MODERN MAGICS. Tianyu (Tony) Zhu

she spun around and was met with his pitch black blade right in front of her eyes, rapidly closing in.

      Barely reacting in time, she jerked her head to the side with a grunt, flinching as the edge of the blade drew a gash across her forehead, which cut off some of her hair as it went over her head. With the stalker being temporarily vulnerable due to his attack, Sapphire saw her one and only chance.

      As he lifted his sword for another strike, Sapphire held her right hand out, which was now completely pitch black out to the forearm, covered by a thin veil of darkness.

      With a final release, she expelled what magic she had left.

      A small cylinder formed in the center of her palm -- it bloomed and spiraled into a solid beam of shadowy mist, which exploded out from her hand. A pain shot through Sapphire’s arm as the initial impact nearly threw the trajectory off course, but Sapphire quickly braced it with her other arm and expelled the last of her magic into the attack.

      Though she couldn’t see his face, she could tell he was surprised by what she had done. She heard a low-pitched grunt for a brief second before the beam smashed into him square on the chest. The impact was so strong that he flew back to the other end of the street and crashed into a glass window beside the hostel. His dropped longswords briefly clattered onto the sidewalk before it spiraled into a vortex and evaporated out of existence. Meanwhile the hostel clerk could still be seen, his mouth agape as he wondered what he had just witnessed.

      With the threat temporarily gone, Sapphire hunched down and caught her stopped breaths. She clutched her right arm, which was possibly dislocated from the initial recoil of the attack.

      Not wasting any more time, she hurriedly limped towards the lights of the populated street. Bracing a hand on the wall, she rounded the corner and was met with a completely different street. It was completely packed with people - a blend of the poverty-stricken curled into balls on the sides of the street beneath the balconies of tall buildings and the average workers under their umbrellas and walking along silently.

      Wiping the trail of blood running down her cheek with the sleeve of her jacket, Sapphire ducked her head down under the various umbrellas and blended in with the walking pedestrians.

      The adrenaline still hasn’t left her body, leaving her with a jumble of thoughts and questions.

      What the hell is my uncle thinking? Is he actually trying to kill me? Sapphire thought as she walked with her back hunched under the groups of umbrellas.

      The man in question was no doubt a member of the Anaroth family, with those unique blades and that etched medallion. She could see the familiar style in his quick-paced slashes and strikes. But why was he using lethal weapons? Did Sapphire’s untrustworthy uncle actually want her dead or has that man gone rogue?

      No matter the reason, this incident just added to Sapphire’s list of reasons to never go back: someone in the family was out for her blood.

      Chapter 2.4

      Lightning whipped through the dark sky and briefly lit up the dark clouds, whose rain, gentle just a few minutes before, transformed into a full-scale rainstorm, battering heavily against the canopies of the pedestrians’ umbrellas.

      Sapphire’s heart pulsed frantically as some scattered, scrambling in search for dry shelter. Her identity -- along with the blood dripping down her face -- was now more noticeable. Some faces even stole glances at her from their dark umbrellas as she was passing by. Sapphire ducked her head down further, trying to cover her face with her hood.

      Through the crowd, Sapphire spotted the words “WitchBrew”, a conventional chain grocery store in Novati and various other cities. It was a surprise seeing one out here in such a poor sector of the city.

      She wanted to buy supplies, but it was risky to leave the crowd. It would open up the possibility of the stalker seeing her, and after her second encounter with him, she was in no condition to fight.

      But, on the other end, the slow and steady stream of blood from the gash running down her face warned her of a more dangerous risk. Waiting for the morning to come could save her from possible fights, but would also very likely result in her losing too much blood and passing out somewhere, where she would be left utterly defenceless.

      Sapphire checked her remaining pocket. She sighed out a breath of relief. The stolen wallet was still there. It was the other side of her jacket that had been sliced off by his blade.

      With that, she made up her mind. She started squeezing through the crowd, passing along various “excuse me”s to whomever she pushed past. After a few more shoves, she arrived at WitchBrew’s front door.

      Although the curtains were already drawn shut, the neon “Open” sign was lit. Sapphire came into the shop and shut the door behind her swiftly. The loud bang of the door scared the young cashier at the corner on the far end into attention.

      “Oh! Uh, hello. You’re coming in pretty late.” She said, while readjusting her cap with the company logo and straightening out her short, mouse brown hair.

      Sapphire looked at the clock, which read 2:38 AM, approximately two hours after she had checked into the hostel.

      “I won’t waste too much of your time.” Sapphire said with her head held down, covering her face with her clothes in fear of being recognized. She quickly got to the point, “Grab me a first aid pack please.” She lifted up her hood, revealing her wet hair, as well as the dark red, bleeding gash on her pale forehead.

      The cashier’s eyes widened briefly before she nodded and walked into the storage room behind her.

      While Sapphire waited for her return, she picked out a few packs of snacks for the road ahead. With the situation she was in now, she was not sure when her next meal could be, definitely not in a restaurant like before, where she was caught in the first place.

      Sapphire lifted the bloodstained sleeves of her torn jacket and examined her arms. With the expulsion of that much magic in so little amount of time, it would be a day or two before she replenished all of it. Until then, she just needed to hope she didn’t encounter someone like him again.

      Next time, she might not be as lucky as she was tonight.

      Five minutes passed, then ten, and Sapphire was starting to get impatient.

      “Hey, did you find it yet?” Sapphire yelled over the countertop.

      She was met with no response, it was silent except for the raindrops on the ceiling.

      A sudden sense of dread washed over Sapphire as she realised what had just happened.

      She turned to run for the exit, but it was too late. A loud noise sounded through the tiled ceiling above her and one of them abruptly split in half and fell to the ground from some mysterious force. Moments later, a familiar black figure dropped down from the ceiling, who then quickly cut the chains holding the rusty metal shutters up, making them collide onto the window frames with a deafening crash.

      “You just don’t know when to give up, do you?” The stalker said softly as he turned around and pulled his longswords out of the cracked tile floor, pointing them straight at her. Sapphire took a moment to finally get a clear look at his face. He had white hair that went down to his shoulders, a sure sign of a purebred member of the Anaroths, an offspring of two separate Royal families. Under his cloak was a muscular build, as expected of Anaroth, with a bare stubble of beard on his chin. At first glance, he looked like an older version of Sapphire’s dreadful older cousin in his mid-twenties, Ethan, which was a connection she did not enjoy making. She didn’t want to ever see the face of her moronic cousin again.

      Sapphire sprang away from him in an attempt to reach the room behind her. She knew that the front door behind him was completely inaccessible now, and the only possible escape would be through some kind of exit built into that storage room.

      To her surprise, she managed to make it past the threshold of the front room without him catching up, was she faster than he expected? As she ran into the corridor leading into the storage