Chaos Emerging: Prologue

Snow fell gently from the sky, doing nothing to dampen the raging fires consuming the violently shattered remains of a house. The sound of ever-nearing sirens was drowned out by the wailing of a young girl, sitting on the floor of what had, until moments ago, been the family kitchen. Beside her lay the broken body of her father, struggling for his final breaths. As he reached toward her, a pale blue glow emerged from his fingertips, forming a bright, shining beacon up into the sky.

The girl’s wailing grew more and more desperate as her father’s dying breath rattled through his body, his light flickering out. She crawled towards her father, her face wet from the tears that cut through the ash and dirt caked all over her.

“Daddy!” she cried out, pulling on his hair. The thick gray smoke choked her; her lungs burned. Her father lay there, limp, his lifeless eyes glazed over.

The girl stumbled to her feet and shuffled across the room, inching towards the lifeless husk of a body that had, until just minutes ago, been her mother. The boards of the burning house shifted underneath her. She reached out to steady herself with her left hand, grabbing onto a smoldering beam. She cried out in pain, recoiling at once, her hand instantly blistering from the heat. The girl stumbled the rest of the way towards her mother, clutching her burned hand close to her chest. She pulled on her mother’s hand. Her mother’s hand was somehow cold, despite the fires raging all around them. The girl curled herself up against her mother’s body, resigned to her fate, her tiny body wracked with sobs.

“There!” a voice rang out in the chaos. “There’s something there!”

The wreckage around the girl shifted, and a large, imposing, armored figure with a metal hand picked up the little girl, holding her close.

“It’s alright, Morgan. You’re safe now.”