Dracomachia

Prologue (Part 1)

Concept Art/Aesthetics:

Author's Art for Nikara:

http://nikarathedalek.deviantart.com/art/Concept-Art-Nikara-551798571

http://nikarathedalek.deviantart.com/art/Stargazing-544643740

Author's Art for Nightshade:

http://nikarathedalek.deviantart.com/art/Concept-Art-Nightshade-551799499

Thank you so much for your support! Please enjoy.

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One Month Ago

It was one of those nights.

The sky was utterly starless, and the moon had been hidden away in layers upon layers of darkness. It was cold, too; so cold, in fact, that frost had begun to line the dark, empty streets. Usually, this would have been a problem for the inhabitants of the low, gray suburban homes which lined the streets, as no one had electric heating anymore, and you'd have to be an imbecile to light a fire in the dead of night.

Luckily–or perhaps unluckily, depending on your views–there were no people left to feel the cold.

All but six were gone, left behind in the carnage that had spread across the country, lost in the waves of people who had been brutally murdered or starved to death or lost to illness, somehow destroyed in the pandemonium that had swept across the country like a plague.

And these last six, these lucky few survivors–or perhaps unlucky–they prowled the streets of this ghost town on their tiptoes, hardly daring to breathe, never daring to sleep or to speak above a whisper.

It was the last of this pack that stumbled across the discovery of a lifetime. This one straggler, who barely kept up with his motley crew, who was so emaciated you could see the creases between his bones when he bent his joints, was the one who unearthed the miracle of that forgotten little town:

The seventh survivor.

"Hey, guys, look."

These were his only words to his friends, as he lingered in the mouth of the alleyway, his fingers skimming the concrete jaws of the opening. He gaped, wide-eyed, into the darkness, hardly daring to believe his own eyes.

The other five flinched, their hearts leaping to their mouths at the sudden sound. One by one, they crept closer, peering into the dark, dank throat of the alleyway.

Finally, a second boy–this one a bit pudgier than the others, with a wide forehead and small, beady eyes–shrugged. "Nuthin's there, Greg. Let's keep moving."

"No," someone else breathed, surprised by the sound of their own voice. She was small, smaller than the rest, the top of her head only coming up to brush the elbow of the beady-eyed boy. "He's right. Look there."

They squinted closer...and lo and behold, there was the miracle.

A body was sprawled out in the dirt, as though someone had flung it there as an afterthought. The figure was too far into the shadows for the children to make out, and its back was angled towards them, its face and recognizable features turned away. Dead bodies were no unusual sight to these hardened children of war–they had seen so many that they were numb to the image–but for some reason, their gazes lingered on this one, and their hearts pounded in uncertainty.

"It's dead," someone said flatly. Another of the boys, this one dark-skinned and the most cynical of the lot.

The girl wavered, her features uncertain. "I don't...smell anything."