Element Warriors

Chapter 1

Solaris

Solaris Krone woke up sweaty and scared to death.

She'd had a nightmare, like every time she slept nowadays. It was always the same nightmare, a dream of her being caught by... them... and being tortured to death. She knew the pain was artificial, but it felt so real that she wasn't even sure it was a dream.

Instinctively, she looked out the window before anything else, checking stealthily outside for any watchers in the building windows on the other side of the road.

After making sure there was no one, she walked up to the kitchen sink and splashed her face with water. She never took showers since that day. What was the point? It wasn't like there was anyone to comment on her body odour since everyone she loved was killed under her eyes.

Yes. That was what happened. An attack. Probably terrorists - no one knew. The point was that they had killed basically everyone in the city- that was all she knew. All cable TV channels and radios had been cut. There was no communicating with the rest of the world. No calling for help. They were trapped.

To be frank, she had no idea what to do - because she had no idea what happened. All she knew was that, one day, she'd awoken to the sound of screams and gunshots echoing through the city - she'd looked out the window, and saw them.

They were all hooded, their faces hidden under a terrifying white mask. All she'd seen about their facial features was their enormous, twin holes where their eyes should have been. They had no irises, no pupils. Just two gaps as dark as obsidian. And those eyes haunted her every day of her existence.

They had no guns. No weapons. All they had were... their hands. Their goddamn hands. As if they were in some superhero movie, they were shooting strange white beams of light from their palms. Maybe they possessed some sort of secret advanced technology that allowed them to somehow implant guns in their hands... in all cases, they were very powerful. Civilians in the street were trying to defend themselves with various shotguns, rifles, and knives, but they couldn't do anything against the others. The terrorists shot the poor people before they could even react, and at contact with the white beams, the civilians instantly crumbled to dust.

And that lasted all day.

The terrorists were entering people's houses too, opening the door when it wasn't locked, blasting it to shreds when it was. All she could see in the windows were yells, shrieks, and blood staining the walls. She had been absolutely, petrified by the scene, and hadn't been capable to move until she was shaken by the sound of her own front door exploding.

Seized by panic, she'd ran into her room and hid behind the closet. She was absolutely certain the terrorists would find her and exterminate her, reduce her to bare ashes like they had with all the others before her, but for some reason, they hadn't even bothered to search thoroughly her apartment. Two of them had entered her room, quickly looked under the bed, then mutter something between themselves in a dialect that was unlike anything Solaris had heard before, a language composed of tongue clicks, alike a traditional African way of communication. Then, they'd left her room and she'd heard their steps recede into the corridor, then outside. And that was it. She was alive.

She'd stayed there, unable to move, for entire hours, even well after the group of terrorists had moved down the streets.

When the sun started to set, she decided to slowly and quietly move from her hiding place, inch by inch, ready to bolt at any sound of a remaining guard. But there was no one.

The streets were empty, eerily quiet, as if the city was holding its breath. The air was still, without wind, as calm as death itself.  There was no blood- no bodies. Only a thin layer of ashes, floating in the air.

Author's Note
September 10th, 2019

Hey everyone! How do you like it so far? That was a pretty long chapter, not something I'm used to. Tell me if you like this format, or if you'd like it shorter or longer!
I've just "remastered" this chapter, which means I've re-written it with more intrigue, more detail and overall more quality- and that will be the case for every chapter of this story right now. (Until Chapter 10), and then I'll start writing new chapters. Tell me if you appreciate it in the comments, and don't forget to vote if you did! ;)

-uLySse_