Gage stopped dead in his tracks. A million thoughts raced through his head, each struggling against the other, battling for the dominance that could provoke an action. Gage almost collapsed under the stress
there, in the space where the home where he had lived in since he was just an infant, lay a smoking mess of concrete and metal. It was all that was left. Finally, with such sudden realization that his brain could have felt whiplash, Gage realized that he hadn't heard any word from his parents since the invasion started. Gage sprinted towards the rubble, leaping over fallen depris, and stumbling a few times along the way. Drowned in thoughts of overwhelming despair and dashing towards the remains of his childhood homestead, Gage failed to notice a stiff metal rod protruding from a pile of collapsed concrete. His foot caught on the lip of the rubble and he began plummeting downwards. Even in mid fall, the only thing he could focus on was the question he wasn't sure he wanted the answer to:
"Are my parents okay? Are they alive?"
Gage faceplanted into the asphalt that bordered his decimated home, his eye catching a shard of glass that lay wedged between large pieces of timber. Although he was now bleeding horribly from his brow, Gage struggled to his feet, small pieces of glass still stuck in the skin underneath his eye. Finally reaching the remnants of his home, Gage vaulted over a destroyed conrete wall that had until a few hours ago held up the side of his house. He didn't bother using the main doorway, for the surrounding area was now nothing but charcoal and ash, Gage began tossing rubble around ravenously, focused on his one objective: find his parents. Until suddenly, a glimmer of light caught the corner of his vison. Gage quickly traced the light to a small tattered credenza, which had managed to survive the rest of the house collapsing around it. What he saw lying a few inches away from one of the furniture's legs caused his legs to give way from beneath him. It was his father's ring. But that wasn't what had shocked him. There, still stuck through the brace of the jewlry, was one of his father's fingers. When Gage was finally able to regain his footing, he was faced with several conflicting emotions. The first, obvious emotion, was despair in the thought that his parents were dead. The second was a brief glimmer of hope.
"Maybe dad only lost his finger? Maybe he's still alive?!"
But that glimmer quickly faded away, as Gage began to regain his grip on reality. There was no way his father could have gotten away in time and still have left his severed falange behind in the rubble of the house. Gage slipped his father's ring into his pocket, and began sifting through the wreckage for the rest of his father's body. All he found was a scorched human skull and a pile of ash. The ring, because it was formed from steel, was able to survive the house's collapse intact. His father, being of organic flesh and bone, had not been so lucky. But there was still something pressing on the edge of his conscience that he couldn't quite identify. Gage sat within the charred wreckage of his former home for what seemed like hours. Then, he realized what had been giving him the awkward feeling, and with it arose once again the glimmer of hope. Gage had realized that, even after scrutinizing every last nook and cranny of his home for something salvageable, he had seen no trace of his mother. This time the hope did not fade from his mind, and it gave him the power to clamber to his feet. But, as if on que, immediately after Gage regained his footing a loud BOOM cracked through the skies and Gage felt the woosh of motion fly just over his head. Gage, on instinct, threw himself on the ground in response to the sound. After picking his head up from the pile of dusty ash, Gage was stricken and upon identifying the source of the sound, was stricken with a mortal terror. There, hovering ominously in the distance, was a Legion landing craft. The Legion, the organization that had invaded the city and killed his parents. The rippling heat waves beneath the craft ceased and the craft dropped abruptly to the ground. A metal hiss contaminated the air as the landing craft's door begin to slowly open. Gage couldn't believe what he saw.
Last edited by Light Dash on September 21st 2009, 9:32 pm; edited 2 times in total