GAMBIT

Pawns charges forth, Rooks bashes through the battlefield, and the Knights start to gallop. Quartz is left with a  terrorized expression by such paranormal occasion.

As a history enthusiast, he continues to glance at the lifeless siege. It reminds him of the wars and conflicts which once shook his motherland. Deep inside, his curiosity about the strange occurrence accumulated. Due to his curiosity, the young man flinches and hesitates to tell his father about this. He waits patiently for Alice to return, while imagining the lifeless siege as a war fought between Christians and Muslims, or perhaps in other terms, Crusades.

"What the?!" Quartz suddenly questions himself with a voice flowing like water oscillation. The transcendental Chess Set then hurdles his senses. The clashing of swords, the galloping of horses, and the screams of fear and war itself shrouds his ear. The sound of blood spilling through scars, and the abrupt noise of crumbling towers added a pinch of drama to the incomprehensible orchestra circulating throughout his ears.

The young man starts to feel nauseous and squeamish pain flowing through his vessels as the operetta of war and terror clashes forth upon his eardrums. Circumstances start to intensify as a blinding light burst upon his pupils. Quartz suddenly takes on a pale look, as if he'd been painted with white-wash and even his lips are barely there. Then with one step backward he puckers like a puppet suddenly released from their strings.

His body then falls unto the Chess Set, causing an abrupt interruption to the game. Every piece ceased to work, as if a ghost has proclaimed a checkmate over the other.

Silence and lull swathes Quartz's mind. His senses disperses into thin air like a fog evaporating from sight. Time somehow becomes different, for whatever seems fast now seems stagnant.

Silence continues to disseminate, and its duration prevailed unknown. His senses, however, commences with a brittle mood.

"Ouch..." Quartz's consciousness slaps his face resulting in an unbearable headache. His pupils twitches and his nostrils scents an odd aroma.

The young man found himself leaning across a wall in an unfamiliar and foul place. He tilts his head above, and sees the light seeping in through an arc-shaped window. He turns his head to the left and sees sturdy yet rustic iron bars.

Quartz takes a glance at his bare hands and sees heavy handcuffs attached to it. His body looks filthy, as if he was dragged on oozing mud and silt.

"Where am I?" The young man wonders with a jagged throat. His head feels somewhat nauseous yet it withers away from time to time. Quartz takes a peek on the outskirts of the room he is in. He sees identical ones, with bars as thick as his. That's when he realized he was somehow sent to a prison cell.

This prison cell, however, seems unrealistic and utopian. It looks like a prison from the early 14th or 15th century, the intervals of kings and queens. Quartz begins to panic for the last time he checked, he never did anything wrong nor did he ever intend to do something against his motherland's amendments.

He then peeks unto the window, and sees nothing but buzzing public noises, jagged brick roads, and an immense amount of footsteps. Quartz concludes that the prison is somewhat a sewer converted into a detainment area.

Quartz's mind couldn't resist the urge to throw out questions to his fellow inmates. The surroundings bewilders him for he isn't familiar with the era and period.

"What happened to humanity's proficient findings on modern technology?" He thought to himself.

"Did the wheels of time revolve backward, to an era when kings and queens roamed the land?" He adds unto his curious mind.

"Not from around here aren't ya? From which city or town do you belong to?" One of his inmates with a very long beard and prestigious eyes surveys him while leaning across the cell walls.

"I'm from Rome, and can you tell me where I am?" Quartz questions with a bewildered voice. Despite having handcuffs his hand clenches unto the iron bars, trying earnestly to escape.

"Rome? Where in the world is that? Quit it, you'll never escape this prison. No matter how much you spend your effort on that bloody bars, you'll never make it out alive, not to mention the king's brave knights."

"What do you mean by knights and kings? Where exactly am I?" Quartz questions with a fast-paced heart. His sanity intensifies, a sanity filled with nothing but unanswered questions.