A Legacy Rewritten
History Belongs to More Than Just the Victors: A creative writing rough draft.
Timothy set down his soot-covered shield and the bloodied sword against the stone wall. The clank of the steel echoed through the now-quiet courtroom. Without the threat of the sorcerer’s dragon, he could now refocus on his original quest. On the other side of the dead dragon was the door he’d been searching for. He knew that only the most precious of relics were guarded by a dragon.
He approached the ornate wooden door, pushed it open just a crack, and peeked in. A flickering soft glow filled the small room. Silence hung heavy, and shadows refused to stir. He slowly opened the door further. His eyes scanned the room, his heart beating faster with each silent second. Was he truly alone? He hoped so. His steps were calculated to minimize the sound. Each footfall felt like a betrayal of his own caution. Although nobody was in the room, he intended to keep it that way.
The source of the light was a melted candle, guttering on the edge of extinction. It sat on a lectern adorned with ornate carvings as numerous as the wax drippings on the candle. Next to the candle was a book, open as if it had recently been read.
A chill ran through him; the legends had whispered of this moment, but seeing the book here, just as foretold, made it real in a way his mind struggled to grasp.
Normal books don’t end halfway through the pages, but this one did. Normal books also don’t write themselves, but this one did. Normal books don’t make sense when you skip to the end, but this one did. This book defied everything he knew, and the weight of that defiance settled in his gut like a stone.
All he needed to do was read the last sentence to know that this was the most powerful book any man had ever seen. The last sentence read, “Timothy approached the lectern and pondered thoughtfully.”
He reached to turn back the page, and a new sentence appeared before his eyes, ink blooming across the parchment like a living thing. The previous page described his battle with the dragon of the keep. The page before that one told the story of his journey from a distant land. He continued backward through the book. His emotions swirled wildly—laughter bubbled up, tears stung his eyes, his stomach twisted with regret, and joy warmed his chest.
He read about his first love, his first kill, his first lie, his first friend, and his childhood. He read his mother’s name, etched in the opening line of the first page. His fingers trembled as he flipped to the final page, now mysteriously thicker with new chapters, his story still unfolding.
“This is it, my moment is finally here. Now what to do?” he thought.
He understood the gravity of what he was about to do. The long journey here had been filled with doubt and hope, but now the moment of decision gripped his mind like a vice. He was going to rewrite his history.
He grabbed the quill and dipped it into the ink. He flipped right back to the page that muddied his legacy.
His breath caught.
History is written by the victor, but today history was about to be written by the conquered.