The Works of Julius St. Clair (Novel Samplers) Page 2

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  The nightmare was more vivid than usual, and what made it worse was that for the first time, Aidan couldn’t wake himself up. He was back home again, falling out of bed over the piercing screams he heard coming from outside. He thought it was all a figment of his imagination, that he had just conjured it up in his sleep, but the shrieks didn’t let up. Disoriented, he staggered to his tiny, clay hut window, and scanned the area.

  His neighbors were outside his window.

  And they were on fire.

  Aidan rushed out through the open door, so concerned with the plight of his neighbors that he didn’t even think of whether his parents and little sister would be okay. They had been outside the safety of their home.

  As soon as his feet hit the dirt, however, he was paralyzed.

  The sky had turned a blood red. The clouds, a lightning blue; and a sickly yellow rain drizzled from the heavens, slowly corroding the clay of their homes and withering their bountiful harvest. Aidan stepped back inside as soon as he realized the effects of the yellow rain, but it didn’t appear to affect his skin any more than regular water did. Still, he took off his shirt and wrapped it in a turban around his head for protection, then rushed back out and searched for a solution to the fires. A way to save his people.

  Water, sand, blankets – nothing worked.

  And as he watched them all stumble and fall, barely even twitching once they hit the soil - he wondered why he was the only one not afflicted. He felt like throwing up, and the only thing that prevented him was the sudden boom in the distance, sounding as if the planet itself had just cracked in half. He ran to the source, past the smoldering clay huts and the recently deceased until he hit the edge of what was once his home, now just a land of fertilized soil, sitting atop the second mountain of Tilkin.

  A firestorm was coming towards him, rolling across the adjacent mountains and valleys with a mix of thunder, flames, sand, and destruction. Aidan stayed frozen in fear as it approached with a deafening roar. Nothing he did could save him. His fate would be no different than those of his people.

  And he didn’t mind at all.

  He closed his eyes as he felt his skin begin to singe and crackle, the hairs on his arms and head already gone. He winced and grit his teeth through the tears, accepting his certain fate when unexpectedly…

  A voice asked him a question.

  “What do you wish for right now?”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, the sole survivor of Quinn spoke.

  “I wish I was protected from the fire!” he cried aloud.

  Just as the firestorm descended upon him, he screamed, not over the incoming storm, but the intense ripping sensation that came from his right arm. Three seals appeared in an instant. Two illuminated, signifying wishes yet to be granted, and one dark – blackened over the words he had just uttered. He had no time to examine the symbols. The pain in his arm was too great. All he could do was roar within a cloud of mixed emotions as the firestorm engulfed him, destroying his village, his friends, and everything he had ever loved within seconds, leaving no trace behind. As if his life had never existed.

  He screamed and screamed and at one point, he went mad.

  But then it was over.

  The storm subsided, vanishing into thin air as if it had achieved its sole purpose…and only Aidan remained amidst the smoking ruins. Two tornadoes of fire, as small as bracelets, circled his wrists at an increasing rate of speed, but he wasn’t looking at them or the devastation at his feet. He couldn’t contain his rage any longer.

  It erupted like a solar flare and in an instant, everything within a five mile radius was reduced to flat land, mountains and all. The village of Quinn and the mountains of Tilkin were wiped clean from Obsidian.

  Aidan barely survived the fall from the mountaintop as it crumbled beneath his feet like an avalanche. Even after he awoke, all he could do was breathe in the soot, and cough, and swear.

  What had happened to his people…his village – it could not have been an act of nature. Nature had been a catalyst, but it was surely not the cause. Red sky? Yellow rain? No, this was a biological attack of some sort. And someone had definitely spoken to him before the firestorm had arrived. That voice…that voice would know what had happened to his people.

  It would know who was responsible for their deaths.

  It would know who had to die by his trembling, eager hands.