Monday, September 17, 2007

Act 1 Chapter 1: Visions

She screamed.

Her upper body jerked upright, head snapping back from the inertia of the action, sending a stinging pain down her neck to her spine. Her black locks swung up from the depressed pillow and curtained over her face, as though to shield her from the impending evil. Beady droplets of sweat formed earlier were already cascading down her face like torrential waters released from a damaged dam. She nervously licked her dry lips, her tongue caught and tingled with the mild salty taste of her perspiration. Every breath she took burned her breathing pipes as her nostrils flared with the tension that overtook her body. She remained motionless in bed for that moment.

The moon was in full bloom, streaks of yellow cut through the still night like a knife through butter, illuminating the darkened sky with its reflected radiance. Wispy clouds occasionally shrouded the moonbeams and eerie shadows sprouted from the ends of the obstructions. She recovered her nerves and choosing to ignore the random patterns of movement displayed by the blocked light, watched the night sky from the comforts of her bed. Every night carried a full moon for the past three months. it was certainly unusual.

it was not just a nightmare. it was a premonition of things to come. Since young she had seen things, events that would reveal themselves as reality in the future. As a little girl barely reaching six years old, she hardly understood what these meant. Terrified, most of the time, she would keep to herself, bearing the weight of this mental burden. Her parents were oblivious to her suffering as they had absolutely no time for her. Father was always working in the fields to better his crop yields for the annual harvest cash rebates that the tax department handed out to peasants with surplus output. Mother spent the daylights out in the Squire's home as a housekeeper and only returned after dusk. Even then she'd be busy with the cooking, their very own household chores and the endless fabric weaving she did as a part-time seamstress for the village. However her grandfather, a gentle, warm but frail man in his mid-eighties, was always home, always watching his beloved granddaughter, and he sensed that something was wrong when she started to lock herself in her room with a regular schedule that would have freaked out the parents. No, not her parents.

He was patient in his coaxing and finally after six long years, she responded to possibly the only person in the world that could relate to her and unlocked her heart's secrets to him. As he listened, his eyes grew wide in amazement as she revealed about her paranormal ability to foretell the future. There were tiny matters like how she anticipated the death of the family's prized cow, and major events like how she foresaw the demise of the King during the winter battle with the Artemians. No matter the subject, every episode was spoken in too great a detail for him to disbelieve. Not that he could because every single recount was not just a mere fictional narration, they were all true occurrences.

He vaguely concluded that these visions seemed to be originating directly from her mind as she could not draw references from anything she had prior knowledge of. He had to get help for his granddaughter, someone who could keep her under tutelage and supervision, someone who possibly could see images of the future as well. But who? He certainly hadn't heard of any such person. And where? The objective looked grim.

Closing her eyes now, she focused her attention on the sequence of events that her mind carried a few minutes ago -

" Huge flame pillars descended from the fiery heavens, torching everything they came into the slightest contact with. innumerable smouldering fireballs rained in supplement to the chaos, crushing and turning structures into molten messes. it was a disorderly sight as the villagers scrambled multi-directionally for their own safety, not wanting to be victims.

Wait a minute, the village, i recognise it! it's my village! What is going on?

Amidst the furore, perched at the top of the cliff overlooking Linden Village, stood an obscure figure. Right fist clenched around a shimmery golden staff that ended off with a red crystal sitting snugly in what looked like an eagle's claw, the silhouette clad in a hooded sleeveless black tunic, with the white seams of the embroidery standing out like chalk markings on a board, was still, as if gazing upon his work of art. Suddenly in a swift motion, the mysterious person pulled a left forearm over the chest to cover the identifying emblem emblazoned onto the right of the chestplate and released the muscled limb, pointing to the village below, as though claiming a masterpiece. A blood-shot glow emanated from the crystal and shot straight into the heavens. The rain of fire turned into a downpour.

Noooooooooooooooo! "

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