Fragmented Shorts - 1. The Departure of Magic

To call it a crack, or a boom, or an explosion, sullied the power of it. The sound was indescribable, carrying with it the power of ancient magic and the fear of knowing what was coming. They had warned of it for weeks, the greatest magicians and the most ancient beings scrambling to slow it or escape it.

It was the end of the world.

I looked out over the ancient grey bridge to the College of Mages, watching as their sentinel spirits scurried inside the titanic doors. The doors began to swing shut, and a magic shield rose from the ground, glittering like the scales of a poisonous snake.

Another sound, one that was truly a crack, echoed out over the ravine. The bridge shattered crossways, rocks the size of cottages splitting into pieces. The College, trapped in its glass pyramid, began to pull away from the earth as the bridge disintegrated, debris falling through air to thud into the ground far below.

Other people watched now. Figures had appeared out of shops and leaned out of windows. Wizards sputtered into existence on the streets of the village, turning to watch with wide, desperate eyes as their only hope tore away from the ground.

Clouds of dust and dirt cascaded down onto the town, filling the air with hacking and coughing. I stumbled and grabbed onto the door of the blacksmiths. Above me the sign of an anvil swung wildly. Through the dust, a purple glow lit up the sky, and with a sound reminiscent of a slurp, the College’s looming shadow vanished.

When the dust cleared the sky was cracking.