Re: Clash of the Scions (IT BEGINS! LSUs accepted)
/\/\/ Dylan Merrimack /\/\/
One could call him the typical working man, without exaggeration. He paid his bills, he submitted his taxes ahead of time - and on the occasion, he would help his landlady renovate the 2-story duplex he shared with her. It was a modest affair and he knew (as she probably did) that the place would never really come around to looking beyond mediocre... and any other time, he might have been content to just leave it alone and accept it, but there was something about Mrs. Grady's tenacity that he found inspiring. There wasn't an ounce of apathy within her. The silver-haired raven might be taken as a kindly, harmless old woman by anyone else, but he had lived here long enough to know she was tough as nails and would not let something go unfinished.
Tonight, though, she was out of town. Family reunion or some such. Whatever. Dylan wasn't terribly bothered by this one way or another, but the place did get lonely when he didn't hear any activity on the first floor. And so instead of listening to the deafening sound of silence inside, he sat out on what he could laughingly refer to as "the balcony" - essentially a wood-plank platform with a staircase leading up to a screen door in the back of his apartment - and drained a nondescript beer.
He sighed, stood up, and set the bottle down next to the row of three that had already gathered on the rail. He crossed his arms atop the rail next to the line he had created and leaned down, content to stare at the ground some distance below and consider the grass down there. It was in less than stellar condition, yellowing out and choked by weeds. Mrs. Grady had never asked him to tend to the lawn, though he knew he could if he were motivated to.
But as with so many others, that idea tended to wane and vanish, leaving him only with the ghost of a hope that he could amount to much more than he was.
And what am I, anyway? he wondered idly. His hazy vision passed over his tanned arms and his stained T-shirt - he had forgotten to do his laundry. Again. Filthy, that's what I am. Good god.
But before he could turn around to go inside, something out of the corner of his eye began to draw his attention. A strange light overhead... some odd glimmering effect that he could hardly attribute to the cityglow of the evening. He looked up in curiosity.
Hanging in the sky was quite possibly one of the most beautiful and terrifying things he had ever seen. It could only be a comet, but to see one so near was to be practically in its path - and he knew enough astronomy to know if he was seeing such a phenomenon now, and if it was coming right at him, there would be no escaping it, no matter what he did.
But no - the brilliant stellar object was not content to obliterate him then and there. Rather than rocket into his duplex and leave nothing but an ashen crater, it streaked across the night sky with far greater speed than it should have... and, it seemed it defy the Earth's gravity as it moved. For all Dylan knew, it was an optical illusion, but it almost seemed to arc upwards, as though narrowly - and purposely - avoiding collision with the ground.
But now he had looked upon it for too long. His eyes were dazzled and his ears roared, senses assaulted by--
No, it couldn't be the comet that was doing this, because now his mind was flooding through with strange, twisted images. Picture frames crashed through his mind, one after another after another, with the most brilliant contrast imaginable - enough to tell him that it was not merely his imagination producing such anomalies in his own thinking. A gathering of... of monstrous, hideous people. Gathered against those that had slighted them, preparing to take the world as their own and fight back against their creators.
No sooner had the understanding dawned upon him than his back spasmed uncontrollably, causing him to arch backward so far that his vertebrae crackled with the exertion. He tried to cry out, but all that came out was stunted gibberish through his own wobbling cheeks, clacking teeth, and wagging tongue.
It was as though he were being struck by a bolt of lightning.
He collapsed to the ground, and control of his limbs returned to him. Almost by instinct, he curled all of them to him in the tightest fetal position he could manage. His entire body shuddered.
He remembered.
He remembered.
They had taken his life from him twice before... but now, Moshinas the Thunder lived again.
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