《Keys of the Endpoint》10. Into the Fire, pt. 3
Advertisement
“What happened?” he said.
“I don’t know.” She sounded worried. A hand grasped his and he let himself be dragged upright by Aster. How could she still move after that? He stood up, almost fell again, before he righted himself and surveyed their surroundings.
A small forest of feathers that reached to his knees had sprung up around him. He stood stunned and could only look and try to appreciate what had just happened. A gust of wind blew through and the feathers swayed in the breeze, moving as one. The ground almost looked like black it was so saturated with feathers sticking out of it.
“Where is he?” he asked. Aster pointed.
He looked to a mound of feathers that raised up higher than the surrounding ground. It could’ve been anything underneath there, a rock, some garbage or a piece of concrete. But as he looked closer, and it was hard to see in the sea of black, tiny outcroppings of a black robe could be spotted here and there between the feathers.
He looked at her. “What are you?” he asked. She looked back at him with intense sadness in her eyes but didn’t answer. For some reason Isaac felt he got his answer anyways through her face. Deep troughs ran through it, tracing lines from the edges of her face to a point somewhere on her nose. They were gray and dead-looking. In a few places it seemed small chunks of flesh had been torn out. If he looked underneath some of those feathers stuck into the ground all around him, would he find traces of human tissue? His skin prickled.
Something in his periphery moved and whatever he had been about to say died on his lips. He looked to the mound. It moved again.
He ran with every last bit of strength he could muster. Aster sidled along beside him and they were a pitiful sight indeed. His legs threatened to throw him to the ground and he caught Aster’s shoulder to steady himself. They were barely making any headway. The attempt was almost comical.
Advertisement
“This is insane!” Isaac felt like fainting. “How is he not dead?” Aster only grunted, focusing all her attention on putting one leg in front of the other. “He’s a fucking pincushion for Christ’s sake!”
Behind them, Crassus started screaming again.
Isaac felt it and heard it at the same time, the vibrations through the ground, the sounds of feathers snapping and breaking off. The dull thud of a footstep. “Oh god.” Isaac felt ghostly hands play across his back.
More footsteps, closer. It became hard to breathe. He would suffocate even before Crassus reached them. His shoulders sagged. Why refuse the inevitable. It would be so simple to lay down and rest at last. He regretted not finding Finn though, it would have been so good to see him one last time. To tell him he was sorry.
Thunder echoed through the ruins. Isaac opened his eyes. In under one second the smoke rushed in and reduced the visibility to a couple paces. The smoke breathed and pulsated like before, but something was very different this time. A strong wind blew through the smoke and a blue mist carried on it. The wind whipped the bubbles of smoke up like frothing water but the smoke did not drift even a hair's breadth away from where it had appeared.
Something enormous dropped a pace away and dirt and pebbles rained down on him. The ground shook and a deafening clatter started up as indistinguishable objects of every size and shape rained down. A wooden barrel dropped in front of him and broke. Horse shoes spilled out from it clinking an almost musical sounding tune.
Aster screamed something to him but the wind picked up and the roar in his ears drowned out all but the crash of the garbage and debris filling up every empty space and corner it could tumble its way into. He went to move closer to hear her better but as he turned he caught sight of something golden over her shoulder. It had only been for a brief moment, but Isaac knew beyond a sliver of a doubt what it had been. A face. The face of a man with blonde hair, a hesitant smile and kind eyes.
Advertisement
“FINN!”
He pawed his way past Aster and something hit his shoulder hard, pain radiating from it. He gritted his teeth and ignored it. He could see the outline of Finn through the haze running away from him. “FINN!”
A hand caught his elbow and attempted to haul him back. It was Aster, she screamed something at him, something about having to go, it was hard to make out. She pointed in a direction away from Finn. Couldn’t she leave him alone? Didn’t she realize that Finn was right over there? Did she understand what he had been through to get to this point? He wrenched his hand out of her grasp and she fell.
He looked back to Finn but the shape in the fog had disappeared. He cursed eternal suffering upon Aster and staggered after the memory he visualized in his mind. He had a general direction, and a sighting! Yes, this was enough. He would manage with this much, he had never even dared to dream of more than this.
His foot caught and he fell forward, face first in the dirt. He couldn’t lose the trail now. He had to get up. He clambered up but his feet knocked something into him. His foot hadn’t caught at all, he’d tripped on something.
He pushed to untangle his foot and a body rolled over, face up. Isaac froze. It was a man with a short stout build and a round puffy face. His skull caved in at the forehead. He had blonde hair, and maybe he had had a hesitant smile too, or even a kind expression, Isaac couldn’t tell now, but it wasn’t Finn.
A broken mirror lay next to him, shards of glass scattered about. Isaac looked into his reflection in a shard that leaned against the side of the man's face. Blood seeped down. The roar of the wind and the crash of the raining debris numbed his brain until he could think no more.
Aster caught up to him and crouched down beside him. She spared one glance at the broken face of the man splayed before them, then hauled at Isaac’s shoulder to get him up but he slumped further into misery.
The wind shifted. Instead of whipping at them from one direction it turned and Isaac felt his clothes tug in circles around him. The circle of wind grew and expanded past Aster a couple paces. Isaac looked into the wall of wind. It looked like a muddy grey mass of froth with blue streaks here and there. A memory prickled at the back of his mind.
The deafening roar lessened to a deep rumble.
“Don’t follow the people,” Aster said, breathing hard. “The debris falls…” She paused, “Where there’s… people.”
Isaac didn’t reply. He stared at the windwall. A memory of a car in a tornado sparked. His car. He turned around, but his throat caught as he saw the figure standing behind Aster, in the centre of the revolving wind.
He stood panting like Aster, feathers sticking out all over his body. Blood streamed down his ruined robes and the skin of his chest showed through the gaps in his chainmail. In his hand he held onto the edge of a bright white bathtub resting on the ground. Some pipes trailed behind it and a golden faucet reflected the dim blue light that seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere at once.
Advertisement
Is It Too Late To Move My Lair?
A legendary dragon... It has been told in the stories for hundreds of years. Some say it keeps a mountain of treasure in its cave, some say it is a vicious beast, some say it protects the village nearby, some claim it can grant their wishes, and some just think it's nothing more than a fairytale. He is not. The dragon is very real, although he isn't bothered by what people think of him in the slightest. He also doesn't have a grand treasure, nor does he grant wishes, like a magical genie. He is not interested in eating humans either. And as for protecting them… well. This is the story of the time before the legends, how they came to life and a dragon in the quest of his snooze. In a nutshell, this is a simple, light-hearted story with a dragon in it. What I have in mind is a relatively short one compared to most of the works on this site, but we'll see where it goes. This is my first attempt at writing something like this, so please be patient and kind in pointing out mistakes. As for the posting schedule... let's say it will be sporadic. Hope you enjoy reading, as much as I do while writing it… THE STORY IS NOT DROPPED, JUST SLOW ON THE UPDATES. Cover art by Nane, aka me. (Cross-posted on Scribble Hub.)
8 176Giantslayer
Synopsis: Alain is a fledgling Giantslayer, enhanced individuals capable of killing deadly giants. But these giants are not big, they are what ancient humans would refer to as mundane animals or beasts. 'The Final Curse' as many humans call it, was a curse that shrunk down the entire human population to the size of small rodents. When the curse first occurred, the majority of the human population was eaten by beasts who are now of towering heights and sizes. But their abandoned gargantuan structures were not built for naught, the remaining humans retreated back into their now giant buildings and rebuild societies and nations inside of them. Follow Alain in his quest to right the wrongs done to his past and hunt down the elusive and mythical Elder Giants, giants capable of intellects and speech. Are they real? Alain certainly insists so despite no one believing him. But perhaps it did not matter, they were real enough to him for what they did to his family. A/N: I'm pretty new to writing creatively so I hope to improve as we move along the story. The prose I use is still fairly simple and 'plain', but I am also new to literature in general so I am hoping to improve my vocabulary as well. It should also come under no surprise that I am a non-native English speaker and writer as well. With that said, I do appreciate constructive feedback. Please don't be overly mean at least. All the chapters are rough drafts that will be edited in the future. The cover is by this user from pixiv: https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/4545042
8 237Cowboys and Wizards
Currently in queue: Episode 12 in progress. Set in the Aurora: Apocalypse universe.Updated every Wednesday. If it's not updating, I'm working on my other fictions.If nothing's updating, I ran out of whiskey. Be patient. Cowboys and Wizards is a hot mess of garbage that should not be taken seriously by anyone. It’s a vaguely-GameLit spoof of Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomoni (In Another World With My Smartphone) where the MC ends up in another world and fused with his crappy smartphone, mashed up with fantasy western elements. Dungeons & Dragons meets the Wild West in an alternate high-fantasy timeline. Guns & Goblins. Cowboys & Wizards. Locomotives & Dwarves. Don’t expect great writing, accurate numbers, or common sense. Hell, don’t expect anything — just relax and let it happen.
8 107The false master of death
A boy from a hight-class house, specialists in golems, suffers a lot of reprimand and abuse from his family and others for being a soft-hearted child and possessing the despised dark attribute, but his mind begins to twist when his family performs an act atrocious in order to temper your heart. Timeline: The ice queen and the nobody (prequel) | not related The folly of a failed magician (at the same time) | not related Hunger of affection (at the same time)| not related 7 envoid of the end (at the same time) | not related
8 162REBIRTH OF THE STRONGEST GENIUS
Once upon a time there used to be a Strongest talent..Soon this talent became omniscient and Strongest in his multiverse but he couldn't fulfill his lifetime wish...BUT he didn't gave up.. Let's join on Rahu's adventure to become the real Strongest on his rebirth with a mysterious System.. The Strongest System: Do 1 billion push ups.. Rahu: Done, where is the reward? The Strongest System: Congrats, Host! Here is your reward for completing the task: Urban omnipotent talisman, xx Exp points..
8 163midnight entertainment → applyfic
' where the magic never wears off, '•••© midnightent | 05072020 ,, closed to appliers.
8 121