Disclaimer: I own nothing in the Inheritance Cycle.

A/N: Many of you may not know that this story is actually being redone from it's original version. I am starting over from scratch with this story.

-..-

It all happened so fast. It was like everything on earth just changed overnight, like someone snapped their fingers or flipped a switch and everything just changed. I thought Earth already had peace problems before all this started, but man, nothing could top this.

I suppose I owe you all an explanation. I'll try to tell you what happened, but even I don't know the full story. I don't think anyone does really. I think it all started a few months ago, at least that's when the news started showing it.

It started little by little, first small attacks on towns out in the middle of no where, but then it escalated to public attacks on cities. No one knew who they were, who was attacking us, but they had some nasty weapons. They came in small groups, infiltrating their target with what seemed like ease. By the time the authorities found out about an attack, the attackers were gone and the place they'd been was pillaged and burning.

Rumors about these unknown assailants started to spread as more and more attacks occurred. A few of my neighbors thought they were terrorists from some other country, trying to scare us. The kids in the schools seemed thoroughly convinced that it was a group of renegade assassins or escaped prisoners just causing some trouble. As for me, I was torn. I didn't really have any idea what was going on. I didn't think they were terrorists, I thought they would have made themselves known by now if they were. And the whole assassins and prisoners idea seemed pretty silly to me.

To tell you the truth, I'd barely known about the whole thing until my brother Jack decided to shoot me a text a few hours after a major attack.

"Did you hear about that major attack in New York?" I remember the text saying.

Fun fact, my brother and I don't talk very much since he's been in college for the past year, so the text itself was surprising enough.

As you can imagine I was pretty confused, and a little scared. "What attack?" I asked.

"Have you been living under a rock for the past few hours?" he'd asked me "Turn on the TV, it's all over the news."

Even though I was still pretty confused, I picked up my TV remote and clicked on the TV. It didn't take long for me to scroll through the channels and land on the News. A news lady was sitting at a desk, words rolling out of her mouth as pictures of a burning skyscraper in New York flashed on the screen beside her. The entire building was on fire, and pieces of glass and debris were falling all around the building. But it wasn't the fire they were focused on, it was the figure standing nearby.

There was a person standing on the roof of a nearby business, a huge highlighted circle surrounding him on the TV screen. The thing that made my eyes widen was what he was doing; there was a huge jet of flame coming out of his hands. There was literally fire pouring out of his hands. I was barely paying attention to the words coming out of the newscaster's mouth now, I was too focused on the cloaked figure on the roof.

As if the fire wasn't weird enough, he looked weird too. First of all, he was wearing a robe. He looked like he'd just walked out of Hogwarts, and with the fire coming out of his hands I wouldn't be surprised if he had. We couldn't see his face because he had a hood covering it, but we didn't need to see that to know he wasn't normal.

Then the picture flicked off and the newscasters began talking, and I turned off the TV.

I didn't really hear much else about the attacks until a few weeks later, and by then things had gotten a lot worse. The attacks had gone global, and a week later New York, London, and Tokyo were taken over. What was even worse, they were still on the move. My next door neighbor packed up his family and headed south to Florida, where they had some base set up in hopes to keep some people safe.

But we still had no clue who was even attacking us. Government's all over the world were trying to figure that out, but they came up with nothing. That was no surprise to me, they were telling us it was only a small group of people attacking for weeks, but that was obviously a lie.

The entire time this was going on I'd barely left my house. I was eighteen, and I'd graduated only a few months ago. I wasn't really looking at colleges that much since all of them seemed to be at stake of being destroyed, so I just stayed in my room and searched the web. I didn't have much else to do since my parents were visiting my brother in Maine.

But my life of watching funny cat videos on YouTube and eating potato chips as a meal quickly ended. It was late at night, and I wouldn't have been awake if it wasn't for the Simpsons marathon going on. I'd been resting on my couch, not a care in the world, when my phone started buzzing. I picked it up and saw that I had a text message from my friend Zoe, who lived just down the street.

'Dude, look outside, ASAP!' it said.

I put the phone aside and stood, slipping my fuzzy bunny slippers on over my feet. I pulled on my handy bath robe and walked over to the window, opening the blinds just a crack.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. There were at least fifty people marching down my street, all dressed like that guy from the news. Some of them were going further down the street, but a few of them stayed behind.

The few that were left gathered around the middle of the street, and began... spell casting, I guess. I couldn't see much from my living room window, but then this blue disc began to form in the air in front of them. It started growing really fast, and before I knew it there were hundreds of people, just like the ones already attacking, pouring out of this portal sitting in the middle of my street.

They began to split up and head down either end of the street, just walking. They weren't actually doing anything on the street, like burning down houses or something that would make sense from invaders, they just kept marching.

Then two of them began to walk over to my house, and I practically jumped back from the blinds.

I ran up the stairs as fast as I possibly could, headed for my room. I could here people talking on the floor below, headed my way. I slipped in through my door and closed it as quietly as I could, hoping it would save me some time. I turned off the light with a flick of my fingers, and began to pace around my room. I didn't actually know what I was going to do, I just knew I had to get out.

The first helpful thing I actually did was pick up my backpack. If I was going to escape, I was going to need supplies, right?

I paced around my room, picking out different things and throwing them into my traveling backpack. It was only then that I realized how fast my heart was beating, and I began to move even faster. I shoved the obvious things into my backpack, a toothbrush, some money, a hairbrush... then I stuffed some snacks I'd been hoarding under my bed in there to. Hopefully they haven't attracted any ants...

I was lacing up my sneakers when I heard them pacing outside my door. A shiver of fear went down my spine, and I looked towards the only other route out of my house, the window. I sprinted towards it and quickly opened it up, throwing my bag around my shoulders before putting one leg out the window. I began to hear pounding on my door as they tried to open it, and swiftly got the other leg out.

I looked down at the grass below me. As a kid it probably would have seen awesome to jump out of a second story window, but with a bunch of magic maniacs running around below me the prospect suddenly didn't seem as appealing anymore. I glanced back one last time and slipped off the window sill just as they opened my door.

I barely had any time to think, as soon as I hit the ground there were guys coming towards me. I sprung up, ignoring any scrapes I'd gotten from the fall, and ran. I looked down either end of the street but saw that it was swarming with them, and I ran towards the portal. They were already surrounding me, closing in, and there was nothing I could do. I bolted blindly in the opposite direction, not really knowing where I was going. I guess that's just one of the things we do, you know?

When someone's chasing you with a murderous look in their eyes, you don't really stop and think, 'Hey, I wonder which way is the logical way to go,' you just run. No thoughts, no hesitating.

...Of course, maybe I should have given where I was going a little more thought in the long run. Needless to say, with the streets swarming with them, I was pretty much surrounded on the spot, and probably in the worst possible place I could be. There was a giant floating disc thingy behind me and evil murderous fire people surrounding me on all other sides.

I backed up towards the portal, thinking how crappy my plan had been, thinking I could just waltz outside without anyone noticing.

I stopped only a few feet away from the portal, putting my hands up in surrender. I immediately assumed this was the end of the road, and just stood there staring ahead as they slowly cornered me.

But then it hit me, and I felt even more stupid then I had when I realized how crappy my plan was. Without thinking, I whirled around and closed the distance between me and the portal, leaping into to it without a single thought about what might be on the other side.

My gut lurched forward, and I felt like I was falling. I looked down and saw nothing, only darkness. I couldn't hear or touch anything, or maybe there was just nothing to hear or touch. I snapped my eyes shut, wondering if this was the end. Man, I really hadn't thought any of this through. I just kept falling and falling, it felt like I'd been falling for an eternity, but at the same time I felt like it had only been a few seconds since I'd leapt through the portal. There didn't seem to be an end to this fall, and the only reason I knew I was falling at all was the horrible feeling in my stomach.

But then I began to hear slivers of words, but all the conversations were so meshed together that I could barely make anything out. But one single word stuck out above them all as I was falling: Alagaesia.

I snapped open my eyes open -I hadn't noticed I'd shut them in the first place- and light started to blaze around me. The air seemed to rush past me even faster than it had before, and I started flailing around, still not having a clue what was going on. Then I began to hear voices, not random crazy voices in my head, but bits and pieces of conversation. I was able to make out who was talking too; the voices were throaty and hoarse, and I'm guessing they were guys.

"Hey, you plan on going to the tournament this year?" one man asked.

"Nah, not this year," the other guy said "Have to stay home with the wife and kids. Not allowed to risk my life this year."

"Ah, that's to bad." the other guy said.

"Well, yeah, but I have to spend time with the youngsters. I think one of them has already started growing his horns."

And with that I hit the ground.