A Wild Lightning

The dried, dark bloodstains covered the walls as the air felt heavy in the stench of rotten flesh. The broken limbs and the torn pieces of clothes and scattered armor, the cracks on the walls, and the broken windows made it look like a beast or a storm, or maybe both had just rampaged, leaving all the chaos in its wake. "Uh, this smell? What could've happened here? It looks like a work of a devil." A lady spoke, squeezing her nose with her left hand as she was walking in a dark corridor, followed by a boy. "Ew, this is so disgusting." She said, kicking a piece of rotten flesh. Her voice echoed through the corridor as she nearly got slipped over it and the bugs and larva started crawling from underneath.

"How are you so relaxed, captain? Like it's not a big deal for you." The boy following her spoke. "I am dying from the fear that something might jump me from behind and I'll end up like these bodies."

"First, what part of this looks relaxed to you? This place is giving me literal creeps and chills down my spine and second, you shouldn't be worried because I am here." Isabel said laughing walking towards a stairway leading to an underground large room. "Well, here we are. Whatever the cause for all of this might be down there, or we might get our answer down there at least. Wanna go ahead first, Jocel."

"What? Why me?" Jocel replied in a frightened voice. "And how'd you think the cause of this could be down there?"

"Man up, little boy. Would you send a young and innocent lady like me down there first? Where are your manners?" She replied with an innocent and sad look and burst out laughing. "Don't worry, am not gonna do that. I was just trying to lighten up the mood, and the thing you asked how'd I know." She said in a deep voice, looking down at the stairs. "Well, if you were paying attention to all of this chaos, you'd find a pattern here. All the limbs and the bloodstains have blood trails pointing towards this entrance and see these markings on the entrance. Looks like someone or something dragged someone out from here while that someone was pretty badly injured and it covered all the stairs in blood. Oh, that smell, oh no am about to throw up." She said, turning away throwing up in front of Jocel as a wave of stench came from down the stairs.

"Captain, are you alright?" Jocel asked.

"Yeah, I am fine. It's just that sudden lift of air that caught me off guard." She replied, wiping her mouth with her arm. "Btw, how are you standing here just fine? I was about to pass out from that smell."

"Oh, me. Didn't you notice I am covering up my face?" He replied, pointing towards his face.

"Oh, I thought it was just a part of your knight outfit." She said standing, lifting her head looking towards the ceiling, thinking about something, then yelled. "Then why didn't you tell me to do the same, idiot?"

"Pardon me, captain. I thought you were all fine because you are super strong and have a lot of super abilities like poison resistance and mana resistance. So, I thought you might have smelled resistance, too." He replied awkwardly, smiling putting his hand at the back of his head.

"Argh, forget it. Let's just go down there and be down with this creepy place," she said, sighing, tearing a piece from his cloth, wrapping it in her face. "I just wanna go see my baby." And she entered the stairway and Jocel followed her.

As Isabel was about to charge her hand with lightning to bring some light in the dark, Jocel stopped her saying in a low voice. "Captain stop. If you think there might be something down there, shouldn't we conceal our mana? I got this mana torch, anyway. It glows, absorbing mana from the air. We should be fine." He shook the torch, and it started glowing bright blue.

"Watch your step. Who knows what kind of plague is spreading here? You don't want it to infect you? Right!" She said, catching Jocel as he was about to slip on these slippery stairs. As they reached the end of the stairs, they say saw a thin layer of black gooey liquid on the floor. "Here goes nothing." She said, taking a deep breath as she stepped on the floor. "It's nothing. Just harmless goo, nothing to be frightened about." She said as she saw Jocel standing back nervously looking down at the goo, frightened to take a step.

"Okay captain. Don't melt my feet, don't melt my feet." He said and took a step, closing his eyes. "Oh, looks like nothing happened. I was scared for no reason." He opened his eyes muttering and there was nothing except total darkness. "Whaaaaaa." He yelled, frightened out of his mind.

Isabel put her hand on his mouth, stopping his scream. "Sheesh, Be quiet. Your torch just went dark. Try igniting it again." She said in a low voice, taking her handoff.

"Oh Thank God, nothing has happened." He said, sighing and shaking the torch, but it went dark after flickering for a moment. He tried again, but the same thing happened.

"Hi come here. There's something here." Isabel called him as she was standing at the door to a large room. "I saw something on the floor, but I couldn't make it out what it was. Try igniting the torch again."

As he tried again, but the same thing happened again. "This shouldn't be happening." He thought and then asked. "Did you got to look this time?"

"No, but I saw some markings." She said, walking and crouched down. I think I got a good look here. Have I seen this mark before? I don't think so, but then why does it feel like I know it from somewhere?" She muttered as charged her hand with lightning to inspect around. "Did you hear that?" She said suddenly standing back up turning towards the door.

"What is it, captain?" He said, looking at her as she walked towards the door. "Is something there?"

"I think I heard something." She said, peeking out the door as she found nothing outside. "I must be hearing things. This place is now terrifying me."

While Jocel felt something strange in the air as if it was getting heavier. "The air seems okay other than the smell. But what it is, this strange feeling like my chest is getting tighter." He thought, and the room lit up as he saw lightning dancing wildly around Isabel's hand. As the room lit up, revealing the walls covered with blood splatter, guts spread on the floor and stuck to the walls, and people shredded into pieces. "Hi captain, is that sound normal?" He asked, looking at the markings on the floor as the lightning sound was echoing. The room got louder.

"No, not usually. At least I use it as a torch." She replied as she pushed the corpses covering the marking away using her feet. "It getting wild like it's getting extra juice, but my mana is totally under control."

"Captain, there are three different markings. The one in the middle, I recognize, but the other two are difficult to make out." He said.

"So, when are you planning to tell me?" She asked.

"I was about to tell you." He replied, smiling awkwardly. "Well, this mark in the middle is like the mark that man had who was found in the orb with Captain Alexander. Oh god, I just realized something. This might be connected."

"I guessed that much." She replied, as her expression changed. As she kept tossing the bodies away, she saw the second marking completely. "So that what it was. Probably summoning ritual gone wrong. Ah, why is my magic getting wild like it wants to get free?" She said shaking her hand as it's was getting hot from that rampaging lightning.

As she was thinking, Jocel yelled from behind her. "Captain, release that spell quickly." As he saw small sparks were turning into small lightning bolts. "This place, it's filled with dense raw mana, It'll...."

As Jocel was saying, she saw small sparks spreading into lightning bolts reaching out into the entire room. Suddenly, everything around her froze. Only she was moving around freely like time was frozen all around her. Her senses were so heightened that she could hear her breathing like someone else was breathing into her ears. She could hear her heartbeat like someone was banging a drum right in front of her. She could see her lightning propagating through the air like a small water stream slowly making its path down the ground. At that moment, she knew what was about to happen. She took a deep breath and dashed towards Jocel, grabbing him as she saw those same bolts, now turned into bright blue fireballs, rapidly reaching her. She dashed towards the door and turned towards stairs, leaving a bright trail of lightning in her wake. As she was about to exit the stair, fire engulfed both of them and a large explosion sent them flying through the corridor crashing through the walls ahead into the empty ground but she grabbed Jocel tightly in her arms in front of her shielding him from the inferno and as they were about to crash into the wall; she turned, taking the full blunt herself and falling unconscious, covered in her pool of blood as the building collapsed in front engulfing in bright blue flames under a full moon and Jocel went flying far landing in the woods falling unconscious. Jocel lost all senses the moment he felt the shock of moving at non-humanly speed. For Jocel, this all happened in less than a blink of an eye, but to Isabel, it felt like an eternity.