Chapter 01
Hope
“Ugly…” a ghastly voice whispered, faint and muffled as a gust of wind snatched it away.
The hoarse voice belonged to an elderly man sitting on soft and damp moss, his slim frame resembling that of a skinless skeleton. Thin, smokey-gray patches of hair that weakly balanced on his head swayed in the wind, and the dark, shabby robes he wore whipped against his pale and wrinkled skin. His body trembled, his tired bones quaking from the icy-coldness and or his unending exhaustion.
The frail man stared forward, his fists clenched and his sunken eyes swelling with an unknown emotion. Closing his eyes, he tried to calm himself, the tempest of unintelligible emotion fighting to erupt.
With practiced meditation, he relaxed himself and eased his aching muscles. A moment later he finally opened his eyes once more.
Before him lay the ruins of a city. Not any typical city, but the once greatest monument of human creation that had ever existed. Its lifeless carcass now spread across the horizon, seemingly endless as it stretched beyond mountains and toward the skies. The once towering, crystalline skyscrapers were now reduced to mere ruins, tragic and pathetic shadows of their former pasts. Wreckages of hover-cars painted the vast roads, vines and all kinds of flora now growing throughout the small cracks in their cracked chrome shells.
Scars of once-scorching flames decorated each inch of the ruins, along with charred corpses scattered about that produced a lingering smell of both ash and burnt flesh—each a painful reminder of what had transpired on that fateful day.
Vile, disgusting, horrid, the man thought to himself, his face scrunching in disgust.
Shaking his head and letting out a raspy sigh, his joints creaked as he shuffled his body weight and reached into his pocket. Retrieving a rusted silver pendant, he raised it. His gaze lingered on its shell for a moment, before he flicked it open gently with his thumb, the fragile hinges churning and threatening to give up as it swung open.
The man sighed a breath of relief as its insides were now visible, then stared at what rested within. Inside was a small photograph of a beautiful woman, a large grin plastered on her face as she looked forward with a hopeful glint in her eyes. His body suddenly froze, his face turning an even paler white as he saw her face.
Just why… why… why did you have to die? Why?!
A small tear began to descend his face, only to be stopped as he wiped it away with his hand. He then took a deep and shaky breath as he gazed at the photograph for several more moments, before he steeled his resolve and used his shaking thumb to flick the pendant shut.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
After another second passed, he placed his bone-thin arm onto the soft moss for support as he pushed himself to his feet. Now standing, he shook off his limbs gently, the lingering numbness slowly but progressively beginning to dissipate. Finally able to feel his limbs again, he stretched his neck toward the skies, his gaze stopping on a single star that seemed to shine brighter than the rest.
“Ah,” he exhaled. “Even after all this time…I-” he paused then shook his head in confusion. “Huh… what was I thinking about?”
The man scratched his head and sighed. Taking a slow step forward, the man peered over the edge. A feeling of overwhelming dread suddenly bubbled within as the dark abyss below reminded him. Here was going to be his final resting place, his grave, one way or another.
He stepped back as his thoughts trailed off to the past, to the relentless studying and experimenting, or the almost fatal injuries he received during partial spell-casting tests. All of it was for one thing. A single, but impressive feat in the form of a spell. One that could simply be described as the peak of all magic. Nothing could compare. Nothing would ever compare.
The man chuckled at the thought. “Fifty years of my life, gone… just like that…”
No. This is my only purpose. This is what I need to do.
Everyone and everything he had ever loved was long dead, and nothing was going to change that. Except this. This spell was his only chance at seeing their faces again.
Realizing his thoughts were drifting again, he shook his head.
I have to do this.
He took one last look at the ruins, then he clasped his hands around the silver pendant he had held onto tightly. Soon, he inhaled and began chanting in a soft whisper. His hands began to dance, snaking and winding through the air rhythmically. A heavy pressure immediately began to crush the air around him as a faint glow emanated from the skeleton-like man.
Time seemed to freeze as the pressure surged and reached a new peak, when, all of a sudden a deafening shockwave boomed. Rifts and cracks began forming in the air around him, tearing through space and time itself. The ground beneath him suddenly shattered and exploded under the crushing pressure, launching his body into a sudden free fall. The only thing awaiting him was certain death.
Before the aftermath could truly affect him, his vision went dark.
All of his six senses suddenly dulled and ceased to function—It felt as though he had already died. After a moment he felt something happen to his mind. It felt as though it was ripping, falling apart at its very seams. He felt his remaining memories disappear, both the precious ones and the horrible ones. Unable to stop them, he just watched.
He was truly ceasing to exist, almost like his soul was being ripped apart and reduced to mere specks.
His thoughts then finally slowed to a complete stop as his mind began drifting toward something—perhaps a greedy black hole sucking in its dinner, or something different entirely.
Time felt like only a concept in this state, a joke, unmoving and non-existent.
Until, after an unknowable amount of time passed, he had finally died.
In his last moments, it felt like he had reached whatever it was that was sucking him in like he had connected with it. He couldn’t really think, or feel at the level he could before… but maybe he did feel one last thing.
It was hope. Hope for a second chance.