Mark of the Rising Sun

On the other side of the door I found a large open room. There were cloaked men all around me, covered completely in black. The room was hotter than any other room I had been in before and I could see why. Everywhere I looked, there were fires. This was not going to be good for me, I could tell that true. I could hardly breathe, and thinking was difficult.

When I reached the center of the room, a loud voice spoke out from the crowd. “Welcome Angela. We are glad to see that you have accepted our invitation to join us at our hideout. We are the Society of Darkness, Fire division, and you are the guest of honor today.” “It’s not like you guys gave me a choice. I had to come for my family. Where’s your boss, I know he must be around here somewhere.”

“We knew you would come for them, that is why we took them. As for our leader, he will make an appearance when he is ready. Right now, we want some information. The longer you speak, the longer you live. You cannot expect to survive the encounter with our master. He is way beyond your skill level, and besides that, he is your elemental weakness. You have no chance.”

Despite the heat, I shivered. As soon as I saw the room, I had deduced that I was going to have an encounter with the fire evil, but hearing it was a slap to the face. These guys had set up this trap perfectly, and I in my foolishness walked right into it. They were right, I didn’t have much chance of winning this fight.

Hope spoke to me, What are you thinking about, don’t tell them anything. We cannot afford to give them much information. At the very least we can try to protect the others if we fall.

We don’t know much of anything worth telling anyway. We don’t know who any of the other warriors are, we don’t know who the leader is. We walked blindly into this mess, and may pay for it with our lives. Perhaps we can stall them a bit. Give them false information.

To what end? No one knows where we are, and no one is going to come to our rescue. The longer we wait here, the weaker you are going to become. Tell them nothing and face this battle with your head held high. Do whatever you can, fight to the best of your ability, and if you fail, at least you know you did your best.

With a sense of finality, I opened my mouth and spoke to the masses. “I know nothing about this war more than its history. I have no information for you. I am alone in this battle, and even if I knew more, I would not tell you anything. Let us get this fight over with and settle it.

Another cloaked figure came out of the crowd, and with a gasp, I recognized it. It was the figure from my nightmare vision, or one like it. He grasped the cloak and tore it off revealing the horror beneath. I waited to wake up, before I had never gotten a good glimpse as I had woken up before I could get a good look, but now I saw it in all its evil. The thing was truly grotesque; It had a skeletal body with claws for hands. It’s skin, if it had any was pitch black, It had a large gaping mouth, and eyes that seemed to pierce your very soul. The smell was overwhelming, and I had to swallow some bile that rose up in my throat when it hit me.

The two of us stared at each other for a few minutes, trying to gauge the other’s abilities. Fear held me in place. I was pretty sure that I was going to die here in this place and that I would never again see those I loved. My corpse would probably rot down here in this hellish place for the rest of time.

As if the thing had read my thoughts, it spoke in a kind of hiss. “You will not die. We have more interesting plans for you. When you lose, and yes you will lose, we will lock you away for the end of the war. When we win the war, you will witness the fall of mankind. You will watch as your friends and family are enslaved and used for all of our nefarious purposes. You will live for our entire 1000 year reign. Only at the next battle will you die as all others have before you. Now prepare yourself for now we fight.

I had barely a second before a flaming fire ball came flying towards me. Without giving it any thought, I rolled to the side using some of the skills that I had learned at AWAY. Scrambling to get up, I realized that the heat had slowed my reaction time some as I had to stamp out some fire on my robe. My opponent had taken the opportunity to shoot a line of fire at me and I had to dodge quickly again. I realized that the thing was toying with me like a cat plays with a mouse, and if I wasn’t careful, I would be cornered quickly.

I used the airflow to increase my speed, and distance myself from this mighty foe. Although there were many people around me, none of them had moved. They were there just to enjoy the show that their master was putting on for them. The only one I had to worry about was the foul beast. If I managed to defeat the thing, than I might have to worry about the others, but for the moment I was safe. After several more bursts of fire, I ran behind a line of the acolytes, but they quickly moved aside and provided me with no cover at all.

Fire balls came out in a steady stream and I had to figure out something quick or risk burning up. I stood still and gathered my energy for the most powerful spell I knew. It was supposed to create a vortex of air around my opponent. I unleashed the energy with a quick blast, but to my utter horror, the vortex absorbed the flames and created a fiery tornado that my opponent sent back my way. I ended the spell, but the flames were bigger than before, and stronger.

The heat was getting to me. Not only was I losing concentration, but if I didn’t find a way to defeat this guy soon, I would get dehydrated and possibly lose that way. Nothing I could think of could get me out of this mess, mostly because my thoughts were all basic commands to keep me alive for another moment. Time was not on my side. The longer the fight dragged on, the worse I was. Hope did her best to help me, but she too was limited by lack of knowledge and the uses of our particular element.

Then, I felt my knees go wobbly beneath me. I couldn’t even keep my balance, I was just too exhausted. I fell to my knees and then onto my side. I was done, I knew it, the creature knew it, and so did Hope. I laid there and waited for the finishing strike to come, to put me out of my misery, but of course it didn’t. They planned on keeping me alive for the things to come. I thought about ending it myself, but was too weak to do much of anything. I didn’t want to see any more, but I opened my eyes anyways to see my opponent.

He hadn’t moved far, but I could see him grinning evilly as he watched me suffer. “There now. I knew you had no chance against me. You are too weak, too inexperienced to face the likes of me. You should never have come here alone. Now you will be our prisoner and watch as we defeat the rest of your silly band. Now tell me about the rest of the warriors of light, and I might make your stay a little more hospitable.”

I couldn’t get enough saliva in my mouth to make much of any noise, so I raised up my hand, and lowered all of the fingers on it until just the middle one was raised. This last act of defiance was too much for me and I dropped back down with my face pointed skyward. The world spun a little, and my vision faded.