After the world ended, it became a much better place to live.

In the earliest moments of the third millennium, the world came to an end. The earth, tortured by man since its beginnings, gave up the ghost. Mother Earth held the pain at bay for countless eons and finally had enough. She released her rage and fury upon us, shaking, trembling with more force than had ever been known. The result was devastation as had never before been dreamt; the cities and world of man were no more. The earthquake had laid waste to almost the whole of mans world, save the rubble and a few structures which were saved some say, by Gods own hand.

It wasnt the whole world that died that day. It was just ours. That was enough.

The California of old died in the earthquake and a new way of life was born. That way could have consisted of the last of her survivors scattering about and dying in the Broken World, but it didnt. Someone brought those survivors together and saved them, and in doing so, saved our world.

His name was Jesse Christensen and he was the greatest single person I have ever known. I watched as he saved lives with his own hands and performed miracles, the likes of which are told of only in legends. He bled with the wounds of the crucified Christ, using the power from the blood to work cures and perform miracles. So few of us knew the real truth that the stigmata was an urban legend to most after the earthquake. The last time he used the gift was to save my life, to raise me from the dead.

This brought his own end. An untimely and tragic death that a lot of people would never fully recover from, myself included. I dont know if anyone ever truly recovers from the loss of their spouse. Oh dear Lord, how I loved him so. He was my husband and he gave me a child, a daughter that he promised me would be the greatest person anyone could ever dream of or desire.

All I see in her is my daughter, his daughter. That is all I need, all I ever wanted.

The Broken World was built back up, better than ever. The world we created came to be more like the vision of paradise California was always meant to be. That is what troubles me the most. That this paradise, this oasis of near-perfect existence in the third millennium when most people say the end of our entire universe is at hand, will be nothing more than the calm before the storm, the harbinger of their apocalypse.

In the center of it all, in the eye of that storm, is my daughter. She alone stands at the gate of forever and it is in her that fate and destiny collide.

I think of what Jesse told me, of what he said she would do and who she would be, and there is nothing but good and wonderful things there, nothing but hope in his words. Opposing him though, standing in stark contrast to his words are the words of so many others, so very many others, who tell me what she is or could be has nothing to do with hope, but judgment.

I know what I feel, but I felt Jesse would forever be with me, at my side, that I would have him to hold close to me and turn to if ever I needed him.

So I'm left to wonder, to look at my daughter and contemplate: is she our salvation, or our damnation?