2 Chapter One: Silence

Tristia, Kingdom of Goll

A girl darted in and out of the continuously growing crowd with the agility of an acrobat. No one noticed her, for a slight frame which was based on years of poor nutrition, barely left an impression on the mass of sweaty bodies gathering around the rickety podium. Angered voices clamored in the town square as anticipation rose for the execution of an infamous bandit. A man known for his ruthlessness and calculated precision, he was the reason behind the countless deaths of innocent travelers.

Seeing this all from my balcony which overlooked the town square, I was curious as to what the girl was planning to do. She was moving with such purpose that it intrigued me. She stopped abruptly a few feet from the podium as the burly guards dragged the heavily muscled man up to the dilapidated stand and positioned him in front of the raucous crowd. His tanned face was bruised with a recent beating and his obsidian eyes glittered with pure hatred and something else I could not exactly identify. The governor, a slender man with a bejeweled tunic and shiny red riding boots, now seemingly appeared from nowhere and addressed the crowd.

"Good day, fellow citizens of Goll! Today is the day we finally slay the Terror of Rosin's Pass, this is the day we finally wipe away this... this creature from the face of the earth!" This last statement elicited a frenzied applause and shouts from the crowd. If they were any louder, I'm pretty sure that wooden establishment would have collapsed on itself. But in the midst of all this commotion, no one detected the little girl edge slowly towards the podium until she was right in front of it and slowly bent down to the ground. With renewed curiosity, I leaned further on the railing to see what she was doing, but I couldn't see. What on earth is going on over there?

The governor then called for order and the crowd lowered down somewhat. "Now, spit your goodbyes to this parasite as his corrupted head is severed off his sinful being" he announced with theatrical flare. The guards now forced him to his knees and unceremoniously banged his head on the bench as the hooded executioner positioned himself with a broad axe. I've always thought that the hood was a bit too dramatic but apparently it helped re-create the image of Zoros, the angel of death.

I had now lost sight of the girl as the executioner drew closer to the Terror and raised his axe in the air. A sudden hush fell over the people as they waited for judgement be meted out. One could've have heard a penny drop in that quiet, which was hastily ruined by the sickening hack of that man's head from his body . I expected the crowd to erupt in cheers at that glorified moment but they seemed to be struck dumb, and I quickly realised why.

As blood dripped down to the ground, a more horrifying sight arose. As his head lolled lifelessly on the stage, a dark mist began seep through the cracks in the stage. It curled itself around the corpse and pulled the bloody head back to his body. I continued to watch in horrified fascination as the thick mist, shaped like tentacles, attached the Terror's head back to his body like a missing puzzle piece and elevated him a few feet from the stage. With this, the crowd erupted in screams laced with panic and fear as they tried to escape this evil sight. The mist must have been a being of some sort because when the people tried to escape into the surrounding streets, a black cloud blocked the exits. People were now crying in despair as they could find no means of escape, especially since the once dead bandit now pulsated with life whilst hovering in the air.

I froze as the Terror was lowered to the stage onto his two feet, now healed of all injuries. But there was now a certain malevolence about him, a more sinister evil which was not there before.

How was this even possible???

Magic.

But magic had been restricted to the royals for the past 500 years. They had stopped the commoners from entering the Sacred Hollow to replenish our abilities, so, with time it fizzled out from among us. That would mean.... no. Just no. This was impossible. The Terror could not possibly be a royal, but then how would I know? People barely saw them in public except for the annual military parade, but, that was only a small glimpse. But still, how could they turn against their own people? This was making no sense and too much thinking caused my brain to pound against my skull. How typical of you Rebecca. Well, going through a lot of information has not always been my strongest point. I inwardly shuddered in memory of my time in Tristia's Academy for Girls. Those were the most torturous years of my life. Ugh.

I wanted to go back inside to take my mother's potion which eased pain but the crowd's screaming had reached a crescendo, forcing me to stay to see what became of them. My neighbours who had not gone to the town square now began to gather on their respective balconies to see this unbelievable scene unfold before them.

It was chaos.

Ear splitting screams ripped through the air as the dark mist continued to rise higher to form a rippling dome over the restless crowd, obscuring them from our view.

Suddenly, a loud resounding boom echoed through the large town causing the earth to tremble beneath our feet. It seemed to go on and on forever; then, it just stopped.

Silence.

The oppressive mist sluggishly cleared to reveal...

Nothing.

Nobody was there. I blinked my eyes repetitively in disbelief. They were there just a moment ago. I looked down on the connecting streets to see if the crowd had escaped somehow, but those streets were deserted. I heard my neighbours muttering in disbelief around me. A woman started crying hysterically. Her family member must have been in there. Fortunately for me, my parents had gone to the capital for business and I had no close friends around here so I suffered no serious loss. But I couldn't stop my heart from racing from what I had just seen. All those people... gone.

As I began to turn back indoors for a much needed soothing potion, a sharp swift movement caught my eye. Halting, I soon realised that a small child with long stringy brown hair had darted out from a hole at the bottom of the stage. She disappeared into an alley a second later.

Who was that? And how did she survive the vanishings?

She looks familiar....

A sick feeling curled in my stomach as I came to the realisation as to why I thought I recognised her. That nimble, bony body could only be the little girl I saw earlier. I stumbled back inside focused on getting the sleeping potion instead. The strongest one. As I sat on my bed gulping it down, two thoughts were swirling around in my head.

One being that I was slowly becoming a drug addict for I always craved the weightlessness those potions gave me. Weak, I know.

The other being an inkling feeling that life, as it was, will never be the same again.

The Darkness had returned.