Month: January 2022

Last Chapter | Index | Next Chapter

100 Days Until Songs And the Uncertain End (part 1) 

The first day of attacks were horrifying. With the amount of time that they had to get the word out to everyone, there was not much time for preparation. Locations that were not fully prepared were brutalized before the military could step in. Some attacks were different than the predicted ones. There was little care for those places that were were already mostly abandoned due to people moving to work for the ships. In  the cases of those towns, there were no survivors for those who remained.

Evester had known that the warehouse would be receiving an attack that night, not too large but large enough to cause a worry. They’d get through it, easily enough, however they had to make sure that the attack didn’t put them off. He had watched the attack feeds of the other cities instead, noting how all the large UnderCities seemed completely unaffected. They had no casualties, while other cities were annihilated. For the first time in his life, Evester felt angry. He had wanted them to get the word out in order to save lives. The orders were to defend, not to attack. Yet the large Undercities annihilated their aggressors and the smaller towns were left to fend for themselves. Nothing had gone as planned and too many people had been lost. Evester wanted to say it was greed. He wanted to say that it was pride. He was not sure what had driven the X leaders to make the choice they had, but he did not accept their choice as right.

“We are trying to capture some right?” Karla asked, breaking Evester from his trance.

Last Chapter | Index | Next Chapter

101 Days Until Storms And the Uncertain End (part 3)

Heia held the camera close as she ran through the war zone. She had initially thought that daylight had come early, when the floodlights went on. She had cursed the world when they lit up all darkness, erasing all possible ways for her to continue hiding in secret. Getting through the tunnels had been easy enough, but she would have to get back down without notice. That was far more difficult with the flood lights. Adjusting her camera, Heia thought of what she would need to do.

The city was still asleep, and she had seen a few guards on her way, but there would be more when she had to head down. The rattling of guns and orders had Heia pausing for just long enough.

“What are you doing up here?” She heard someone yell as her eyes slowly adjusted. A person was looking at her. Directly at her. They knew she did not belong here. She, however, was too focused on the fight ahead of her.

There were soldiers lined up, firing at a line of Aralax that were coming to attack them. Hundreds of them. This had probably been one of the worst attacks Heia had seen on a city. It was lucky that they had not gotten under ground. Heia wondered if that had to do with the fact that this was Alan Penn’s city and he would never let his defenses slack off. Heia pondered the idea for just long enough, before she realized that she was going to be accosted.

Last Chapter | Index | Next Chapter

101 Days Until Storms And the Uncertain End (Part 2)

Zeydar looked over his class, his mind racing and trying to keep himself in control as he taught. Shawn had said he shouldn’t focus on it. Could not focus on it, had to keep going. He wasn’t wrong, but Zeydar was also at a loss. The news from Evester had come so suddenly. They were wrong and the attacks were starting sooner. The suddenness of it had Zeydar on edge. The final war was beginning and Zeydar had not yet broken himself free. He did not yet know his magic. He was not the asset he was supposed to be. How was he supposed to pull his part of the weight when he couldn’t even teach properly?

Every location was a zone of probable destruction. Every person was at risk. Yet no one knew. Those who did acted like nothing had changed. Which, much to Zeydar’s dismay, was correct. Nothing had happened. At least not to them. Yet the world was under attack and no one had said a word. The world buzzed about him and a headache was forming. He needed to either calm himself or prepare for a full mental breakdown. And he could not have a breakdown here. Not here. Not now.

“Any questions before we move on?” Zeydar hated this class. His general class was already past most of the formative years of magic: the De’lays, and the Marquis. They had learned past the reformation of Staff work, and the modification of the spell language. They knew that the Yasloughve Project had created Stars, by introducing the world to magic, but that it had been up to Stars to figure out how magic worked. They knew so much general history, but nothing had stuck. Unfortunately because they had to understand history to understand how magic worked, his assessments of the class were dismal at best. They knew the names, maybe a few years but none of the whys were present. 

Last Chapter | Index | Next Chapter

101 Days Until Storms And the Uncertain End (Part 1)

Heia was awoken by her brother with a grim face shroud in the darkness. He had a bitterness to his expression that sent shivers up her spine. She wondered for the smallest of seconds how much sleep she had, before she was completely alert.

“What’s going on?” She asked him, reaching for her weapon, ready to move at a moment’s notice.

“Look.” He pulled her to sitting and directed her focus to Trace who had a laptop open. There was a live report from a city some half way around the world, being destroyed. Heia wondered why it was her problem, before the dates that were drilled in her head sounded. She said the date out loud and was unable to track an attack that was supposed to happen.

“Aralax?” Heia asked, pulling herself closer. There wasn’t supposed to be an attack. Was this the Stars again? Or had things changed? “Already?”

Last Chapter | Index | Next Chapter

102 Days Until Scenarios And the Uncertain End (part 2)

Evester sat in his room looking at his painting that was drying, having completed it in a whirlwind of motions. It was splattered but oddly calm, soft and yet passionate. It was also deeply complicated and personal. He wanted to peel his eyes from it and was enticed to keep staring. He had created the shadow of everything he felt, of all the emotions he had. He had articulated the fear, the desire, the fear, the love, the fear, the fear, the fear, and the soft longing he had. He had worked through it, understood it, and lulled himself into acceptance that it was what he wanted. He had finished it some hours ago, and still it was drying. He wanted to touch it, to feel the paints under his fingers, to accept what he’d decided.

He could not.

“We need to prepare for some other things.” Uly spoke as he knocked on Evester’s door.

“Right.” Evester looked over to see Uly starring at Evester who sat in the light. He could not see the painting from where he stood. It was late into the afternoon, and Evester had disappeared shortly after their meeting in the morning. Uly looked as if he had slept, as well. Evester smiled to him. “We are supposed to be getting a barrage of attacks and events soon no?”

“Yes, all over the world.” Uly’s eyes trailed to behind Evester. Evester did not mind if Uly tried to see.

Last Chapter | Index | Next Chapter

102 Days Until Scenarios And the Uncertain End (part 1)

Evester didn’t know how to explain what he was watching, even as he was watching it. If someone was to ask him to explain it, he was pretty sure he’d draw a blank on what exactly it was. The computer system took the data from the Project and ran simulations over and over again. Uly had made notes as a guideline to give to Evester. Even with the notes, Evester was too horrified to articulate what he witnessed.

“That’s what the Uncertain End is predicted to look like?” Karla asked as she replayed the video again.

“Yes, but on a greater scale.” Uly answered with a yawn. Maverin had given him the data early that morning to analyze. Uly and Maverin had already begin building the simulation coding for the Project’s outputs. It had been a surprise to them all that Maverin was able to get the machine to predict the end of their own planet.

“How would the Aralax survive this?” Rayda asked. “With the amount of ash from these eruptions the entire sky would go black”

Last Chapter | Index | Next Chapter

103 Days Until Hate And the Uncertain End

Zeydar looked over Kony’s comprehension tests. He laid them on the table before him, looking between them and the tests that he had taken when he was Kony’s age. Getting all his records had been far easier than he had expected. He had thought that the Superiors would stop him, but they let him walk right in. It was almost as if they wanted Zeydar to do well with this teaching. Kony was lacking in many ways. However Kon’y magic theory scores and his magic history scores were well above average when compared to the rest. He had done well with his months of intensive study to get this far, and Zeydar would argue that he was far above his peers in both matters. Kony’s foundation was better than most could claim by this point, and that made Zeydar proud. They also were not good enough to become a Superior.

“So?” Kony asked worried with the time Zeydar was taking to review the scores.

“You are clearly only just beginning to learn.” Zeydar answered.

“I’m doing my best.”

Last Chapter | Index | Next Chapter

104 Days Until Breaking And the Uncertain End 

 Evester sat looking at the stars. The facility lights erased much of what he’d usually be able to see from the CloudCities. However even the CloudCities changed and manufactured the light. One of the things about running away, that he had loved, was seeing what the true night sky looked like from the lowerlands. Nothing could touch that. Even now he pretended to see that.

“What do you see?” His father’s voice did not surprise him. He had heard the sound of the door opening and shutting. He had recognized his father’s gait, and let the man approach silently. He had figured his father would speak when he wished to.

“Not much.”

Maverin sat next to Evester, as they used to in days long past. They would sit on the roof of their home just starring out. Evester had not thought much of those days, because they were as it was, and nothing new or surprising. Yet, looking back at them had been the small amount of time that he and his father had ever just sat with each other. Much of his interactions with his father had been about being an Igilistal, about life, about change. Those nights had been nights where Evester had simply existed with his father. Evester had learned his constellations then. He had learned family funny stories and histories that were passed down not because they were important to the preservation of the family, but because they were funny. He had learned in those nights of his mother and father’s bond, seen love, and memory, and hope all wrapped up in simple words and stories and existing. Evester had learned to be safe.