A World Torn Asunder

Some people are born to greatness, other have greatness thrust upon them. By divine intervention or by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, is totally irrevelant.

It is irrelevent because that is exactly what happened to me and my brother; the two of us just minding out own business when everything went to Hell in a handbasket.

Our tale is a fantastical one, bordering on outright impossibility, but when you have seen the things that we have, the realm of impossible suddenly becomes that much more real, and true and terrifying.

Excerpt taken from the Inquisitor's Official Autobiography

CHAPTER 1

Fire licked up the side of the stone walls, reaching with greedy fingers of flame for more food to devour in its total conquest for power. Heat flared out painfully, singing hair and cloth and skin, melting everything down in its path.

"Abe!" the scream tore from her throat, terrified green eyes squinting through crackling flames and thick smoke for any signs of life. It was a struggle for her to move anywhere except forwards towards the unknown, skirting passed flaming debris and what she had early on discovered to be charred bodies. The fires continued to burn around her, licking high up in to the air above her and flashing painfully hot against the exposed skin of her arms and stomach. Her lungs burned from the smoke she had already inhaled, and the cloth of her shirt pressed against her mouth did little to stop the coughs that ripped through her chest.

Continuing forward with the sole purpose of finding a way out from the flames, she stumbled over rubble that had been hidden by smoke and flame, crashing to her knees. It felt like a death knell, the energy seeping out of her as she stared around her, fire reaching towards her with menacing fingers, waiting anxiously to snatch her up and snuff out her life. Breath heavy, she closed her eyes in resignation, only to open them again in resignation, the green orbs flickering quickly to the skies above her before looking away.

Swirling clouds of purple and green and black boiled in the heavens above her head, the funnel inverted and whirling continuously as lighting flashed and cracked. Comets or balls of emerald coloured flame erupted from the centre every few seconds, great explosions of thunder echoing through her body like she was in the middle of a storm.

Might as well be, she thought sardonically, swallowing the dread and fear – fear that even overshadowed what she knew was her certain death – that was curdling in the very pit of her stomach.

Another crack of lighting lit up the area around her, the white-green flash illuminating a crack in the stone wall a little to her right. She crawled on her hands and knees, she squeezed through the gap and collapsed on to her stomach, letting the burning coughs that had been searing her throat escape.

Dragging in a ragged breath as she tried to control her bodies reaction, she blinked through bleary eyes, tears stinging her eyeslids and coursing down her cheeks. She had somehow ended up in a dark… room or what she guessed to be a room, the shadows a testament to the fact that it had escaped the flames for now. Light from the crack in the wall behind her dance on the floor in sinister shapes, playing tricks with her mind and eyes.

Dimly, another crack of thunder split the air, the wall raining down ash and soot on her head. Almost at the same time, she screamed out, her hands clutching at her chest. Pain lanced throughout her body, originating from her chest and spreading to engulf all of her senses. She had no idea how long she laid there in the dirt, her mind writhing in pain just as her body contorted itself to try an alleviate the agony, but when it had finally subsided to a dull ache, she found herself flat on her back with a familiar face looking down at her.

"Avery!"

With little thought to her state of being, she flung herself upwards, her arms wrapping themselves around her brothers neck and refusing to let go. "Abe!" she breathed, and tears started to choke her throat for an entirely different reason. "What's going on?" she croaked, pulling back slightly and looking in to eyes that often stared back at her from a mirror.

"I dunno," he said honestly, and started to help her stand up, "One second we were settling in to-"

A deafening roar echoed throughout the space they were in and the two turned to face the gap in which Avery had just crawled through. Something that could only originate from a horror story peered at them through the gap, large, bulbous eyes glinting blackly at them from a face that would haunt the two of them for the rest of their lives.

Screaming in terror, Avery pushed away from the gap and scrambled behind Abe, using him as a shiled as what ever it was started to push its way inside. "What the hell!" she screamed, watching in rapped trepidation as long, spindly legs appeared in the gap and stretch out towards them.

"Forget about that!" Abe yelled out above the noise of the creatures shrieks and Avery's cries, "Let's get out of here!". Grabbing Avery by the hand, he dragged her behind him, shooting passed the door that he had come in through and outside of what Avery now knew was a stone hut.

Together they raced down the dirt path way between stone buildings, the flames only now reaching the area in which they had left. Bursting out from the small path between the last of the stone huts, the appeared in what Avery could only describe as some sort of courtyard. Three of the four sides were blocked off by walls of roaring flame, leaving the last space as their only means of escape in the form of a flight of stairs.

"This way!" Avery yelled, jogging over to the steps and looking to Abe. "Quickly!" she turned and looked up at the long flight of stairs above them, noting that there was something at the top that she couldn't see from where she stood. Turning back around quickly, Avery's eyes grew wide as she noticed the creature that had tried to get in to the room not minutes earlier had reappeared, and had also brought friends. "Spiders!" she screamed, and started running up the stairs, ignoring the pain that rippled through her body as she tore up the steps to what she hoped was salvation. Behind her Abe was following closely, only glancing behind his shoulders once to see that the creatures – that were indeed spiders – were catching up to them.

As they neared the top, Avery noticed that what she had first thought of was nothing but a light, was in fact a woman glowing in gold. She couldn't see her face, but from what she could make out, the figure was almost beckoning them, pleading for them to hurry.

The problem was, the closer they got to the top, the narrower and steeper the stairs became. Slipping, Avery bumped in to Abe, knocking him down several steps and that much closer to the spiders as they scuttled towards them. Gasping as the fear tried to choke her, Avery pushed against Abe, swallowing the sob that wanted so badly to escape her throat. Together, they pushed on wards, struggling to reach the glowing lady who looked even more anxious than she had before.

Wrapping her arms around Abe's waist, Avery clung to him, feeling the last of her energy leave her as Abe threw them both forward, his arm outstretched to reach towards the lady.

They were less than a feet apart when a mark on Abe's hand glowed an eerie green and exploded outwards. Avery screamed and buried her head in his shoulders as the light encompassed them both and the feeling of falling filled her guts to the point where she thought she would be sick.

Suddenly, their feet hit solid ground again and they both stumbled. Her hold on Abe breaking, Avery crashed to her knees next to Abe as her collapsed on to his front, his face eating the dirt beneath him. If she herself wasn't so tired, she would have laughed at him, but the last coherant thought before she joined him in slumber was why were there people in fancy dress point very sharp objects in their directions.