2
Trigger Warnings: Violence, war
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He signed at me to get up and we both bolted behind the fat trunked oak tree that grew at the back of the yard.
As we peaked around the bark, there was nothing to be seen but smoke seeping through the back door, emitting itself arrogantly into the air.
"What the hell was that?" I whispered.
"Does it look like I'd know, you dumbtruck?"
Long minutes dragged on while waiting for the gas to die down. I insisted that we went inside to see what happened. He disagreed, yet his statement was in vain as I still dragged him towards the house.
We went inside, yet encountered confusion.
The smoke had died down, but all we saw was an empty room. I had wondered how the place was still unbroken, prior to the two explosions that arose. The shelves were gone, the tables, the chairs, and basically everything that we had in the house, and yet the walls were still as white as it always stood. My parents were gone. It made me panic.
"How?" I breathed.
"Shouldn't everything be all over the place? What in the name of science?" He stumbled across to the living room ahead as I stared at the place where they disappeared.
"This place should be in a mess. What in the..."
In a daze, I trot to the middle of the room, scanning around me just to see what I always saw, walls. There was no blood on the floor, no sign of debris anywhere. My head began to spin.
"Emmanuel? I don't feel good," I mumbled, lightheaded and unable to fathom when he caught me as I blacked out.
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My eyes fluttered open to cries and chaos. It wasn't the best opening.
Invisibly, I stared below at what seemed like a great war between mankind who wore gold armor and creatures unknown to me. It felt awfully familiar, and yet I can't recognize it.
At the middle, creatures all big and small, from three heads to one, with a crocodile's spine to the tail of a diplodocus, or the blue and purple reptile skin, teeth and jaw made its mark through flesh while humans met them, using spears, broadswords, and shields throughout the battle. Both sides levelled out. Their actions produced a colorful bloodbath of red, black, and even purple, running like a constant river of pigment. Endlessly from both ends of the valley, beasts and people appeared, joining with ambitious movement to the clash, trying to dominate a side- likely unable to.
On both sides were a human-like leader, one onlooking the mayhem from the entrance to the valley and the other- maybe a royal and her batch fending off at a fort that was seemingly built into a caved mountain. The fort was short and it was easily raided, but its defenders were strong. Creatures that slipped past the core of the war to get to their enemies' master was simply ridded of by the onslaught of their blade.
One of the leaders was a man, the one to the left of me. He situated himself in dusk's distinction of display, away from where blood can be spilt- high above the scene- and as from behind, his reinforcements entered the picture, mostly avoiding his presence. His stance was steady as his hands were held behind his back. The man had a crown of two large horns above his head. His face was full of scars. Handsome was he, his jaw was defined, cheekbones contoured, nose as sharp as his brows that furrowed.
The bad guy. That aura, he reeked.
The other was a female entity. She wielded her weapon elegantly- almost comfortably, as if she did this everyday. There was experience in her doing. The broadsword she penetrated her foes with had sufficient strength for heads to be found flying, for specs unrivalled to die the death she wanted of them, badly, it seemed.
He wore a black cloak. She wore silver armor.
Her dark, chocolate hair covered most of her face yet she cared not, killing away whatever pursued her. I squinted my eyes to see her face, waiting for that chance where she brushed it away. Before I can seize that proper look, a blinding light interrupts me from the corner of my eye.
There stood the man in black, with a ball of pure white light formed around him. My attention whipped towards him.
He was tired of the continuous sight of a back and forth play. I saw it in him. With a booming voice, he screamed and it shook the world to silence.
"Yield now or die! Your highness, you are destined to surrender to my existence, bestow me your crown and bow before me, and I won't harm your people!"
I glanced again towards the woman who now had her attention given to him. She pulls her helmet off- her long hair flowing freely as the golden hour's light paints her skin- and drops it.
My stomach drops along with it.
I saw her face; I realized who she was.
Her facial features were identical to mine- more mature in a sense that she looked like a young adult.
"No way-" my whisper was cut off. 'Right,' I thought. They didn't know of my existence.
"Queen Ruvelia?"
It drops even more. Queen?
She- no, I held up my sword and pointed it directly at his silhouette.
With matching loudness, she responds.
"Death will do my people and I apart! Before I succumb to the likes of you, step upon my dead body. Your conquer falls today! No one, not when I'm here, enters the grounds of my Nedir!"
Nedir-?
They both jump into the air with inhumane strength, covering nearly half of the battlefield. They war resumes as they meet each other at the center, engaging in battle, one so tense that it determined the lives of- perhaps- a city, or a continent, or a kingdom, to her. It was the unspoken reason of their mortal peace that she needed to win that war for.
Battle cries were heard and even more blood was spilled. It no longer surprised me that myself and the man knew to fly. They fought tirelessly, sparing no chance of an opening to gift a blow to another. Their moves were even and calculated, a never ending cycle where one attacked and the other dodged.