Very, Very Short Story: The Last Survivors of Avalesse

It is time…for more stream of conscious rambling about how my writing is going! Just what I know you wanted! Last night went pretty well, though I ended up leaving it only at thirty minutes instead of the proper sixty. Oh well. Last week (it’s been a full week already since I started? Time flies) was successful – I wrote for approximately nine hours and wrote about 15k-16k words. I mentioned I was thinking about it earlier (or might have outright said I did it – I don’t recall and am too lazy to check) but I’m now keeping track of the projects I’m working on every day – so that should be interesting. 

Aside from that, there’s not much else to say. Still fighting procrastination, but I’m sure you readers (if there are any of you at the moment) are tired of hearing about and I’m tired of rambling on and on about it – there’s only so much you can say. I need to force myself to tackle my main writing session earlier in the day.

I’m also thinking that I need to re-label my ‘warm-up’ writing time. 

That’s now pretty much evolved into these daily blogs and occasional short stories as the mood strikes. More of a side project type deal as of now. Okay, now I’m out of things to say about the writing. I have a short story idea in mind – I mentioned it, I think, last post as a piece of the backstory I’ve cooked up and am going to write that and post it here for you guys to read. So, sit back, read and enjoy. (feedback and constructive criticism is, of course, welcome.). Thanks for reading. 

Kiau entered the courtyard, hood thrown over his face. The stars glittered in the sky above, like someone had strewn gemstones all over the sky. In fact, that was the human’s current belief about the stars – well, they were a young civilization still. Prone to odd ideas. Braziers glowed with dull light. 

If the city still stood, if the Travelers hadn’t been betrayed, if the magic wasn’t slowly fading, they would be bright, shining with golden warmth that would have pushed aside the shadows and the fell monsters that still roamed the world. A million ifs. Everything had gone wrong and now, Kiau stood with only a handful of others, the last of his kind on this lonely, primitive planet. He stared at the stars, wondering how the rest of the race fared. Not well, he imagined. They would have sent someone by now, surely.

“You miss the stars, Kiau?” a woman stood next to him. Like him, she wore a simple robe of gray and blue, hood pulled over her face. 

“Riah,” he relaxed. “Yes. You have no ideas. I miss our home-world. I miss seeing planets, the old technology, the mysteries. I miss going to the Second-Realm…I miss my friends, my family.” 

“As do we all,” she said. “We are the last of our people. When we pass on, then that will be the end.” 

“We are the last, then?” Kiau asked anxiously.

“But for the traitors, yes. I can feel it in my bones,” she said quietly. “This place, this vault, will be one of the only traces that we lived.”  

“Have you had any more…” he hesitated. “Visions? You have the powers of a seer, Riah.” She stared at the sky for a moment.

“No,” she said. “But there will be one final vision that I must give, a last prophecy... a last declaration for how the universe can survive. Then we are finished, and we must give ourselves to the Box, our minds and essences preserved until the time is right.”

They heard something, a low growling out of the darkness. Kiau raised his hands and they began glowing with light. An enormous wolf leapt into his field of vision, cloaked with deep shadow, its teeth ivory white.

“A spirit wolf,” Kiau said softly. “Our defenses are weak.” 

He pointed at the creature and a bolt of bright energy burst from his fingertips, the creature shook off the attack and then lunged. He dodged the attack, but Riah stepped up and gripped the creature by the back of the neck and twisted. There was a definite snap, the creature yelped in pain and fell backwards, its head now at a bizarre angle.

It growled, but a third figure rushed in, another bolt of light burst from his fingertips. The creature’s flesh sizzled like acid. It howled.

“Together,” Kiau called. They attacked as one, and the courtyard blazed with light, lit up like a firework. The creature screamed, and then dissolved into a puddle of shadow. 

“Orith,” Kiau said, wiping his forehead. “You came just in time.” 

“There will be more,” Orith said. He stood old and weary, his skin gray from his extreme age and his hair white.

“We must do what we came to do tonight,” Riah said. “The defenses are weak enough that something that creature could get through.” Orith nodded. Kiau looked at him anxiously.

“Tonight? But –”

“Our magic is failing. Even our own powers are not up to scratch. If we wait, we will be unable to give ourselves to the Box and its powers will eventually fail, along with the rest of the Traveler’s. Riah is right.” Kiau nodded, and took one last look at the stars.

“Let’s go.” 

They headed into the vault, descending lower and lower until they came to the central room. Five statues already stood there, all of them had lived in the temple. All of them had given themselves, and helped gather the remaining souls from Avalesse, preserving them before they could disperse. 

They stepped into the chamber, where a simple cube of stone stood on a pedestal. A rune was carved on each side, glowing with faint light. Riah closed her eyes for a moment, murmuring words in a tongue older than the Travelers: the Language of Creation, spoken by the spirits, the first words uttered by the Creator.

Light expelled from her lips, forming into strange letters. It struck stone, and became what was clearly a piece of a larger whole. Then it vanished, absorbed into the Box. 

“The last prophecy,” she murmured. “Now, let us do what we can.” 

She placed her hand on the Box, and immediately light spiraled up her arms, her chest, her face. She closed her eyes, becoming more and more translucent. Her body vanished after a moment. Orith was next, and he too disappeared into the Box. Kiau was next. 

He squared his shoulders and closed his eyes. Though he couldn’t see it, he could feel the light swarming up his arm. His mind slowly opened, expanding. It was as though it had been condensed, but was now spreading itself out – his memories, his magic, his personality –everything that made him unique. And he touched…something, a greater whole. All of the powers of the Travelers, the sum of the experiences, their magic, their lives, their secrets, history, origin. All there, all in the Box. 

He gave himself up, joining them and he ceased to be an individual, merging with the larger whole to preserve a race already dead, a race already past saving.

Outside, the vault and its courtyard shimmered like a mirage, becoming less and less substantial until it had disappeared, leaving behind bare ground with so much as an imprint where it had been. 

Hmm. That was rather shorter than I was expecting. Looking over it and thinking about, there’s definitely some room for improvement and some definite ways to take Kiau’s character. The most natural, I think, would have been him overcoming fear of dying, fear of being the last of his kind etc. It also needed more detail about stuff in the past and the things these people are facing now.

I may rewrite this little thing later, expand upon it some and adjust it as the canon changes and I figure more details out, but for now, this was a pretty okay first effort. 

I hope it was good, or showed promise. I have a hard time gauging my work, because I think I’m too close to it. Anyway – that’s all I have to say. Until tomorrow.