“= words said, ‘= thoughts

Chapter 1-The Start of it All

Red.

Heat.

Pain.

All the sensory details around the boy were excruciating for his young mind. The overstimulation around him was chaotic, screams filled the air as the heat was slowly finding its way towards him. The boy’s thoughts were a mess.

“Father!!!!! Mother!!!!!”

The boy yelled and yelled from the inside of his room as the smoke was creeping its way under the wooden door. The stone floor turning black as the ash lay on it. Just then the wooden door burst open. A man stumbled out of the hallway and into the room. The man was dressed fully in chainmail armor and a sword by his side, blood falling from his head and his eyes bloodshot.

“Young mast- “He said before he fell into a coughing fit. Once it subsided, he looked towards the door and ran up to shut it, keeping the fire at bay as it continued to eat away at the castle. The man then looked at the boy who got up from the corner of the stone room. The boy looked relieved that the man was here. “Sir Jameson, what are you doing here? Where are my parents” said the boy as his heart started to sink as he started to make up absurd scenarios in his head. The man kept on looking at the boy, the boy was only 14 and inexperienced to the world outside. “Young master, we need to leave. Come with me.” He said as he stared at the boy with his hand out. They were still far apart, Jameson waiting by the door and the boy at the opposite side of the room where the heat was mild, but the smoke plentiful. The room had two windows but no balcony, the room was also too high up to jump and the boy knew the door was his only escape.

“Now! We don’t have time” Jameson said, slowly growing impatient “We have to go see your father before this side of the castle is turned to ash!”

‘My Father? What about mother?’ the boy thought to himself but didn’t sound his concerns. Hearing his father was waiting for him was enough for him to go with the man. The boy ran toward the door, as he got near the man the man spoke again. “It is hot, extremely hot. The fire has already consumed the ceiling of the hallway. When we get out of the room, we will have to keep our heads low, do you understand?” the man said. In response the boy nodded trying to keep his lungs rid of smoke as much as possible.

The man opened the door as quickly as he could, he then sprinted out of the room making sure the boy was behind him. The boy followed keeping his head low, it was hard to keep up but the boy was trying as hard as he could.

“I must see them; I must see my parents. Father, Mother please be alright.’ The boy thought as he kept on running. The heat was unbearable, fire was tickling the back of the boy’s neck and his back. He could already feel the skin in those places start to burn. Burning turned into scorching, and scorching turned into nothing. He couldn’t feel the wounds on his back anymore. This wasn’t even the worst part; the boy could barely breathe. Every breathe he took was 30% oxygen and 70% smoke.

‘Shit, the boy might die of smoke inhalation before we get there!’ the man thought while cursing under his breathe. He turned around and picked up the boy, He didn’t say why, trying not to let the oxygen in his lungs be used for such useless things.

The real reason was so the boy wouldn’t use his muscles that were so greedily taking the oxygen. As the two made their way pasts doors and other opening in the hallway, it seemed like it was never ending.

Eventually, approximately 25 seconds of running later, they found themselves in a hallway that was rid of the fire. Water stains were seen on the stone wall and people were carrying baskets of water from one place to another. The seeing of other people was a godsend as it meant that they had some sort of security for their lives, at least now the most dangerous thing there were the other people and not the fierce behavior of nature.

After taking a few seconds to breathe the more oxygenated air, the man stood up. “We have to go; your father is still waiting and its unknown how long he can be waiting.” The boy also stood up, more slowly than the man, “what do you mean, what has happened, what caused the fire? The screams I heard earlier were cut short, it didn’t sound like a fire killed them, what happened!” The boy said while starting to scream at the end of his sentence. “You will get all your questions answered by your father when you see him. Now we don’t have much time lets go.” The man said as he started to jog forward, wanting to get away from the people around them, worried that they might recognize the boy and himself. The boy followed, still hanging onto the hope of seeing his father and hopefully his mother. They ran and ran, they eventually got to the part of the castle that was near the big gate separating the castle and the city outside. When Jameson brought him through the door to the outside wall of the castle, he saw many men dressed in knight’s armor. They seemed to be fighting people dressed in red armor.

The castle was surrounded by a wall that separated it from the city, the gate that separated it seemed to have been broken through by an opposing force. “Jameson are we being invaded?!” The boy said, dumbstruck that this had happened to his family’s city. His family was strong, how could someone get this far into the city, especially the gate surrounding the castle in the middle. “Your observations are correct, from the looks of it we are keeping the force at bay but only because the walls are high, and the gate is too narrow for their soldiers to make their way in effectively.” Jameson said while taking in the sight of it all. “Id never have thought Id see the day this would happen, and so soon.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

At the vanguard of the soldiers protecting the castle there was a man. Everywhere he went on the makeshift battlefield screams would be heard and blood would flow. Every slash of his great sword was colored in a gold light. Scenes like this were rare on a battlefield, but they did happen. There were other people like the man using strange colors that caused destruction in their wake. This power was overbearing on the normal soldiers. Each side had a few but the man with the golden light seemed like the strongest of the users.

“Charge!!” the man with the golden light said. After that the soldiers rushed towards the opposing force. The opposing force was overwhelmed but held on, only being pushed back a few feet every 30 seconds. The man with the golden light left the front of the battle and went to the back. He turned his head towards the front of the castle and saw Jameson and the boy. He then ran towards them. In the battle he was reaching speeds impossible for a man to obtain but now that there was no golden light illuminating him, he ran over with a normal speed. When he got to the boy he knelt and embraced the boy. “My son are you alright. Are you hurt?” said the man who turned out to be the boy’s father. The boy accepted his father’s embrace and replied, “I’m alright father I’m just confused, what is happening where is mother?” The boy said relieved that his father wasn’t dead and seemed to be doing alright, they were actually pushing away the invaders.

After the boy said this though, his fathers smile was wiped from his face. A great sadness washed over his face and tears started to well up in his eyes. This was only for a slight moment as his sad face was replaced with a resolute look. “Son, your mother is not with us anymore, when the invaders made their way through the city your mother was out of the castle and visiting some friends. They got to her.” After this the boys face fell and he started to cry, his weeps could not be heard over the clashing of steel, but the pain and grief of war could be felt in his expression.

“Son, stop crying” the man said in a stern voice. “Your mother may have been killed but there is nothing we can do now. Just feel joy that she has found peace in nurturing you. Everything she has done was for you. And if she knew you would be safe, she would gladly embrace death.”

“Okay father.” Though the tears kept on falling, the weeping ended. The boy knew the time to mourn was not now for they were in the middle of an event that would change their lives forever. The memories of his nice and caring mother kept on resurfacing, but the boy kept on pushing them down.

Just then though a light shined through the soldiers, the light was a mix between red and blue. The light seemed to be similar to the power his father was using before. The light made it way through the soldiers, normal soldiers that did not possess such light were mercilessly slain under the sword of two people that were bathed in red and blue light respectively. Both men wore similar armor having the same crest as the soldiers that were invading. When it came to the special few that had the power and were protecting the castle, they lived longer than the normal people but not much longer. Each soldier in the father’s force was cut down, they were either cut in half with light or stabbed and slain by the opposing normal soldiers, until there was no one left. At the end it was a good number of invaders left, including the two men. The two men then took of their helmets, they had similar brown hair but the one on the right was around 6’3ft tall and the left one was around 6’5.

“If it isn’t Raven Odysseus, the lion” The man on the right said, laughing as he put emphasis on “lion”. The man seemed to have distaste for the boy’s father, Raven.

Raven turned back towards his son and looked at him one last time, he then looked at Jameson and pulled out a scroll. “Use this only when all goes to shit, help my son please.” Raven whispered “Take care of yourself also, don’t come back to this damned country” after Raven said this, he handed Jameson the scroll and turned around. He walked towards the two men.

“Adam why have you done this, what has my family ever done to yours to deserve this?” Raven said with his hands spread out in a questioning manner. The man, Adam, stopped laughing and looked at Raven. “You are right Raven; your family has done nothing to our family” he said while gesturing to his twin on his right “but it is what you did not do for the king that has you in this situation”.

After Adam said this Raven looked dumbstruck. “You were ordered to kill, enslave, and invade my land all because I disagreed with the king on a matter of another country? Adam, don’t you see that this is blasphemy. What’s the point of an advisor if I can’t disagree with the king. Why are you following his orders?” This whole situation was beyond what Raven thought it was. Such a simple action resulted in extreme consequences. This was injustice.

“I’m doing it because they said I could have part of the land that we invade and take from you, don’t judge me for what every noble family does when another is backed into a corner. You knew that we are all predators and if we get the chance we will trample over the weak families. You should have joined one of the factions when you could.” At this Adam held his blood coated sword and yelled “Charge!!” At his command over 100 elite soldiers rushed towards the unprotected castle doors. All of them yelling and shouting their war cry’s. The situation had turned from horrible to worse and Raven knew the time for negotiations were over.

Once Raven saw the unstoppable charge he shouted, “JAMESON NOW!!” At his command Jameson unraveled the scroll and started to chant strange and unintelligible words. Raven unsheathed his sword and yelled himself, a golden aura spiraled around his body and his shout transformed into that of a beast. His body soon followed as it started to get bigger and more muscular, he grew from his original 6’4 height to 7’3.

Adam and his brother saw this and Adam said, “So you are going all out, trying to buy time?” Adam sent a group of the force to intercept Jameson and the boy. After he said this Jameson’s voice trembled a little when he heard this. He could not fight while chanting and he would not be able to fight off this force, let alone the two monsters at the front. Jameson sped up his chanting which was dangerous, but it was all he could do to save the boy and himself.

As the chanting started to slow down and Jameson got to the end of the scroll a light shown around the ground of Jameson and the boy then the light propelled up through the clouds of the sky and started to cover the man and the boy inside, but before they were transported away the boy’s father yelled to the boy right before he clashed with the enemies.

“Boy, you now have no first name, the only name you possess now is Odysseus. I will fall by the enemies’ sword, but you will prosper in my stead. Live your life with no regret and never kneel to anyone. FOR YOU ARE MY SON!!”

These were the last words Raven said to his son before the light took him far away. Once they were gone Raven looked at the givers of his impending doom and said to himself with a smile.

“I will be with you soon Caroline.”