Sceptre

Five figures stumbled about in the darkness, laughing and yelling and overall making a nuisance of themselves. Two girls and three guys, all making their way through a deserted park late at night, enjoying the cool evening air and the affects of the alcohol in their systems. It was an innocent affair, a social venture, and nothing at all was their untoward about it. Not until they found the sceptre.

Millie was walking slowly forward, concentrating on the bright screen of the phone in her hand, when all of a sudden her foot kicked something hard in the dark. She felt something tumble away from her boot, and she looked down, using her phone as a flashlight to discover a long, light gold instrument lying in the grass at her feet. She bent down to pick it up, and as soon as she touched the cool metal surface, a small bolt of energy jumped from the metal straight into her hand. Millie jumped backwards in shock.
“Hey Manny!” she called, and one of the guys turned to look at her. “Manny, I found something, come look!”
Manny wandered over, and bent down to examine the artefact. It looked like some sort of wand, with a black crystal as the centrepiece and a long gold handle making up the bulk of the item. Without warning, or as it seemed to Millie, Manny reached down and scooped up the sceptre.
“Did it shock you?” Millie asked.
“Shock me? No, did it shock you?”
“Yeah,” she said, “must have been some static in it or something.” By this time the others had wandered over and they all started examining the sceptre, too.
“It looks all ancient and fancy,” said Nicole, admiring the delicate patterns carved into the long handle of the thing. She took it from Manny, and waved it about for a moment.
“What are you doing?” laughed Lucan, then snatched it from her, and pointed it at her face.
“Avada Kedavra!” he yelled, and everyone besides Nicole laughed.
“Don’t try to kill me!” she cried shrilly at him.
“Here, give me a turn!” said Luke, who grabbed the sceptre and pointed it at a tree.
“Wingadrium Leviosa!” he cried. Then, as a slight breeze picked up and ruffled the leaves of the tree, he bemusedly yelled, “Look, it’s working!”

“Give me that back, I found it first,” said Millie, who leaned over and ripped it from Luke’s grip. All at once the black crystal flashed a bright blue colour, and a bolt of white lightning tore from the sceptre and cracked straight into the ground, and with a whoosh! flames appeared where the bolt had struck.

With screams and cries, the five of them leapt back, and Millie dropped the sceptre in shock. She turned to her friends, sharing a horrified look with them.
“Holy crap, what just happened!?” she yelled.
All at once everyone was yelling over everyone else, and nothing could be understood. Then they all turned back to watch as the fire died away and the black night took over once more.
“Millie, pick it up again! Try something else!” said Nicole.
“Are you nuts?” said Lucan, “she might bring a tree down on us! I say leave it alone!”
“What IS that thing?” said Manny.
“I think it’s a kind of sceptre,” said Luke, bending down to look at it, but not touching it. The five of them were all very excited, and all trying not to seem nearly as excited as they were. Millie reached for it once more, and no-one stopped her. Instead they all gave her looks of reverence, and a couple of them took a few steps back.

“How do you control it?” Manny asked. Millie shrugged, pointed at the tree, and with a crack and a flash, the whole thing was alight.
“Holy hell!” yelled Millie amongst the others cries of shock. “I think my mind controls it!”

The tree began to blaze earnestly, the orange light growing brighter, and flaring, and taking over the dark night. It was a huge beacon, like a torch in a dark cave. The five of them slowly backed away, and in seconds they were running from the park, out onto the street, and away from the devastation so suddenly created. They stopped eventually near the end of the road, and came to rest on a footpath in front of an empty lot.

“You should get rid of that,” said Lucan as soon as he had caught their breath.
“I think Lucan’s right-” Manny started to say when Millie interrupted.
“Are you kidding? This thing is cool!” she said. And all of a sudden a huge bolt of white blue arced across the street and smashed into a car. The car exploded, and everyone was thrown backward as shards of glass, twisted metal and debris shot through the air at them. A loud roar accompanied the explosion, and suddenly lights were turning on all through the neighbourhood and people were running out into the street. The five of them slowly got up, assessing their injuries and rubbing their ears. Both Manny and Lucan couldn’t hear a thing, the roar of the explosion had temporarily deafened them.

Millie suddenly bolted, the sceptre clutched tightly in her hand, and the other four quickly tore after her down the road as more and more people came out onto the street in pyjamas with shocked and curious expressions. The street slowly become more crowded and difficult to venture through as people clustered together, all craning to see what had happened. Millie pushed past more and more people until she suddenly found herself stuck in a tight knot of them that she couldn’t get through. She started to panic, scared because of what she had done, and that she couldn’t find a way to escape. She spun, looking for the others, bumping into people around her, trying to fight the current of bodies slowly dragging her back to the scene. The sceptre grew hot in her hand as she fought against the panic, and all of a sudden the crystal glowed again, bright white blue.

A huge explosion tore open the night as a gigantic lightning bolt tore apart the sky and rent through the crowd of people, ripping apart the street, and leaving a huge crater behind. Nothing remained of the sceptre, nor the people in the street or the houses around them. The black night invaded once more.