Ward 27 was dark and dank with the smell of death and David looked so out of place in the creaky old hospital bed.
Jaffa held on tightly to his mother’s hand and they looked on in disbelief and growing horror as David drew his last few breaths.
Sheila couldn’t understand how her husband could have gotten so sick so quickly but she was ushered away from the ward as she started to ask too many questions.
Jaffa and Sheila sat side by side that night alternately sobbing and asking why and how such a terrible thing had happened.
During the next few weeks more and more people in the neighbourhood started to disappear and there were alarming news articles regarding the Virus that was ripping families apart.
Jaffa was trying hard to be strong for his mother but as each day passed he grew more and more depressed. He would attempt to focus on his work at school but grew disinterested. How could he just get on with life when his whole world had been torn apart?
At home life was no better. Sheila was in the depths of despair and was paranoid that she would suffer the same fate as her husband. She would stare at herself in the mirror for hours and try to find any telltale sign of the Virus.
It wasn’t long before she found something. She screamed for Jaffa one evening as the sun was setting and he found her crumpled to the floor of her bathroom clutching a bloodied tissue in her hands.
Her nose wouldn’t stop bleeding and her skin was blistered and swollen. She was hysterical and her screams sent shivers up and down Jaffa’s spine. The ambulance took forever to come and during that time Jaffa’s sanity took a dive. He retreated into himself as he held his mother in his arms and pretended that he was somewhere else, somewhere far away, on another planet. A planet that was untouchable by this Virus.
After his mother died Jaffa continued to go into school. He had nowhere else to go and the routine gave him some source of comfort.
It was at around this time that his classmate Martin had started to behave a little strangely and Jaffa found himself becoming drawn to this lost and angry soul.
Martin had moved out of the family home and was living in a disused warehouse. Jaffa soon moved in and the two of them started to direct their anger at the world into a way of life. Martin changed his name to Zoot and the two of them started to gather more lost souls as time passed.
Power and Chaos would be the only way that they could get through this nightmare and as Jaffa said goodbye to his old life he found that he finally had something to look forward to. The Locos would be his new family. Zoot would be his leader.
As the newly christened Guardian it was Jaffa’s job to make sure that the tribe was strong and that only the right kids were allowed to join. The Guardian was Zoot’s right-hand man and made sure that nobody would get close to the leader of the Locos.
But this was to be a partnership damned from the very beginning…. Power and Chaos? Nothing but!