Human in the assembly
1135 Words
Karl sat on the edge of his bed upstairs, the strange card balanced between his fingers. He tilted it toward the light, searching for meaning, anything that might lead him back to Olenna. The symbols on its surface seemed to shift when he wasn’t looking, as if mocking him for not understanding.
“Karl! Karl!!”
His father’s voice snapped him back to reality.
Startled, Karl flung the card beneath his bed and leapt to his feet.
“Have you filled out the application letter I gave you yesterday?” his father called from the hallway.
“Yup!!” Karl answered too quickly. He snatched up the folded paper from his desk, unfolded it, and held it out with forced confidence.
His father inspected it, nodded once, then reached for his coat. “I’ll be back this evening. I want to hear only positive news.”
“Everything will be fine, Dad. I promise.”
The man paused at the door, studying Karl with narrowed eyes. The sudden optimism didn’t sit right with him, too rehearsed, too bright. For a moment, it felt as though he might say something more. Then he sighed, turned away, and left.
The door closed.
Karl didn’t waste a second.
He slipped into his father’s room and began tearing through drawers, shelves, and cupboards, his pulse hammering. Portals. Spells. Anything. Just as frustration began to creep in, his fingers brushed against a small sealed box hidden beneath the bed.
His breath caught.
After forcing it open, Karl froze.
Inside lay an ancient spellbook bound in cracked leather, and beside it, a carefully wrapped deck of cards, eerily identical to the ones Olenna had used the night before.
“No way…” he whispered, awe flooding his voice.
He shoved the cards into his pocket and flipped open the book, only for his excitement to falter. The pages were filled with unfamiliar symbols, ancient, other-worldly.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” he muttered, stepping back.
Then the pendant at his neck began to glow.
A faint green light pulsed from the gem, cold, alive. Karl lifted it in his palm: a coin-sized disc of green stone, an eye carved into its surface, staring back at him.
The spellbook shuddered.
Its pages flipped wildly, snapping through the air as if caught in a storm. Karl yelped and dropped the pendant. Instantly, everything stopped.
“Woah...” He laughed nervously.
Slowly, carefully, he picked the pendant up again and steadied his breathing. This time, the book responded gently. Pages turned on their own, deliberate, searching.
Karl felt it then.
The pendant wasn’t just glowing, it was listening.
It pressed against his thoughts, sifting through his desperation until it found what he wanted most.
A way back.
The book stopped on a single page. A detailed illustration of a magic circle filled it; intricate, elegant, unmistakably familiar.
“Olenna’s portal…” Karl whispered.
He tried reading the text again, and to his shock, he understood it. Not in English, not in any language he knew, yet the meaning settled into his mind as if it had always been there.
“Here goes nothing.”
He clenched the pendant, extended his free hand, and recited the highlighted words.
“Angor rena revlo...”
Nothing happened.
Karl dropped his hands with a frustrated hiss. “Maybe I should try aga-”
The floor lit up.
A glowing circle erupted beneath his feet, locking him in place. Light surged upward, blinding, roaring, then everything vanished.
Karl woke up again
Lights burned overhead, his head pounding as if he’d been struck. Voices echoed around him, foreign, sharp, but slowly, impossibly, their meaning slid into place.
His vision cleared.
He was lying on stone ground, surrounded by tall humanoid figures with pointed ears clad in some sort of uniform
“Elves…?” he breathed.
“It spoke! The thing spoke!” one of them shouted.
Karl scrambled to his feet, and they rushed back, their hands glowing with summoned magic.
“What?! Where am I?!” Karl demanded, panic choking his voice.
Towering castles loomed around him. Banners bearing strange sigils draped from stone walls. Hundreds of eyes stared as though he were a curse made flesh.
“A human!! There’s a human on the assembly ground!!”
Six armored guards leapt from the walls, landing with bone-shaking force.
“s**t!” he cursed as he ran off.
“Stop the human!!”
He shoved past the startled people in his way, his heart racing. A purple sling snapped around his legs and sent him crashing to the ground. A guard raised his sword to strike
Karl screamed, and as if it listened, the pendant exploded with energy.
A shockwave hurled the guards away like dolls, snapping the sling apart. Karl staggered up again, but pain tore through his back as an arrow struck him. Then another into his thigh.
“Fire!!”
Arrows rained down.
Gritting his teeth, Karl yanked a card from his pocket and flipped it to reveal a shield inscribed on the surface, he shouted in excitement
“Shield!!”
The card transformed midair, unfolding into a massive shield that deflected the hail of arrows. Karl laughed in disbelief, he couldn't believe his luck. He felt the pendant pulse urgently, trying to speak to him
“Show me!” he shouted.
His arm twisted against his will, his palm snapping open as green energy condensed into a roaring sphere.
He hurled it at his attackers, the blast obliterated the wall, sending archers screaming into the sky.
A guard attacked from behind. Karl blocked it, but the shield shattered along with the guard’s weapon. With a roar, the man slammed Karl into the ground and lifted him by the throat to finish the job-
“Karl!!!”
A woman’s voice cut through the chaos.
“Olenna?!” a guard shouted. “You know this-”
Karl snapped the arrow in his thigh and drove it into the guard’s eye. The man screamed and hurled him aside.
Karl rose again, summoning twin spheres of energy, eyes darkening, breath ragged.
“Karl, don’t!!” Olenna cried.
He turned to her.
His eyes were black. Spittle dripped from his lips as the power of the pendant consumed him.
“Gods…” Olenna whispered
Karl screamed and raised his hand to fire-
A bolt of lightning struck down from the sky as Karl was slammed into the ground, his body going numb. Darkness crept in, but through fading vision he saw a figure approaching.
A tall man with long purple hair, draped in blue decorated robes.
Karl tried to move but his body didn't responded.
The man knelt, studying him with calm curiosity.
“Well,” he said softly, “what do we have here?”
- Writer
