Mwari Chronicles

Chapter 2

Ta-Ushaka, the capital city of Valon was a architectural marvel with few equals upon all of Jrod. This city at the heart of Valons central province was composed of towering buildings which shimmered as the sun's rays were reflected by the silver which was layered upon them. Many other structures were marble wonders of such pristine colours that one would be glued looking at their splendor.

Some sections of this city floated within the air on great platforms that kept these thousand ton wonders in complete defiance of gravity. Trains flew through the very air with all manner of flying beasts as their companions in the skies. And at it's center the royal palace stood as the grandest structure in Ushaka.

Looking at all this wonder, one would be forgiven for mistaking Ta-Ushaka for a divine heaven, but like all cities built by mortal hands, beyond this wealth and splendor was humanities good and bad laid bare. For Ushaka, this was the Earth district to its north, a newly built collection of over fifty apartments that rose seventy metres into the air like the fingers of giants trying to dig their way out of the earth. This was the home of sixty percent of Valons newest millions of refugee citizens.

The earth districts buildings were a dull grey to match the mood of it's inhabitants. Any who walked the streets of this glorified refugee camp would feel its suffocating atmosphere under the looming gaze of the towering apartments.

Even after two years of calling this district home, Lenshina Banda was still not used to it. She was of a short starture and brown of skin with a thick plume of afro that swayed via the wind. She looked to the skies of the city with piercing purple eyes which drunk in this world of wonder but with none of wonder, that fire had long been beaten into smoldaring embers.

Lenshina Banda had like every person born upon the earth grown up with occasional fantasies about the whimsical and magical. As she had grown, this childish love remained until she reached the age of eighteenth, two years ago. Lenshina had thought that she knew the world as it should be, but that safety was soon shattered when Armageddon happened.

She had watched in horror alongside so many when the moon became a burning red eye, when reality fractured letting in horrors the likes of which she still had nightmares about, from skeletal shadows which picked up mountains to giants of fire that burned downed entire cities in hours.

After two months of attempted resistance, the vibrant world of eight billion became nothing more than a dead hellscape of not more than four hundred million out of the eight billion inhabitants left to soon die alongside their dying world.

It was then that the miracle happened, the skies ripped open as a bridge between the dying world and Jrod opened and the forces of this strange alien world came to rescue them from their dying world to this one.

That should have been the end of it, their lives saved, but alas they were divided about amongst the kingdoms of Jrod and sent off to live in these little refugee corners. Now Lenshina found herself one of many refugees not just in another land, but in another reality altogether.

"Will you stop that." she thought to herself as she realised just how much she had let her mind wander.

Reaching her hand into her pocket, she drew out her pocket watch. The little plastic thing was cracked and had long ago lost it's colour, and yet it still worked in sync with Jrods strangely similar calendar and chronological style.

"09:34 in the morning, damn it I am late." she whispered in suprise wondering just how time had moved so fast.

Looking around at the earth district it was easy to notice that it was a refugee camp packed to the gills with desperate and angry people who even after two years, stick struggled to process what they had experienced.