by A.L. Svartz
Chapter Nine
Alone Again
Umbra awoke with the strongest headache. He leaned up from he concrete floor, rubbing his throbbing head. All fires that the Shadow Seeker created looked as though they've died out. Umbra instantly felt his throat. He noticed that his necklace wasn't there.
"What?" He whispered. "Where is it? What happened?" He stood up, frantically searching around for the necklace, thinking it fell off. After searching for a few minutes, he leaned against one of the beams that held up the parking garage. Squinting his eyes, he tried to remember the events that had caused him to be in the situation he was in. He panicked.
In his head, he was revisiting his first confrontation with Vog. Then it quickly jumped to when he met the three punks in the park. He remembered wanting to punch the one kid that was nose to nose with him. It then skipped along to when he first met Stee.
"Stee!" He quickly said, opening his eyes back up. Umbra darted up the ramp of the parking garage, climbing around the broken entrance and heading towards Stee's shop. "Stee!" Umbra kept yelling. He quickly glanced up, noticing that The Dark Sun was still out. Facing back forward, he saw that in front of him, the street was blocked off.
Traffic cones were placed in the middle of the street with caution tape running across them. Police cars were parked behind the cones, with cops surrounding the area.
"Whoa, where do you think you are going son?" A cop said to Umbra. He stood behind the caution tape, waving his hands at Umbra to stop running.
Umbra immediately stopped. "What's going on?" He asked as he tried to look beyond the cop that stood in his path. Smoke was rising out one of the buildings behind the cop.
"Can't give out many details right now son," the cop said. "But it looks as though a gas leak caused an explosion in one if the shops. We're investigating right now." Scratching his bald head, he wandered off, joining a group of other cops that were talking.
"Stee?" Umbra said. He closed his eyes, remembering the smoke rising as he was running from the Shadow Seeker. He also recalled his short confrontation with the Shadow Seeker as well. Opening his eyes back up, he now knew where the necklace went. "Vog."
Umbra slipped under the caution tape, hiding behind the police cars so the cops wouldn't notice him. As he managed to slip by the few groups of cops, he made his way over to where Stee's shop would be. He stood there in sadness as he saw the front of Stee's shop completely destroyed. It looked as though a bomb went off.
Umbra looked around to make sure that nobody was watching, and headed towards the shop. He carefully stepped on the debris that covered the front. As he entered the shop, all the shelfs containing the weird antiques were knocked over. Not a single artifact that hung in Stee's shop survived. Stee's organized, and mostly clean shop, was now a disaster zone.
Stepping around the mess of objects on the floor, Umbra scouted the shop, looking to see if Stee was around.
"Stee?" He said, searching ever corner of the shop. "Are you here Stee? It's me."
Umbra started to head towards the back of the shop, but as he did, a forceful tug stopped him. Someone had slapped their hand right on Umbra's shoulder, pulling back away from the shop. He quickly turned around and noticed it was a cop.
"Son, what do you think you are doing in here?" The cop said. "Don't you know this is a crime scene. You aren't stealing any of the evidence in here, are you?" He squinted his eyes as Umbra looked back at him.
"No sir?" Umbra answered, keeping his tone down to a whisper. He shrugged off the cop's hand, backing away from him a little.
"I think you better come with me son?" The cop said as he walked towards Umbra. "You being here doesn't seem right to me. We're gonna ask you a few questions down at the station."
He reached for Umbra, trying to grab him. Jumping back, Umbra quickly ran around the cop, dashing out of the shop. He saw that he had attracted the attention of the other cops. They all started to chase him. Dodging ever grab and swipe the cops threw at him, Umbra managed to escape from the scene.
Running down an alley and ducking behind a trash can, Umbra took a few minutes to get his breath back. He peered around the trash can, making sure none of the cops were around.
He curled up in a ball, resting his head on his legs. "Dammit Stee!" He yelled. "Why did you have to go? You were the only person that knew about the necklaces." Standing up from his hiding spot, he threw a few punches into the trash can he was hiding behind. He delivered a final kick to the trash can, knocking it over, spilling out all of the garbage that was inside.
Umbra was pacing back and forth, trying to think where Vog might have taken the necklace. He knew that soon The Dark Sun would be gone, and that the necklace will once again become active.
"Vog must be taking it somewhere to destroy it," Umbra said, rubbing his chin as he continued to pace. "But where? He knows he can't destroy it himself. The only thing that can is..." At that moment Umbra instantly knew where Vog was taking the necklace.
Umbra stopped pacing. His eyes widened. His heart almost came to a halt.
"No," he whispered. "No no." He took in a deep breath. "The Prophecy Destroyer."