I like the symbolism, mysticism and cult around it just like in any other fantasy world.

I called the novel "Elements". It was planned as a road trip from land through water, into the fire and back through the air. It started with a deserted Europe where only a few people have survived and the shores have massively changed through bombs and nature taking back what belongs to her. And it also was supposed to be carried by a classic symbolic fight - science against evil.

At that time I neither had the stamina for a whole novel nor was the story already rich enough. A better opportunity was supposed to come later.

But the ides surely still makes a beautiful tale told in shorter blocks. So during the next weeks, I'll dive into hell and back again. But I have no idea where the road leads me and if my old ideas will still be reflected. I just write it up, the story always has its own life.

This is the starting part. There are four elements, so you might have guessed it. There are three more to come.

Hope you'll enjoy anyway.

Juliette.

Almost nobody in Juliettes clan remembered the time before the war. The stories of the few remaining old people in the group sounded like science fiction every time they started telling them.

Juliette was 28. She was born three years before the entire world got wiped out. The elder in her clan said, it was a virus. But they didn't talk often about these events. And if so, they always had a hint of doubt in their voice. Either they didn't know for sure or they didn't want to talk about what really happened.

Her clan, the O'Clares were moving from town to town in southern Ireland. They were cleaners. At the moment, they were stationed in Kinsale, a former fishers village, that was now fully deserted. They buried the dead if they found any so many years after the catastrophe. As they've been to Kinsale several times already, they didn't have much to do in that regard any more. They lived from the rich leftovers throughout the country. That on the other hand was Kinsales pride. Nature has taken back many parts of the little town and the region already. Berries were growing everywhere and the clan maintained a little piece of farmland to produce flour. They professionalized both tasks, cleaning and organizing food, over the years.

O'Clare, that was not a real family name. It comes from the county they originally came from. The clan consisted of sixty persons - many of them around her age, small orphaned children when the cataclysm, whatever it was, broke into their world. Five of the women, however, were extremely valuable to the clan and to the few remaining humans in the whole world. They were pregnant. Juliette was one of them.

Besides the O'Clares and some other rivalling cleaner clans, there were only some families left on the countrysides of Ireland, most of them further north. But there was a small community around Trinity College in Dublin, that resisted the hard post-apocalyptic life on the island. Overall, there were not more than 1.300 Irish that have survived.

Finally united.

The Theologist

Trinity College was one of the few remaining strongholds of civilisation. In other regions they knew of, Ireland, England and Northern France, only a handful of people were left. But here amongst the old walls of the campus, a stable population of 1.000 people from baker to scholar had survived and organised a decent life.

The big advantage of the community is that knowledge has survived. Practical physics and technology were much needed these days next to classic crafts. They are running a 24x7 radio station and a long range radio communication facility.

The Theologist, that's what everyone called him, was one of these scholars. His real name was Ethelbert Fitzroy, which might explain why everyone called him by his role instead. Other than the rest of the professors, he admittedly felt useless from time to time. He knew a lot about God, the biblical mythology and the other religions, but he was neither a pastor or psychologically trained, nor had he any practically useful knowledge.

Let's take one of the recent experiments of the physicists team for example. They tried to reconnect to the communication system of one of the imaging satellites that still circled earth. They actively tried to get a better understanding of what had happened and what the state of our world is. At this point in time, he thought, nobody could really believe in God any more. So his scholarship was nothing but fantasy.

It's been 25 years now since the war wiped out the world. The community in Trinity has an idea of those events back then. THe Theologist stepped out of his home turf and started to connect to the rest of the island and keeping loose contact to the clans in the wild. But they still don't know much about the rest of the world. Are they stranded on a lonely island or are they the rest of the civilization? Probably that was a thing to investigate for him.

He didn't know. It was a midlife crisis in the middle of a real crisis. How pathetic, he thought.

Ruben

Ruben and Bantry were on the first watch tonight. Ruben and his gang were strong and formed an effective force in the defense strategies of the clan. They were the police if you will. Ruben himself was responsible for the watch schedule, where all the other clan members had to take part in as well. This time, it was him and the boy.

Bantry was just eighteen. He had an unusual age for this time. Nobody had time to think of offspring at that time. So Bantry is the only human of his age. Probably on the whole island of Ireland, Ruben thought. That is also reflected in the personal history of the boy. The clan found him one day in one of the west coast towns when he still was a newborn baby and directly named him after that little village, Bantry. That was over seventeen years ago, a rough time for the clan.

It was twelve o'clock, midnight. Ruben and Bantry were on their first round down to the Long Quay and the harbour area, when they saw shadows in the twilight. Movement here and there but when they turned their head around, there was nothing. Nothing but hallucinations.

"Did you see that?", Bantry asked with a slightly frightened voice.

"It's nothing", Ruben answered. "Just your imagination. We're probably only tired."

"So you saw something, too", Bantry concluded. Wise kid.

THey decided to take a deeper look. Ruben pointed to the aisle on the side of one of the halls. But there was still nothing to see. So they went back closer to their occupied buildings near the church.

While they crossed the dark churchyard, they both saw something. Something more concrete than just a shadow. And there was also a crackling noise that fitted exactly to the ongoing movement. Near the exit behind some of the graves, Ruben really saw a shadowy figure and swore that it was not just a tombstone.

Right before it disappeared again, he could point his flashlight into the direction and lighted up the face of a monster for a split second before it diappeared in the dark again. It must have been an animal. Bantry saw horns. But Ruben on the other hand saw a face. They both were afraid and curious at the same time and therefore started talking or better palavering more than usual.

"Ok, let's breathe for a second", Ruben said. "I suggest we organize some support and come back. This is serious."

They went back to the camp and woke up Thom from Rubens gang and Wheezle, one of the clan leaders. About ten minutes later they were back on the street and on their way to the churchyard. They had left their houses brightly illuminated but went off into complete darkness. On purpose, they didn't use any flash lights.

Right behind the church, their eyes adapted to the darkness already spotted a group of creatures, three or four of them. Ruben turned on his lamp for a second, which immediately routed these creatures whatever they were. But now all four had a good impression of them. They were small, only about one meter tall and they had horns. They surely were not human. But the good news were that they were weak and afraid and currently no danger.

"That's interesting. Are these demons?", said Wheezle in an ironic tone, that was typical for him. "Let's catch one of them."

The rest of the group had a questioning look on their faces.

"What?", asked the old man. "We have to find out who or what they are. So I think it's best to catch one of them, while they are that weak."

"Allright", Ruben said naively, knowing that the others would follow him everywhere. "Let's do it."

He turned of his lamp again and immediately the creatures sneaked nearer again. Wheezle made some gestures and Thom and Bantry spread to the left and right.

"Now", he shouted and everyone turned on their lamps and formed a space where the creatures could not escape without stepping into the light. Many of them could escape but one demon was to slow and got caught by the simple triangle of light.

Ruben was free. He automatically understood his task, turned his flashlight on and started searching for useful tooling to capture the beast. He knew he didn't want to touch it, nor even come nearer than two meters.

It didn't even take a minute until he found a fishing net. They were lying around everywhere in Kinsale. He threw it over the demon and the others helped him to fix it. The creature was trapped for good.

Juliette

"What's the matter with you, Ruben?", she said angrily. "Another animal? You know that we don't have the resources to feed animals. And you, too, Wheezle?"

Ruben represented the police, Wheezle brought the whole clan through hard times. But Juliette was clearly the leader. Her natural authority had spoken.

Ruben took a second to overcome his perplexity.

"No animal. It's a demon. Look at it!"

"A what?", asked Juliette. "A demon? You must be kiddin' me. There is no such thing as demons."

Juliette approached the box they carried cautiously and had a glance through the small slot on the side of the cage. She saw a red eye staring at her from the inside and above that, an ugly, rounded horn came out of the creature's forehead. It smelled with a deranged nose and moved swiftly towards the slot. Juliette was startled and recoiled a step or two. Afraid of the light coming through, the creature crept away out of sight as well.

"What kind of prank is this?", she asked.

The clan's camp had occupied four neighbouring buildings in the centre of Kinsale. So Juliette, quick with decisions, gave order to carry the surprise gift back and summon the elders.

Juliette always refers to them as the elders, but Ruth, Dirty Frank and of course Wheezle, the clan's official leaders are not actually wise. They have a lot of street knowledge and they had proper jobs in their former lives, the one before the earth stood still. They brought the O'Clares through hard times and made everyone keep their faith.

Now the clan's three leaders were sitting in a circle around that box together with Juliette, Ruben, Thom and Bantry. The cage was shaking from time to time with the movement of the demon inside. They discussed for a whole hour what to do now.

"We have to bring him to the scholars", Ruben said finally. He was right as always in such moments when decisions were needed, that didn't resonate with the urge for freedom and liberty of the clan. Everyone except Ruben and Bantry hated the scholars, mainly because they didn't help them a lot in the past.

The group, however, discussed five more minutes around the obvious until elder Ruth stood up and said. "Aye then, let's finally meet those dusty bastards again."

Next stop Dublin, Juliette thought. She didn't want to admit it, but she somehow liked that thought.

The Theologist

"There's someone coming", screamed the first guard on duty to the others in the patrolling squad. Immediately, everybody was alert and his colleague with the radio forwarded the news to the guards' headquarters in the college.

Trinity was a closed area. The scholars have organized patrols that permanently scanned the streets between the Liffey and St. Stephens Green. But these days it was a boring job. They had collected most of the stray groups years ago and the few remaining factions usually stayed outside of the greater Dublin area.

But there came the horde. Every officer of the patrol knew all of the outside groups and the bunch that was now moving eastward along Fleet Street was obviously the southbound faction who called themselves the O'Clares.

"What are they doin' here?", the guard thought. "They hate us, don't they?"

Only minutes later, the leading guard in the college hastily entered the big auditorium and delivered the message to the dean.

"All right, let them in", he answered.

"I have always been more of a scientist than a man of god. But sometimes these topics fall together. This is the time we live in." The Theologist lectured in front of his audience of about 40 people. It was the memorial day ceremony, 25 years after the outbreak. All lectures in Trinity College on that day were history lessons of what happened before and after the events.

But the Theologist gave it a twist. "We have heard rumors demons", he said. "Yes, I know what you are going to say. There's no proof. But we have seen the footage and heard the sounds over the wire, haven't we?"

At the same moment, the door opened and a dramatic, divine ray of light fell into the dimmed auditorium as if it was a trick. Shadowy creatures entered carrying a large shrine. At least that is what the Theologist thought at that moment.

Then someone, a woman, a pregnant woman stepped out of her silhouette and approached the lectern, pushed the Theologist slightly but determinedly away and proclaimed "We have proof!".

The auditorium had already been crowded before. Over 300 residents of Trinity College were there. They were sitting on the stairs, some of them shared the same chair and others were standing in the back. But now, after Juliette had entered the spacious stage area, a few dozen clan members streamed in and caused a noise and confusion level the halls had not seen for 25 years.

Two of them pulled a small wagon with the box on it and drove it to the podium area that was lit by a suitably dimmed but still bright enough spotlight.

The O'Clares slowly calmed down. They formed a semi-circle around the box. Only Juliette, Ruth and Frank stood directly next to the dirty, wooden cube. Dirty Frank opened some locks and fiddled with the fixing mechanism for a while like a magician preparing his trick. The audience reacted with tensioning silence. The scholars on one side and the wild bunch on the other.

Then the wooden walls folded down and cleared the view for a steel cage with a small horned creature inside.

"We call him Scrooge", shouted Ruth into the audience.

Afraid of everything, but especially the lights that pointed to him, the demon called Scrooge started to move inside the cage. The whole audience simultaneously formed a sound of shock before they fell completely silent again. Everyone stared at the leprechaun with an open mouth.

Only minutes earlier, they had heard the lecture of an apparently mad theologist fantasising about the opened gates of hell and other oddities. And now their eyes told them that it was true. Demons are back in the world.

The Theologist was honest with himself. He hadn't believed his own words until about a minute ago. Now he was standing next to a being that was filthy and only one meter tall. Well, 70 centimeters if you don't count the gigantic horns. It didn't look too dangerous and itself was full of fear. But it obviusly had to be a demon. He knew all the tales, the official ones from the bible, the writings from other religions and the non-canonical scripts. He stood next to the microphone but he didn't find words. So Wheezle took over and told everyone about their observations.

There were many of them. As soon as the O'Clares had found out how and where to look, they've seen more. Probably they were also attracted by Scrooge, the one creature that they had captured.

Finally also the Theologist found words again. He showed off a blurry image of satellite footage on the big screen behind him. "We have seen them, too", he said. "But until now there were only speculations. This image is from England."

"Something had to be done", he continued. "Hell on earth was not acceptable."

"Hear, hear", the audience returned, scholars and O'clares alike.

Ruth

The Comms, the scientists in the communication control center, knew that there were still active satellites. About a year ago, the had found a way to open a communication channel after they had stumbled upon documents with frequencies and access codes in their archives. Trinity is still maintaining an array of computers and after they set up the system, they started collecting data sources like hard drives from everywhere. They even paid the clans for it with valuable food and other supplies.

One of their first ideas was to retrieve storage from the government, the Phoenix files. It was a huge collection of mostly irrelevant data. But one of the needles in that haystack was a technical documentation about the satellite system. After more than a year of trying, they could establish a link and retrieve mostly bad footage. The still didn't know how it worked, but it was better than nothing. At least they had proof that the satellites were still out there.

The Comms also maintained a radio relay station. But there was barely others out there who heard their calls. The only larger exception was a German station, with whom the had a monthly call. Otherwise, it's astonishingly calm for a communication centre.

But now, they had visitors. The dean, the Theologist, Juliette and Ruth O'Clare stood behind them at the desks with a giant wall of monitors, all off. Only a small flat screen in the middle was turned on.

"Mr. Fitzroy here has told us that you have large scale footage of those demons", Ruth started out of nothing. She didn't ever bother with small talk.

"No one calls me Mr. Fitzroy", the Theologist replied. "I'm the Theologist."

But neither Ruth, nor the two Comms operators took much care. "So can we see it?", she asked.

"I can see what I can do", said the left guy at the desk. He was young for a scholar, about Juliettes age, but he seemed to be in the lead here. He took the keyboard and typed something and the footage they already saw in the auditorium appeared on the screen again.

"Is this the video we already saw?", asked Juliette. "It's not very sharp, is it? I would have thought that the tech before the war was more advanced."

"Let me try", said Ruth and pushed the poor boy out of his chair before he even knew what happened. There were clearly two different worlds colliding in that room at the moment.

"Are these the codes?", she asked and pointed to an opened document on the screen. The Comm could only nod.

She opened a terminal, a blank black box with a blinking cursor appeared on the screen. She typed some commands, copied over a part of the text from the document and pasted it in the terminal. Then she mumbled some magic spells or curses along the way. "WTF" was among the abbreviations she used.

Then suddenly a cracking came out of one of the speakers. And then a voice. "Dublin? Are you there?", it said from remote, "What did you do? We have a signal from a satellite."

Juliette

The scientists were more pragmatic than Juliette had thought. They had organized themselves pretty well at Trinity. Compared to their lives on the road, it almost felt like paradise. But they also continued working on the problem. They discussed a lot, made plans, threw them away again, came up with other plans. Everyone was involved. Ruth was very busy with bringing the communication system up to speed again. Juliette took over a leading and organising role in the discussions. Also the Germans on the other end of the radio took part. Everything felt so different than the simple analog life before.

The group had put her on the lead of the org team. The Scientists and the O'Clares planned an expedition together. The plan they came up with was brave and risky, but they felt that the life of all remaining humans would probably depend on it. They had to do fieldwork. They had to find out what caused the appearance of demons, where they came from and finally how to close that gate to hell or whatever it was again before these creatures gained more power. It had to happen as soon as possible. The first destination was Hamburg, where the other team with the direct connection to the satellites lived.

Juliette herself, pregnant, seventh month, could not go. But within only one day she put a formidable crew together. The main reason why Ruth was not in the lead was that she clearly had to be part of that crew. She was recruited first. Ruben and young Bantry were in there as well. Siobhan from the Comms and Hannah, an experimental Physicist had also been chosen by Juliette. Juliette also recruited Ron, a psychologist, not because of his profession, but he was also deeply into boats and had claimed a part of the harbour area in Dublin and maintained some of the yachts there. He made a perfect skipper.

And then there was the Theologist, Ethelbert Fitzroy, who volunteered. At age 59 he was the oldest. But strategically, his knowledge could be of use. So Juliette immediately agreed to add him to the roster, a crew of seven.

Juliette was satisfied with her arrangements. She ordered three days of preparation and training and chose her office next to the Comms central at Trinity. The party was ready to set out.

Ron

Ron had chosen a small, well-maintained and quite comfortable passagemaker yacht from the harbour. It was perfectly sized for seven people and suitable for a trip through the Irish Sea, the channel and the North Sea to Hamburg, their destination.

It took them the whole three days to get the boat ready. In parallel Ruth and Siobhan installed and set up a radio communication system on the yacht that ensured permanent contact with Dublin and Hamburg.

After everything was prepared and they had their last lunch onshore, Ron commanded all of them to the yacht. And at two o'clock, after the obligatory briefing, the expedition started and Ron steered them with the help of the auxiliary motor towards the open Irish Sea.