I found myself in a world known as Rafee. It was a planet, a universe, of potent magic. Atmospheric mana was so dense on the planet of Rafee that at least 8% of all eukaryotic organisms had evolved into magical or pseudo-magical beings; meaning the majority of their metabolism subsists on mana.
Humans had developed a parasitic interior mana focus. In that world they had a peculiar mastery, almost a natural affinity for magic the likes of which I had never before seen in such great quantities. While not exactly magical beings themselves, the humans of Rafee had definitely evolved to be accommodated by the super-charged atmosphere.
So as one might expect the magical practices were never out of place in society. From the greatest scholars to the most unlettered of inbred farmers, spells were a daily part of life. This revolutionized warfare, as well. Machines of war consisted not of technology independent of mana, but those which augmented it. While the battles in Rafee were some of the most bloody and destructive I had ever witnessed, Magitechnology never developed. When 90% of the human populace could, potentially, find proficiency in the arts of magical warfare, there was no need or incentive to obtain such a power.
This presented a whole new set of problems for me to solve in this world. The most direct threat to the planet was not mana deficiency as a result of Magitechnology development, but rather humanity, directly, without intervention. Collateral damage dealt to the planet during disputes was egregious. I had no idea what form the face the calamity would take, but it would without a doubt be a product of war.
As such, I kept a close eye on these conflicts. I knew that if I followed the trails of bodies and the scent of blood I would invariably find what, or who, I was looking for.
-----
And I was not disappointed. The year was 1104 AS, mid-spring. I had been in that world for little over 50 years, and in spite of inhabiting a planet with so many competent fighters I had neglected to find those capable enough to aid me in my crusade against the Shadow. Until, of course, I found him.
It was an expenditure of raw, furious, primal mana. I perceived a discharge so powerful, so destructive, that at first I could not fathom a single mortal strong enough to create such a disturbance. I could not discern loss of mana, though, yet at first I had thought that a Cannon had surfaced. No, upon closer inspection I felt strong flows of Fire magic decimating the countryside.
My first impression was that Ignis, the Great Spirit of Fire, had brought down his wrath. That made no sense, though, as, with the exception of Aqua, Great Spirits rarely intervened with mortals, especially outside of their domain. I could not conceive of this phenomenon, and deigned to investigate the nearby disturbance.
-----
It took me half a day on foot to reach the origin of the discharge, several leagues away. What I saw I could not believe, and added further credence to my earlier supposition that Ignis had acted. What was once a vibrant countryside, a settlement in the bowl of a valley with a river cutting right through it, was now hell manifest.
As far as the eye could see, I saw black and red. The ground beneath my feet was still warm, still smoldering, many hours after the impact. The air about me reeked of putrid sulfur and char, so thick that I had to muffle my mouth with a cut of my kilt to breathe. At the base of the bowl I saw what could have only been a large town, once. It was a pile of ash and soot and the river had been choked, flooding the surrounding earth; steam rose in billows.
It was silent, eerily silent as I approached the piles of ash. A gust of cold wind fell into the valley and the ash lifted and danced with it, a slave to its currents. My foot landed on the charred husk of what could have only been a living creature, once, and fell through the bones of its skull. It was too large to be a human, but most of the body was beyond recognition. Perhaps a cow or some other livestock?
Nothing stood that was not a mountain of cinder. There was no husk of a building; no stone lay stacked or mortared; there were no burnt twigs that were once trees. There was nothing. Nothing but him.
I heard a sniffling as I entered what could have once been an opening of some sort; what purpose it served I could only guess, it was merely a place where ash had not accumulated. I followed the origin of the voice, drawing closer and closer until at last I came to a rather robust mound of clinker. It was unbelievably hot, but I grit my teeth and started sweeping it aside. The voice ceased, but I pressed on.
My hands were stained black and I suffered a few burns when finally the mound collapsed around me. I jumped back, turning around and covering my face as the soot smothered me like a tsunami of death. When at last the cloud had settled, I removed the fur from my face and witnessed the fruits of my labors.
The pile of ash was actually a ring, the parameter of which I had breached with the collapse. Seated, with his knees brought up to his face, was a child, a boy, not yet even in his teens. He was naked; his entire body blackened with ash and disfigured with burns, bald as the day he was fertilized. He gazed up into me with a visage of incomprehensible pall. His wide blue eyes conveyed a fear, the Fear, which rivaled my own.
I stared at him for a moment, lost in his eyes, reveling in his Fear. Almost as an afterthought, however, I piqued my mana perception… Why I had not done so earlier was beyond me. This boy was no mere human; he was something more, something like me. He, a mere child, possessed a mana capacity practically comparable to my own. What's more, his affinity for Fire and Wind were unlike anything I had ever seen.
I was staring into the eyes of hell, dumbfounded. He was the source of this catastrophe, and his Fear was such that, even under normal circumstances, I could not permit him to live. I could see it in him: the potential to become a demon, a monster like me. He was a virgin to that Fear; that sensation of absolute, debilitating enlightenment. Now was the time to strike, before he could regain control of himself. He was vulnerable, enfeebled by the sole force which drove him to commit this atrocity, but I knew that if he were to rebuff himself I would surely perish.
I reached down into my kilt, drawing the knife concealed on my thigh, and stepped near the boy. Those damndable eyes, though, they penetrated me. They violated my nous; my consciousness and conscience. I would not be deterred, though. I had seen it a hundred thousand times before. A million; I had stared into the face of my own Fear and always overcame it.
Lachrymal fluid welled from his ducts and a single tear shed down his right cheek, drawing a line down his face where the ash would not stain. I lifted the knife, ready to thrust the blade into his supple little throat, when out of nowhere he lunged at me.
"Help me!" He cried. He leapt up to his knees and clutched my legs, embracing me and trembling. I dropped the blade to the side… his touch. The tactile properties of his skin were not affronting to my hypersensitive perception… On the contrary, it was almost comforting, "I'm afraid…" He whispered hoarsely. That juvenile, ambiguously effeminate voice of his fell on deaf ears.
I focused on nothing but his scrawny little arms making contact with my legs. It was… strange, to not feel pain at someone's touch, to not be discomforted by a human's soft, fleshy fingers. My palpebra would have receded into my cranium, if they could. It was a shock. Was this what normal humans felt, when embracing one another…?
Was that really all it took? Did I really spare him for no other reason than that?
I reciprocated his embrace, my hands finding his bony little spine. It was perhaps the largest mistake I had ever made…
-----
I don't regret taking the boy under my wing. I don't regret offering him succor for his sins, for his Fear. I don't regret humoring him in times of need and times of want, nor do I regret loving him like the little brother I never had. Though letting him live was one of the single gravest fault of judgment I had ever decided upon, I do not regret any of it. I had found someone worth living for besides myself. In him, in Anthony, I found the greatest bipedal friend I would ever know. I was, for however fleeting a time, reunited with my soul at last; I was happy.
-----
Anthony was a savant; one of the most eclectic I had ever had the pleasure of knowing. His anamnesis surmounted even mine as he still had the benefit of natural faculties and needed not integrate his mind into an artificial construct. Effectively: he did not need to actively think to retain information, unlike me, and as a result his photographic memory could not be faulted as easily as my own.
As so many others before him, Anthony traveled with me as I scoured the globe for transgressions against nature. Ignorant of his own potential, at first, I instructed him not only in elementary education, but also in the magical arts. It was my sincerest belief that Anthony's initial surge of mana was some manner of reflexive, involuntary reaction to an imminent threat. While I was unable to get the boy to tell me the details of that day, most of which he claimed was "extremely hazy," I was able to determine that, for all of his innate mana capacity, his control over the flows was so fundamental that he should have been incapable of such a feat cognitively.
-----
The third law of physics states, simplified of course, that every action exhibits an equal and opposite reaction unless acted upon by an external force. One of the few superstitious beliefs that I do hold could be traced back to this statement. That is what I like to refer to as "the law of equivalent exchange."
While this is an actual practice in chemistry, physics, and indeed, all applied sciences, in my experience the law of equivalent exchange can be deferred to most practical applications as well. The law states, basically, that matter can neither be created nor destroyed and that any exchange of molecules, atoms, particles, ECT in a chemical reaction must maintain equilibrium and remain a sum of the total parts. This seems to be the case in life, too: one cannot gain something without first sacrificing something of equal value.
Anthony was no exception to this conjecture.
-----
"What are the six fundamental elements of mana?" I quizzed.
"Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Light and Darkness." Anthony huffed unenthusiastically. The burns scarring his body made it difficult for him to move the muscles in his face, and in spite of this world being so magically inclined I had as of yet been unable to find a healer competent enough to restore him. He was very forthcoming in expressing himself, though, for that I am grateful.
"What are the purposes of runes and incantations?"
"Incantations help the body direct the flows of mana into the spell, minimizing difficulty. Runes inhibit and control the flow of mana from the body to the external flows and vise versa. This is done to prevent catastrophic failure."
"Good, and as I'm sure you recall competent magic users can cast without incantations or runes at a greater risk of miss-casts and mana sapping."
"I know all of this, already; you know I know this." He grumbled, rolling over off of his mat and onto the grass. We were staying the night in a glade seven kilometers south of Viridian, though it was still light out. There was a gentle breeze licking the cold grass, flicking the raindrops from the earlier deluge to the soil. The two of us sat at opposing ends of a fire, Anthony inside the lean-to I had constructed and I sitting cross-legged on the cold ground. The chilling breeze's whisper was quite dulcet.
"Until you can start a fire without manifesting an eruption tantamount to a grease fire I think you need to go over the basics a little more." I retorted.
He rolled his blue eyes and grumbled so softly most people would not have been able to hear, "If you'd let me cast without a bloody rune I could do it."
"I can hear you, you know."
"That's the point." He glared at me askance and I couldn't help but chuckle. Anthony was the perfect image of a "mage" stereotype. He donned black robes, though if only to hide his scars without restricting movement, and had a very haughty personality. He loathed the idea of using magic for physical attunement - the act of bolstering the cells in the body with an artificial hyper-metabolism of raw mana to increase strength and reflexes - or learning martial arts, and was extraordinarily studious. When I wasn't teaching him he always had his nose in the books – which I had to work doubly hard to afford. He was not very out-doorsy, either, now that I think about it; always disinterested in my survival instruction.
"Alright, alright, now get off the grass or you'll ruin your robe." Anthony sighed and rolled back onto the hide mat underneath the lean-to.
"I keep telling you the runes mess with me. I feel like if I could just tap into my mana capacity without restriction I could control it better."
The last time you did that you demolished a town, I thought, but aloud pronounced, "No great mage ever started off able to cast with his thoughts alone."
"What about you? Can you cast without restriction?" He dug his index finger into the dimple on his cheek and enquired unenthusiastically, "I've never seen you without that your seals on."
"I can."
"Well then, you know what I'm talking about! Once you get used to letting the mana flow it's practically more difficult to use such a structured method." The boy had a point: mana is a natural force and placing it under such stringent guidance is not how it was meant to be used. However, save for by the spirits, mana was never meant to be used as a weapon, either.
"Perhaps, but then again," I retorted with a raised finger and a scholarly countenance, "Humans were never meant to use mana in such an impractical way. It is merely a force used by life to supplement…"
"…used to supplement metabolism, yeah, I know." Anthony bobbed his head in citation.
"You know, you really should pick up hunting. Nothing can teach patience better." I smirked as he stuck his tongue out in disgust.
"I can't kill anyone with patience." I fell silent, staring into the campfire dully. It seemed I could not carry out a single conversation with the boy without the subject of death rearing its ugly head eventually. I loved the boy like my own flesh and blood; but just as Alicia, he was broken. Unlike the little elf, however, he was born that way; which only makes him all the more frightening. He possessed a fascination with death and, even more disturbing, methods of death.
"You are wrong, there." I stated blandly. I never had the gall to reprimand him for his behavior, it would have been hypocritical.
-----
It was, perhaps, a grievous error on my part not to attempt to correct the lad's mannerisms. Though, in my defense, I doubt it would have done any good. I have known enough unstable people in my life to know when behavior modification is and is not feasible. To be honest, though, it did not bother me as much as it should have. On the contrary, sometimes I reveled in the child's delirium.
We were the best of friends, bonded stronger than brothers, but the two of us could not have found worse people to be associated with. We perpetually leeched off one another's madness and odium, feeding one another's downward spiral.
-----
"I------," Anthony pursed his lips and clenched one eye shut in speculation, staring up into the blue sky as we march down the dirt road en route to Heidolon, a metropolitan city in the midst of a civil war. We were in desperate need of money, at the time, and as the child's studies of the arcane arts had been progressing at an astounding rate, I decided we should capitalize on the struggle.
I had a contact within a band of mercenaries known as the Goliaths who could most assuredly offer me and the boy a job. I, in particular, had nothing to gain from the conflict; no side was, to the best of my knowledge, producing any particularly affronting technology or indulging in unsavory practices. However, Anthony was not the type of person who could live off of the land like I, his tastes for society were strong in spite of the fact that he somehow always managed to ostracize himself. As such we needed an income, and with the frequency of my travel a stable one was difficult to find.
"I would…" He paused again, and stalled out the words before finally snapping his fingers, "Ah, I would drug you first," He grinned delightfully, his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth, "Maybe slip something, I don't know what, into your drink. Anyhow, when you passed out I'd bind you up in a meat cellar in a butcher's shop…"
"That's so cliché." I chuckled.
"Well excuse me for putting some effort into the atmosphere. You can't simply torture someone to death in a blank, empty room. It's gotta have the appropriate level of creep."
"If you say so." I shrugged my shoulders.
"Theeeeen," He sniggered, "Then I'd take a pocket knife. You know, I need something dull, short, and maybe rusty. Yeah, I'd take a pocket knife and cut your tongue out. Wait, yeah it has to be rusty. Okay, so I'd cut your tongue out and wait for a few days until you developed tetanus. When your mouth is moving so violently that your gums start bleeding under the constant tension I'd go to phase two."
"You'd just assume I'd stay quiet and put the entire time? What about food and whatnot? Or do you plan to starve and dehydrate me?"
"Starve, yes, dehydrate, no. I already told you I'd have you bound. If you started making too much noise I'd just gag your mouth."
"With late stage tetanus I'd probably choke on the gag before you could do anything else to me."
"Quit doing that!" He snapped his fingers and a small flame appeared before my face. I was so startled that I stepped back and let out a yell. I cursed the boy and he chuckled before continuing, "Anyhow, I'd have made sure to use a really strong, but poor quality rope. So finally you'd have blisters, sores, and infections all over your body. I'd come to you with a syringe and start lancing all the bad infections, draining them of blood and puss. Of course I'd have taken the gag out so I could hear your screams."
"Heh."
"Right, then, once I had a good collection of the ilk, I'd shoot some up your nose. You'd start sputtering and coughing and gagging and twitching and whatever, but a lot of it would go into your lungs and a lot would go out your mouth and down your esophagus. You'd probably start puking…"
"I have a pretty strong stomach…" I interrupted, but stopped when I saw the boy bring his middle finger and thumb together.
"I'd keep going until you did start puking, even if I had to shove something down your throat and initiate a gag reflex. So by now you'd be covered in your own filth, puss and bloody cut up flesh; oh, I'd have let you soil yourself, too, for extra infection. I think at that point you'd be pretty weak, probably no more fun as far as your screams are concerned. I'd untie you and then just sit there, watching you wallow around until you finally died from blood loss or disease."
"Hmm, not bad. You certainly have an imagination." I chuckled.
Anthony crossed his arms and held his head aloft with a proud grin, "Humph, I'd like to see you top that."
I kicked up a dust cloud and planted my foot into the ground firmly, stopping for a moment. I scratched my beard and pondered it, "Hmm, well you like your deaths slow and gruesome, but I like mine gory and flashy. It's hard to compare them when we're working in different fields, don't you think?"
"Try me."
"Heh," I scratched my head and we resumed our walk, "Well I think my knowledge of human anatomy gives me an edge, here. Your ideas are good and all, but they lack realism. Remind me and I'll buy you a good book on pathogens when we get to Heidolon."
"You gonna do me, or what?" The child, no older than 13, asked.
"Right, well I'd probably lure you out into the forest…" We both laughed.
-----
"Anthony!" I screamed over the din. I had attempted my best not to separate myself too far from the boy, but such large scale battles are nothing if not chaotic. He was booted in the chest by an ambitious warrior and staring down the executioner's axe.
I hefted my claymore and bashed the helmet of the soldier in front of me with the flat of the blade. He dropped his weapon and, in his disorientation, stumbled aside. I did not take the time to kill the man and instead rushed a few meters, weaving in and out of several people's contests, for Anthony.
He was rolling to the side, once, twice, three times, frantically avoiding the large woman's rising and falling axe. On the third strike she set about with too much force and buried her blade in the dirt. I leapt over the corpse of a young man whose left arm was nowhere to be found and crashed down on the woman with an overhead swing.
My sword sliced through her armor with that horrendous sound of metal being grated against itself and down her back. I severed her spine just below the T4 thoracic vertebra but did not manage to free my blade entirely or cut through her torso. She fell forward atop Anthony and bent her back, pinching my blade in between her armor and body, causing me to lurch forward after her. I tried to pull the blade free for nearly two seconds.
"Zien!" I heard Anthony cry out, followed by that familiar snap of his fingers. An inferno rose up from the ground behind me as a soldier seeking an easy kill was set ablaze by the lad's magic. The pyro mage got out from beneath the corpse and I planted my foot in her back, wrenching my claymore free.
"Fall back to the rearguard, Anthony! We aren't getting paid enough for this," I turned around and blocked a sword swinging for my head with the broad haft of my two handed sword. Before I could even perceive the face of my adversary the soldier erupted from the inside out, exploding in a bloody mess of offal and viscera, "What the fuck was that?!" I shouted at the boy, wiping the bits of skin from my visor. I felt trace a amount of Wind and Fire magic originating from him.
"I can push the tide, Zien! I know I can do it!"
With a sweep of my blade I tripped an enemy lunging for Anthony, his boot with foot still attached remained firmly on the ground while his body fell forward, and swiftly followed the motion with a downward thrust into his neck. The frontlines were no place for a battle mage, much less a child, "Damnit, Anthony, this isn't a game! I don't want you casting without runes, do you hear me? You mess up here and even I won't be able to save you!"
"Look out!" I followed his finger and found a crossbowman lining up a shot from behind an impromptu line of skirmish. He pulled the trigger and I panicked. The bolt flew for me and, without thought, I manifested my ability.
I dropped my claymore and sent the flows of Earth into the soil through my feet and boots, erecting a wall of soil before me. I was not a second too early, either, for before my sword had even reached the ground the bolt pelted the wall of dirt.
"You really weren't lying? Your magic…"
"Shit…" I cursed. It would be the second summoning in that world, and I would have difficulty contending with the Shadow in the midst of a full scale battle. There would undoubtedly be friendly fire casualties. I could not permit my thoughts to wonder, though, for one false step and I would end up impaled and roasted alive in black flames, "Anthony, rearguard, NOW!"
"Are you crazy?" A manic grin decimated the child's face, "Between you and me we could have this war dancing between our fingers!"
"NOW!" I shouted at the top of my lungs. I could already perceive the Shadow's mana signature approaching fast form the north, "Get as far away from here as possible, boy. If you listen to one word of wisdom for the rest of your life, listen to this one," I glared into the boy with all my Fear, my heart throbbing erratically, "run!"
I stooped down and placed my hand on the armor of the woman at my feet, absorbing her steel into my flesh quickly, and then ran full force into the throngs of enemy soldiers. I broke ranks and plunged headlong into legions without hesitation or apprehension. Occasionally I would physically attune my muscles to the point where I could lift people with a single hand. I grabbed soldier after soldier and drug them with me, absorbing their armor and weapons into my flesh and condensing the matter down so densely that not even a ballistae round could punch my epidermis.
I managed to reach the siege division of the Heidolon dissenters before the Shadow emerged. As usual it fell from the sky, as if a meteor, desecrating all around it with black flames and concussive damage. I shifted the diamond in my deep fascia to my arms and then out through the pores, melding it into my lo staff just in time to block its first strike.
The ground surrounding me crumbled away as the asteroid-like impact thundered the earth. Black flames spouted like geysers out of the ground, and the bodies of soldiers flew through the air. The siege division was decimated, what machines weren't demolished in the impact were set ablaze in that preternatural inferno. I could hear the tortured screams and frightened wails of the living around me, but all of my focus was plastered on the being before me.
I grit my teeth, attuned my muscles, and blocked the next series of intense blows. The flames licked my arms and feet, so I brought forth the steel. When the Shadow chopped at me with a black blade, I blocked over-head, and we clashed for a moment. My arms were about to give out from the incredible force raining down on me, so powerful that the solid sheet of granite below my feet started to shatter in sheets, but I countered with Terra Khara Columna spells.
In a wide circumference around us hundreds of stone and soil pikes jutted out of the ground and thrust into the Shadow. All but one missed, as the enigma turned ethereal once more and sifted through the maze of xenoliths like smoke through a strainer. I heard it cry out, though, so I knew I made contact. It was quick to re-engage, however, and rounded about me slashing at the rocky barrier. I dropped the spikes and blocked another five or six blows, parried two or three thrusts, and shielded against fiery explosions from abroad.
Any temporary advantage I had over the creature was lost when a panicked soldier fired a cannonball at the "monsters." The massive iron bullet thundered down right in front of me, going through the Shadow but kicking up enough dirt and dust to blind me. I covered my eyes, feeling instead for the Shadow's presence through my mana perception. The phantom, unfazed by the distraction, used the time to round on me once more. In the 1/10th of a second I was disoriented the Shadow managed to clip my side with a smoky spear.
I lurched forward, spinning around, stumbling back and gripping my side – the wound was superficial, I twisted to the side just in time, but that damned void flame seared my flesh beyond reprieve. It was immediately cauterized, but I feared the worst as I would be unable to focus. The enigma pulled the spear back and thrust once more; it would not miss a second time.
I heard that familiar, otherworldly scream as a bright red ball of flame appeared between me and the Shadow. The black spear disintegrated instantly and, at the edge of my senses I perceived an unquantifiable expenditure of mana being produced far to the west; it was Fire affixed. I wiped my eyes and followed the flows of mana, tracing it back to that signature I was intimately acquainted with.
I couldn't believe my eyes. I saw what I could only describe as a miniature sun manifest before me. A mammoth ball of intense burning flames, lightning arching from it to the ground below and soldier's metal armor, hovered over the battlefield. I was so preoccupied with the Shadow that I did not even notice Anthony building his mana for the attack; he released his seals and was casting without a rune.
The ball truly looked like the star through an intense telescope. I could practically see individual hydrogen atoms fusing together as the flames erupted in jet streams from the center and danced about the sphere. The flames burned with such ferocity that I almost couldn't tell the difference between the Shadow's searing attacks and Anthony's globe.
The phantasm took the opportunity to strike at me once more, but a second time was thwarted as a violent blaze manifested out of the air less than two dozen centimeters from my head. I furrowed my brow and focused on the hundreds of flow of mana surrounding me at the moment. There were my own, some soldier's, the Shadow's, and Anthony's; by far the most impressive and complex were the boy's.
Somehow, from so great a distance – as I could not have been any less than two hundred meters away from the child – and with such accuracy he managed to craft a net over me, of sorts. The threads of mana encased me entirely with a strong affinity for Fire, such that anything which closed in on me would feel the wrath of the ward. To think that he was able to sustain this level of ward as well as charge that sphere; such mastery of magic at such an age, even in that world... hell, in any world, was astounding.
The Shadow caught on, and diverted its attention from me to the boy. I stood up and tried to attack it, but Anthony's ward was two-way – meaning it singed me as I approached it as well. He locked me away, that fool. I could barely see him, but I knew exactly what happened. The Shadow flew across the battlefield, burning the rare soldier who hadn't fled in panic and scorching the rare tuft of grass which hadn't been sullied by boots. Anthony snapped his finger, pointing upward at the star, now hovering a dozen meters above the battlefield, and it fell…
-----
The ward shielded me from the ensuing devastation. I immediately became aware of Anthony's frightening ability. I surmised the cause of his home-town's destruction. The world thundered and exploded in a flash of light, it was the most violent display of power I had ever witnessed up to that point. I couldn't even hear the Shadow's dying screams. I couldn't even feel its mana signature flicker away with all of the mana being discharged; my senses were indistinguishable from one another in the cacophonous maelstrom of chaos.
When I finally came to I saw Anthony standing over me, stooped over naked, and grinning down into me with his scarred and disfigured features. When I opened my eyes he spat his tongue out at me and said, "I told you I could do it."
He offered me a hand and I accepted, though I pulled him down onto me; no surprise, I suppose, with all of the additional mass I sported I must have weighed no less than 300 kilograms, "Sorry…" I sat up and lifted the boy off of me. Looking around I saw what I could only describe as hell incarnate.
Demolished earth, cinder and ash, mountains of stone and jutting spikes, corpses festering and smoldering, fires burning everywhere with no fuel, metal from machines and armor melted down and bubbling in pools of molten steel. The scent of sulfur and roasting meat perforated my olfaction, the sounds of crackling wood and pockets of fire sputtering forth from beneath the ground dominated my audition. It defied all reason, all logic… What happened?
"Screw this war," Anthony coughed, "We can have the whole world wrapped around our fingers!" He giggled.
For the first time, as I stared down into Anthony's glassy blue eyes, I felt a fear of him.