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The Sound Of Silence
The world as we knew it was no more. Darkness and oceans covered the land. What was left of mankind however, huddled together on a large man-made raft they called, "the continental".

They spent almost ninety days on the restless water as they searched endlessly for some kind of dry land that they could dock on and maybe even call home. Finally, the spotter saw something.

"Land!! I see land, and a castle! To the east, port side!"

The ship's crew consisted of thirteen men and eight women, twenty-one mouths to feed and the crew was running low on supplies.

The captain slowly made his way out of his barracks and proceeded to the front half of the ship to put eyes on this "land and castle" for himself.

Once he was at the bow of the ship, the captain reached down and touched his spyglass, running the metal carvings acrossed his fingers before removing it from his belt. He moved the scope to his eye and aimed it toward the top of the castle before making his way downward and then scanning the island.

"The castle is quiet. No look outs in either watch tower, and there aren't any foot prints on the beach, human or otherwise, however the tree line is very dense. There's no way for us to know what could be hiding in the shadows, we need to get a closer look but be careful and be on your guard."

Though they were nervous about not knowing who or what may live on the island the crew became restless with excitement because none of them had felt solid land under their feet in months and the thought of standing on a surface that didn't rock back and forth constantly or at times, try to swallow you whole seemed unreal to them.

As the continental cruised closer to the island, dense dark clouds formed above the center tower of the castle quickly covering the entire structure, making it invisible from the water. A burning blood red light circulated into an orb rooted where the newly hidden tower was located, the orb then grew larger filling the rest of the camouflaging clouds turning them all into the same dense red color. The build up of energy somehow launched a consentrated beam of red lightning aimed directly at the continental.

"Incoming!" someone on the ship had the chance to scream just before impact.

Bits and pieces of the raft were sent hurling upward and in every direction creating wooden and metal shapnel killing most on board instantly and severely maiming the few others unlucky enough to survive the initial blast.

After thirty seconds or so it began to rain down liquefied chunks of human body parts mixed with metal and wood pieces from the continental, and after a short fall, once again, there was silence.

The silence was doomed to be interrupted by the fowl cries of misery and agony coming from a single survivor who managed to get to the beach despite having only one leg and a metal pole stuck through his chest.

However all was not lost, the screams started to fail, as blood filled his lungs and he began to gurgle until the sound of silence took over the island once more.




© Alex Potter