Year 839 of the Fourth Era.

A blanket of orange encroached upon the woodlands while the sun steadily rose. The chilly morning breeze slowly warmed as the familiar light shown through the landscape, signaling the inhabitants to awake once more.

Within a small village, a young boy similarly awoke. He drowsily opened his eyes as he turned his head toward a window in his room. Sunlight pierced through small openings in the poorly crafted wooden window, however, that is just what the boy needed.

After moving his face away from the slightly blinding light, the boy stood up from his bed and walked toward a large bowl filled with water. He splashed his face a couple times before he turned around to look at the other side of the large room.

Father must already be in the field.

The boy looked away from his father's bed and proceeded to the door of his home. After he opened it, a familiar site appeared before his eyes. Several mud-built homes were lined up everywhere; the roofs of such houses were entirely made from straw and giant leaves woven around large branches. The huts themselves were, of course, not only built from mud but from a collection of materials that were hardened and used as a structure.

The boy saw other children walking out of their homes to enjoy the sunlight. Mothers carrying empty bowls proceeded to coach along their children, handing them their own bowls. All the women and children started to walk toward their only source of water: the river.

The boy looked behind him to find no one. His father was already out in the field and he had never even seen his mother before. Unfortunately, such a fate was no all that uncommon. The boy was familiar with other children whose mothers had died in childbirth; such a thing wasn't preventable with their primitiveness. However, there of course were mothers that had survived and lived on to give another one or two children. The fathers were the ones that usually worked all day long either in the field or hunting and gathering for food.

Despite the village's rigorous attempts to farm, most crops continued to die. Most of the villages food source was still hunting animals and gathering food from plants that grew in the wild. Many problems existed with their farms that they had yet to discover, unfortunately.

The boy walked back inside his home to grab his own bowl to fill with water by the river. Because he was alone he would have to do quite a few trips. His father was always busy so the boy had to take care of the house himself.

After he got his bowl, the boy started to walk toward the river. He heard a couple voices from his right as two other boys jogged over to him.

"Elkon, good morning!"

"Good morning Elkon."

The two boys greeted the young boy, Elkon, with their own bowls in hand.

"Good morning Sati and Luid." Elkon replied with a slight smile on his face.

"Ready to do the usual?" Sati said.

"Yea, but it's too early to do chores, isn't it?" Elkon stated.

"I agree, but father always wakes me up so early. Why can't we just sleep in once in a while?" Luid said while yawning.

"Because if we don't get water, we die!" Sati exclaimed.

"Yea but we won't die by not collecting water this early in the morning!" Luid replied.

"Luid, you're always looking to get out of chores. It's not like we have anything else to do, right"?

"Of course I have other things!"

"Like what?" Elkon asked as he rolled his eyes.

"Like playing warrior with my big bro!"

"But your brother is always out helping your father. You know you can't play with him anymore." Sati said.

"I know...I just wish he wasn't so tired all the time. I think he's sick." Luid said.

"There's no way he's sick. Your big brother used to have even more energy than Elkon!" Sati exclaimed.

"Right? Which is why I think he's sick...I want to do something for him but what can we do? We don't have a healer in our village..."

Luid looked down as he walked with the other two boys. Elkon stared at Luid as they leisurely walked down the path. He knew that Luid's mother had died because of an unknown illness, so he understood why Luid would occaisonally talk about becoming a healer.

Unfortunately, an eight-year old healer is practically impossible. Even an authentic healer may have no been able to do anything to cure such unknown illnesses. Most people weren't able to overcome illnesses and healers were very rare.

"Well, maybe you can become a healer one day." Elkon stated.

"Yea right. I barely want to do chores, what good would I be as a healer?" Luid replied.

"Don't say that. We need healers. I bet you'd do great at healing people."

Luid only faintly smiled as the trio arrived at the river.

The river itself was fairly big; it was approximately sixty feet across yet the deepest part would only go up to a grown man's waist. Fortunately for the village, the water within the river came straight from a mountain near them. Whenever it snowed during the winter, the river would rise but the village itself was far away enough to not be flooded. To the villagers, this river was a godsend.

Seeing a spot open, the trio walked over and filled up their bowls with water. Other villagers were busy chatting and gathering water. A few children walked into the shallowest parts of the river to play while the older kids, usually around eight to twelve years old, would help their mothers.

Elkon decided to relax a little before bringing the water back to his home. The other two boys stayed as well and watched the younger kids play in the river.

"We used to be that young once, huh?" Sati said.

"Yea, but now we have to gather water and stuff. Wish I could still play with them." Luid replied.

"Yea, those were fun ti-"

Before Sati could finish, the trio heard a loud scream from one of the mothers. They turned their heads to look over at her only to see one of her fingers pointed upstream.

Elkon moved his head and spotted it: a flash flood.

Why is there a flash flood?!

He immediately stood up holding his bowl of water and begun to move away from the river. Everyone else that was there did the same, however, many abandoned their bowls in order to pick up their children.

"The kids in the water!" Sati exclaimed.

Elkon looked toward the river and noticed there were a few kids still knee-deep inside it. He glanced to the left to see how quickly the water was moving downstream. After just one second, Elkon's only thought was to abandon the children still in the river.

He saw Sati instantly move forward yet Luid seemed to be planted to the ground. Elkon noticed Luid's frozen expression and understood it wasn't because Luid didn't want to save the children, it was because he was too scared to act. Sati on the other hand seemed to have no regard for his own life as he sprinted forward in order to help the children out of the river.

However, before Sati could even take his second step, Elkon grabbed Sati's arm and flung him backward. Of course, being only eight years old, the distance Sati was thrown wasn't far. Sati stumbled a few paces before falling on his butt. He incredulously stared at Elkon as he saw him do the same to Luid.

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"You idiots, they're already gone. Save yourselves instead of dying a useless death." Elkon stated.

Although it took long to describe, Elkon's decision and action only took two seconds. However, two seconds was quite long when facing a flash flood.

Sati and Luid both stared at Elkon in disbelief. They could feel a faint feeling of pressure coming from Elkon's gaze, causing them to subconsciously get up and run away. Elkon calmly but quickly walked in the same direction while he silently looked upstream.

The flash flood was only a couple seconds away. The roaring of water became louder and louder even though Elkon was now several feet away. Judging how much water was coming down, he was confident in his own judgement of the distance between him and edge of the water.

Despite Sati and Luid running away, there were obviously a couple others that went to try to save the kids in the river. The screams of the children were already being drowned out by the sound of the raging water. Even the shouts of the adults that were trying to save them could barely be heard.

Because of how far the children were in the river, there was basically no hope to save them. Elkon knew this by merely glancing at them. He also knew that others would try to save them regardless, that is one of the reasons why he decided to to get Sati and Luid to run away. The second reason is because he'd rather use his energy saving the two people he was close to rather than children he didn't know and that had no chance of surviving a random disaster such as this.

It wasn't difficult to theorize why a flash flood occured; maybe it was because it was near the end of winter and something had blocked all the snow from the mountain so it all came down at once when there was enough pressure. Regardless, it happened.

Only one second had passed and Elkon was another few feet away. He could now only faintly hear the others in the river. He decided not to look in their direction anymore, mostly because he already came to the conclusion that they were gone. Looking at them before they were swept away would only serve as an even worse experience.

Of course, Elkon's line of thinking was much simpler. He just didn't want to watch as people from his village were killed. He also knew that he had abandoned them, but for a good reason in his mind.

Now, only the sound of water entered Elkon's ears. Because of this, he could hear nothing else. What he didn't notice and what he didn't even consider was debris being carried in the flood. Maybe it was because he was too young to consider all the possibilities and dangers, and this was the cause of his own disaster.

As the water behind him swept through the river, Elkon understood that the people behind him were no longer in the same world. He continued to walk foward, yet to his surprise, the scene in front of his eyes instantly changed. He felt something swipe past his leg, flipping and flinging him a few feet into the air. The world in his eyes was only a swirl and he felt air ripping around his body.

He didn't know what hit him and he would probably never find out. He only knew that now, he was in the same situation as the people that were in the river. After only a second, he felt the deathly cold water engulf him. The force of the moving water propelled him foward and he could feel a few bones in his body cracking. The pain of the injuries was so intense that he almost blacked out. At the same time, water replaced the air that escaped his lungs.

Elkon could only see blackness. His bones hurt and his chest hurt. His head was pounding as he struggled to not take in any more water. Yet, despite his efforts, his weak childish body could not resist the pain any longer. Water entered his lungs before he felt a sudden pull come from beneath him.

Elkon's body was suddenly sucked downward within a current. A hole was at the bottom of the river, which water was flowing into. Luckily for Elkon, the force of him plunging into the water and flowing along a strong current forced him to the bottom of the river toward the hole.

Unknown to him, the same fate occurred to a couple others. However, Elkon's situation was maybe a little better than theirs.

Of course, Elkon had no idea what was happening because he was already unconscious. His body was flowing down the large tunnel until suddenly being thrown out into a small but deep pond. The tunnel connected to an underground cave, and the water the flowed into it created a pond that slowly flowed toward another location.

Inside the cave itself were large crystals placed in random locations. They gave off a powerful light that illuminated the entirety of the cave. Outside of the small pond was flat ground with an odd structure placed against the back wall. Next to the pond were three bodies strewn about.

A fourth appeared alongside large waves created by the influx of water through the hole. Due to the large waves, the body was flipped over the edge of the pond onto solid ground. This body wasn't a dead body, actually. A small flicker of life was left behind by the unconsciousness of its mind and, due to that small flicker, his body spasmed while water flowed out of his mouth.

Small pockets of air entered the body's lungs but were quickly forced out alongside water. Tears leaked out of the eyes as the body subconsciously clutched its head. After a few seconds of continuous forceful coughing, the body successfully obtained enough air to force out the remaining water. It continued to do so several times before signs of calmness started to show.

The body belonged to Elkon. Because he lost consciousness, his body was free to focus all of its energy on surviving. However, due to the lack of oxygen, the damage to his brain wasn't something to ignore. It took quite some time for his breathing to finally settle. Fortunately, the damage done to his mind wasn't too extreme. Otherwise, he would probably be considered brain dead.

Despite that, the damage done to his body was extensive. Almost all the bones in his body were either broken or shattered. It was safe to say that his moving body looked like a wet noodle. However, if one looked closely enough, they would be able to see that the light coming from the crystals were slowly moving through Elkon's skin. The process was incredibly slow, but the light was healing his physical body.

Unfortunately for the other bodies, although the light was doing the same for them, they were already considered brain dead. It is unknown whether the light could fully heal the brain. Since damage to the brain is directly linked to the mind, whether their minds returned after their brains were healed or not is something that remains to be seen. For Elkon, however, the chance of such a healing occurring is more likely.

It was in this way that Elkon silently slept. He slept for an unknown amount of time. The light was miraculous enough to provide the needed nutrients to his body. Yet the light did not have strengthing capabilities, only healing. Even if he was fully healed by the light, he would still have the same childish body that he had before.

Then, Elkon awoke.