The night was quite.
Vael was hiding behind a broken wall, his heart beating too fast as he stared at the dark figure standing near the ruins.
The streets were dark, the only light coming from the moon.
Most of the people in the area stayed inside their shacks at this hour. Not that there were many of them. Just a handful of people living miserable lives in their crumbling shacks.
His was the closest to the ruins.
And his sister hadn't eaten in two days .
He gripped the rusty knife in his hand. Fingers numb, not sue to the cold weather but due to the fear .
He didn't knew the man, or what he was doing near the ruins at this hour.
He only knew that he looked like he had money.
Maybe he was searching for something in the ruins.
Vael was waiting for his moment to snatch something and run.
His legs shook as he moved forward.
Reya's waiting...just one good hit and we'll be good for sometime.
The moment he moved, the figure turned around. Like it had known Vael was there all along.
A pair of dull, black eyes stared at him in the dark streets.
Vael didn't run back. He ran towards the man with his knife, yelling so as to drown out his fear.
Before he could touch him a huge hand grabbed him mid flight and threw him away.
He crashed into the wall. A few bones from his back broke.
People rushed out to see what happened.
One voice cut through the noise.
"Vael", his sister shouted as she ran towards him.
Vael was unconscious from the impact.
Her face was pale, arms were skinny, clothes were thin and ragged.
She dropped down to her knees beside her brother.
Please...he's a fool...he didn't mean to...we're sorry...please forgive him...
The figure stepped forward.
"Little rats..." he muttered. "Always crawling out for the scraps."
He reached into his coat and pulled out a black relic- twisted metal wrapped in a crimson cloth. It pulsed faintly like it was breathing.
As he placed it onto his hand the ground started trembling.
Flames exploded outward, ripping through the shacks like paper.
Screams filled the air-sharp, shrill, hopeless. People ran, cried, burned.
At last Vael came to his senses
He couldn't believe his eyes. Fires everywhere, people burning, screaming.
He turned around looking for his sister and there she was lying on the ground. Her head lying besides her body.
He couldn't breathe.
The dark figure stood int the center of it all. Laughing. The relic in his hand glowing bright red.
Vael's hands started shaking. His moth opened, but no sound came out.
His mind went blank.
And then-
He heard it.
A voice. It wasn't too loud, wasn't too sudden.
Just there, sliding into his ears like air.
"This way..."
He turned his head around. Behind the burning ruins, where the man had been digging, something started glowing faintly. He crawled towards it-slowly, quietly, without getting caught.
He saw it. A crown.
It was buried under debris, pitch black. Whispers came from it.
"Wear me… and I will give you more than you can imagine."
Vael looked at it.
His heart felt like it would explode. His hands reached out to the crown before he could stop them.
He picked it up.
His heartbeat stopped.
He fell on the ground.