~Chapter 1: Prologue~
I can hear my men fighting outside the tent. I hear them shouting, crying for victory when they have murdered someone again and breathe their last.
I can't take it anymore. I sit here with my generals waiting for the messenger to come back. We sit on our chairs looking at each other and discussing what we are going to eat tonight, while my men are fighting.
To be dead.
We are winning, everyone knows that. But still our enemy keeps fighting, every second there are deaths. They don't want to surrender, although they can see for themselves that they are on the losing side.
I give my men strength, indirectly. The Watch gives them strength. I look at the object around my wrist, it looks like any other watch. It looks normal. But it's not, it's far from ordinary.
The Watch is dangerous in the wrong hands. It can destroy entire countries, kill men and women. Even children, who have done nothing wrong and know so little about the world, are murdered without mercy.
I don't fight, some people call me a weakling because of this. Not worthy to wear the Watch, but that doesn't bother me.
I shouldn't care about that.
I've never been a bloodthirsty type. I forgave and quickly forgot. I have no revenge and I don't get a squeak when I've beaten someone up, or worse still: someone killed.
I'm surprised how everything went so fast. Six months ago, I was still a normal citizen, a watchmaker who lived in a small house. I didn't share a house with anyone. It was just me and my tools.
But all that changed drastically until I found it.
The Watch.
I walked out that morning to go to the park, because I had no customers today who came to pick up their watches and I was closed on Saturdays, so you couldn't bring in broken watches.
In front of my sidewalk was an old worn out watch, completely in pieces. The glass was shattered and the strap was so thin that it looked even more fragile than a feather.
Quickly I took the pieces of watch in my hand and went back into my house. I took it with me to my workshop and took off the watch plate.
What I saw shocked me very much.
I saw four colours of stones that had fused together. I grabbed the plate carefully. It was as hard as steel, but light as aluminium. "What is it," I asked myself.
That evening there was a knock at the door. I looked at the clock, 23:28. "Who would still be outside now?". I walked to the door and opened the door ajar. I put my head in between.
I saw three muscled men standing in front of the door, all dressed in black. Quickly I closed the door, afraid of those frightening men.
But one of them took off faster and put his foot between the door. "May we come in, sir," the man asked with a heavy voice.
I didn't dare say no, so I nodded and opened the door further. The three men walked in, took off their coats and shoes and hung their coats on the coat rack.
"Um...follow me, gentlemen," my voice was shaking. I tried to sound normal, but my voice betrayed that I was terrified. Was my last hour struck? Am I really that bad for this world?
The men who had followed me into the living room, sat down on the couch. I added my office chair. So that I sat in front of them and looked at them waiting to see why they were at my door so late.
The middle one, who had also put his foot between the door, scraped his throat and then said: "We have heard that you have the Watch, sir." As I looked closely, I saw that he saw a scar just above his right eyebrow. It only frightened me more.
The men sitting opposite me seemed to notice it, because they started to look a lot less stiffly in front of them and no longer looked at me as if they wanted to kill me.
I didn't look at them comprehensively. Do they mean the watch I found this morning? What's so special about it? I had heard of the watch before, but that's more of a myth in my eyes.
Anyone who touches that thing is almost possessed by power. That cannot exist, something like that is unnatural and cannot be explained logically. So in my view it is a story, to get the children to bed. Or an excuse to go to war.
They explained everything to me. That the watch, which was still on my desk, is the Watch. They told me it wasn't a myth and explained the meaning of the stones. As I have already seen, it consists of four stones that have melted together.
Apparently they all have a power. Red stands for destruction, blue for protection, white for light and black for darkness. Each stone has an opposite stone to keep it in balance.
After they told me all about the Watch and the stones they asked me if I wanted to go with them.
I said yes.
I still don't know why that one word left my mouth. It was a stupid decision, which led to hundreds of brave men losing their lives.
As I stand here in the tent with my generals, I realize it is my worst decision ever.
Everyone found out that we have the Watch in our power. Within a month, our archrival declared war on us: the orcs.
It's all my fault, because of me my men are dying. I had to do something and quickly, before it is too late.
But one solution keeps repeating itself several times through my head: I had to destroy the Watch and the stones. Only then would it stop, because the orcs are after all out for the Watch with the stones.
I can still vaguely remember that we once had that lesson in history, now I regret that I was so lazy. Then I remember knowing.
The Fire of Heaven.
It was not for nothing that the Fire of Heaven was called that. The fire was the lava of the Ellipa volcano. No one dared to go there. Afraid of his own life. People used to come there to admire the volcano, but that was the last thing they saw.
Nobody came out of the Ellipa alive.
And I'm going there. I look at my watch, even though I know it was on my wrist. It seems to be glued to me. As if it is connected to me, continues to haunt me.
The others don't dare take the Watch, no matter how much they want the power, they are even more afraid to be possessed.
Afraid that someone - or in this case something - has the power over you. It is said that everyone before me who had the Watch in his power was possessed. They all thought they had the Watch in their power, but in reality the Watch had them in their power.
I tell the others that I am going to the toilet. When I get there, I lock the door and open the Watch.
I quickly mastered the power, although I don't dare to use it very often. Afraid that the stories are true and that I too may be possessed. I don't know why I don't go crazy, I don't know what makes me different from the rest. But at the moment I don't care about that. I have to save my men and fast.
I tap the black part and think of the Ellipa volcano. I felt how I became one with the shadows and suddenly I am in the Elippa.
Above the simmering magma.
I feel myself getting dizzy when I look down. I've never been able to stand heights very well and to see underneath me in the middle of a bubbling, endless depth of magma doesn't help very much to make my fear disappear either.
I push myself one step further with trembling legs, so that I look over the edge and quickly look away again when I feel the fear of falling become too big.
"Come on, Glorian, you can do this. It's better for everyone. No more wars will come through this stupid thing after this," I address myself. I take the Watch off my wrist with my shaking hands and hold it out in front of me with both hands.
Above the Fire of Heaven.
I gather all my courage and let it go. In the Fire of Heavens.
A few seconds later I hear a splash and realize that no one can use the Watch and the stones anymore. It lies at the bottom of the Elippa.
A gust of relief overflows me.
Suddenly something from the depths shoots down in front of me. Clouds of smoke rise from the objects in front of me.
I kneel down to have a better look at them. But when I realise what it is, I am too shocked.
I look in pure amazement at what is in front of me. It seems as if they came back to me. That the Fire of Heaven did not want it. But that's impossible, isn't it?
I look at The Watch and the stones.
At first it seems as if nothing had changed, but now that I look closer I see that the stones no longer consist of a round disc. All four of them have been split up. I touch them carefully, afraid to burn my fingers.
What surprises me most is that each of them has a different shape and feels different. As if they hadn't been a whole three minutes ago.
The red stone has turned into a triangle and was rough, it feels like sandpaper. A stone that hasn't been polished yet and is so pure that it looks as if it can handle anything. All destroyed in its way.
The blue stone is the opposite: it had the shape of a circle and was smooth. It has a soft appearance.
The white stone is oval shaped and has small black dots in it. It shows again that the white stone that stands for light also contains darkness. That light is not accompanied by darkness.
The black stone is the opposite of the white stone. It is a square and it has small white dots in it. The white and black stones feel the same way.
I don't know what to do now. It is certain that my plan has failed, but now I still have the Watch and the stones. The only difference is that the stones are now separated from each other.
"Think Glorian...think!", I call upon myself frustrated. "Arch!", I shout through the Elippa, when I can't think of anything good.
Every second that I'm wasting time here, my men die for this object. They fight for their lives and I am sitting here in a volcano thinking.
People and creatures can never find the Watch and the stones, that's for sure. But how am I going to do that? I have to hide them and well, I have to put them in places where no one will look.
And then I have it... I have to go to Dupto. Living there...what do they call themselves again? Groundings or something. Anyway, I have to go to earth. That is what I think they call their planet.
So said so done. I put all four stones and the Watch in my uniform, which I still wear. Except for the white stone. I hold it in my hands in front of my face.
Last time I used the black stone, that's why I have to use the white one now. Because that can be fatal if you use one of the four stones too often.
I look deep into the white stone and I sat in front of the planet Dupto.
I have read a lot about that planet, they behave very differently from us. They are barbarians, people who wander through forests looking for food and don't stay in the same place for at least one year.
I feel myself getting warm and merging in the light. When I open my eyes, I see that I am in the middle of a desert...
This seems to me to be a suitable place to bury one of the stones here. I choose the white one, because there is a lot of sunshine here.
And so I chose a perfect hiding place for each stone and something that made sense, but not too much. After all, it shouldn't be too simple.
After I have hidden all the stones, I still have the Watch in my hand. I decide to keep it with me, not to hide it.
I've become attached to it, maybe it's selfish. Maybe it's so that everyone still thinks that I would have the stones with me. Or am I just making that up, so that no guilt begins to build up in me.
In the end, I put myself over myself and my own interests and return to my own planet Flanus, using my last energy I still had from the stones.
I come back to the Elippa volcano and the last thing I can do is take off the Watch and throw it into the Fire of Heaven. So that that too will be abandoned.
But never in my memories.
When I hear the soft, familiar splash, I somehow know that the Watch had sunk to the bottom this time. And at that moment a burden seems to be falling off me, which I didn't know I was wearing.
Suddenly I see the light, the beautiful warm light. From the dark tunnel, even here light and darkness seem to belong together. It seems to beckon me and I... I'm going there.
The last thing that goes through my head is that everyone dies in the Elippa. Owner of the Watch or not.
You die.
Nobody gets out alive, but I know I've done something good. The Watch is now safe, the people of all dimensions are now safe.
Is it?
