I leapt at the dark and created a sword with the weapon spell. I took a big forceful swipe but I hit nothing. I dropped the blade but no clang was heard.
"Where am I?"I asked.
The dark suddenly filled itself with whispers. One of them whispered to my ear.
"In the world of the dark. Where the Darkness appears and hide. Have fun."It said then gave a chuckle
I sensed a prickle down my spine. It's gonna be bad.
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Pant pant. I kept running, not looking at anything behind. I knew its chasing me but it should have chased Wesley instead of me. Why was it looking for me. I fell down and a clinking sound came from the ground near me. It glittered in the dark and reminded me of something.
They were after the hourglass.
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"Hmm... It sure is weird how you both crossed-spells. It rarely happens."Tom said through the watch.
"So how do we get out?"I asked Tom "Darkness hasn't appeared lately."
"They must be searching for Rita. I'll open a gateway with the spell book I found earlier." He held up a book with the title 'gateway opening for dummies'.
"How come we can't use the watch?"I asked
"Darkness messed it up, I guess"Tom said.
"Uh-huh."I said
"Look out for an object which seems out of place."Tom said "It'll help."
I nodded my head
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I picked up the pace and tried to outrun them. They still tailed me but was a good distance behind me. I rolled and picked up the hourglass while stepping hard. I couldn't see well but I knew there was sand beneath me. A clicking sound made me look over the spot I'm standing. I got gripped by vertigo as I slipped and screamed.
Beneath my feet was a cliff with a steep drop.
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I fired a flame at the sky. The candlelight exploded in bright colours as the flame connected with it. I launched a bolt at the knight and it flew off its steed. I hooked on the horse and rode it across the land of dark.
'My life just had to be like this' I thought as I rode. I got quite a bit of distance before the horse crumbled into ashes.
"Interesting thing how it disappears right after I was getting comfortable" I whispered to myself.
A female scream scared me and I ran up to a pole. Or a coconut tree, to be exact.
"Ouch. This has to happen to me."I said as I rubbed my head against the bruise.
I walked on, lugging every step as I approached the scream. You don't know how elated I was when I saw Rita lying on the ground there. The thing is the Darkness was there too. Some of them turned at me and hovered/ran/crawled towards me. I triggered-happy these guys with all my spells as Rita came over towards me.
"You ok?"I asked Rita
"I've just been chased across a place where everything is dark, almost fell off a cliff and chased by black creatures which crawl, have no mouths and float. Yeah, I'm all right."She quipped
"I sense sarcasm."I asked with a smirk. She rolled her eyes.
"I'm pooped. I feel pains all over my body."I complained
"Tom said to find something uncommon. What's common in here in the first place?" Rita pointed out.
"I don't know. I..." A feeling of danger rushed up my spine, all prickly
"What's wrong?"Rita asked
"Something's wrong."I stood up
Robin stood there.
"Go find the gateway. I'll handle this."I said. She left.
"It's been long, Wes."Robin said with an alluring look
"Well, 5 months' time isn't really long. With school and all "I said with sarcasm. She chuckled and looked at me.
"Am I still your crush?"she said. I smiled and pretend to consider.
"Hmm. You really wanna know?"I asked, pretending to consider "Yeah, Still are."
She looked taken aback and I swore I heard stifling from her. She then broke into tears and I took a few steps forward. When I was within her arm length, she leapt at me and tried to slash me with her sharp daggers. Instinctively, I jumped back and used fire. She did miss me, but tore my shirt. The spell missed her by few inches. She slashed again and I dodged. I fired bolt but she dodged by bending back like what you see in the movies. She spun 360 and striked again. This time I ducked down and the blades missed my head. I rolled away from her and now we stood apart about 1 metre. She smirked and charged up to me. Her arm was slung back, ready to slash at me. I was lying back calculating what are the chances of me escaping with my life.
Then Payne parried her blow.
He slid in front of me with a broad sword and blocked Robin's on coming blow. He turned at me.
"Dude, you didn't see that tree?"He asked
"What tree..."I remembered the coconut tree
Trees can't live in the dark.
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The tree couldn't have lived for that long to grow that tall in here. That's what was weird.
"Now even gateways are puzzles."I mumbled ironically
An old man with a long beard stood there. Another teenager about the same age as Wesley took sight-seeing photos turned at me and shot a photo of me.
"Get in here."The old man said
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"It's now 2 against 1. Give up and stop wasting our time."Payne said.
We pushed the blades closer towards her but she parried it back to us. This struggle continued for awhile until my sword looked like it was going to break.
"We back off and bolt to the gate."I ordered Payne
He nodded and gave Robin a hard kick in the shin. She blocked with her arm but it was a taekwondo kick so Robin groveled in pain and we shot off to the tree. I had no idea where we were going but we ended up somewhere in front of a cliff which showed huge city. It looked like a normal city but Just very black, gloomy and Emo-ish. I looked at it and felt a prickle down my spine.
The Darkness probably lived in this city.
Robin was behind us, laughing at Payne and I. We were dumb enough to run all the way into a dead end. We could fall. The chances of surviving was pretty low and even if we did, the Darkness in the city could have just overwhelm us easily. A spell could help but my mind was so frantic that I couldn't think of any of them and neither could I think of a plan on how to escape. We could break for it past her but some Darkness appeared beside her.
"What now?"Payne asked
"I have no idea. Only...,"They walked forward "JUMP!"
We leapt into the darkness of the day...or night
We dropped and rolled against the hard ground. It was a sand-papery feeling which scratched our skin a bit but we were still alive. At least for now.
The sound of us landing had attracted hordes of Darkness some which I have never seen before. I casted a bolt spell at them and that got rid of a few.
"If we could get rid of all, That would help."I mumbled
Payne gave a swipe with the sword and got rid of one. My bolt and fire spells took down two at a time.
We were pretty much screwed
It seemed to be an hour but was probably 15 minutes. We climbed up the cliff and fought off their attacks as we climbed. We got a good 10 metres up the cliff before I fell back. I must've landed on my head 'cause I blacked out.
-----------------
"Where are they?"A girl called Seerate asked
"Let's get them. They are here for too long."Dirk, the photo boy, said.
"No. We can't risk the gate unprotected."Tom, the old man, said
"We'll do it!"I volunteered. I also brought Amy to volunteer.
"Sure."She said.
"Alright, Dirk and I shall go get them. Three of you shall guard. Make sure none goes past."Tom said
-------------------
I had a dream. It was weird. I saw Robin hugging me. Seerate and Payne held each other and 5 other princesses were there too. It was weird feeling how I floated off and split. Dirk was taking another picture of me. I had no memory of it but it felt familiar. And it was real. So real. I guess thats how dreams feel. Then the earth sucked itself in.
I woke up with a searing heat from my chest. I took out the source which was the book. It glowed and heated then suddenly stopped out. The Darkness had also scattered from the light and the only one near me was Payne which was above me calling out my name.
"Dude, you ok?" Payne asked
"yeah. Are they still there?"I asked
"Darkness? Not really. They left when you casted that spell. Tom and the others are here." Payne said
"Come up here with the levitating spell. Or do you want us to lift you up?"Tom shouted. Dirk grabbed a rope and threw it at me. It had a knife tied to the end and stuck out of the ground, anchoring the rope to the ground. It would have gone pinned my thumb into the ground if it went a few inches to the left. I climbed up with a amazingly short amount of time.
"We wanted you to tie yourself with the rope but never mind, that works too."I could have killed him then….
They brought me to the gateway which we all crossed. We then burnt the tree (from the outside) so the gate was closed. I felt so tired that I wanted go in a coma for 3 years and wake up. But I would probably wake up in destruction and chaos and whatever the gloomy people writes. Anyway, we sat down and had a recap.
"What do you guys do while I was away?"I asked
"We hunt Darkness. And bring those people we find to houses to hide."Payne said
"Those about 25 years old we get them out. Smuggle if you like."Seerate smiled
"But how do you hunt? You'd be dead right?"I asked again in a clearly underestimating voice
"We found some stuff in Tom's workshop. It's kinda cool 'cause he makes new stuff for us every week," Amy said stood up "Maybe he has something for you, Rita?" She said
"Really?"Rita shot up and followed Amy.
"One of these days I gotta go with you guys."I said.
"Well, we were gonna do a job before you asked for help. Then we became very busy."Dirk said
"Lucky Rita's here. At least she's going to be some help."Payne said.
"You still have me..."I said
"But you are always out! We need a permanent helper like the princesses. "Seerate said
Rita came back as we were talking about recent happenings in town. She said Tom wanted me to go use the kura cards again. I think my headache came back as soon as I saw Firey and watery and Libra and so on.
"I have a headache."
"From these? Don't give excuses. You are a hero in people's hearts."Tom said
"And a zero in fortune telling."I mumbled and gave a sigh.
Then begins another month of fortune telling. I ask myself sometimes what I've been doing when my friends all isolated me in school but heavenly secrets must not be revealed as the saying goes.
Who cares about what the saying goes.