The Blood-Soaked Desert

[Ran Yoko]

Hey, this is the first part of my story about Seras and Dominic. Work was really rough last night, and I'm really tired, so I'll only be putting in the prologue sorry.

 

PROLOGUE

The town and the mansion had been reduced to nothing but rubble. The smell of blood was thick in the air. To the teenager who stood motionless in the ruins of the mansion, time almost seemed to standing still, as she surveyed the dead bodies around her. The sun's movements towards the western horizon was the only thing that proved time still flowed.

The girl's face showed no emotion, neither did her half-lidded eyes, which were an almost transparent blue. The hot breeze blowed her long, shaggy hair, silvery-gray in color, away from her face. Blood trickled down her face, arms and legs from the cuts and deep gashes she had suffered climbing out of a pile of rubble, but she didn't even raise her hand to wipe away the blood.

As she stood there in silence, the sunlight glinting off of something golden-colored caught her attention. She slowly walked over to it, but her plain white dress snagged on some rough wood. She took ahold of her dress and yanked it. The dress came free, but she fell backwards, scraping her bare foot on a rock. Not even wincing from the momentary pain, she continued walking to where the golden glint had come from.

She pulled from the rubble a golden-colored pocketwatch, a relic of bygone times. She opened it. While the the glass was broken, and the hands of the watch had stopped, a tune still played. A haunting tune that tugged at the girl's memory, but only then did she realize that she had no memory. No memory of where she had come from, or even of who she was.

"Does this prove that time is standing still?" she whispered, looking at the watch hands which did not move.

She noticed an inscription on the cover of the watch. She read it aloud.

"To Seras, with all my love. Dominic."

"Is that my name?" the girl asked the sun, which was beginning to set. "Is my name Seras?"

No reply came back to her, except for the hot breeze which blew her long hair around her face.

 

Sorry, no more at this time. I'll try to post some more soon.

[Quincunx]

*pokes tentatively at the prologue*

 

There's the mystery, and I'll admit it leaves me thirsty for an answer--further reading.

 

I hesitate to critique prologues and introductions, first because they're almost as difficult to write as conclusions, and second because the tone of many stories changes as the stories go on, and prologue critiques don't relate well to the story as a whole.