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Chuk

Chuk

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Finally! I add a new short! (755 words -- my own reminder)


- -- - A Tale of Trolls - -- -

Joy; elation; fear; sadness; these, and countless other emotions, flowed freely from Leden's heart. As he sat at home talking and laughing with his family about ridiculous stories of goblins and elves, warm jovialness flowed from him in a nearly visible wave.

"The Wise Old Man isn't so wise, I don't think. Who could believe in such monsters, much less believe that he's seen '** -- and even fought 'em, he claims! Hah!"

"I've sure never seen one, an' I only believe what my own eyes've seen," said Leden's sister, Shara. "He's just another senile old man. But what's worse is that some people DO believe him."

At this, Leden laughed aloud, his mother and father joining in. They sat in their Draynor home, comfortably lined with family paintings and other common decorations. Two windows on either side of their sitting room were open to the clear summer's night, providing a vision of sparkling stars. Leden and his father lounged in two armchairs, holding a cup of rum each, while Shara and his mother shared a cushioned couch.

"Do they now?" his mother asked, her eyes widening in mock surprise. "Do they also believe in trolls?"

The family's laughter rose even louder than before at such a preposterous notion, drowning the faint crackling that echoed faintly from one corner of the room. Slowly the sound crescendoed until, as their laughter faded, Shara asked, "It's summer. Who lit a fire?"

The others looked at her in confusion, but Leden, from his angle looked past her shoulder. There he saw flame licking one wooden wall, scorching it and growing rapidly.

"Fire!" he cried. "Get out! The whole house is burning!"

26-Nov-2008 01:38:51 - Last edited on 21-Jun-2013 10:39:53 by Chuk

Chuk

Chuk

Posts: 14,177 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
His family leaped from their seats, screaming. His father tossed his mug at the blaze, forgetting that alcohol would only fuel the heat. And so it did, hissing briefly, but then flaring brighter and hotter than before. Shara and his mother were already at the door, prying it open, and Leden paused only to grab his father's arm and drag him along.

Leden and his father reached the door only a moment later, and as Leden rounded the frame to sprint into the darkness, something wet and yielding, yet hard beneath collided with his face. Looking to where it fell at his feet, his eyes widened in disgust, fear, and sorrow. His stomach lifted, and he vomited, the filth flowing across his sister's lifeless face, her eyes staring at him from beneath a wave of blonde hair tainted with her crimson blood.

As he bent double emptying his stomach, something whistled above Leden's head. Behind him he heard a sickening crack and his father grunt. A second passed, then another crash sounded, and the wall in front of him shook. He risked a look back and found his father caught in the jaws of the sitting room wall, its splintered boards trapping his broken body in their wreckage. His head was tilted unnaturally to one side, limp and grey, while his chest was flattened, with edges of shattered bone rising beneath his shirt.

Leden spun back to the door and found himself staring at a chest of stone, and as his gaze followed it upward, his eyes found the hideous face of a troll staring back at him, slobber dripping from a corner of its mouth. In one hand it raised a hammer larger than its own head and swung. Terror finally rising in his gut and lending him its adrenaline, he dove forward, slipping between the troll and the doorframe. He rolled to a halt, only to find that he was looking upon the stony feet of another troll.

26-Nov-2008 01:41:16 - Last edited on 21-Jun-2013 10:40:13 by Chuk

Chuk

Chuk

Posts: 14,177 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Not even bothering to rise, he scrambled away on hands and knees, not even stopping when he splashed into the sea. Only when the water grew too deep for him to touch did he stop, with his mouth barely above the brine, panting. He turned to see two trolls waiting for him at the shoreline, seemingly unwilling to touch the water. A dozen others moved around the flaming house, one exiting just as it collapsed with Leden's father over his shoulder. Another bent to pick up a shape crumpled on the ground. The troll's hand grabbed it by the leg, and it screamed, piercing the night. Leden reached towards the sound, guilt rising as a tear dropped from his eye; his mother had still been alive when he'd fled. He'd abandoned her to a death at the hands of trolls, and he could do nothing. Absolutely nothing.


- -- - End (For the Moment) - -- -

Well, this is potentially a prologue or a piece of a prologue for a future story. I don't know though. It stands alone fairly well.

26-Nov-2008 01:42:17 - Last edited on 21-Jun-2013 10:40:25 by Chuk

Chuk

Chuk

Posts: 14,177 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Thanks. :)
It doesn't have the complete theme of loss I was after. When I realized it was going above 2k characters, I gave up on trying to fit the whole thing in, so that's why it's incomplete. There's a greater sense of loss to come, if I ever continue it.

26-Nov-2008 01:52:43

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