Omnipotent #OnceUponNow #JustWriteIt

Aladdin's Story

Light, sounds, a rush of motion and a sudden, intense pain in his chest.

Aladdin looked down in time to see Mavok's hand slide from the strange thing now penetrating Aladdin's chest. "I died." Aladdin thought, the realization hitting him. He had died before, many times, but his magic had always brought him back, just like it did this time. But if Mavok really had found a new way to use magic, maybe... maybe, this might just be the end.

Still, as Mavok's lifeless body slumped to the floor, Aladdin felt no joy in killing him. Just like every other man, woman, or Djinn whom Aladdin had ever tried to befriend, Mavok had tried to kill him. And just like everyone else, Mavok had died. Permanently. It couldn't be helped; for the sake of the world, for the sake of the whole universe, Aladdin could not risk a permanent death. Which meant he had to, HAD to, destroy any who tried to kill him. It made him sick; often it kept him up at night as he hated himself for the deaths he had caused. But for the sake of all he knew, he just couldn't... let... go.

Darkness began to close in again, Mavok's new magic somehow getting past the millions of wards he'd placed on himself over the past two millennia. The pain also intensified with the darkness, but worse than the pain, worse than the darkness, worse than the betrayal and the necessary killing, was the terror that began to fill him as the music that had been his one constant companion for so many years began to soften, fade, and disappear, leaving him to the silence and terror of the void.

~ (o) ~

Thomas woke to the sound of the someone reading the news. He groaned, and as he remembered the nights events he groaned louder. He felt the rhythms inside his head but shoved them down, refusing to deal with them. Not now... he just couldn't right now...

Hearing the groan, Timothy looked over from where he was sitting on his bed with his laptop and gestured for Thomas to come over. "You've got to see this," he said grimly.

Thomas sluggishly got up and made his way over to Timothy's bed, where he plopped down next to his friend. The two newscasters he had heard were a middle-aged man and woman who Thomas recognized to be Timothy's aunt and uncle from New York. He smiled slightly to see that even though Timothy hadn't seen the two in years, he continued to tune into their channel daily to see what was going on.

But as Thomas focused on what was actually being said rather than who was saying it, his smile quickly slipped away. Disasters were happening all over the world, strange things that killed lots and lots of people. In Norway, there'd been an explosion that destroyed an entire country town. China had an entire skyscraper turn to gold, along with everyone in it. Down in Texas, there was a spot of the Interstate which seemed to cause any vehicles that passed by it to suddenly disappear; and a new volcano had erupted in California.

"I turned the volume up the moment I realized what was happening," Timothy said numbly. "Thomas, I think this could be the end of the world. All it would take is one of these people like you to go on a rampage and there'd be no one that could stop them. Especially if they are able to affect the entire earth at once like we suspect."

As Timothy spoke, the terror almost seemed to back off. This was it. There was nothing he could do, so there was no reason to bother with things silly things like emotions. But then he remembered what he'd been distracted from when he heard the laptop, and a little hope came back to him.

"We need to find Aladdin," Thomas said.

"Who?" Timothy asked, not taking his eyes off the screen. It was a film from a helicopter of a woman who appeared to be walking through a forest in Pennsylvania, changing all the trees she passed into random substances and items. Abruptly, she looked up at the helicopter and the screen went black.