

87
The House of M
Mi-Tu Kieu
I cannot remember the first time I died. It was inmy mother’s womb
where I had barely reached six months. You could say I was a miracle
in that I was able to be brought back into the world after being dead
for so long, but, as these stories always go, I was a disappointment in
my father’s eyes. He found little success inmy birth although I amhis
only son; to him I am still a failed attempt at the cure for all ills. My
birth came after my death and I was cut from the cryogenically
frozen corpse of my mother. I squealed in my first lungful of cold,
cold air, to a room of sterile hands and sterile gazes.
I have died 47 times since.
The House of M stands tall and arrogant. After the Concourse it
will be surrounded by four glass spires which will pierce the sky,
these modern tower-like projections which will suspend upon great
metallic statues defy both gravity and architecture, yet it will exist,
unnaturally like the majority of things found in the New World.
The four statues in each bottom corner are horsemen; crushed
horsemen. The engravings on their plaques are in a cruel and perfect
font and read: Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death. If there was a
god this would be the cosmic insult, however, as everyone knows, in
the New World there is no god. The belief that an omnipresent
being is existent will have faded over time, a forgotten plaything left
to attract dust, and if it were ever picked up again it would be done
so in the deep recesses of a solitary mind.
This is will soon be the tallest building of Sector 5; a building
permit will be placed that allows no other to surpass its height.
It is the year 2080
AD
and humanity has reached Type I
civilisation. Mankind has just begun to start terra forming Mars,
there are no longer delays in the teleporting system, the World
Parliament is holding its 59th biannual council concerning a new
disease found in Sector 51 that has the potential to wipe out all life
on Earth. It only wipes out 67%. I do not know yet that in less than
a decade I will lead the New World.
When I wake up, it will seem to be an insignificant day as any
other, and I now cannot remember the date although I know it was
my birthday. In the New World, such things lack significance. This
day, in hindsight, marks the beginning of my empire.
At this point in time I have dreams; it is nothing unusual to have
dreams as I am still part of the old world. Looking back, these are
premonitions.
11