Chapter One
Atlanta, GA – November 9th 1864
General William Sherman stepped out of the Atlanta City Hall and took a deep breath. He hoisted his saber belt a bit higher on his waist and walked onto the muddy road. All around him, the sounds of night could be heard echoing slightly through the buildings, occasionally broken by laughter inside of one of the nearby taverns. Stopping for a moment in the street, Sherman looked up at the sky, admiring the constellations.
The quiet of the sleeping city was reflected by the late night sky. The stars were bright and the few clouds he could see broke the dim light up as they passed. As if on cue, a gentle fall breeze sent a chill down his neck, causing him to close his eyes a moment, relishing in the feeling. It was small moments like this, when the war seemed so far away, that it felt like God was having a private conversation with him. As a General in Grant’s army, guilt was often a companion in Sherman’s travels, and the past few days were no different. Small moments like this were a bittersweet gift.
Two days from now, Sherman’s forces would be cutting the telegraph wires out of Atlanta and setting blaze to most of the city. He’d already dispatched his letter to Mayor Calhoun, and while he had made it clear that parts of Atlanta would burn, he had agreed to leave the churches, residences and a few essential buildings intact. The rest, however, would be destroyed before his army continued their march to the sea. Sherman knew that this would be seen as another example of his tyrannical nature, but he also knew that it help the North with the war and help save the country from itself. The greater good often led to the hardest choices, and his public image was not high on his list of concerns.
Snapping himself out of his reflection, Sherman continued walking toward the stables, planning on a relaxing ride around town to check on the perimeter stations. His evening ritual was well known amongst his men, and he found that it was a very efficient way of ensuring discipline. Soon though, they would have to familiarize themselves with a new routine: marching to the coast.
As Sherman came upon the stable, he was distracted by an object in the sky moving with incredible speed. At first glance, it appeared to be a shooting star, but suddenly it made a sharp turn toward him, landing soundlessly in woods behind the buildings. He hesitated for a moment, but then drew himself up, placed his hand on his saber and marched around the building.
Rounding the corner, the General could detect a sickly red glow from the trees ahead. The horses were restless, the air smelled of sulfur and he could hear an oddly disturbing sound ahead. Pausing to make it out, the General could only compare it to the sound a boot made when being pulled out of mud. The glow was beginning to make his stomach turn, but cowardice was not in his nature. Sherman steeled himself and stepped past the tree line, toward the disturbance.
About thirty feet into the woods, Sherman came upon a small clearing and found what appeared to be a glowing puddle of red mud. The sulfur smell was almost unbearable now, and the ambient light seemed as though it was being sucked into the area in front of him. The longer he stared at the goo on the ground, the more he wished that he had brought some of his soldiers. Then, without warning, he felt as if his limbs were weighing him down, keeping him fastened to the spot.
When he was a child, William Sherman would be scared of the slightest sounds in his house. The wind rustling the leaves, the floorboards expanding and contracting, the rain pelting the roof would all keep him awake at night, staring at the dark. Now though, he was an adult, and had chased away any such terrors. So, when the puddle of glowing red ooze began to bubble and rise in front of him, General Sherman legitimately felt reality around him shatter.
“This must be the beginning of madness,” he whispered hoarsely to himself, his voice barely audible. He could feel his arms grow heavier, and his hand fell away from his saber to rest at his side. With his eyes wide and unblinking, he felt a sharp pain running through his entire body, starting in his head and pulsing down to his feet. Sherman wanted to scream in agony and run back into the streets to call for reinforcements, but it was too late. Somehow he knew that he was now a prisoner of the ooze, and that no matter what he tried, the end result would be the same.
The ooze bubbled up further and generated heat comparable to that of a blacksmith’s forge. It rose higher and began to turn in on itself, almost as if it was experimenting, trying to find the perfect form. The glow became brighter, turning from a red glow to a burning yellow and then finally white. Tendrils of energy began extending toward the General, probing and plucking at his skin, eventually wrapping around him completely, shocking him with bolts of electricity.
Slowly, the world seemed to grow dark and Sherman felts his eyes roll back as darkness took hold of him. In the moment before he blacked out, General William Sherman watched as the ooze solidified and took its final form. In front of him, where there was once a mysterious glowing red ooze, stood his doppelganger. And with that, General William Sherman fell into a deep coma, his duplicate free to take his place.
The Ooze looked down at General Sherman and sneered. The time and place was all wrong. It looked down at its newly formed hand and adjusted the palm to display the current galactic coordinates. The surface of its hand shifted slightly and became translucent, displaying several numbers that pinpointed the Ooze’s exact position in time and space.
“The planet Earth? This is unacceptable,” the Ooze declared, looking toward the glowing lights of Atlanta. Tilting its head to the side, the Ooze looked back down at its hand and began analyzing the temporal phase energy left in its system. With a disgusted sigh, the Ooze clenched its hand and stepped over General Sherman’s body, a plan already forming.
“Atlanta will burn, Sherman, do not worry,” the Ooze said to human lying helpless on the ground. “Atlanta will burn.”
