Chapter1 – What? Where? Who?
The wind whipped through the rigging of the vessel, howling like some enormous creature in pain. There was a splintering crunch that could be felt as well as heard and the ship visibly lurched inwards. Its keel had been broken, and it was sinking fast. Some of the crew escaped over the side, but were drowned by the merciless tide. The central mast was falling straight towards the stern of the ship, and a young girl, not more than 17 looked over her shoulder in horror. She saw the mast falling towards her like a stone, and her eyes widened like those of a rabbit caught in headlights. Something inside her gave the storm behind the mast a face, a face grinning evilly at her with carnivorous rage. She stood stock still, transfixed and unable to move. The mast missed her by bare centimetres and awoke her from the nightmares racing through her mind. She stared out to sea, saw and felt the dark waves tossing the little ship about like a plaything. She saw yet another wave, it's claw-like crest almost as high as the second mast, sweep it's way towards the ship with ominous rapidity; and she screamed as the wave swept over the side onto the deck and dragged the wrecked little ship into the murky depths. The girl tried to escape the grasp of the ocean, but her foot was caught in the rigging of the doomed vessel. Desperately she cried out as she went under, but in vain, for her voice was all but drowned out by the thunder. She swallowed a lungful of the raging tide and panicked further, arms and legs flailing in an uncoordinated striving for life. In her last moments she prayed a silent plea of help to any God or Goddess that could hear her. Frantically she tried to free herself from her bonds, but to no avail, and she was pulled into oblivion along with the rest of the crew. She saw the waves crashing overhead one last time, and then blacked out.
Gentle waves swept up the sandy beach and receded with a dull swoosh. They lapped at the feet of a small figure lying, unconscious in the sand. Slowly the figure opened her hazel eyes and, albeit shakily, sat up, blinking a few times as she got used to the bright sun. Rocking unsteadily back and forth she held her hand to her forehead and breathed deeply, trying to rid herself of the dizziness and her thumping headache. She smoothed her mahogany hair, meandering its way down her back to beyond her hips, and she wrapped a few beautiful strands around her fingers while she gained her bearings. Slowly the figure stood up, and took her first, unsteady steps up the beach. She reached the shade of the trees with a sigh of relief and collapsed under the source of shelter. The sun was at its zenith and even in the shade, it seemed to be sapping what little strength she had left.
She sat there, utterly motionless for perhaps half an hour staring out to sea with vacant eyes; seeing, but not taking anything in, watching the hypnotic motion of the tide. So complete was her state of shock that her brain was unable to process any of her senses, acting merely on autopilot. Where am I? She struggled to wonder, as she surveyed what some seemingly distant part of her mind told her was a peaceful scene. Her memories were fragmented, scrambled, and far beyond her mind's comprehension in its current state. The one memory that bored its path strongly through her mind was of her suffocation under millions of tonnes of water. But...wait...I... died on that day. I...had been caught in the rigging, how could I have survived? She asked herself, knowing full well that she couldn't make out the answer. The lack of knowledge made some animal part of her brain panic. Instinctively she checked herself for wounds, and found none. But the panic worsened instead of subsiding. She had suffocated to death, but hadn't died. She had lost virtually all of her memory, and the fragmented pictures in her mind made no sense. Her head was pounding, and alongside that was a strange sensation that only made her panic further; as if there were two minds crammed into a space designed to accommodate only one. Tears began to stream down her cheeks, but her whirling mind ignored them and they sluiced down unchallenged. Also unknown to her was that she was shaking violently. She fell to one side, clutching her knees to her chest and muttering incoherently, tears refusing to be quelled, and whimpers refusing to be silenced. The numbing pain that seemed intent on crushing her skull was getting stronger and stronger the more she panicked, the more she rejected the feeling of the dual presence. She screamed in agony, over and over again, the pain and fear striking through her tortured mind like daggers. Paradoxically they helped force her to focus. Her head forgot its muddle for a moment as it tasked itself with heeding the nerves screaming at it to stop the aching. Somehow she managed to focus and as if by memory, took several slow deep breaths. It calmed her, if only a little, and the pain receded in equal measure.
Her brain dully realised that it would have to share its domain with another, perhaps even co-operate with the intruder, and begrudgingly lessened its rejection of the new presence. The pain receded further, becoming little more than a low buzzing around her hypothalamus, and she was filled with an eerie tranquillity, as if something or someone had collected all the fragmented thoughts and fears and anxiety and removed them from her. Her memory was still a fraction of what it should be, and hardly in a fit state for recollection, but she was alive. That to her at the moment was the only thing that mattered. There was only one other memory besides the tide that burned through clearly, her name and it's meaning, Kira Shiratori. Deep down Kira knew that it described some special family prophecy, but didn't know why the name had been given to her. It meant 'Maiden of Radiance'. Remembering this, she recalled something else. That was the name for someone... someone very important to not only her but also to a lot of other people. But who bore such an odd alias? She didn't know.
For the first time since she awoke Kira looked at herself. She was about 5' 8", slim, but with an hourglass body and legs that were long and slender, obviously built to run. She continued to look over her body, blushing at how generously busted she was, and was surprised to find that there was no trace of injury after the hurricane. She was even more surprised to find a black symbol on each of her upper arms. Kira didn't know what it was or what it meant, maybe some kind of birthmark, or perhaps something more sinister. It looked remarkably like a wing but with an inverted mirror image to the left. There were other symbols behind the image, a circle with writing of a kind unknown to her, maybe runes of some sort.
She looked around briefly and spotted a small pool of water in the bowl of the tree, she was going to take a drink, when she noticed her reflection. Her eyes were not quite normal, the brown pupils almost imperceptibly oval in shape and she started violently. She tentatively looked again at her reflection but found to her surprise that the minute difference in her eyes fitted in nicely with the shape of her jaw and the way her hair framed her face, and she began to calm down. She cupped her hands together and took a gulp of the water. Despite the heat it was still cool and refreshing. Her stomach made its presence known to her with a discomforting rumble, and she guessed that it had been days since she had eaten. Wearily she got up from her spot in the shade and, spotting a little-trodden path through the trees, she set off. After much searching Kira found a large, and decidedly prickly bush. It bristled with angry red thorns over an inch long, and Kira was half tempted to leave it be; but her stomach growled in protest and she relented.
Kira had just finished picking an armful of the berries, and was carrying them back to the beach so that she could watch the evening tide, when she realised that the berries may well not be safe to eat. She frowned to herself for a moment, chiding herself for not thinking of this beforehand and then laughed. The thorns had hacked at her mercilessly as she had groped for the fruit, and the berries must be well worth protecting if the plant spent so much effort on its defences. "Well, I guess there's only one way to find out…" She lifted one small red orb to her lips and, hesitating for a moment, bit into it. The berry released a flood of juices onto her tongue. The taste was delicious, sweet, but with a complimenting sharp undertone. Kira smiled at her discovery; she knew the plant would be facing a return visit. She was torn from her meal by an almost imperceptible sound off to her left. She stopped and listened intently, and after hearing nothing more, shrugged and carried on back to the beach, eating berries all the way. She didn't realise how far she had travelled to find her meal, and the sun was well into it's nightly decent as she neared a clearing. Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw a movement, a shadow flitting by alongside her; hidden in the trees but following, tracking. A twig cracked loudly somewhere off to her right. She whipped round, eyes fearfully probing the murky darkness, but saw nothing. Still she quickened her pace and soon left the clearing far behind. The sun was by now low in the sky and she realised, not without a certain amount of worry that she had no-where to stay. She looked round for a hollow tree or crop of rocks to shelter in but saw none.
Kira turned back to face where she was going and came face to face with a horrific, scale-covered creature. It resembled a black snake, but it was far larger than any other living thing she could recall ever seeing, perhaps 15 ft long from head to tail, with larger, grey, armour-like scales covering its weaker, exposed torso segments. It towered over her, and she dropped her berries with fright, cursing when she realised. It had four arms and a long, muscular tail, each limb obviously fast as well as strong, and each ending in a horrifically serrated meter-long blade. It roared ferociously, displaying a mouth ringed with dagger-like teeth, and Kira could feel the ground trembling along with her. She screamed with terror and feebly endeavoured to protect herself with her arms. The serpent advanced on her and she backed away, shaking with fear. As it came on she tried to back away once more but found that she could not move. She was cornered, that... thing in front, and a giant cliff behind! The monster gave what she supposed was a smile of satisfaction, and she could see the confidence in the beast's four crimson eyes. They both knew that it had won, that she was cold meat; ready to be carved at any time it wished. The Draken hauled its muscular bulk effortlessly towards her, raising its uppermost limbs to attack.
Kira begged it to stop, but it slashed at her regardless. She tried desperately to avoid the blades, nimbly jumping to the right of one, ducking under another, barely sidestepping a third swipe that tore at the air where she should have been, but by terrified instinct, wasn't. She screamed for help, but none came, and the Draken added its own voice to the racket, claiming Kira's body for itself. It raised its hideous head into the air and bellowed. Kira saw an opportunity for escape and ducked under the serpent's arms and fled. The Draken heard her footsteps and lashed around, giving a roar and setting off in pursuit though the trees, the crashing of snapping timber making Kira run all the quicker. The sound was getting closer and closer, and she couldn't run any faster! She was almost tripping over her feet in her haste, darting around trees, over logs, under branches, until eventually she was greeted by a sheer wall of rock. No..... I've run in a circle! She gave a frustrated sob, looking up in dismay when she heard the monster break through the trees at the edge of the clearing. Trembling with fear she backed away, back scraping on almost the exact same crop of rocks as before.
The Draken resumed its attack, carving down towards her. Kira managed to dodge one, and then another by bending backwards, trying to balance whilst avoiding the blade. The scimitar edge skimmed over her head so close that she felt the wind of its passing. Instinctively, she drew back sharply and overbalanced. With a scream of surprise and fear she fell. The Draken was in mid slash with another arm as Kira fell, the blade's tip catching her arm and then gashing on, ricocheting off of the rock with a sharp, metallic wang! Kira gave a shriek of pain, collapsing to her knees and clutching at her injured arm. She tried to stem the flow of blood with her hand, but some escaped between her fingers and ran down her arm in little trickles, like the tears flowing in streams from her eyes. The Draken smelled blood and came in for the kill, opening and closing its salivating jaws in anticipation.
Kira didn't know what happened next. She saw the blood on her hand, her blood, and a kind of blind fury took hold of her. She glared intensely at the creature. She stood up, hands by her sides, staring at the ground. The wind whipped around her body, the ground splintered into a crater beneath her feet, and a swirling vortex of blinding light blazed about her. The beast tried to slash at her once more, but the wind kept it back, and the blade sparked off of the barrier of light, which seemed impossibly solid. Her hair turned a purple-black, flying about in the air around her. The markings on her arms began to glow a bright gold, and the circle in the background of the marking span and then appeared on the ground around her feet, slowing almost to a stop. The rune-like symbols on the circle abruptly exploded into black flame and burned high into the air, spiralling slowly higher and higher, counter-clockwise to the circular marking on the ground. The wing marking appeared in a brilliant gold on her forehead. She looked up slowly and her pupils narrowed into hard slits, becoming an amethyst shade of purple. The light and flame slowly receded back into the ground, leaving the figure standing where Kira had once been.
The Draken hadn't stopped its frenzied attack on her throughout her transformation, and now it continued, raising its dagger-like limb once more, its muscle rippling as it strained to put more strength into the blow. It slashed again at the being, for it was obviously no longer Kira, but the new figure simply lifted its arms, hands open as if to catch a ball. The blade swung down in a vicious arc, but the being grabbed the blade between her open palms and held it fast. The dagger came to an abrupt stop perilously close to her eye. The Draken's arm shuddered with effort as it tried to force the blade to carry on downward, but the being just tightened her grip slightly. Slowly she let go of the limb with one hand, the other still, and with masterfully hidden effort, holding the blade. The free hand struck the serrated limb on its flat side, seemingly gaining little momentum in the short distance of its travel, and contacted with a dull clink. Nevertheless the blade bent, buckled, and then snapped. A shard flew off and sliced the being's cheek, but she didn't flinch. Instead she threw the bio-metallic shard far into the sky and, leaping into the air after the fragment, kicked it back towards the Draken, the projectile invisible with its sheer velocity. The fragment slammed into the Draken like a meteor, shattering one of its armour segments, and throwing it into the ground. It crawled numbly from the undergrowth along the ditch its flying body had created and supported itself on its lower limbs.
The splinter was impaled deep into the serpent's flesh and the beast roared in unconcealable agony as it struggled to move into a defensive posture with its one free blade. But the being was not finished. Falling slowly back to earth and somersaulting gracefully through the air, she landed gently, facing away from the beast, blood from it's broken limb and torso staining the ground maroon. She held out her hands, palms skyward, and slowly they began to glow, a smoky purple light surrounding them. She ran at the cliff face, moving fast enough to be all but a blur to the Draken's fading eyes. She ran straight up the earthen wall and, as gravity finally began to slow her down, she twisted over onto her front, tucked in her legs and then kicked off from the cliff-face, throwing herself down towards her injured foe. A flash of black and purple flame swirled and spiralled around her diving body, and streaked after her as her energy ignited the air flowing in her wake. With arms swept back in an arrowhead shape, the being struck the beast full on the injured torso segment with her shoulder and arm, and landed perfectly balanced, arms still outstretched behind her, crouching on one knee. The serpent split into two halves, but with none of the sounds that one might expect; the tearing of flesh, the rending and crunching of bone and armour, and perhaps even more surprisingly no more blood, the wounds cauterised by the after-flame; just two halves of the foe lying on the ground. The entity slowly rose, glancing briefly at the fallen Draken, and then at the rapidly descending sun, before walking off into the darkening undergrowth.
And thats it for chapter 1, i may write and upload aprologue too but yeah, hope you all like it and i would appreciate.. hell, i CRAAAAVE feedback so please leave critique, especially advice and suggestions, as i am always looking to improve my writing. :d thanks again. All characters and Phantoms Within are (C) to me! - no stealies!