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Quinn Chapman and the Altar of Evil I

Quinn Chapman and the Altar of Evil The flames of Hades flickered off the rough hewn walls of the cavern as I stumbled my way deeper into the earthen maw. Acrid, black smoke invaded my eyes, blurring my vision and clouding my lungs. Dark voices shouted in a rhythmic chant somewhere beyond the hall of fire through which I now walked. My body was cut and bruised; my clothes turned to rags barely clinging to my sweat glistened flesh.  What maligned road led me to my current state of depravity? My mind flickered back to that fateful day in the warrens of Singapore, to one of the myriad of seedy opium dens lining the alleys. It was there that I found the remnants of the infamous Anglo explorer Sir Percival Covington.  I pushed back the shoddy veil of the curtain to find Sir Percival upon his back, clad in sweat-stained khaki and a weeks' worth of grime. So much for the hero of the British Empire. His glazed eyes alighted upon me, and a flicker of recognition danced across his ruddy face

Writing Sample from theProse

 Writing Sample from theProse

The following was written for a writing challenge on theprose.com. The prompt was as follows:
Grey Wall 
Check out the original over at Grey Wall.

A grey wall of stone.

Grey Wall

Towering over everything was the Grey Wall. For a thousand generations the Grey Wall had separated the worlds, looming above each in silent threat of what lay on the other side.

Looming in the heart of the unchosen.

No being had every crossed the Wall.

No human would try for the abject terror it brought the imagination. Even the birds, circling and wheeling about the azure sky would not cross the line of demarcation. The Wall meant safety and the Wall meant death.

Zenyassa did not care for safety and she did not fear death. She was Unchosen. What did it matter? What was life without the risk of losing it? She could not feel alive sitting before a thatch hut milling grain while the men of her village hunted wild yissana beasts. Their hunt brought them adventures and risk for the great reward. The yissana beasts were the prey of the mighty zarach. All teeth and claws, armored in leathery skin decorated with bright plumage. They hunted alone. Even the men in all their fervor feared to encounter one.

Zenyassa shuddered at the thought of the zarachs. She was brave, but to face one alone was a challenge akin to the Grey Wall itself. No, the Grey was a different challenge. With the zarach, it was life or death. With the Grey it was the unknown. What happened on the other side was unknown and there existed fates worse than death.

Fear pervaded her, cutting off all other feelings as Zenyassa stood at the base of the Wall. Her hand trembled as it grasped a protrusion, bulging from the wall’s unyielding flank. It felt cold even though the day was hot, and the red sun burned and scorched from above. None knew of what material the Grey Wall was made from. It was just another of the mysteries.

Mysteries Zenyassa was going to solve.

Hand over hand she climbed.

Each precarious hold bringing her closer to destiny. The Unchosen who crossed the Grey.

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