The Element of Surprise A/N: Hey guys! This is a group collab story I'm doing with 5 other people. Here's a short little piece to start it off. I haven't written in forever, so I apologize if this is complete crap. Enjoy. ✿✿✿ A spark. That’s all it takes. Deep within the heart of the winding alleyways, a single spark plummets unnoticed to the earth, twisting and snapping relentlessly. Soon a flame grows. It unfurls countless limbs, swallowing the hut and its sleeping inhabitants without pause. The slumbering city never stirs from beneath its quilt of stars and darkness. Two streets over, a young girl is staring mournfully through the window. Only the barest hint of her features is revealed by the moonlight beyond the glass – there are no candles here. If only the hut was that lucky. The fire spreads farther still, reducing lifetimes to piles of darkened skeletons and powdery ash. It silences shouts and seizes the people as soon as they begin to flee. An unnerving chill hangs behind in the wake of the fire. In front, only a deafening slaughter. With a desolate sigh, the girl emerges from her window and slides gently down the sloping roof. She casts a cursory look around, halting briefly as her eyes fixate on a faint glow in the distance. Is that… a fire? No – of course not. It must be a celebration of some sort, maybe to welcome home the soldiers. Maybe her father has finally returned! Hope bursts in her chest and threads its way through her bones, spurring her into action. She hurtles past the ashes, not realizing that something is horribly, horribly wrong. Only when she reaches the source of the commotion does she look up from watching her bare feet slapping atop the cobblestones. Confusion curls its way onto her rounded features. This isn’t a festival – it’s death. The girl immediately turns around to escape, but a charred hand snatches her ankle and claws weakly up to her calf. “Help… me…” The bone-chilling wheeze trickles out from beneath a fallen metal door. A terrified, gurgling scream is ripped from her throat. She rapidly backs away from the now lifeless hand and turns in the other direction. Frantically, she shoves past the hanging tapestries, dodges the fallen buildings. It’s no use. The fire has twisted around and around the original street, a hunter watching its ensnared prey. Slowly, it begins to creep back over the burned area, stumbling upon bits of wood still intact and greedily gobbling them up. The girl darts through the embers, her gaze honed in on the fire-free path through which she had entered. Tall structures tower precariously on either side. They blur into a myriad of different shades and hues, ready to topple over at any moment. And suddenly, abruptly, one does. Flames dissolve the dilapidated columns on top of which one building is perched, and, with a groan of dismay, it crashes to the cobblestones – and the girl – below. All she registers is a sharp, blinding pain. Then everything goes dark. ✿✿✿
A/N: hi people, I'm one of the other writers *insert awkward wave* anyway, here's my update, I tried my best, haven't wrote in third person for a while so please forgive me The cold air whips around the group of adolescents, painting their exposed skin red. Smoke billows in front of their mouths as they exhale, a few of them trying to make shapes with their breath. Their destination is the frozen lake stretching on for as far as they can see towards the grey inert mountains watching over it. Hands constantly clapped in the silent nature and rubbed trying to savour any heat possible. Near the back of the group a trio walk clustered closer to each other. Due to layer upon layer, gender is hard to distinguish. Just before the lake the group stop abruptly causing a few of the children to bump into the ones in front. At the front a figure stands just on the lake and looks back at his friends. "Who will participate today? Who will go over to the other bank and bring back a marker? Who will be brave enough to cross the frozen water?" His voice rang out clearly in the silence. Gazes shifted cautiously to others trying to work out if they should step forward. "I will," a female's voice rang out in response from the trio at the back. Instantly everyone turned to look at her, the two figures either side of her tugging her back slightly. "What?" One almost shouts. "No way! Are you insane?" The other asks. "We promised to keep you safe and going out there won't be safe," they chorus together. "You two did it, why can I not do it?" The female responds calmly. "It's different," one tries to reason. "How?" "You're a girl for starters," the other states. "That's it." With the last word the girl stalks through the group, ignoring all the stares and curious whispers. Not sparing the figure already on the lake a glance she continues onwards and onto the think ice. The grey mountains start growing in size, showing their full intimidating stature. Unknowingly to the audience and the girl confidently striding across the ice, water out of sight decides to start pounding on the ice asking for entrance into the lake. Eventually it gives in, part of the ice collapsing and the extra water rushing in. A crack starts snaking across and through the ice silently, slinking towards its unknowing victim. Below the girl the ice shifts and her step falters as she looks around the lake. A quick glance at her brothers she left in the group stood watching her told her that they don't know about the ice. Well that was a guess as she is too far out to see their faces clearly. The cold breath in front of her becomes more abundant as she cautiously continues to walk across the inches of ice. Her breathing becomes slightly panicked, was this really what it was like for her brothers walking across? It couldn't have been... They were too relaxed when they came back. Maybe something was going wrong... Before the girl could contemplate that option the ice beneath her cracked and the water swallowed her sudden scream. The crowd on the banks watch her now small figure, from distance, drop out of sight in confusion. Her scream isn't heard for as it is too late. The water seeped into her layers of clothes and made them heavy; the weight slowly dragging the thrashing girl down. Desperately she tries to claw her way up through the water, her lungs burning to get oxygen. Her mouth opens only to get immediately filled with water and she welcomed the darkness. The last bubbles of air rise to the surface popping once they reach their goal signalling the last breath of the girl now lying dead on the lake floor. On the shore the children wait and wait, their numbers eventually diminishing to the leader who set the challenge and the girl's two brothers. Their eyes sweep the lake in hope to find the girl to come up empty handed. "What if she comes back and we have already left for home?" The leader asks in a timid tone, the opposite to his voice that morning. One of the brothers look at the guy with tear filled eyes after slapping the back of his shoulder. "She is not coming back. It has been too long. You just have to let your promised girl go," he says quietly before walking away with his brother like the rest. The leader stands there hopelessly looking at the lake waiting for the rest to be proven wrong, but just as the sun starts to dip behind the mountains the others got proven right. He turns his back on the lake and walks away, his tears dropping into the snow.
Hello, readers. Sorry for not updating, but I got a bit busy for a while. Anyways, you will probably notice that the writing style is kind of different, but I did it on purpose for metaphorical use. Anyways, thanks for reading. Hope you enjoy. The cries are deafened underneath the creaking of the house and the moaning of the gusts of high speed air crashing through everything in its path. He carries his one child, running towards their shelter, his wife in tow with their new-born. Depth means nothing to them as they move through the dark, the moon and stars masked by clouds that looked more like smoke. A few sparks are seen from down the street as a lamp post is ripped from the ground, but it goes unnoticed in the scramble to get to safety. Upon reaching the shelter, a bunker of sorts, his daughter exclaims a cry of panic. She has left her plush kitten back at the house, so she doesn't feel safe. He promises to go back for it before looking up at his wife's face, worry written all over it. He tells her it won't take him long, so she need not worry. He gives her a kiss before turning his back and starts trekking off in the direction of their house, or what is left of it. Already some debris has been flung this far, some having crashed through windows and ruined other parts of the house like the roof. When he walks in, he automatically heads to his daughter's room, not focused upon anything else other than the stuffed animal. In the faint light that comes in from between the dark clouds, he surveys the room. A broken picture of the family lays on the floor, knocked off the dresser in the scramble to the shelter. On the bed lays a variety of stuffed animals; a hippo, a dog, an elephant, a lion, a tiger, a bear, and the kitten, the latter of which being what he was after. He grabs his daughter's favourite toy and goes to leave, but a thundering crash against the house stops him, sending him onto the floor. Another lamp post has been flung, sending it into the house, destroying part of the foundation. He gets back up a few seconds later, unscathed. The plush, however, wasn't so lucky. It had been pushed down against the broken glass, splitting the stitching near the neck. It would be easy enough to fix, so he heads to his wife's recreational room, taking his time to grab a needle and some thread. After doing so, he exits the house, into a neighborhood that, since he entered the house, has already changed so much. Pieces of metal, brick, and glass litter the streets and the roofs of houses, as though the apocalypse has occurred while he was in the house. Cars are parked along the roads, abandoned by their owners in the rush to safety, some even blocking any traffic from ever getting passed. He walks on, every step carefully placed, as to not get stuck or cut. He nears closer to the shelter, when behind him, a large skyscraper shatters and becomes engulfed in the storm, becoming one with the wind. He turns to see the devastation, but is cut off as a piece of the glass and metal carnage is impaled into the side of his neck, knocking him over into the ground. He lays there, still clutching the stuffed kitten in his hand. Blood slowly seeps out between the obstruction, pooling onto the wet, damaged ground, and all of the unfocused belongings and scrap-metal. He stares across the ground at the tunnel of air coming towards him. He begins to feel cold, but the pain is no longer there. He looks up to see a patch of light through the clouds, and sees his daughter's smile. His mouth curves upward slightly, as his life seeps out of him with the blood.
A/N: I'm baaaccckkk... Okay sorry that wasn't cool... I've come up with another chapter for you guys, so enjoy the read. Ali *****/\***** Talice sits up abruptly, her throat extremely dry as her breath comes out in pants. She looks around her room taking in the dimly lit features that are familiar to her rather than the ice surrounding her in the nightmare. The nightmare really was a strange case of déjà vu. With a sigh Talice climbs out of her bed, dragging her fleece blanket with her. Her green blue eyes adjust to the low light as she pads softly down the hall ignoring the pitiful whines of the dog to be fed as he heard movement upstairs. She enters the fourth door on the opposite side of the hallway to her door and climbs onto the bed which currently contains her eldest brother. "You shouldn't climb into random people's beds in the morning Tal," her brother Leo comments sleepily. "Well luckily for me you're predictable isn't it?" Talice replies, settling on the covers in a cocoon of her fleece blanket. "Nightmare?" "What gave you that idea?" "Oh nothing really apart from you creeping into my room at half three in the morning wrapped in your fleece blanket." "It's quarter to four actually." "What's bothering you?" "The girl always dies at the end of the nightmare, why do I feel like it's me?" Leo sighs before wrapping his arms around Talice's waist and pulling her to his chest for a hug. "If you wanted psychoanalysis you should have asked Pice." "You're helpful." "Just go to sleep Tal." She can hear the sad smile on his voice so she listens and her eyes slip shut. "Talice you better be home young lady!" Talice's mum yells startling her awake. "Yes sir!" Talice calls back as she bolts upright before groaning and covering her face briefly with her hands. "I can't believe I said that as mum called out not dad." Leo bursts into laughter beside her, shaking his head slightly and wiping at the fake tear apparently falling down his cheek. Their mum opens Leo's door and her eyes soften once she sees Talice sat up frazzled in Leo's bed. "Nightmare again?" She asks softly. "Yeah, something like that," Talice replies. "Your nights should be better now as you're eighteen, not being scared to fall asleep because of the sudden nightmares... I remember what me and your father done one night when we were eighteen, he..." Their mum gets drowned out by the loud music Leo had started playing from his stereo to drown out her words, however she remains oblivious as she continues her story. Talice smirks at Leo who smirks back at her. A guy just smaller than the door frame appears behind their mum. "Turn that down at this time in the morning Leo!" Pice yells over the music. "What?" Leo yells back causing their mum to snap out of her daze. "No don't turn it down, this is a good song," their mum squeals before climbing onto Leo's bed and dancing on it as she sings along. "That's where you get your random acts from Tal," Russel says squeezing past Pice's tall frame and joining Leo and Talice sat against the headboard of the bed avoiding their mother's prancing legs. Arin joins Pice stood in the door watching their mum. "What has she had?" Arin stage whispers. Pice shrugs in response before Arin runs into the room and jumps on the bed to join in. Talice squeals as Arin grabs her hands and pulls her up. Getting over the shock quickly she joins in with her mum and Arin as they sing and dance to the music. Suddenly the music shuts off with a room of complaints following as most of the brothers had joined in. In the doorway stood their dad who, although had a faint smile, looks extremely tired and currently holds the plug that disconnected the music system. "What is this doing blaring at this time in the morning?" He asks. Instantly voices of the boys erupt arguing over each other and not answering the question. "Mum went of on a tangent on what you two done as teenagers, we didn't want to listen to it," Talice explains making the boys stop arguing with cringes across all of their faces. "Yeah really wouldn't have wanted to listen to that," Pice comments. Their dad rolls his eyes before giving their mum a hand off the bed. "There was still no need to blast your music Leo, you could have asked for mum to not tell the story," their dad points out. "She had the distant look in her eyes, that wouldn't have worked," Leo adds in explanation. "You should know what mum gets like when she starts telling stories," Arin piles on. "Remember that time when she started going on about the week holiday?" Russel comments. "Or that time when she spoke about the birthday parties," Pice chips in. The boys continue making their points, their mum adding a few in herself. Their dad walks away, shaking his head slightly as he mutters to himself. Talice sighs looking round the room. "Come on, isn't it a bit early to be bashing mum?" She complains over the racket. Everyone stops talking and looks at Talice, concern flitting across their expressions in unique ways between the five of them. "She was bashing herself," Arin states. "Arin just don't please." "What happened little bug?" Russel asks quietly. "I'm taller than you," Talice points out. "Tal, just answer the question. It was an easy one," Pice says. Talice narrows her eyes at Pice as she steps down from the bed and starts to walk out the room, her fleece blanket billowing out like a cape. "You out of all you four should know better than get an answer from a supposedly mentally unstable kid like that," Talice states before stalking out the room, ignoring her brothers' calls for her to come back. At the kitchen island Talice sits on a stool, sipping on a smoothie every so often as she recalls her latest nightmare. She is so into her daydream she doesn't notice Arin sit on the stool beside her. "Did you want a cherry bonbon?" Arin asks. With no response from Talice he tries again. "Ce, want a sweet?" He sighs before taking the smoothie from Talice's grip. "What?" Talice asks, finally out of her stupor. "Did you want a cherry bonbon?" "The sour ones I ask for came?" "Yeah, just now." "Alright then." Talice takes the smoothie and pack of bonbons from Arin before leaving them both on the countertop of the kitchen island. "Sorry about earlier." "You were right Ce; we were wrong. It's simple." "I shouldn't have snapped like that." "It's understandable if that nightmare shook you to react like you did." "It had been..." "I don't care if it has been hours since the nightmare. It must have shaken you to the core." "How..." "Brother's intuition. Also Leo told me." "Rat." Talice laughs slightly before resting her head on Arin's shoulder. "I'm not a rat," Leo complains. "Telling us does conclude you're a rat," Pice comments. "And you know Ri can't lie to Li," Russel adds. Talice smiles and looks round at her brothers. At least something in her life remained normal after she started getting nightmares...