“He swung his legendary claymore, Grendethal, around his head, causing the swarm of orcs that had gathered around him to leap back. By now word of his heroic feats of strength and virtue had spread across the land, and the mythic power of the blade of Grendethal was known by all. With a powerful lunge, he swung his blade in a great sweeping motion and took the head of the orc captain, Urgthon, our hero’s powerful chest striating as he pulls the blade through his enemy’s thick green neck. The orcish army was shaken, fearing righteous retribution from the muscular, rugged hands of our hero, Huraclion.
The sergeants of the orcish vanguard, the fiercest among the orcish warriors, attempted to avenge their fallen leader, but were each cut down by Grendethal’s vicious blade. Huraclion, in a great feat of strength and athleticism, slaughtered the orcish sergeants, leaving their limbs strewn across the field, their blood decorating Huraclion’s handsome features. The sun gleamed off of his pauldron, which he wore on his right shoulder, as he stood before the remaining orcs. He stood tall, at a height of about twenty hands, and his broad frame was adorned with muscles, which glimmered due to a sheen of sweat.
Huraclion addressed the orcish army with a bellowing voice, “Return the Princess Felina and vow never to harm the simple townsfolk of the village Bellinton, and I shall allow thee to retire to your encampment.” The orcs, having witnessed the might and virtue of our hero, complied with his demands, and returned the beautiful Princess Felina into Huraclion’s hands.”
After a long day of writing, the writer saves what he has written so far and shuts off his computer. He heads into the kitchen, grabbing a plastic container of leftover sesame chicken from the fridge. He puts it in the microwave for two minutes as he heads to turn on the TV. While browsing Netflix for a show to watch, the microwave beeps and the sickly smell of the sweet sauce fills the one bedroom apartment. Grabbing the container from the microwave, he falls onto the couch and passes his evening.
After several hours had slipped away, spent watching whatever show he found fit that evening, he forced himself from his couch and made his way into his restroom. In the mirror a spindly, woeful figure stared back, eyes sunken from the days spent staring at the computer screen. He reached for his medications, sorting the pills and swallowing them with a glass of water. He looks back at the mirror, and for a moment, he’s startled to see the handsome features and rugged stature of Huraclion. He rubs his eyes and looks again, just to be disappointed by his familiar woeful visage.
He laments his loneliness. Writing often about the romance of Huraclion and the Princess Felina simply reminds him of his own inability to find love. Every word of sappy dialogue he’s forced to write between the two characters twists his heart, yet now he’s numbed to it. He laments his loneliness. He must write about Huraclion and his close friends, with whom he faces the most difficult of challenges shoulder to shoulder with, about how Huraclion is cheered by the grateful townsfolk he so often saves from sure peril, yet he sits alone in his apartment, rarely stepping out of his front door. His neighbors don’t even know his first name.
And now he thinks to himself, “Who am I to make these stories? Who am I, who has lived so little, to create a character who has lived so much? What cruel irony, that as I conjure tales of the most noble, most cherished, most admired, I myself am among the most wretched and pitiful.”
Having then brushed his teeth, he heads to bed, knowing that more of the same lies in wait tomorrow.
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