Hi, this is a new story I am writing, it's not really got to do with anything I have ever read before although it's a bit like the Hunger Games a bit like How to train your dragon and something like Eragon. Hope you like it. Disclaimer: I do not own any of the books mentioned above but I don't know why I put this here since I never claimed I did and this story has almost nothing to do with them anyway.
I awake, from my short and dreamless sleep.
I'm alone, lying in my not-too-soft wooden bed. My long brown hair all over the pillow and my freckled face.
I'm in my bedroom by the stairs that lead down to the first floor of the small hut I live in. Listening for the door of my father's room to shut in the dark of the night. I hear him even now, downstairs carving a new weapon for the boy he is training.
Waiting so that I can sneak out, quiet as a mouse, to the backyard. Then climb over our stonewall and escape in to the forbidden-to-women woods just beyond.
Being female in our village is to no advantage, not for me anyways.
Some of the girls my age say you get to rest all day. Some older women say it's necessary. But I just find it plain boring. We do the same thing over and over again;
Wake up. Make breakfast. Gather fruit, vegetables and useful herbs. Make lunch. Do laundry. Make dinner. Got to bed.
Repeat.
I do these 365 days a year, 52 weeks a year, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.
I'm 14 now, and every single day it's been the exact same.
The only time you can ever have a break from the dull repetitive work, is if you're sick or on death's doorstep, but never else.
By being the only girl in my family, I have no one that can advise me, which can help me with the burden like the rest of the girls my age. Plus I have to do more work.
They're lucky. I wish my mother were still here.
Women in my village are also not allowed to be outside the village, which is why I wait or my father to go to sleep before I sneak out.
Only when going to the nearby fields and ponds to gather, that we can get out of the confines of the village.
The men say it's dangerous out there. The women say they prefer to stay in the "safe" village anyway, but I still go.
I finally hear the click of the lock on my father's bedroom door; I've learnt to recognize it over the years.
Excited, I throw off my covers and silently creep out of my room. I place some pillows on my bed and cover them with my blanket, just in case my father happens to come in.
On the way down the old, creaking stairs, I knock down a frame with a picture of my mother holding me as a baby. It reads: Alexa our first daughter. That's me.
This rather small frame makes quite a racket. I hold my breath, tensed, hoping nor my father nor my brother wake up to the noise.
Silence.
Carefully, so not to knock anything else over, like the similar frame with my brother, I bend down. Pick up the wooden frame and place it back on the shelf where it belongs. I then continue down the stairs.
I feel relief; no one woke up. I've been caught by my father before, having to make up stupid excuses that I don't think he believed. I don't want that to happen again.
It's dark in the small living room and kitchen but I'm used to it, seeing as I do this every night.
I grab a brush from the bathroom and pull it through my hair and then braid it down my back with quick nimble fingers. My long hair, now braided, isn't as messy as before.
Retrieving my leather shoes and my bag from the wardrobe, I quietly tiptoe to the back door, careful not to touch anything fragile that has potential to break or fall. I creep across the completely still house.
The starlight coming from the windows, casts long shadows in the rooms. This makes it look like a million strange animals are lurking in the confined space with me.
Once I'm outside, free from the house, I sprint over the grass to the far stonewall and expertly climb over.
On the other side of the wall I take off my indoor sandals and hide them in the bushes in case the guards come by on their patrol. I then pull on my leather boots and grab my weapon; a bow I had spent nearly a month carving and a quiver of arrows I had stolen from my father. He never noticed they went missing, probably thought he had used them or something.
I'm not going hunting. More like exploring, because if I brought back fresh meat in the middle of the night, my father would be suspicious, very suspicious. Plus, if he did not believe my lame excuse I would get into severe trouble for slipping out and into even more trouble if they knew it was custom for me.
As I set off on the trail leading deeper into the night woods, I remember the first time I had walked down this very same path. It was the day before my birthday.
I was nine.
In our village, the day you turn ten, you become a 'woman'. You help out in the kitchen and in the house so that by the time you turn 12 you are experienced and independent at the job. Before that you go to school.
On top of that I also remember my best friends from school, and how they used to think they could become smiths and doctors while I wanted to see the island.
The only difference between us now is that my dreams came true.
I was scared that last night of me being the innocent little nine-year-old girl. The last night of me being free. I couldn't sleep, so I toke a walk in the forest.
It was only a short walk on the trail I am on now, but it was there and then, when I saw the woods up close for the very first time, that I realised; I didn't want to be an ordinary house girl.
I didn't want to be someone's maid.
I wanted to be something more, something unique.
I wanted to be different.
And from that moment onwards, I have been going to the woods. Every. Single. Night. Each time I'm discovering something new.
After a few of my earliest trips, I had realised I needed something to defend my self with; I needed a weapon.
The dark woods were filled with all sorts of things and creatures. Edible and dangerous. Poisonous and harmless.
For the six months or so that followed I just hid outside my backyard wall carving a weapon. It had to be decent enough to protect me from the creatures lurking in the trees. I had to hide whenever the guards came around to stay unnoticed.
At first I didn't succeed, obviously.
It takes great skill and practise to carve a suitable weapon. Plus it's for a girl, a child really, that stereotypically has less strength which means the bow must be adjusted
All my bows were crooked and snapped too easily or splintered my fingers.
My arrows never flew straight and never in the direction I wanted them to.
I tried again and again with no success.
I had seen my father's weapons up close and men using them but never how the weapons were made.
So I took a day off from the kitchen work, saying I wasn't well, and went to visit the weapon master of our village. I watched all day how he made the weapons for the men and that same night I went out to make my own which I now have with me as I wander the woods in this late hour of the night.
I've never had to use the bow before but that doesn't mean I can't.
I had practised for hours on end to hit even a still target. And it was even harder with the smaller moving targets later on.
I have been to this part of the forest so many times I know the trail like the back of my own hand. I know where every single boulder lies and which twig might trip me. I know which branches hang low and what type of tree each one of them is.
I know the forest better than our kitchen, I realise.
There are two reasons why I risk my safety and probably my life after every sundown.
One of is to see what no other girl nor woman in our village has ever seen or experienced before. Things they have only heard stories about from the men; life beyond the village territory.
But the main reason that I come here is that I believe dragons exist.
The elders in our village often tell the youngest of children, who do not yet work in the kitchen and are still in school. They tell stories about the fascinating fire breathing creatures that once lived on this island.
They never talk about why and how the dragons disappeared though.
Our village library has thousands of books on these winged reptiles but even those don't say what happened to them.
I spend all of my free time either in the forest or away form the kitchen in the quiet, book filled rooms. Just sitting there, gazing at the pictures and descriptions of these majestic animals, searching for the answer to my question: where did they go?
I know they exist. Maybe live somewhere secret and are just hiding from us. Maybe on the faraway mainland, maybe on a close by island, or maybe even in the woods I visit every night.
That's what keeps me motivated to risk being severely punished for slipping out at night.
Knowing it might be true. And hope is the strongest of all feelings, even stronger than fear.
Just as the trees of the dense forest conceal me, I see on of the regular guard walking around the perimeter of the village. Alert for danger or any other trespassers like always.
The night-to-night guards have never caught me before, not yet anyway. Hopefully never.
I climb the old, tall, sturdy oak by a spring, just a few feet way form the edge of the woods. Even form outside you can see it standing taller than the rest of the greenwood. It's ancient bark rough under my hand as I climb it. Branches spreading out on all sides. Footholds just perfect for my feet and found every few inches making it easy to climb.
From there, I jump from tree to tree, never touching the ground. Flying between branches with amazing accuracy I have acquired.
I must look like a bird from below and a big one too.
I'm also pretty light and have a petite figure so I don't snap the branches I land on. I'm fast too and since I've had over four years of practise my stamina isn't bad either.
I get as far as the river, which leads to the lake close to our village by leaping across from tree branch to tree branch.
I then have to jump down from the intertwined branches of the trees as they have grown to close together for me to travel by.
From here I know my way even in the gloomiest of nights.
The towering trees block out most the moonlight making the woods seem even more inky than they are at night.
I have never been here during the day but I believe this part of the forest stays under lit through out the day as well.
I break into a run, heading for the clearing I discovered a few months back, and speedily reach the rock fall that block the entrance to my secret hideout.
The rocks around me shine silver in the bright moonlight, glowing like cat's eyes or new coins.
I then push away the big boulder that hides the small passageway between the rocks leading to the clearing. It's not very heavy despite it's size.
It's a tight squeeze, between the rocks, with sharp pointy bits sticking out on every side. The crack in the boulders is not very long either and if you crawl, you might just get away unscathed.
When I'm through the secret passage, I climb down the rocky ledge. Slipping where the moist green moss has grown over the years and eventually reaching the grassy clearing further down below.
The meadow is surrounded by water on three sides, the fourth being the boulders I climbed down.
A fallen tree I use as a makeshift bridge lies over the shallow stream, which runs in a half circle around the solid land. A strip of land lies by the huge cliffs on the other side.
The rippling water, constantly moving and gurgling, reflects the moonbeams and starlight like a thousand little pearls on the tall cliffs surrounding the grassland.
The moss-covered rocks by the river seem to be covered in sparkly glitter while the smooth pebbles glisten beneath the river's wavy surface.
Suddenly, I hear a high-pitched, pain filled cry.
It's coming from one of the caves high up in the immense cliffs.
This cry does not belong to a human. It doesn't belong to any animal I know either. It's different somehow.
The cry belongs to a dragon.
Hope you enjoyed the story. Next chapter coming up soon. Please review, alert and favourite to keep me motivated!