Prologue
“Ness!”
Moonlight streamed into the room, coming through the billowing curtains like an astral spider web. A cool breeze shifted in the space, filling Ness Parazzi’s lungs with its delicious freshness.
“Ness!”
Who was calling her so late at night? She groggily swung her feet over the bed and stretched, surprised at the loud clunking noise her feet made as they hit the floor.
She looked down to see that she was shod in red tennis shoes despite the fact that she’d been sound asleep in her bed a few moments ago. The scarlet leather was halfway covered by ripped-up, paint-splattered jeans. For a second she thought nothing of it, but then the scene quickly processed through her mind.
Why was she sleeping with shoes on? And in jeans, in a purple tank top, in a gray blouse....
“Ness!”
There was that voice again. Who was trying to wake her up...?
Slowly, Ness lifted herself off the bed and began to walk toward the window, following the mysterious voice. She swore that she’d heard it before, that it was familiar...or wasn’t it?
She looked out into the night, head turning from side to side and ears searching for the person that was calling her name. The wind suddenly blew again and she was swept up into the sheer curtains, surrounded by their gauzy whiteness. Then, the material turned from soft fabric to thick smoke, invading her vision and taking away her view of the street.
When the cloud cleared, Ness was no longer in her bedroom, no longer surrounded by familiar things. There was a large house in front of her—at least it looked like a house; the hulking shape could be nothing else—and there were people walking in and out of it.
The night air was unusually still as Ness crept silently along the street. The same cool breeze rustled through the trees, causing the dead leaves to create cover noise for her footsteps.
“There’s too much wind, Ness,” the boy behind her said. “They might guess we’re here. Turn it off.”
She turned around to see his face, but it was covered in shadow. However, she knew who he was, and having him behind her gave her a sense of comfort.
“Ness, get down!”
His hand grabbed her arm and pulled her down behind a row of extraordinarily green bushes. She fell stiffly to her knees and felt a dull feeling go through them—not exactly a pain, but it didn’t feel good, either.
By the time she was completely on her knees, the wind had died down. Again, she tried to see the boy’s face, but it was dark. The only thing she could make out was the glint of strangely colored eyes.
“There has to be an easy way to get them all out,” he said.
“Set the house on fire.”
“What? No, we can’t do that...what if there’s innocent people inside?” The outline of his face looked tense as he spoke.
“There’s not.”
“How do you know...?”
“It’s just...I know.” Ness shrugged.
“Damn Seers know everything,” he muttered.
“Okay, so do it. We have a time limit.”
“Are you ready?” he whispered.
“Yes,” she whispered back. The two looked at the building in silence.
The boy gulped and said, “This could be the end of everything—”
“Or the beginning of it all,” Ness interrupted.
“The beginning of the end.”
“It doesn’t all have to end here.”
“Yes, it does. We can’t keep doing these kinds of things.”
Ness was getting impatient. “We can do this. It has to start here.”
“Or it has to end here,” the boy whispered.
“Light the roof on fire,” she told him, annoyed. It was up to him to do something; after all, his power of fire was greater than anything she could ever do.
“Alright, alright,” the boy said. He took a deep breath, snapped his fingers, and muttered, “Fire!”
Immediately a tongue of fire popped up onto the roof of the building, and it spread faster than any fire Ness had ever seen. She knew it was the boy who made it grow so fast, him and his power…
People dressed in robes were streaming from the building, standing at the vast front yard and pointing at the roof.
“They’re here!” the people called. “They’ve come to stop us.”
“Find them!” a deep, booming voice that seemed to come from everywhere at once bellowed. “Find them now, and do not let them escape!”
“Turn us into wind, Ness!” the boy yelled, grabbing Ness’s arm. She closed her eyes in concentration and felt her power course from her brain, through her fingertips, and into the boy.
It was hard. Her nervousness was filling her faster than her power over the wind—but she had to do it. She had to keep them both safe. Their bodies rose into the air; then they merged with a misty smoke that disappeared in seconds.
“Ness, concentrate!”
Her full power was thrust into the job of keeping them both a part of the air, of keeping their molecules joined.
“They’re in the wind!” the evil voice resonated through the air. “Stop them! They chose their fate; it must come upon them! Stop them!”
Ness felt her body jerk as her molecules pulled fiercely back together, and she tumbled with the boy back down to the earth, behind the impossibly green bushes.
They had failed—and now the whole world would suffer.
“Ness!”
She was being pulled harder and harder. The people waiting for them, whose evil she could feel pouring from their bodies—they were going to bestow upon the two teenagers a fate worse than death, and give it to the rest of the world...
Ness hit the ground.
---------------------------------
That's the Prologue to my book, Four To Stand. I hope you enjoy, and review if you can! Thanks!
I don't know what to crit, but I thought it was pretty good. The first bit, when she was called lots of times, went a bit drawn out...
I'd take out the fiercely though.
Gender:
Points: 890
Reviews: 18