well, as I told you, I'm writing a story; in fact, I plan on starting a book. This is all I've written, so enjoy; but please don't steal any ideas from it. my brother and I worked hard to come up with this story and most of it is still in our heads.
Chapter 1
Farewell
“uhn…” muttered a boy without moving his lips. “Where am I? I can’t move…everything is numb. All I see is darkness…” Suddenly, the darkness melted into another scene…a disturbing scene depicting war. He felt his presence disappear, as if he was only watching, but not really there.
There lay a boy, seeming at the age of nineteen, blood-stained sword through heart. The atmosphere was filled with the metallic smell of blood and the stench of atrophy, war casualties were piled on the floor, and a fog of lamentation filled the minds of the surviving veterans. Another look at the dead boy showed that the sword he was slain with was marked with the insignia of the vampires. It couldn’t be understood; all through the war vampires had fought by their side but now the boy lay in blood-soaked dirt as heavy rain fell, mixing with the blood like tears mixing with wind. A man wept over the boy, refusing to absorb the fact that he was dead. He turned to another man, he was half-dead, wincing in pain as he held a gash, bleeding freely from his midsection.
“Why didn’t you help him! WHY?!?” the first man yelled, pure hate mixed with a twisted sense of dementia filled each word…like snakes strangling a single rat.
“I tried, I honestly did,” the second man replied weakly. He grimaced and fell to his knees.
The first man boiled with anger. Letting out a sharp cry, he lashed out with a gauntleted hand...
The scene ended abruptly—before the blow connected—as a boy woke in a feverish sweat. Sweat ran down his blood-red hair and dripped onto his face. He reached over with a hand it felt his back. It was soaked as well. It was still dark outside, silence accompanying the stillness of night. His felt his eyelids still heavy, and sleep swept over him, although he tried hard to stay awake to avoid another dream.
This dream took place in a palace and was just as vivid as the last one.
The same man for the previous dream paced a lavished hallway, with a small boy running at his feet. It looked as if he had not eaten in weeks. His pacing was slow and weak and sharp shadows were cast under his pronounced cheek bones. Another man came in, with a sharp nose and shrewd eyes. “Your Majesty,” he said as he bowed deeply. “Your sons must be fed; they are young and need—”
The king cut him off with a sweep of his hand. “I have no sons other than the one at my feet, and I assure you that he is fed more than adequately.”
“But—”
The sharp-nosed man was cut-off again and was assisted out the door…
His second dream was interrupted by the noise of song birds. He was awake now; his body kept telling him to go back to bed, but the symphony of the morning birds said otherwise. He tried to block out the noise but finally gave, slowly crawling out of his makeshift cot. The cot wobbled violently and tipped off balance, sending the boy tumbling to the floor face-first. He pushed himself up slowly and sat. Those dreams had been some of many in a recent string of disturbingly vivid dreams...weird dreams. I feeling hit him, struck him at the bottom his spine and worked its way to spark at his neck. “What if they’re memories,” he thought. “No, I’m an orphan and always will be. No one cares and no one knows that I exist.” He took a deep breath, held it, then exhaled.
“Not another dream,” he muttered, his voice rasped. “Sometimes I wish I was dead. It’s no use being alone… a seventeen-year-old who makes candles…what a great life. Yeah…”
Dragg ran a finger through a deep scar in his left shoulder... He had attempted to hack himself to pieces when he was younger, and nearly succeeded, but his foster-father—“Vrinn” had stopped him before he had cut if off completely. “I never thought being a Hytarian in Hytaria would be so tough,” he thought as he remembered all the teasing he endured as a child.
Just as he was about to drown himself with memories, his cat jumped on his head without warning. “Buttermilk! Bad cat!!! Go outside and catch yourself a bird or something!” Buttermilk meowed quietly. “Maybe I should’ve considered a dog.” He sighed but then continued speaking to his cat. “Yes, I know about that, but I can’t hunt for my own food. I’m only a kid…” The cat meowed complainingly. “Hey! You can’t speak to me that way!” He lifted the cat of his head and forced it out of his extinct-volcano-home. “Shoo, go! I have to go see if I actually have prunes or dried something-or-other in the pantry.” The cat hurried off, chasing after a bird. “Sometimes I think you get to eat more food than I do!” he yelled as Buttermilk hurried off. Suddenly, he became rigid and his face became flushed. “Did I just talk to my cat?! I need to get a life…” He frowned. “I really have to learn to stop talking to myself, too.”
He sat outside by the river washing his face. As he splashed water on his face he muttered, “Might as well be invisible or dead...” He dried his face with his shirt, then continued speaking. “I mean, what kind of name is Dragg? I go set up my little stall where I sell my handmade candles, then my customers ask, ‘so, what’s yer name, sonny? Are ya from this ‘ere planet, ‘cause ye sure ain’t no Earth-boy. You’ve got some fine un’naturale colored peepers der.’ What do they expect, they aren’t on Earth! This is Hytaria! And my coloration is perfectly natural; it would be natural even if I was an ‘earth-boy.’ Come to think of it, five-sixths of this planet has been won by Earth during conquests, so I can’t really expect so much of them…”
The boy walked back to his makeshift home in a volcano. He emerged again with his laundry and began washing it in the river. “What use is it…?” He paused while washing his trousers. “What am I doing talking to myself again, and this time it’s while I’m washing my pants! Last time I did this, I was cooking, the other time I was melting wax, and the time before that, I was feeding my cat!!! What is wrong with me?!”
Afterwards, he began skipping stones. He couldn’t find any food and he refused to go anywhere near the market on a busy day. He threw a rock into the river in frustration. It sank right on the spot it had dropped. He got to his feet and went back inside his unconventional home. He had decided to leave; fed-up and frustrated with kind of treatment he had been given all his life.
He took two large swords from the corner next to his bed. The blades were covered in a thick canvas-like cloth and bound with leather cords. Dragg untied the cords, revealing the beautifully crafted blades of the claymores. He lifted one sword with difficultly, and swung it wildly. It made a clean cut though a terracotta bowl—a clean, precise cut. He put it down, allowing his arms to relax. He bound the claymores again and began packing. He only brought one extra pair of clothes for light travel and his claymores for protection. He began to run outside, but he stopped at his doorstep, remembering that he didn’t have any food rations. He started to turn back, but then decided that he could probably get a bit of food when he said “goodbye” to Vrinn.
The two swords were already killing his back...and where he was going, he really should not take rides from strangers. You see, Vrinn was a pyromancer, so he was a fugitive on the run from the authorities—magic-user cops if you will. So, he had to walk a long a brutal walk all the way to Vrinn’s house. Actually, it was just a brutal walk. Vrinn’s house was only one mile away, but Dragg had nearly collapsed from his swords’ weight by the time he had reached the doorstep of Vrinn’s small hut. He knocked weakly. An aged voice responded, “Who is it?”
“Just open up, Vrinn,” he said weakly.
“Huh?” the voice called back. “Vrinn isn’t here, just Robert Vrintris Robishin.”
“Vrinn!” he whined. “I’m not the cops or anything, just open up!”
“Well, then go ahead and come in.”
Dragg laughed nervously. “I need some help.” He collapsed on the doorstep with a thud.
“Oh, don’t tell me that you forgot how to walk again,” Vrinn replied sarcastically.
Vrinn opened his door and hurriedly untied the leather straps that held the swords to Dragg’s back. Dragg felt the extra weight slide off and sighed in relief. He got to his feet and shoved his claymores off to the side.
“Going somewhere?” Vrinn asked.
“Yeah,” Dragg replied. “And I was wondering if I could, uh, have some food to take along the way...” He put his arms behind his head and faked a smile.
Vrinn let out small laugh; laughing any harder would’ve caused the old man to cough. “Alright, but I’m warning you. It’s different once you step over the PL.”
“Huh?”
“Would you like some cookies?”
“The last time I ate some of your cookies, I choked on a steel nut. I don’t thing you know what you’re doing.”
“I was just joking about the cookies; just follow and don’t lag behind.”
Vrinn motioned for Dragg to follow him. Dragg walked behind the old man, confused. He nodded his head absently, faking that he was paying attention. Vrinn walked down a winding staircase leading underground. “How cliché. I thought Vrinn would have maybe some sort of hole to jump down or something original at the very least,” Dragg thought. The walls were lined with blue fire. Dragg carelessly ran his fingers through the flames. His chain of thought continued. “I don’t understand why he doesn’t run out of oxygen down here.” He continued to fiddle with the fires, believing he was immune to their heat, but in reality, the heat was not really there. “Maybe I could eat the fire…sorta looks like chicken.” He slapped himself. “Now I’m hallucinating that fire looks like chicken!”
They walked down the stairs for what seemed like hours; Dragg was about to faint. “How…come…an old man…can walk…down these stairs…and not…get tired?”
Vrinn took one look at Dragg’s face and laughed, actually it sounded more like a whistle, but it was definitely a laugh. “Sooo… someone hasn’t been getting their exercise?”
“I have!” Dragg countered desperately. He was not going to be put to shame by an old man. “I just don’t climb endless flights of stairs!”
“Only three more to go.”
“Three more flights?”
“No, three more steps.” Vrinn eased himself onto the lower level, but Dragg tripped and landed face-first. Embarrassing? Yes. Painful? Yes. Funny? Maybe.
“Where are we?” Dragg moaned. He pushed himself up and rubbed is nose.
“In the pantry.”
“This is your pantry?!”
“Yep.” Vrinn grabbed a burlap sack and filled it with anonymous rations of food while Dragg wandered aimlessly. He spotted a row of shelves filled with bottle of all sorts, and the decent had made him thirsty. He grabbed a bottle, popped it open, was about to put it to his lips, but Vrinn knocked it out of his hand. “Now, Dragg, we don’t want you getting tipsy before you leave, now do we?”
“Tipsy?”
“Drunk.”
“Drunk?”
Vrinn slapped the boy. “You keep to yourself so much that you’ve become stupid! You have half the brain of a seven-year-old!”
“Hey, what are you trying to say?!”
Very calmly and very slowly, Vrinn responded. “You…are…dense…”
“Now treat my like a little kid, huh?”
“Stop complaining.” The old man hit him in the chest with the burlap sack. “I still have to explain what the ‘PL’ is.”
“Well, what is it?”
“‘PL’ stands for ‘Peace-line.’ If you didn’t know, this planet has been at war for several years. You live in the peaceful area, untouched by war, but this area only stretches for a few miles. After that, it’s anarchy and chaos, you have to learn how to survive. You can’t be the softie that you are out there, that’d be suicide.”
“So you’re gonna train me how to fight, right? That whole gig.”
“No, I’m going to hope that you live. Now off with you.”
Dragg stood still for a moment. His mouth wanted to say something, but his mind locked it in place. Slightly shaken, he trudged his way up the steps, having come to reality with a thud. He had made the decision to leave, but deep down, he knew he could get killed…easily.
Chapter 2
Fog
A shard of hope was the only thing keeping Dragg sane in this fog of desolation. He was swimming in his own sea of fears and was drowning. He still held the burlap sack that Vrinn had given him as if it was his only salvation. Maybe it was. He noticed that the vegetation became less and less as he approached the location of the PL. By now there was a stench in the air. Some blood, some smoke, some rot, some drunks. He pressed his nose against the inside of his shirt to stop the burning even though it made him look ridiculous. The PL was not marked in any way, and for all he knew, he could’ve already passed it some time ago.
Vrinn’s words still resonated in his mind; even now, long after it had finished echoing through the stairwell. Something in those grim words pulled him inside himself. It was a weird feeling…when you realize the truth, you keep thinking about it and thinking about it until it drives you crazy and you just want to forget. He had no one to lean on but himself, and if he didn’t shape up, he was just another smear on the ground.
Already he was beginning to realize that he had already crossed the PL. Trees were replaced with walls made of solid concrete, browned by the blood of men. Signatures were scrawled in blood, people in this area thought it was an honor to slay a man, be it a traitor or demian soldier.
People were laughing, dancing, drinking, but they all looked like army rejects. Stubble covered their faces and rot had definitely done a number on their teeth; Dragg did not belong there. He stood out, attracting attention to himself. As he walked he turned heads and earned scowls from the natives. They knew he was an outsider. Children began to circle him, running around and teasing him; it was their tactic. Once Dragg was distracted enough, a child behind him grabbed his burlap sack and ran. The other children followed, spitting and mocking Dragg as their goodbye. The rough men around him hooted sarcastically, praising him for being such an easy target. He felt the wind rush, something had passed him while he was distracted. He ignored it until he heard fighting noises. The thing that had passed him was a boy, only a little older than the children that had stolen Dragg’s food. The boy wore a hood, obscuring his features. Hood-boy had taken the burlap sack by force and the children running away, crying.
He held it out to Dragg. “Is this yours?”
Dragg nodded. “Thanks, are you some kind of hero?”
“No, I was just making sure I wasn’t stealing from children.” He turned and went off.
Dragg hung his head. “Just my luck,” he whispered to himself, “just my luck. Next thing I know some sort of imaginary creature will come up and eat my nose.”
A silky voice came up from behind him—female. She was pretty, but not gorgeous, and her eyes were covered by shades. “You know, it’s all real.”
Dragg turned, startled by her voice. “What’s all real?”
“It’s all real. There are such things like monsters and…like diviners.”
“I know diviners exist.”
“Then you do not come from the peace-zone?”
“I do.”
She stared at him searchingly, but continued. She was becoming suspicious of him. “Such things as beasts you thought were myth. Spirits do exist; they can control elements. Necromancy exists, it is an art, though necromancers themselves are rare.”
Dragg wasn’t impressed. The woman could see that he wasn’t. “Vampires are real.”
That time, she hit a nerve in Dragg’s brain. Maybe they weren’t just in his dreams. According to her, they were real.
“It looks as if I’ve hit a sensitive chord,” she smirked. “What’s the matter? Afraid of getting bit?” Silence. “Hmmm.” She began to circle him. “Why are you even here?”
More silence. “Hmph! If I can’t get you to talk, then I’ll just get back to my job” Deathly silence. She scowled, cursed, then turned.
Dragg unsheathed one of his claymores and held it out to his front. “Give it back,” he demanded.
The woman sounded startled. “Give what back? I didn’t take anything.”
“I’m not stupid.”
“Oh, this,” she said innocently. She held out a chain, it was broken, but it was his.
“Yeah.”
“Why is it so important to you?”
“Give it back,” he repeated. “Give it back or I swear I will kill you.”
“Oh my, he’s threatening me.” She feigned fear.
“I’m serious.”
She laughed and drew a gun. She held it out and aimed for Dragg’s vitals. Already a crowd was gathering; one man even shouted, “Hey look, Shira’s pickin’ with an outsider!”
“Shira, is it?” Dragg asked, still ready with his sword. He didn’t know how to fight, but he tried to seem as dangerous as possible.
Shira lowered her shades, her eyes still closed. “Yes.”
“Then I’ll remember your name, when you’re dead.”
Shira moved in closer, taking cocky steps toward Dragg, her gun still raised. He didn’t move. Shira began to open her eyes. “Do you remember how I told you that it was real? That it was all real?” Dragg did not reply. “My mother was a gorgon you know. Thank goodness my hair is more ‘tame’ than hers. I can still turn ordinary men into stone.” Her eyes were halfway open and Dragg could not turn back. He was already mesmerized; his own eyes watching hers slowly open. It was like a trance…like a spell…like a curse. A gust of wind passed through the area and a sudden, stronger rush followed it. Something had collided with the half-breed gorgon. A man had smashed into her from the left side with such force that it broke her hold on Dragg. Dragg backed away, if someone could fight his fight for him, he wasn’t going to complain.
The dust cleared and he got a clear shot of the man. He was young, only seeming a few years older than Dragg, but he was different…he had purple hair and wielded a scythe. Purple. A scythe. His savior was a purple-haired reaper, but that didn’t matter, the fight was starting.
“Hands off, harlot,” purple-reaper spat.
“Look,” a crowd member yelled, “the trash-talkin’ is startin’!”
“Look who’s talking!” countered Shira. Her eyes were closed again and she replaced her shades.
“How weak; a man can’t be a harlot.”
“Oh, you’re a man, I couldn’t tell. Oh, and yes they can. And why do you call me ‘harlot?’”
“You are, aren’t you?”
“I am, but how would you know? I’m wearing normal clothing and not at all looking like one.” Shira seemed cocky. Her mouth said it all; her eyes must have been ‘smiling’ as well, but thankfully, they were hidden under her dark glasses.
Purple-reaper’s voice was still calm and steady, but he was beginning to twitch. “I have my ways.”
“My, my, aren’t you the tramp,” she smiled.
“Enough dirty talk,” he muttered. “Lemme bash your face into something hard so we can get this over with.”
She raised the gun and lowered her shades. “I’d like to see you try.”
He didn’t wait for her to make the first move, he just struck out with that enormous weapon of his and aimed for her vitals. Stupid. She blocked with her gun…what was that thing made of?! Shira laughed; a laugh more like a witch’s cackle than anything else. She began opening her eyes; already you could see a bit of the iris. He clenched his teeth and let his reflexes take over, striking with his hand and slashing her eyes. She gripped tightly to that part of her face as she writhed in pain. Purple-reaper had managed to make a shallow laceration across both eyes. There was just enough time for him to finish her off, but he didn’t. He just waited until she recovered. That idiot. When the half-gorgon’s deafening screams died down, Shira raised her bloodied right hand and pulled the trigger on her gun. The shot would’ve have been deadly to anyone else, but purple-reaper had move just enough to let the bullet pass him. He was too fast to be human.
Shira opened her eyes quickly and without hesitation. Although clouded and bloodied, they were still capable of petrifying men. Their gaze made statues out of the western audience and caused many to run in fear, but purple-reaper remained steadfast.
“You’re not petrified,” Shira panted. “May I ask what you are and what your name is?”
“I am as human as you are, I can tell you that much,” he replied. “As for my name…call me Sliphus.”
“Well Sliphus, mind if I ask what you other half is?”
“None of your concern, now shut up unless you want me to shove this scythe all the way up—”
Shira interrupted. “Talk is chea—” Sliphus collided with Shira before she could finish her sentence. He jammed the scythe into her gut, slid upwards, and sliced off her left hand. Shira grabbed her wrist as the blackish blood throbbed from her wrist with every heartbeat, staining the ground with its color and filling the surrounding air with an extremely strong metallic smell. She fell to her knees as the blood from the stub puddle on the floor. Sliphus’ grip on his scythe loosened until the enormous weapon slid out of his hands. He just stared, and stood still. Was it what he had done? No. Dragg could see it in his eyes. Sliphus had killed many men in his past, giving his eyes a hardened, cold quality; but something had sparked. Sliphus was transfixed on the blood; its image pooling in his eyes. Shira looked up at his face. No movement. She smirked, stood, and raised her gun to eye level. She was at point blank, but Sliphus was still bound. She laughed and put her finger to the trigger.
Dragg took up his sword. Sliphus had saved Dragg’s life, so it was time to repay him. The claymore felt heavy in his hands and he knew that if he went through with this, he would never be able to regain the innocence before a kill. Still, he ran with all his remaining energy and thrust the sword through Shira’s body.She stood motionless until a final quiver ran through her body. Death.
Ready? 
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