"Hey! Hey! Easy, easy, that’s heavy." said the ground work supervisor. "Secure the straps, avoid it's sharp edges." the crane manager said to the crew inside the container that was trying to move a large sword. The sword, which was 6 ft long with one-and-half-hand handle (aka the bastard sword), was longer than a single hand sword, but shorter than a Japanese double hand Katana. It was not just it's length that was unheard of, but also the width of its blade. It was almost 3ft in width. “Why the hell should we transport this piece of junk? Who would use a sword, in the age of guns and missiles? Even 5 men could not move it!” thought one of the working crew.
It was just twenty past eight on a busy morning, with the peak hour traffic come to a standstill, due to a big container truck that was parked at one end of one of the busiest streets of the city. A great many people were trying to move something from the transport truck into the compound of an antique store. People were craning their necks trying to get a glimpse of the sword that had been the subject of such speculation and debate. Rumor had it, that a well-known private collector had bought the sword for an exorbitant sum.
The antique store was housed in the middle of a high compound which was always guarded by private security personnel. The store was never actually open for business, with the large gates always closed and guarded.
The antique store was housed in the middle of a high compound which was always guarded by private security personnel. The store was never actually open for business, with the large gates always closed and guarded.
Heavy leather straps were fastened at both ends of the of the sword. The media was rife with speculation about this sword - its appearance, its constitution and its historical significance. A speculation that did not end with just its past, but extended to its present and future.
The men began strapping the sword to crane, it looked rather plain and simple with no embedding.
"Was not the sword supposed to be studded with gems? I don’t see anything at all!"
“Maybe they have been lost after all this time.”
Some rumors said it was made of some out of world material or an undiscovered material. Some workers thought this must be the reason for the weight. The weight of the sword made it impossible to unload from the back of the truck. They had to open the top of the truck allowing the cranes to lift it off.
The man overseeing the progress shouted to his subordinates, “Triple check the strap’s integrity and locks. If this thing falls on you, you will be crushed to a pulp.”
One of the other subordinates had had the misfortune of testing the sword’s sharpness. He paused momentarily, unconsciously stroking the gash as he thought, “If it falls on any of us, it would probably split us before we even feel the cut.”
The crowd watching the sword’s transportation consisted of men and women of all age groups, ethnicity, and class. It had commoners, working class people with their scruffy but clean outfits, also the lower working class with their dirty, old and battered clothes. It consisted, even of the high class people with their fancy shiny brand new clothes and their servants in uniforms holding their umbrellas , newspapers or baggage of their purchases of their so called endless shopping. The crowd also consisted of those intermediate people who pretended to belong to high society but fell short in one or few aspect which betrayed their true class status.
The crowd not only consisted the bystanders, but also groups of journalists and media personnel who were all busy either with their writing pads, pens, cameras or microphones. The arrival of the sword was ambiguous to the spectators as nobody but the collector himself knew of its precise whereabouts.
The sword was still on its stand at quarters of each end. The stand looked rather old and battered that it would giveaway anytime. But the manner the sword was fixed on the stand gave an impression that it was the sword which was made for the stand and not the other way around. The sword was sitting naked on the stand yet it fit so well that the sharp edge never once came in contact with the stand surface. The stand could hold any sword, but the sword could not be placed on any other stand.
Just a little far from earshot of that truck was a large shopping mall. Inside the mall was a very energetic young female intern reporter who had been forcefully dumped the assignment of creating a popularity drive for a product, while her heart was into reporting the authentic version of the story of the much-publicized sword and it's arrival. Even though she didn’t like her assignment or the product there was little in her behavior that betrayed her total dedication to this assignment or the product. She was followed around by her plump cameraman.
All the walls of the truck's container had been opened which enabled all the bystanders to see what was going on inside. Just when the ground crew about to fix remaining straps on to the stand, there was a huge disturbing noise. There was a bunch of cars and a truck similar to one with the sword headed towards the ulterior antique shop with a huge honking through the one-way street, which headed away from the place. Shouts and gunshots echoed the street. This scattered the crowd surrounding the sword truck and created a panic all around. The people got down from the cars with their weapons held high while their faces were hidden by Guy Fawkes masks.
The peculiar people from the cars had all worn a black dress with a band on their right arm, consisting of a red symbol similar to the Nazi swasthika inside a black circle. They ordered ground workers to move the sword into the other truck threatening them. The crane manager shouted to the operator to put the sword into the compound and not comply to aggressors' orders. The crane operator tried to lift the sword without its stand, as the stand was still unstrapped. The crane started lifting the sword in air while the private security personnel rushed out of the compound to neutralize the threat.
At the same moment in the mall, the young reporter heard the distress. All the reporter sense in her body told her she had to be there. She shouted to her camera man, "Hey Chubby, follow me! Let's get to higher ground, we need a better view. Its going to be big! Hurry!". Her camera man loyally followed her breathing heavily, as both hurried off toward the best vantage point to record the incident.
As the sword raised just meters above the stand, the strap at the non-handle end split right into two and the sword came down like a pendulum, right through the stand. The stand neatly split in two and then disintegrated to dust .The sword swung further and split the driver section of the truck, before freeing itself from the remaining strap at the handle end. The sword almost made 360 flip at the same time descending down rapidly. Just as sword swung further, almost once again bringing the sharp edge as the major contact edge, the sword stopped in it's tracks. It was caught in its handle by a pair of hands.
Everyone staring at the scene thought that the person would be sent flying just like many others who came in contact with the swinging sword. But that person simply caught it and neither him, nor the sword moved a single inch and the sword stopped dead in his hands. The ground men and the aggressor who stood near to the scene, saw the person holding the sword.
It was a kid barely 5.4’’ still in his school uniform . His innocent face had frozen in an expression of genuine shock . The swing of the sword had created a gust which carried the dust of what was left of it's stand. Both the aggressors and security personnel shouted at the kid to give them the sword. The crowd around the kid felt the tension and started to scatter away, where as the media tried their best to get a clear look or photograph of the kid.
Everyone staring at the scene thought that the person would be sent flying just like many others who came in contact with the swinging sword. But that person simply caught it and neither him, nor the sword moved a single inch and the sword stopped dead in his hands. The ground men and the aggressor who stood near to the scene, saw the person holding the sword.
It was a kid barely 5.4’’ still in his school uniform . His innocent face had frozen in an expression of genuine shock . The swing of the sword had created a gust which carried the dust of what was left of it's stand. Both the aggressors and security personnel shouted at the kid to give them the sword. The crowd around the kid felt the tension and started to scatter away, where as the media tried their best to get a clear look or photograph of the kid.
Both the camps of aggressors and security personnel began to panic as the kid still stood frozen and started to attack the kid, rather than their counterparts. As soon as the gust moved past the sword the dust started to circle the kid and not move past him creating a small whirlwind around him. All the gun shots were useless as the twister stopped everything in its paths. As soon as the twister settled down the kid looked very different, yet the same. His posture or his expression was unchanged, but his attire was replaced by a long black robe with a brown strap from his left shoulder till his right hip across front and back of his torso. The strap had a small stand similar but much smaller than the old battered one, all through its length. The robe also had a big hood which was hanging behind his neck.
The aggressors and security personnel started firing again, once the twister stopped. The kid instinctively turned his head away and raised and swung the sword form right to left at the same instant. This created a big shock wave which stopped, not just the fired bullets but also scattered the whole landscape. This instantly killed both the security and the aggressors and just knocked all the ground crew cold. There was chaos all around.
Near the mall, the young reporter and her cameraman started to capture the scene. But all they could capture was the tumult all around, people running away from the truck and media people still stuck in their position next to the compound gate. The two parked trucks blocked their clear view of the kid, who held the sword, which was longer than his height. But the sight which caught the firebrand reporter's attention was not of the kid's, but of a man, who stood with his back towards her. The aspect that he was not trying to get away from the scene, but stood casually dressed in a dark pullover with a hood on and a dark blue jeans with his hands in the pullover’s front pockets, made her nerves tingle. Her instincts told her this man was not a normal sight, but rather a front page news material. She ordered her cameraman to not just focus on the sword scene but to include the man with the hood in the picture, which he did only reluctantly.
The guy in the hood slightly raised his head and surveyed the whole area in a single swoop. He then suddenly raised his hand towards the street cameras and sparks flew from them. His hand slowly followed all the cameras and mobile cameras capturing the kid and slowly all of them exploded into small sparks. Once all the individual cameras were burnt the man pointed his hand towards the area of media personnel, when the whole area exploded to flames, reducing it into nothing but bloodied, injured and dead media personnel. Now the reporter knew she had to get a shot of the face of the man in hood. She told her cameraman to rush towards the scene.
While the intern and her camera man were hurrying out of the mall the kid with the sword suddenly became aware of his surrounding and raised the sword in his left hand and fixed it onto the strap on his back in a motion which looked practiced. And he wore his hood and started running away from the mall on the one-way street. At the same instant, the man in dark hood casually put his hand back in his pocket and started walking in the direction the kid had ran with the sword on his back.
When the young reporter came with her cameraman all she could see was devastation left behind by stampede and explosion. There was no sign of the kid with the sword or the man in the hood.
Hi, this is my first experiment in writing in this genre as well as first time in writing this kind of a long narrative style. Please do leave your comments. Please tell me if you want me to continue this story or not.
Even if this is not your usual type of story please do continue reading just help my experiments.
For people who like this you could further boost me by answering these questions
- Who do u think / want to be the protagonist of this story?
- Was the antagonist of the story present in this part of story? If yes who do u think it is.
- Last question. Please suggest some names for the characters because like any engineer, I'm bad at naming and I don’t want to end up naming characters a ,b ,c..
