Prologue: The Mysteries of Rolin

It took me several minutes to finish the big sheet of paper to sign him up for ''The Struggle'', a game with red and blue marbles, and blue plastic swords. There were many pages of information needed, and many bits of the information that were asked for made no difference in the games. I walked over the huge platform set up for The Struggle Tournament that was going to go on tomorrow, in the courtyard in front of the Memory Skyscraper Hotel. I went to the skinny man wearing a suit, with a large brown moustache. I handed him the paper and went to see who else was going to be in the tournament. There was Tyler, Anthony, Logan, Jacob, and the former winner of The Struggle Tournament, some kid named Eald'Narche.

Many people were expecting this to be a great fight, with many great swordsmen (at least with plastic blades) joining the Struggle. There are many tens of thousands of people living in the city of Rolin, and theres an invention being developed known as an ''automobile'' to make things easier. Its supposed to run on batteries and move very quickly. Many people told me 'Good luck tomorrow, Marcello. Hope you win.' as a sign of reassurance. Still, I couldn't get it off my mind, and I knew that as soon as I get back home, I'd have to train. I looked at my watch- it was 7:15 pm, and I had to get home for dinner and training. I walked for half an hour through the twisting alleyways and streets of Rolin. When I got home, I found that a plate of rice, beans, and chicken was almost finished.

I thanked my mom for the food, and waited for 3 minutes while it was finished. I ate quickly, impatiently, so I could get to my room and train against my punching bag. In 10 minutes, I was done and ran to my room. It was still almost 8:00, so I had four hours. Of course I wouldn't use those 4 hours for training, only one and a half. I knocked the bag back and forth, dodging its returning blows. By the time I was done, I was sweating all over, and I took a shower. It was 10:00 by the time I finished my shower, and I went to play some games. Then, I heard my doorbell ring, and I went to answer the door. It was Anthony, along with Jacob.

'Hey Marcello, want to come out and do what we were planning to do last week?' Jacob asked.

'What was that?' I wondered, having no clue of what we planned to do last week.

'We were going to go check out mysterious spots where people say they've seen strange things recently. There are three- one about strange black creatures showing up behind your house in the big circle park at the fountain, another about sounds of laughing and screaming under the abandoned house across from Memory Scyscraper, and a last one about a locked door in the basement of the Memory Skyscraper which nobody has managed to open, even scratch, with machine guns and chainsaws.' Anthony said, a tone of excitement in his voice.

'Oh, those mysteries! Sure, I just need to go get my jacket first, since its cold.' I said, finally remembering the mysteries we planned to investigate last week, before all 3 of us discovered we were having plans.

I went back to my room quickly, and my mom asked where I was going. I told her what it was as I was putting on my jacket, and quickly jogged outside the door. I followed the map I got from my room to the first mystery, the closest one, behind my house. I entered the huge park, spanning a half-mile, which featured loads of trees. It was originally a house area, but was destroyed in a fire, only to be made into a park. It had many routes through the park, and there were barely any people around as we walked through the path. At the center of the park was a gorgeous fountain. It was in the shape of a fireman, in honor of those who saved the lives of people during the fire. It spat out water into its bowl surrounding it, through one of those hoses firemen carry around.

'So, you say there have been black inky creatures showing up around here?' I asked, looking around.

'That's what I heard.' Anthony said, scratching his head.

I dipped my head in the water, and suddenly felt my head dip farther inside against my will. Instantly, I saw 2 glowing yellow lights deep in the water. I tried to get out, but something was stopping me. I couldn't move my arms, I just couldn't get out. At last, after a few moments, the eyes got closer, and I saw an oval head, totally black, looking at me from in the water. It had no mouth, only 2 lid-less glowing yellow eyes, and 2 zig-zagging tentacles on its bald head. Then, I felt the force on me end, and I threw myself out of the water, gasping for air. I fell down on the floor, and Jacob and Anthony were confused.

They pulled me up quickly, as I coughed and enjoyed the blessing of oxygen once again.

'Marcello, what happened? We were trying to talk to you, but your head was in the water. You stayed there for almost half a minute, and we thought you were going to drown soon. Turns out you did.' Anthony said, and shrugged.

'I saw it, I saw something.' I said, coughing. 'I saw a creature, with yellow eyes and a black oval head, no mouth.' I said. Then I remembered something. 'Hey, did any of you two hold me in there?' I asked.

'No, we wouldn't do that. Anyway, you say you saw something in there?' Jacob asked. He knew I would say yes, so he walked over to the fountain, and dipped his head in. After a few seconds, he removed his face from the water. 'I saw nothing. Nothing yellow glowing or anything.'

'Strange. Anyway, we'll just say the mystery is busted, since Marcello thinks something was holding him in the water. It proves his insanity.' Anthony said, chuckling.

I wondered, throughout the half-hour we walked out of the park and to the memory skyscraper, what had happened. I decided to try keeping it out of my mind and focused on what was happening now. Once we reached it, we asked the secretary in the lobby if we could be led to the basement, and see about the mystery. He warned me not to touch anything, and let us in there. It was dark, and was basically a large room with many cabinets. At the end, stood a large, tall white door. It had 2 handles, like old french house doors, only fancier, and golden. In the middle of them was a keyhole, like those on typical door handles, except as large as a basketball basket. A line ran vertically across the door, intersecting at the keyhole.

I walked up to it, in awe at the beauty and size of this door, as was Anthony and Jacob. Anthony pushed the handles back, but nothing happened. We stuck our hands a foot into the depths of the heyhole but found nothing. Jacob looked around and saw a small hammer at the corner of the basement. He ran to there and picked it up, dragging the huge thing to the door and then swinging it into the door. Even with all his strength, the hammer just bounced off the door, leaving nothing but a scratch.

'So, the rumors of the door existing are true then.' Jacob said, barely talking to himself. He looked towards us, and put the hammer down. 'Lets get going, this mystery cannot be solved, the door won't open.' Jacob said, and walked towards the stair leading to the corridor, which in turn, leads to the lobby.

Anthony followed, and I pondered what this was all about for a second. I took a few seconds to think about it, and when I looked up, the two were already up on the stair and had left the basement. I saw a loud click behind me, and turned around. It came from the door, and I walked to it, pulling the handles. The door easily opened, and after pulling it a few inches, I saw a bright white light emit from within. I opened it fully, and the light encompassed the whole room. Then, I felt a strong wind from within the room, incredibly strong. It pushed me onto the ground, and small things in the basement flew towards the far end of the room.

I quickly grabbed the side of a sofa, and then saw a small purple and yellow thing fly out of the door towards me. As far as little kids' drawings and the drawings of some religious people showed, this was a heart. I couldn't believe it, and I was too deep in thought to see it fly towards me. By the time I looked up, it was gone. Then, like a flood, hundreds of other hearts started to pour out of the door, until the whole room was filled with hearts, and then the wind stopped. I dropped to the ground and started moving through what felt like a pool of hearts. They felt like smoke, and once I touched a heart, it disappeared. Once I reached the door, I quickly shut it. I looked back, and saw every one of the hundreds of hearts in the room soar towards me.

I didn't know what was happening, and I didn't feel anything happen as the hearts flew towards me. All I saw was them disappear after they touched me, and it took about a minute for all the hearts to drain onto me. Afterwards, I suddenly felt energetic, like I've never felt before. I jumped up, and felt myself be propelled by perhaps over a foot more than usual, easily touching the ceiling. I felt my legs, as well as all the other limbs of my body be augmented, and felt like I could lift the whole Struggle Tournament Arena. Then, I remembered- where are Jacob and Anthony? I quickly began running as fast as I can, probably twice as much as normal, towards the stair.

Then, I heard footsteps, and both Anthony and Jacob were walking down the stairs. They looked around, and saw me. They frowned, and sighed, motioning for me to get to the stairs. I walked a few feet to the stair, and walked up to the white corridor.

'Marcello, what were you doing? I got all the way to the arena and waited for you and Anthony. He arrived, and said he thought you were coming. We waited, and then gave up. You were gone for like, five minutes. What were you doing' Jacob asked, leaning on the wall.

In the morning, I woke up, feeling less tired than last night, and got on my clothes. I ate breakfast and walked outside to meet Jacob and Anthony at the Struggle Tournament Arena. There, we met and started walking towards the abandoned building just a hundred yards away. Nobody is old enough now to know anything about the building. People have heard that it was once home to a murderer who was stopped in his own home by the great great grandfather of Eard'Narche.