New Book Test: Atrocious - Prologue

There will be another Prologue for the book coming up shortly, just testing out which writing style would better suit this project. 

Atrocious

Prologue

               

The icy winds of the Himalaya Mountain range are deadly in the winter. Dangerous enough to cause even the most experience mountain climbers to rethink their climb. Even those brave enough to bear with the Himalaya’s wintery wrath still have to deal with climbing on rocks coated with black ice as the numbing cold freezes their bones to move slower than normal. The difficulty of the climb, and the sheer amount of mountains that make up the Himalayas is the perfect location for the Monks of the Vigil to call home, secluded from the modern world their temple is found inside a single mountain. Only a handful of people outside of the monks’ order know of their existence and location, and one of them is Yosho Atrocious.  

The entrance to the temple is located near the top of the mountain with two large iron doors coated in snow and ice to provide camouflage from any onlookers. The whole temple looks like it belongs in a medieval fantasy novel. Centuries ago builders carved the rooms out of the mountain for the temple, providing housing, storage, and whatever the monks need to sustain themselves while being residence of the temple. The temple was home for hundreds of monks a long time ago, now only a few dozen remain to carry the vigil of their order. Those who currently reside in the temple are the last of their generation, most who are nearing the end of their lives with only one or two monks still in their thirties. They haven’t needed to recruit more monks, as it seems the secrets they’ve kept from the world drifted back into myth and legends.

                There isn’t much excitement for the monks in the Order of the Vigil. They wake up, eat, meditate, eat, mediate, and sleep. It’s a boring existence but an important one, and they each know this. It’s also no surprise the most exciting thing to happen during the monks’ vigil is when they hear the heavy iron doors scrapping along the stone hallway like nails on chalk. The doors rarely open, and when they do it causes a surge of life inside the monks. On this instance, unannounced to them a visitor will be arriving to the temple, some of them grab pikes and other weapons, some of them rush like children on Christmas running up the stone stairwell, and some cautiously approach the entrance unsure what to expect. Most of the monks though are shocked at what they seen, a single man standing a few feet inside their temple with the iron doors slightly opened.

                Yosho takes a step closer to the group of monks who pointed their weapons at him. As he moves closer the torches in the hall gives the monks a better view of their intruder. An old Asian man with tight leathery skin, sagging eyes, and a frame like a skeleton. The Monks didn’t know what to make of Yosho, a man dressed in sweatpants and t-shirt who opened the doors to their temple and survived the weather outside. Perhaps if these Monks were a bit more experienced, they could’ve scene the threat in front of them, but of course like the peaceful beings they are, they lowered their weapons as they see no harm in the old man Yosho. One even moves forward to greet him.

                “Hello” One of the Monks spoke in Cantonese to their visitor. He repeats his greeting again as he moves forward towards Yosho. Yosho stops moving after a few more feet so he keeps a good distance away from the monks. He tilts his head down and begins chanting to himself. The monk unknowingly takes a few more steps before realizing what Yosho is doing, and before he can yell out to his other monks the room fills with thunder.

                Yosho spoke in an unknown language lost to the monks and to the world except for a few. His bony hands shake as he continues to mutter. “Se’ll evel swea master vo’le” he chants, and more lightening forms from his hands and flies down the hallway towards the monks. The majority of the monks have already fallen from the first wave of lightening. Those who’re left alive stand still like deer in oncoming headlights. The quick flashes brighten the room, and after thirty more seconds no more monks are left standing. Their bodies piled high and painted the stone floor crimson. Yosho walks down the hallway slowly, carefully avoiding stepping on the monks or their blood. He can feel what he wants in this temple, it’s calling to him like a bloodhound sniffing out its prey.  

                The electricity around his right hand remained active, providing him additional lighting as he walked down the narrow stone hallways of the mountain. Any monks he ran into were quickly dispatched with the same thunder he used on the previous monks. Yosho’s right hand started to rot, the more magic he used the more energy he’s giving away and in turn is causing his body to start aging and rotting. His right hand, while aglow with lightening is slowly turning black and skeleton like. Still, he only need to keep this up for a few more minutes, he can already feel the energy of the stone calling towards him. He makes his way down a spiral stone staircase.

                At the end of the staircase is a hallway which leads to a door. Behind the door is the secrets of the monk’s order, artifacts of power deemed too dangerous for society. They were cast aside like lost treasure, not on podiums in museums, parliaments or catalogued like they should be in a military’s army. Yosho digs through weapons from other worlds he couldn’t care about, it took him a few minutes to find the smooth black oval stone. With his hands wrapped around it he inserted it into his mouth and like a snake eating an egg it goes down his throat. It didn’t take long before the stone starts to work, and a bright white light engulfed him, repairing him, changing him into something new.

                Gone is the old skinny frail Asian avatar of Yosho Atrocious, now stood a slender but much younger Caucasian man with brown short cut hair and a youthful face. His clothes, which remained the same as the old Asian man are too tight on this body, but with a snap of his finger more stylish and better fitting clothes took their place. He wears a suit, fitted for his body along with black dress pants and shoes. He would’ve fit in anywhere in any metropolitan, but in this temple he still looked out of place and underdressed. Yosho didn’t care, it’s been a while since he’s been able to use magic for frivolous things like clothing. It’s been a while since he swallowed a stone, and unless he can get more it would be his last one.