Fan Fiction ❯ Vision (Working Title) ❯ Chapter 1

Currently Untitled

 

Chapter 1

 

Tortured screams fill the smoky are as Michael makes his way through the burning house. He comes to a door wreathed in flame, and is about to turn away, until he hears the soft sobbing coming from the other side. He ran to the door and stood as close as the hot flames allowed, “Sarah! Are you in there?!” he shouted with a hoarse voice. Almost immediately he is wracked by hard coughs that almost drive him to his knees, if he didn't finish this soon, he would not walk out.

Michael backed up a half dozen paces and threw his full weight against the door. Once through the door with only singed clothing, he looked around the smoke filled room, and saw Sarah curled up in the far corner. He ran to her side and knelt next to the girl, only fourteen, only a year younger than himself. “Sarah, are you okay?”

Sarah looked up at him with a tear-streaked face, “Mom and dad, they told me to wait for them here, they told me to hide.”

“Where are they?” When she didn't answer he grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look at him, “Where are your parents?”

“They went to fight.” She managed before breaking into tears again.

“It'll be alright, Sarah.” Michael told her, though he knew it was a lie. “We'll get you out of here, then we'll find your parents, how's that sound?”

“You let this happen.”

The words stung him like a slap in the face. Coming from his best friend, from the one who never feared his gaze, never feared or misunderstood his power. “I would never, if I had known…”

“You should have seen it, you should have warned us.”

“I didn't see it, I don't always…”

Michael stood and backed up as Sarah stood and twin daggers, razor sharp, wickedly curved blades that were streaked in the blood of al those who died in this city, seemed to appear in her hands. Her clothing was not as it should, now the checkered pattern and three pronged hat of a harlequin, her face painted in white with a manic grin in blood red. “You let all of these people die, Michael, great seer, protector of our people. You let them die, now I will seek my vengeance.”

“I didn't, I would never…”

“Listen to them.” The ever-present cries of pain, suffering, terror seemed to rise around him, gaining volume and ferocity. Now they all cried out his names, voices that once spoke with fear, belonging to people who would not meet his eyes for fear of what he would see in their souls, yet who were always grateful for his visions, “Michael!” They screamed at him, “You let this happen! You betrayed us! You should have seen it!”

Sarah, with her awful grin, now revealing a row of dagger-like teeth as she grinned behind her paint advanced on him, raising her twin daggers. “In your death, you shall feel the pain that you have brought on your people. The pain that I felt when I knew my parents were not coming back.”

 

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“Please, Sarah, please.” Michael fell to his knees, sobbing uncontrollably into his hands. He sobbed the same word over and over, “Please.” Not knowing what he meant, whether he was begging for his life, or begging for the blade's release.

Michael woke instantly when something soft and light landed in his lap. When he lifted it into the light of the campfire, he had to bite back a scream at the sight of a harlequin's hat, then bite back the bile that threatened to drag back his evening's dinner. When he knew that his voice would not waver, he spoke, “Yeah?”

You were having a nightmare.”

Michael sat up and turned to the girl, one year younger, but five years older since the day that claimed so many lives, sitting across the campfire from him, “It was nothing.”

“Nothing? It's not often that you cry in your sleep, or say my name.”

He dashed a hand across his face and felt the rapidly drying tracks left behind by his tears. “I'm fine, Sarah.”

“Tomorrow…” Sarah glanced up to the rapidly brightening tree line, “Today is the anniversary.”

“Five years.”

“We should be in town tonight. We can toast our loved ones then.”

“Yeah.”

They sat in an easy silence honed by years of companionship. Soon, Sarah broke it, “So, what do you see in our future?”

Michael tossed Sarah's hat back across the fire while he considered his answer. “Tonight, you will find a place to do your little act.”

“And hope it doesn't lead to us being driven out of town.”

“He shouldn't have had his hand there.”

“No, but he was the city councilor.”

“All the more reason…”

“For you not to slice his wandering hand open. I can take care of myself, you know, I'm not a little girl.”

“I know.”

“What will you be up to?”

“I have a bounty to hunt.”

“Ah. You'll go off and come back some hours later, possibly covered in blood, more than a little of it your own, and not tell me anything about it.”

“Right. You don't need to know about it.”

“And then you'll collect more money than I make in a month, and all of my hard work is for naught.”

“Your hard work is important. We'd starve when I don't get my bounty, if it weren't for your work.”

“You always get your bounty, since you started this three years ago, you've gotten your bounty.”

“Maybe, but I'll fail eventually.”

“Right.”

“We should get some rest, we've got a long day ahead of us.”