NDA Art Critique Message Boards

"It was the first time I had seen the outside, that I could remember, and I was amazed. I looked over both sides of the animal, trying to see anything and everything that went under us.

“After a while, I asked when we would go down. He told me soon, and we just kept flying in the same direction. Soon all the lights of the towns had faded away and we were above a huge forest, with no light but the moon above us. After a very long time, it seemed, we finally started going down, but I didn’t see anything below us. I asked where we were going, and he said that it was late and I needed some sleep, and that we would go exploring tomorrow, so we were just going to go to the place he lived for now. I felt kind of sad, but also a bit tired, and so I didn’t complain.

“Finally we hit the ground, it was very dark and all I remember was a big stone hallway. He told me to go with one of the other men, which would show me to my room. I followed him for a while, and he finally showed me a small little room with a bed. I was quite tired of being in a room, but even being in a different room was a relief, so I climbed in to the bed and fell asleep.

“I woke up the next morning and there was the man who brought me in last night, sitting on a stool. He asked me if I had had a good sleep, and told me that I could come with him to the kitchen to get some food. I hopped up and followed him to a room with a very big table, there were a few men sitting around it, and he sat me down right next to the end of the table. He asked me what I would like to eat, but I had never been asked that before, so I didn’t really know what to say. I told him I’d just have anything, that I really didn’t care, and he told me to just sit there and he would bring me out something good. After a while, he came back and sat in the head seat right next to me.

“He was very nice, and asked about how I slept, whether or not I liked the place, and questions like that. Soon our food came out and we started eating, and after a while I asked him when we would go exploring. He told me that we could as soon as we were done with breakfast, but first he had something he wanted to show me. After we were done eating, he told me to follow him to a very special place.

“After a while, wee got to a large chamber that was mostly empty. I felt a little scared, but he motioned me to come in further and I obeyed. We got to the center, where there was a single, purple crystal. It was about three feet tall, and had a point at the top, and it had a metal ring surrounding its base. He told me that this was where all the power for his important project was going to come from, and I just stood there staring at it.”

Tobias paused, shuddered, and closed his eyes, as though he was fighting the urge to cry. After a few moments, he took a deep breath and seemed to have regained his composure again, and he continued.

“Then… then he asked me if I wanted to see how it worked… and I said yes. I was such an idiot… Well, then he told me to just stand right there, and he would go outside and turn it on. He walked out to the doorway and I heard him say something; I turned around and he was talking in to that little object again. Then he put it back in his belt and stretched his arms out, as though trying to grab at something.

“I tried to turn around to look at the crystal again, but I couldn’t move. I saw faint shimmers coming from his hands towards me, and I started to get scared. He told me he was putting a special spell on me so I could see in the generator’s bright light, so I calmed down a bit. Then I started to rise up in the air, and didn’t know what to do, I started to panic again, and he seemed to be struggling to hold me up. I think it was then I realized he had just been trying to get me in that room for whatever reason, but it was too late.

“Within just a few seconds I was floating directly above that crystal, with its spike pointing up at me as though it wanted to hurt me. I got even more scared, and the man seemed to be struggling to stay standing, then I heard him yell something, and all of a sudden I was in horrible, horrible pain.”

Again, Tobias paused, but this time a look of anger came across his face, and when he spoke again his voice shook, and his breaths became heavier and faster.

“A thousand beams of light seemed to burst through the chamber all at once, and it felt like my brain was being sucked out. The man in the doorway fell to the floor, and said some strange words that created a sort of shimmer in the doorway, like a wall made of glass. Then a big, heavy gate fell down in the doorway behind the shimmer, and I realized there was no other way out.

“But my head began to hurt more and more, and more energy began to pulse through the chamber. I saw my clothes tearing apart and turning to powder as the energy passed around and through me. Then two arcs of energy began pulsing around my wrists, and they pulled my hands in to the air. I was stuck there, floating, with no way to get down.”