Mistica Chronicles


Welcome to Issue 9

Ryuuko Winning Entry

Snow drifted down lazily from the sky, gently kissing the scarred and barren earth. Chains as cold as the air and as heavy as the gray clouds looming outside bound her to the hard cement floor. The once vibrant emerald scales that had covered her now fragile, broken body were a sickly shade of pale green. The leaves bordering her thin face were turning brown, and the ferns forming a crest on her back were withering. She was slowly wasting away into nothing here in this tiny room. The previously lush and beautiful Overgrown Gourix lay on the floor, nearly motionless, awaiting her fate.

Suddenly, there came a sound: a soft scratching at the single window on the far wall. The Gourix opened her eyes and, with much effort, looked up to see what had made the sound. To her dismay, it was nothing but the bare branch of a tree, pressed to the glass by the wind that was now picking up. Sighing, she lay her head back down. The branch scratched the window once more, louder now. The Gourix didn�t move.

The tree kept scratching, continuously growing louder and louder. The wind soon joined in whistling through the cracks in the old, wooden walls and beating up against the glass of the window. Louder and louder they grew, pounding against the window until at a magnificent climax the window burst open and wind and snow erupted into the room, a single snowflake landing on the startled Gourix�s snout.

And in that single snowflake she saw everything; she saw all of the pain and the suffering and the begging and the pleading of Mistica and its creatures; she saw that Mistica was dying, and that now more than ever Mistica needed her to be strong. It needed her to stop letting herself accept her dismal fate and do something to change it, for if she died, Mistica was going to die along with her.

That single snowflake sparked a fire in her heart, a fire that tore through her entire body. With newfound strength and passion the Gourix sprang to her feet and reared up onto her hind legs, thrashing at the chains that had imprisoned her body and soul and abated her hope. She opened her mouth and let out a tremendous roar, tearing through the air and causing the very ground itself to tremble. The chains struggled against her might until finally they shattered as if they had been made of glass. The Gourix threw her entire body against the wall, breaking through with ease, and, with one final burst of strength, she leapt out of her dungeon and back to Mistica.

In a flurry of green the planet exploded with life; the clouds were banished from the sky, plants shot up from the ground, and leaves budded from the once naked trees. She landed softly on a patch of grass and looked proudly upon Mistica, her body rejuvenated along with the land. She smiled at all of the creatures rejoicing, falling to their knees and weeping, shouting thanks and praise to the heavens. The Gourix closed her eyes and chuckled softly before disappearing into the wind.