The Tales of The World : Prologue

PROLOGUE

Dark, ghostly cloud envelops the sky, clawing the earth with its bright blue flash of lightning. An ear-splitting roar grumbles, almost shaking the ground. 
        Far below, the world is in chaos. What used to be skyscrapers is now nothing but metal scraps, their sturdy frames are what left standing. Houses, buildings, roads, streetlamps, cars, trees are all mashed up into mixture of rubbles and debris. Some are blazing bright in inferno, thick, sooty smoke rise high above into the sky. Patches of red paint the ground wet with blood and ichors. The air smells like smoke and burnt rotten meat.
        People died. Children, women and men alike.
        Homes are destroyed. No place to return to.
        Guns and bullets lying scattered on the cracked, fractured earth.

        This, is the aftermath of the War.

        A silhouette moves in the stillness of the post-apocalyptic city, a sign that there is, however, an unfortunate life that survives the catastrophe.
        As it paces out of the shades of the ruins, the light that barely escapes the impending cloud bathes him in dazzling orange. A young man, battered with cuts and wounds that drenched his body red, limps and whimpers in pain, rummaging through the rubbles.
        The sound of metal clanking, glass shattering, wood splintering and his heavy footsteps echoed, breaking the melancholic silence.
        With the little left of his strength, he lifts a disfigured shelf out of his view and crouches, his hands careful scanning the ground for whatever he is looking for, not wanting to scrape them on the broken glass or the jagged metal.
         “It must be here somewhere.” He says.
        Underneath him, are stacks of papers, crumpled, torn and burnt. The ink typed into the papers smudged into blobs of black, making the words hardly legible.
        Like an eagle stalking its prey, his eyes set upon a hardback spine of a book, almost hidden by splintered woods and shards of glass. Carefully and slowly, he lifts them off the thick, dark-red book.
        He grabs the spine, thick and heavy that he can barely grasp it. His free hand caresses the front cover, brushing off the overlaying two-inch thick dust and cobwebs.
        Stamped onto it in gold is the book’s title; 
               THE TALES OF THE WORLD
making it look grand and royal. Beads of jewel embedded into it, faint light glints and sparkles, reflecting into the grayish blue eyes of his.
         “This is it,” he let out a faint sigh as if it is tiring, yet satisfactory that he has finally found the book. "Our only hope of saving mankind.”