The Return of Magic
Writing prompt: This is an epic about questing. The story is about a knight. It takes place on our world after a disaster brought about the return of magic. A magical accident plays an important role.
Dellinian silently counted out the bullets as he slipped them into the magazine of his rifle. He was running low. If he could only make it to Seriana without having to kill anyone.
Crawling, army-style, out from beneath the engine-less truck he had been hiding under, Dellinian slowly got to his feet, casting his eyes about the dilapidated city around him.
It looked as though a hurricane, an earthquake, and a fire had all occurred in the middle of an air raid. Debris of fallen buildings littered the empty streets and sidewalks, and abandoned vehicles lay about like a careless child's toys. Sad remnants of the lives that had been remained -- a purse, now empty and faded, a hundred dollar bill, blowing in the wind like a dry leaf, and worth half as much, a little girl's shoe, torn and dirty.
His gaze lingering on these items, Dellinian fought the anger that began to rise in his chest. Though he knew anger would solve nothing, and would only get in the way of clear thinking, he found it difficult to stop the emotion. It just wasn't fair that so many lives had been destroyed by one man's greed.
A slight sound, like the scurrying of a rat over a pile of loose rubble, caused Dellinian to turn and raise his gun, his finger on the trigger. At first, only an empty warehouse with broken windows caught his attention, and for a moment he wondered if he was imagining things. His nerves were on edge from all the sneaking around, expecting cilobans to jump out at him at every turn. Perhaps it had been just a rat after all.
This thought had just occurred to him when a shadowy figure darted from behind the truck Dellinian himself had been hiding beneath just a moment previously. Before he could get a good view of who or what it was, the figure had disappeared into the warehouse.
Hair on the back of his neck rising at the thought of having been so close to a possible foe, Dellinian hurried silently after the figure.
The warehouse was vast, but devoid of any structures or furniture. Nevertheless, visibility was low as a sort of darkness covered everything.
Cursing quietly to himself, Dellinian began digging in his pockets for one of the strange items Seriana had given him. In an instant, he had found what he was searching for: a small, golden flash bulb. Throwing the thing at the ground, Dellinian remembered to cover his eyes just before a burst of light erupted from the flash bulb as it made contact with the cold cement.
The light spread through the room, easily dispelling the darkness. Dellinian silently blessed Seriana and her remarkable contraptions.
As the light began to spread, the figure Dellinian had been following started to run towards the nearest exit.
Now, we can't have that, Dellinian thought.
"Halt!" he ordered. Not surprisingly, the person did not obey. Raising his weapon, Dellinian fired a warning shot at the fleeing figure. His bullet grazed his opponent's shoulder, exactly as he had intended.
Whomever he was shooting at froze, which Dellinian considered a wise move.
Taking his time, Dellinian made his way towards his stagnant rival. The unnatural darkness proved that the other had some magic tricks up their sleeve, and, though he felt fairly confident in his own bag of tricks, Dellinian had long since learned to be careful.
2 Brilliant Ideas:
Very nice. You should continue this -- I detect a touch of Urban spelunking that you could play with (no, I don't know how to spell spulunking). Did you see that episode of Man vs. Wild where he's in the city after the disaster? In a "this is totally not cliche" sort of way, this piece reminds me of that.
I actually DID see that episode, and it (along with "Mirror's Edge") inspired a lot of this piece -- more of it if you read past this beginning section.
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