Join me in a little self-embarrassment by digging through your files, papers and half-forgotten forum posts to find the oldest piece of writing you've yet to delete.
Mine was posted on this site in early 2016, and although reading it again gives me a minor case of the red cheeks, I must say that I feel some satisfaction over how much I have improved. Nowadays my stories actually contain a plot
https://mythicscribes.com/community/threads/bantens-chapter.15982/Mine was posted on this site in early 2016, and although reading it again gives me a minor case of the red cheeks, I must say that I feel some satisfaction over how much I have improved. Nowadays my stories actually contain a plot
Silence and Mourning
Rossis, home of the emperors, pearl of the Crownlands and the cradle of western civilization, stood silent. Onirion's market was crowded to the brink yet not one voice was to be heard. Not one argument. Not one cough. Not even a whisper. Pure and simple silence. Only if you listened very carefully would you hear the sound of the wind and muffled footsteps. No one on the market could hear it though. All eyes were directed at the tall man in purple standing on the palace balcony.
Moments turned into minutes. The man stood as calmly as he did before. The people on the market began to mumble. Softly and to no one in particular. Their eyes had not diverged far from the man in purple though, and they had not moved.
Minutes had now turned into what felt like hours. The mumbling had progressed to whispering. Small groups of people were being formed, yet no one turned their eyes away too far from the man in purple.
More time passed and larger groups had been formed. Smaller groups had bundled together under the watchful eyes of the figure on the balcony. The group closest to the northern entrance decided to make a run for it. The man in purple did not move. The runners manoeuvred the narrow streets of old Rossis. Behind them was silence still. One of them looked back and saw a motionless mob. The rest of the citizenry kept their eyes firmly directed at the figure on the balcony. Their footsteps reflected by the buildings was deafening to the runners. No sound for so long. They could not remember such a loud noise anymore. How long had it been since the purple man came? It did not matter. They would escape this day and then...
There was no then. When the runners reached the wall they were greeted by the Silverskins. Emotionless and cold like the steel they wore and the city they occupied, they slayed the runners. Clean and effective were their cuts. Cold were their hearts. The Silverskins returned to their post, not looking at one another or their victims. The corpses were left unattended, probably never to be cleaned up, not even by the humans. So apathetic had the citizens become that they could not be bothered to care for the deceased. Where would they begin anyway? The dead were in such high numbers that they might as well be considered part of the decor. Their bodies did not smell, though. Nothing smelled. Nothing had taste either. At least to the people it didn't. Life had become monotonous, it was a chore. Children had been taken from their parents. Couples were separated. The old and the weak disappeared from their homes unexplained, only to be found motionless in an alley later. The rebels were close to being history. In this city there was no one to love anymore and so love died.
On the market the groups had been disbanded. To make the man in purple think of you as a potential rebel was a bad idea. In the middle of the night people vanished without sound, like everything that happened in Rossis. No one knew what happened to them and neither did they care. The purple man's closed fist rose to the grim crowd, slowly. The slightest glimpse of emotion visible on each face, Anxious were they all. His hand opened and out fell one gold medallion. This cruel act he had played before. Whomever received the medallion was chosen to be a messenger to the empire and unofficially regained his or her freedom. The Silverskins had the task to keep all "citizens" detained, not safe, and so these events inevitably resulted in the loss of human lives as they trampled and murdered each other for a chance at freedom. As the market descended into chaos, the man in purple walked back inside. Cold and efficiently. Without sound.