prologue - choice
Death.
The flames spilled towards the highest tower, gushing towards it like a cat nearing its prey, like a baby tiger pawing some useless strand of grass.
It finally toppled, fiery beasts slithering and engulfing it in broad daylight, burning the beautiful flag that used to fly proudly into nothing more than phantom ash.
Burning the remaining, brave and snuffed snippets of fighting along with the light that somehow cast shadows onto the very sun of hope.
It wasn’t meant to be like this.
Insanity.
The chambers stood in front of me, coated in glistening silver, shining in the otherwise innocent burst of dawn. The green button stood calm and still amid the chaos of the raging building. The glass was hissing and steaming, shuddering and screeching out in protest.
Bursts of vibrant blue and green threatened my vision, the black smoke rising quickly up to the windows and the sight of a city set aflame became hazy and golden.
The end of the world isn’t supposed to start, not in a thousand, a million years.
A wildcat leaped across the bunch of unconscious, white-robed people lying on the smooth limestone floors, shimmering with strands of gold and silver, eyes blinking as if it was real…
Its leash somehow caught my ankle, and it bounded me into one of those strange transparent tubes with the emerald gem sparkling and… and… and…
The fog returned, casting nets upon tangled nets that became fishing nets for coherence.
It… wasn’t… meant…to… be… like… this…
Survival.
I roared in pain as the spikes rammed again and again into my head.
They’re dead. All dead. All gone. Just — goddamn — break!
It wasn’t a voice. It was a scratchy CD that grated blood against my head, thousands of ravens cackling and picking at my hair, it was that horrific hut again staring at me through the expanding silvery wisps of smoke.
Burn… Yes, darling. Burn!
With my failing grasps onto consciousness, I willed my fingers to bend into a fist and slam it once more into the spiraling figures that were in front of me, their red and black cloaks mixing and intertwining into strings of gray that circled around.
The punch had not landed true, and soon licks of smog and fire gripped my lungs, filling them with hot coal as relentless as running hyenas as they sang the sweet song of heat through my veins.
It wasn’t meant to be like this.
Darling, don’t worry. We’ll wake you up when the sun burns itself into the glorious night, into that beautiful crimson darkness that you’d never see…
Welcome to New Manaria, where dreams are spun into nightmares.
