Story Starters

13

The air around me was brisk, it nipped at my skin while I hurried through the barren cobblestone streets. The tall stone buildings stretched out around me, alley after alley. Occasionally I would pass another soul, but they would gasp and shy away as quickly as possible. I sighed as I quickened my pace. I was almost there. Almost to the stables and to the edge of the city where I could freely run. I knew I just had to round the corner and I'd be there, at the tall, threatening city gates. I'd have to invent a story for the guards as to why I was leaving so suddenly.

I went to take the last few steps around the corner, and it started. The ground beneath the city started to rumble and shake, like a starving creature awakening for a feast. People ran out of the buildings, screaming and I gritted my teeth and started to run toward the stables. Toward freedom. The guard's tried to stop me and were quickly cut off by another tremor. Buildings started to crumble and fall apart, bricks and stones crashing to the ground. More screams resounded across the city as people were crushed and shattered beneath the rubble.

I was almost to freedom, I was ten steps away. Seven. Five.

The ground in front of me split and lifted. I trembled as I fell to my knees, losing my balance. the rift in front of me slowly yawned open, swallowing the stables, and breaching the world in two. I fell to my knees, defeated, as I watched the gap spread father and farther away. I was almost there. I had almost made it.

I slowly stood as last of the tremors subsided, and the ground once again slumbered beneath the rubble of the city. I watched the gap quietly for a moment, before turning away and slowly taking in the carnage in the city I once called home. The buildings had slid apart, and people were crushed under the rubble. People cried and moaned as others dug frantically thought the wreckage. I sighed, turning away from these people. The ones that once trusted me before I betrayed them.