The Crystal Chronicles: Cursed

Chapter1: New World

August 12th, 2042

Where the light burns.

Where secrets are hidden.

In a place where shadows swallow one whole.

That is where my story begins.

In a land where people know no happiness.

In a new world... there are tears where our eyes should have been.

Fear where our hearts should have been.

Hate where love should have been.

Death where life should have been.

Time is like a fast-flowing river, and it spares no one...

Peering out the broken window, a destroyed city stretches before my eyes. Perhaps destroyed isn't the right word for it... Dismantled? Abandoned? Reclaimed? Scooting closer to the window to get a better view. The scene is hard to swallow. Though I'm not sure that's the right word either... Absorb? Comprehend? Acknowledge maybe? But none of those sound right either. They're close, but they don't account for the anger I feel toward Ravenna for transforming our world so drastically. Or the awe I have for the might of Mother Nature.

The empty remains of the city tell their own story. They show that years ago, the population tried to flee as Ravenna's army rolled into town. Her brutes ripped this once industrious city apart. The crumbling structures were first weakened by tank and missile fire. The streets are littered with bullet holes and shell casings. Some of the vehicles have been blown into nothing more than shrapnel. The only proof of their existence are the bits of metal and deflated tires surrounding the scorched earth.

The rest of the cars are scattered along the sidewalks and roads. Left piled together. Abandoned in the hurry to escape Ravenna's clutches. The crashed cars have effectively created a roadblock. Large metal beasts conform into a jumbled mess of metal, plastic, and glass. A few are overturned in the ditches: showing nothing more than their worn tires surrounding a maze of rusted metal pipes. The surfaces of the old contraptions have been left in the elements for far too long. The vibrant colors the cars once proudly wore have now been reduced to practically nothing. The only tint left on their surface is a thick layer of orangy rust.

The picture painted before me proves a bone chilling truth. When Ravenna's invaded this city people tried to do the only thing they could. Run from the big bad wolf and hide. They tried to flee the city in complete terror. However, they weren't thinking rationally: fear controlled them. It propelled their bodies forward without a plan and as clearly as a map was written, so was their fate.

Unfortunately, the bones of the cars are not the most depressing piece of the puzzle. The weakened buildings have been left defenseless against the harsh elements. The once magnificent buildings are now rotting and crumbling into pieces. The large holes in the structures have been filled with sand as the wind blew it into the open spaces. Power lines lay across the ground, as most of the fire escapes barely dangle from the sides of the deteriorating buildings. Craters are all that remain of once beautiful ponds and water features. Reduced to no more than sand and rocks.

Due to the lack of human presence nature has fully taken a hold of the city... The abandoned cars have palm trees and cacti growing out of them. The roads and sidewalks have split from roots trying to make room to grow. While other desert plants are attempting to flourish in what space they have left. Sand Dunes pile around and through everything. Making ten story buildings inaccessible and swallowing the single-story buildings whole. Honestly, it's almost as if the desert is trying to swallow the city bit by bit. Slowly suffocating out the final fragments of humanity.