Chapter 1: Desolate Sky

A forest aflame.

A city crumbling.

A thousand lives struck down, crushed, ruined within the hour. Throughout that haste, panic, and destruction, screams of pain and desperate self-preservation, a single being stood constant.

A boy.

A single boy, eyes shining like reflectionless mirrors staring up at a night sky. A sky filled with an endless amount of far-distant suns, shining eternally in a far, far land.

Yet within that shining light, the space between the suns stayed dark and desolate. Yet the boy looked past it all.

Past the flaming forest.

Past the crumbling city.

Past the screams of terror and fear. Past the endlessly dark night and shining suns. He looked past it all, where he looked no being could see. No technology could view, no meditation would allow. He looked past the veil, the truth hidden within it all.

Just above his head he saw two simple specks, floating past one another but never touching. As if two magnets were actively repelling one another, and yet pushed together by an unknown force.

A silent ting permeated throughout the sky, so quiet compared to the chaos, and yet so loud compared to peace that the boy felt within himself. And from that small sound, ever so quiet, up within the flickering lights a waft of bright slashes flew.

Every direction was filled with a train of blinding light, and yet it was covered instantly by a never-ending dark.

As if erasing the space it crossed. He stood and watched, his face unchanging, to the hundreds of frightened mobs around him it would look as if he simply couldn't take it anymore. Zoned out from the pain and hysteria surrounding him. Yet they could not have been more wrong.

He was entirely focused on the clash above him until another ting filled the sky, this time the slash that followed flew directly at him.

A bright flash filled his eyes and covered his left side.

'That.... hurt,' he thought, but now even his thoughts felt distant, he raised his hand to see what happened and yet... there was nothing to raise, no hand to inspect, as if the idea of his left side was nothing but a fleeting thought in the first place.

But... it didn't hurt, maybe he had just expected it to, perhaps because there was nothing there to send the signals, maybe he was so close to death it didn't matter anyway, but he continued watching the specks so distant.

The two opposing forces clashed and slipped off one another sending eradicating slashes in every direction. Sounds growing quiet around him as scores of people were destroyed with each slash.

With each silent ting, with the forces that followed. Ting Another group gone, silence replacing their screams, ting another.

Ting.

This time the slash was coming right at him, a dark slash, purple lightning at the edges flying to his right side, but he simply watched, as pure destruction flew towards him, time seemed to stand still, he still watched.

He was afraid, not of the imminent death staring him in the face, he was afraid he'd lose focus, the two specks in the sky, it felt as if the moment he looked away he would forget and go back to a part of the screaming mob.

So, he watched, he watched and ingrained it into his memory, he was going to die either way, so with this, he could at the very least view the reason.

Eventually, the slash hit him, his right side, erased, leaving nothing but black whisps at the stump.

And he Died.

In that moment he felt a watchful gaze notice his being.

...

Even in death, he watches the memory of the two specks seemingly fighting for control, Solan played the memory again and again in his head, if he still had one though even, he wasn't sure.

But something was different, the way they moved, the sound they made.

Also, the fact no one else seemed to see them, far too many things happened at once he hadn't even had the time to question anything.

As he pondered the destruction of his home, the city of Celdon to the east of the main city, had never been a particularly defensible city, it was in a place of little prosperity, After all, it hung off the side of a large cliff edge.

But even then, it shouldn't have fallen as fast as it had.

Though what could they have done.

What were they defending themselves against?