Project Prophet

Loading Chapter 10... Chapter 10 Loaded

As I fell to the harsh concrete of the warehouse floor time seemed to slow down as light began to fill my vision with noiseless ringing filling my ears, drowning out everyone around me. When the light finally started to fade I didn't see the dust-filled claustrophobic concrete walls and floor of the warehouse and instead of feeling the harsh stone of the concrete flooring against my body I felt soft grass tickling my exposed skin, I slowly and grogley pushed myself up to stand, groaning as I felt the throbbing pain in the back of my head from where what I could only assume was a metal pipe from the amount of pain I was currently feeling in the back of my skull. I allowed my eyes a second to adjust to the sudden lighting change, what I saw once they finally adjusted to the bright daylight was that my surroundings consisted of a large open meadow full of soft rolling long grasses. The vibrant colors were a stark contrast from the dullness of the scene of the warehouse I saw before. I scanned my new surroundings, where I found a dense line of trees just beyond the meadow. And to my right were a few buildings, a small town it seemed, to my left the meadow carried on into the small forest. The air was calm and carried the fragrance of spring flowers that speckled the meadow, everything around me was serene and without a care in the world. The long grasses rolled gently by with the soft cool spring breeze.

This place itself seemed a bit all too familiar to me, I racked my brain and memories for why it felt so familiar. As the ringing finally ceased in its last dying attempts to hinder my hearing I began to make out all the birds chirping and singing their songs around me, and I soon the soft babble of a creak in the distance.

I pulled my suit jacket closer to my body, the soft breeze gently blew my tie along with it.

Children's laughter echoed in my ears not even a few seconds later, I looked around in confusion for the source of it since it seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. I then spotted two small children no older than nine running across the meadow, one boy and one girl, their careless laughter echoed through the air of the meadow.

I could only stand there watching them playing as I found myself suddenly unable to move, playfully laughing and carelessly chasing each other the children played.

"You can't catch me!" Called the little girl back to the boy in a playful teasing tone, the boy only laughed and called back with, "Yes I will!" To which the girl responded with, "Nu-uh! You're too slow to catch me, Hunter!" They continued to laugh and chase each other, and as they got closer to me I quickly realized who the children were and why this place was so familiar to me, it was myself as a child and ... my best friend from when I was young ... Echo, the teenage girl's face suddenly flooded my mind. Her mischievous closed eye smile, how she would tilt her head whenever she gave me that smile, the braids she always kept in front of her ears framing her face, her bangs that would always fall over her forehead and almost cover her eyebrows. Her long straight dark brown locks held back by her favorite purple headband, her soft violet eyes that always looked at me with such kindness and love even when she was beyond pissed at me. The freckled cheeks of her pale face and the way they would always flush a deep crimson whenever I would tease her about her latest crush on whatever poor boy from our small deviant town.

Tears started welling up in my eyes as I remembered my late best friend, suddenly a much more painful memory of her flashed in front of my eyes. Instead of a tranquil meadow was a smoke-filled room with flames licking up the blue cloud printed walls, a large dresser blocked the door and Echo stood by the small window crying and screaming for help, a girl no older than fifteen was being roasted alive while people scrambled around outside rushing to help her, but by the time they were able to help her it was too late. Echo had died from smoke inhalation, her clothes were burnt and tattered around the hems, and her tear-stained face and clothing were covered in the ash of the fire. I remember crying harder at this than I have ever in my entire life, crying and screaming for her to come back to me.

Not even half a year later the mercenaries raided our small town and almost killed me, the only reason I'm still alive was the retainers who saved me from under the concrete wall that fell on top of and was crushing me. I roughly shook my head and blinked rapidly, bringing me back to laying on the floor of the dust-filled warehouse.

The ringing in my ears slowly faded and exact shapes began to sharpen from a previously blurry state in my eyes, I could finally make out the shapes of my comrades along with their voices. Surrounding me they voiced their frantic concern for my current state loudly. I slowly pushed myself up off of my side and to my feet holding my forehead to dull the rising pain in my head. My glasses were cracked and my clothing was disheveled along with my usually messy hair being more chaotic than usual. "Ok shut up all of you and would someone please explain what the hell just happened to me?" I spoke in heavy annoyance.

As per my request, everyone immediately quieted. "You were hit pretty bad on the back of your head," Runner spoke in a soft and slightly nervous volume and tone. She refused to look up from her hands which were fidgeting on her lap, most likely to distract herself from looking at me. I nodded and moved my hand to my wrist to fix the positioning of the tattered cuff of my jacket sleeve sighing in annoyance.

I ran a hand through my messy hair in a weak attempt to fix it, "Did they get away?" I questioned the others.

"Unfortunately they did, we were a bit preoccupied with making sure that you weren't dying," Daniel spoke up in response to my question.

Rubbing my temples I attempted to bring back the memory of what happened before I hit the floor of the warehouse.

Standing in front of me stood a rather large Dranie with long slender branch-like horns adorning the top back of his head, large furred ears adorned the sides of his head, a rather large-brimmed western hat sat upon the top of his head casting a shadow over his golden-brown eyes and the tan fur like fringe just barely covering the tops of his eyes. The long dark brown cuffed trench coat he wore was tattered around the bottom edges, around his waist was a thick leather belt holding bullets all along its length, on his hip sat a holster with a revolver in it. On his deer-like legs, he wore pants that only reached the first bend of his legs, a simple brown crew cut shirt was worn on his torso under the tattered trench coat.

He aimed a shotgun at my chest while I aimed my rifle at his, we stood at a stalemate. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a second smaller Dranie creep along the side of the room, obviously to ensure that they stayed out of sight, specifically my line of sight. A heavy glare and snarl adorned the face of the first Dranie, he narrowed his eyes at me as if to intimidate me into backing down.

The sound of hooves connecting with concrete echoed behind me drawing my attention, but before I could turn around a metallic object connected with the back of my head creating a loud resonating metallic CLANG noise. I began to fall to the ground and the last thing I saw before blacking out was the first Dranie smirking and pointing his shotgun at me.

I returned my hand to the pinching position on my temples as the mind-numbing pain began to throb in my head again. "It was two Dranies," I spoke robotically after fully recalling what had happened what seemed to be hours before. "I'm almost certain that one wanted to kill me, the other just knocked me out with what felt like a steel pipe to the back of my skull. The one hellbent on killing me certainly looked like a gun for hire had the whole 'Western bandit' look going on."