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Thanks Bear! I'm sure there's lots of room for improvement, lol. This is actually (I hope) the beginning of the first chapter. This is the rest of it...
Zephyrs, carrying the distant sound of weapons fire, gently wafted through the open window behind him. Toma mopped perspiration from his face with a damp tissue, trying to prevent it from dripping onto the paper in front of him. The last news reports Toma had watched, before the power went out, showed the agony on a guard’s face as his body disintegrated slowly before the cameras. A sudden change of scenery punctuated the disappearance of the cameraman as the live feed to the station abruptly ended seconds after the creatures turned their attention to the camera witnessing the scene.
Toma shuddered. He’d had a quick glimpse of the siiker attacking his people before he was pushed into his vehicle and transported home. The few miles from the gate to the main house seemed so much longer than the few minutes it usually took. Toma was still shaken by the sight of his men disappearing, one molecule at a time, in the glow of the siiker’s weapon.
He’d hoped someone would listen to his warning of what was coming but could tell they’d thought he’d lost his mind, especially when he spoke of the Guids. No one wanted to believe the Guids existed. ‘It was only a dream…’ he’d heard more than once as he urged his family, friends and colleagues to prepare for danger he couldn’t describe against creatures no one had heard of.
He finally stopped speaking of it after whispered questions about his mental health reached his ears. Even a reference he’d found in an obscure text to the creatures wasn’t enough for them to believe him. Until people started disappearing.
The price of knowledge comes high. There was a way to stop the siikers, the Guids said, but the person who could to do it hadn’t yet been born. He’d written it down. Everything. The warnings he’d been given, that of those he’d disseminated and the reaction to his warnings. Life, such as it had been only…Has it only been a few months? …would never be as it was until the siikers transferred back to their home.
Only a few more words, a few seconds in time, were all he needed to finish before his turn came. Though those who wielded the Craft were long-lived, the Siikers shortened their lives considerably. He continued to write, cursing the light of the candle vainly attempting to supplement that coming from the window and quelling rising panic with nearing shortened screams.
“Think! Think! I must get this down!”
‘Survivors guard against…’ he lifted pen from paper.
“Guard…guard against whom? I don’t know what they’ll be called by then. Would it be wise to use a name anyway?” He thought about it for a moment.
“How do I put this?” He continued writing and speaking as if someone was in the room with him until he’d written the last word. Only the candle, dimly illuminating his workspace, listened to his spoken thoughts. He folded and placed the missive in a waterproof pouch using the pouch’s drawstrings to close it.
“Guids,” he pled, “Watch over it, keep it safe until the time is nigh…” He turned at the sound of the door opening and gave thanks for those who delayed the inevitable for him as a glow filled the tiny room. His last thought, “Forgive us for what we have wrought…”
hugs,
Gail
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