"It's starting to get chilly, maybe I should have dressed more ..."

Eizo Gigli, a young man about to turn twenty, said to himself during a solitary excursion to a wood in the Alps, on an August morning.

He was dressed in ocher yellow shorts and a midnight blue gym jacket, with tall dark brown boots on his feet, thinking it wouldn't be so cold.

He had come to Italy from the USA with his parents for the funeral of his paternal grandfather and to meet his grandmother whom he had not seen for many years.

Eizo was in fact half American, on his mother's side, and half Italian, on his father's side. He was average tall, had curly black hair, dark brown eyes, and long eyebrows; in his life he has always played sports, inheriting his father's passion for football, and for this reason he had a sporty and agile physique.

If you're wondering why his parents gave him a Japanese name, well, both his father and mother have always been passionate about Japanese culture, and it was on one of their trips to Japan that they decided to have a child.

His grandparents' house was located in a remote valley in Trentino Alto-Adige.

Eizo loved his grandfather, and his funeral would be in a few hours, so, Eizo had decided to take a walk in a wood near his grandparents' house to lighten his mind a little and say goodbye to his grandfather for the last time. With his grandfather, Eizo had explored practically all the woods nearby.

As he walked, he observed with surprise how much that wood and path, which he often explored as a child with his grandfather, had changed.

The vegetation of the undergrowth had made it almost completely impassable, brambles and bushes of wild berries had almost entirely "devoured" it, however, when he reached the point he wanted to see, he was fascinated as the first time.

The path in fact, at one point, came to skirt a stream that descended from a high waterfall.

The sunlight passing through the pine needles created breathtaking reflections, and most importantly, the air there was absolutely the freshest, cleanest air that man could breathe.

Eizo stayed there for a while, remembering the first time his grandfather showed him that place, remembering his happiness, and the smile on his grandfather's face.

Tears of a mixture of joy, sadness, and nostalgia rolled down his face.

He pulled out his phone and took a picture of the place.

'It's already 10!' He thought looking forward. The funeral ceremony would begin at 11, he had to hurry back.

He started to resume the previous path, then stopped for a second, and turned to see the waterfall again.

"Goodbye ... Grandfather ...".

On the way back home, he remained silent, and his thoughts also remained silent.

*Fuh

A sound similar to the lighting of a torch came from his left, Eizo turned suddenly and was shocked by what he saw.

'It's flying?!' He rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't having a vision or dreaming.

'A purple flame ... flying ?!'

In front of him, there was a purple flame that floated at the height of his knees, shortly after other flames appeared behind it.

Eizo reluctantly approached the flame closest to him, and when he was about two feet from it, it disappeared.

*Fih

He then approached the other flame, behind the one that had just disappeared, it disappeared in turn.

Eizo understood that the flames wanted to take him somewhere, so he followed them.

'I don't know why ... but I feel I have to follow them ...'

The flames continued to appear and disappear in the undergrowth, these flames did not seem to be able to "burn".

The undergrowth began to become sparse and arid, the only plants that survived there amidst the thick shade created by the pine crowns were mushrooms and a few wild berry brambles. Now you could also hear some small animals wandering through the soft ground of pine needles and moss.

The flames carried him up to a cave carved into the rock. Eizo immediately understood that this cave was not wholly natural, there were in fact, inside it, stone columns that seemed to support it. In addition, the walls of the cave, which had a circular shape, seemed carved to make them smoother.

"My grandfather never told me there was such a cave in this area ..."

The flames invited Eizo to enter it.

A parallelepiped of rock rose from the ground, with a crystal ball above it.

Eizo's mind was confused, and at the same time intrigued by what was going on.

He approached the sphere to get a better look at it. The sphere was dyed with various colors, which mingled with each other, now showing well-defined images.

"It looks like a forest ... yet ... it's all so ... gray ..."

What he saw was a sad forest, as if someone had taken away its colors, lifeless.

*Seventh…*

A voice reverberated in Eizo's mind, a voice without tonality.

* Touch the sphere ... *

What Eizo heard were "empty" words, without "warmth", but which nevertheless mesmerized Eizo.

Eizo reached out to the sphere, and, with his right hand, touched it.

[DARK DARK

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

and then LIGHT again but in a dark world.]

'Where am I ... it's dark ...'

After touching the sphere, the world in front of me darkened, and I lost the ability to use my senses, I no longer felt anything. Throughout this process, however, I never lost consciousness, which made my experience quite traumatic.

After a while I was finally able to open my eyes again, or rather, I regained my senses.

I was always in that cave and in front of me there was still that strange crystal ball, now tinted with dull black.

The sphere caught my attention and, like a moment ago, it seemed to me that I was being controlled by a mysterious force. I reached out my right hand and dipped it into that sphere, I noticed that there was something in there, so I grabbed it and pulled it out.

'What the f+ck?!' In my hand I now had a sword sheathed in a dark brown leather sheath, which, towards the height of the guard, had a kind of belt, also in dark brown leather.

My eyes were wide open, 'a sword ?!' Part of me was thinking 'That's cool' while another was wondering how I got a sword out of a sphere.

I turned my attention back to the crystal ball for a moment, it was now transparent.

In the throes of the confusion of the moment, I decided to draw the sword anyway.

I was enchanted by its beauty and the "power" that emanated just from looking at it.

I was not a sword expert, however, at first glance, it seemed medieval in style with some fantasy notes and very sharp. The blade was just over 10 centimeters wide, tapering towards the tip, and completely black. Centrally, the blade was dull, while near the edges and tip it was shiny. In total, the sword will be a little over one meter long by counting blade, tang, guard, grip, and pommel.

The ricasso was also black and shiny, but, however, not smooth, it was grainy on the surface. The guard was the most beautiful part in my opinion, in the center, on both sides, there were represented dragon heads, while the two arms of the guard represented dragon wings, also almost completely black, with, however, in the parts where the wings were thinner, dark purple reflections. The guard then gave space to a light brown leather handle, bound on the sides with black threads, which seemed to be formed by small scales. On one side of the handle, there was also a symbol: a heptagon, which seemed to be marked on it.

The pommel was, instead … It took a while to count all the faces

"An icosahedron?" I was surprised that I remembered what this geometric figure was called, and maybe even a little proud of myself.

I was stuck for a while looking at the sword, it surprised me how I could hold it so easily and without tiring my arm; I thought about what had happened, my head was spinning but it didn't hurt, I was just extremely confused.

I put the sword inside its scabbard and tied the belt around my pelvis.

I took my phone out of my pocket to check the time, it was already 10:40. "S+it! I must hurry!"

As I checked the time, another thing left me puzzled, I didn't even take a notch.

'Well, after all, I am in a cave in the middle of a forest in the mountains, it is not as rare as a thing ...'

Then I turned around and "plunged" into the forest again.

'Mmh ... there is something wrong ... but what ...'

I stopped in the middle of the pine trunks, I looked around, and a lump rose in my throat.

'Where am I?!'

I noticed that I was no longer where I was before, the pines were mostly bare of needles, many had reddish needles and looked sick. There were neither brambles nor mushrooms attached to the foot of the conifers.

It looked like a dying forest.

I also noticed how much colder, almost wintry air was, and how much it gave a gray and gloomy aspect to the surrounding environment.

I remained motionless for a while with fear.

*Fuh

I recognized the sound instantly and turned towards it.

A grayish flame levitated to my left.

*Fuh Fuh Fuh…

Other flames from the round base appeared behind the first, creating a path as happened a short time ago.

As before, I followed them, but this time I did not feel "controlled" by them, but I was without any other possibilities, after all, I was in a place unknown to me.

They took me in front of a mound of earth and rock, covered with moss and grass, which emerged unnaturally from the ground, and with the side facing me flat. I noticed that in the flat part of the mound, the one in front of me, there was a wooden door. This door had hinges set in the stone of the "hill", it looked old and dilapidated, and made from a single block of wood; looking closer, I noticed that it was also carved with some symbols at the four corners, now, however, indecipherable due to wear caused by time and probably by rains.

'Looks like some kind of underground house !?' I wondered, confused and a little intrigued.

The flames seemed to invite me to open that door.

I went near the door, reached out and grabbed the knob, also made of wood, and stopped for a moment.

'Is it really a good idea?' I thought a little scared.

However, I felt I had no choice, so I plucked up my courage, turned the knob, and opened the door.

The door opened into what looked like an antique shop, a few meters high and rectangular in plan, which made me a little restless, after all, from the outside, one would have said that the room inside would be low, small, and circular. After everything that had happened that day, I didn't even try to explain what was going on anymore.

Inside there you could see very little, there was only one source of illumination: a round window that gave outwards placed high in the wall to my right; little by little, however, I got used to the low light and therefore decided to take a closer look at the shop. Like the door, the shop also looked very old, the wooden shelves, on which various wooden objects and toys rested, were moldy; some of these shelves were also sold, causing all the objects they supported to fall to the ground.

Sheltered to the wall to my left were old wardrobes and tables where termites had wed.

Leaning against the wall to my right were instead myriad mirrors, some with highly decorated but now moldy wooden frames, and others with simple metal frames. All those mirrors had something in common, however, they were all broken, and parts of the actual mirror missing.

After studying the environment in which I was, I decided to continue along the corridor of the store that led to the counter.

The counter was totally in light wood, darkened due to humidity in some places, and as for the rest of the shop, it seemed left there to its fate without any maintenance, it seemed that the table on which one usually buys and sells things was about to give up at any moment.

There was no one behind the counter, just two more shelves to my right with a few empty cruets resting on them.

'It looks like an abandoned shop... why did the flames bring me here? '

I was undecided whether to leave, after all, there didn't seem to be anything useful in there.

I decided to take a last look around me, noticed there was a cobweb in one of the corners of the shop, sharpened my eyes, and saw, hidden in the dark, probably the largest spider I had ever seen, black with gray spots, hairy, and with hundreds of red eyes.

"Nononono ... I'm leaving!" I raised my voice, frightened, hopping backward.

I decided to leave, after all, my biggest fear was spiders, and that wasn't just a spider, it was a beast.

I turned around and got ready to get out of that bad place.

* Where are you going? * I heard a voice in my head, different from what I heard before, it seemed feminine.

I turned around in fear.

'First the spider ... now this!' My heart started beating irregularly.

"Where are you looking at?" This time the voice was not only in my head, someone was talking to me, in the direction of the exit from the store, so, I turned again towards the exit.

A little old woman dressed in a long purple and dark red hooded dress, which covered her almost entirely, leaving only her face and hands visible, which showed the inevitable signs of age. Her hands were wrinkled and with black nails, a face full of wrinkles, and a nose that resembled a half moon, her eyes, however, oozed with wisdom and intelligence.

In all of this, what left me most speechless was the fact that the old woman was flying, or at least not touching the ground.

"Y-you are flying ?!" I said in a trembling voice.

"Hihihi, welcome to this world, Seventh Hero!" She said she, her voice was harsh and vibrant, but it emanated something epic.

At that moment my mind was already full of questions, and these just kept increasing.

'Seventh hero? What is… she talking about?! '

"You're probably confusing me with someone else ..." I said in a low voice.

"My eyes never lied to me boy! You come from another world and so, you MUST be the seventh! " She said solemnly.

"But I…" I looked down, 'Coming from another world… so I traveled to another world ?! However absurd, this would explain many of the absurdities that have happened to me ... '

"There is a legend ..." The old woman started, "it tells of heroes from another world, brought here from this very land, brought here to fight the evil that raging in these lands, the five plagues, and lastly, the Lord of plagues… " She paused, I looked up, he had regained my full attention.

"In order to face the Lord, one must first kill the five Plagues that control the five extended, and increasingly in extension, territories ... these must be killed in a certain order and they must all be killed within 5 years of the death of the first, otherwise, the other dead Plagues will be reborn…" She cleared her throat and drank some water magically created by herself.

"So far, 6 heroes have tried to bring the light back to this world, however, all 6 have failed, the first, Kear, defeated the first plague but died from the poison of the second… the second, Fenir, defeated the first and second plague, but was killed by an errant… the third, Mary, managed to defeat four of the five plagues, dying at the hands of the fifth, the fourth… Dar, died at the hands of the first plague… the fifth, Samuel, defeated the first plague, but died from the errant born from Fenir's body, the sixth, Gobert, killed the first three plagues and Fenir's errant, but was killed by Mary's errant ... " old woman coughed, and then resumed speaking, "You seventh ... what will your fate be !? I'm really curious… "She said smiling and showing the old and few yellow and black teeth she still had.

"I ... I'm not a hero!" I raised my voice, "Besides, why am I here? Soon there is my grandfather's funeral... send me back to my world! " I let all my emotions come out.

"Hihihi ... what an unoriginal reaction ..." the old woman said with a crazy smile on her face, both irritating and scaring me not a little, "You have no choice, you are the seventh hero of this world, and until you kill the Lord of the Plagues ... this will be your world! "

I looked down again, I wanted to complain, but, what would have changed?

"I, I can't be a hero, I have nothing special…" I raised my voice, then took a breath trying to calm down, "Probably ... you're wrong about me ..."

"Hihihi ... what humility…" She said wryly, "Khihihihi ... well, whether you want it or not, you ARE the seventh hero of this world, put your soul in peace. "

I did not want to accept this, however, I realized that I could not make her change her mind in any way.

'Me, a hero?' I thought ... 'the idea of being some kind of hero, like those of the Latin epic stories, is not so bad ... however, risking my life ... here we are not talking about a video game or something like that ... this is real life... ' I began nervously ticking the pommel of my sword with my fingers.

{TO BE CONTINUED ...}