FIGHTING THE ELEMENTS
CHAPTER ONE: THE VILLAGE
A soft wind blew from the east hitting a small village in China just off Kohl River. Where a girl and her horse were pleasantly relaxing doing nothing in particular. The young girl was lying down on the greenest grass imaginable, with her smooth black hair blowing intensely around. The sky was a periwinkle blue and the puffy white clouds seemed motionless.
She sighed as saying to her horse, "Wouldn't it be great to be in a different world, Noel? I mean far away from here, into a sort of different dimension. I'd give anything for an adventure, wouldn't you?" As the horse just stared at her with its saddened blue eyes and white glossy back and mane, she rolled over and occupied herself by looking at a nearby butterfly.
"It's just so unfair" she sat there pouting, "I wish I could be free like so many of the animals in the world. But then, I wouldn't want to leave my parents because they mean the world to me". Her horse whinnied.
"Yes, you mean the world to me as well. Of course I'd take you with me on any adventure", she said smiling.
The girl's name was Lai Li. Her name meant 'the original of the people', or 'the dawn'. She had extremely dark black hair tied back in a huge braid that went down to her thighs, while other pieces she just let fall out around her face. Her complexion was very soft and white as could be and her eyes were a forget-me-not blue. At eighteen years of age, Lai had never found love and wasn't looking for any at this point. But her parents were forcing her to consider a man in the village who also happened to be five years older than her. Considering the man was completely out of the question for Lai, as she thought him to be the most selfish and stuck up human on earth.
The wind was blowing quite hard now, as the dark blue clouds began to overthrow the glowing sun. "We must be getting storm". Lai said standing up and looking down on her village. Everything looked in its place, except it looked as though people were getting ready to attack the village. 'People or what are those things?' Lai thought. Then she heard the screams and knew something was wrong. She practically flew up on Noel, and raced down from the field to the homes of her people. Everything was lit on fire; people were running around trying to escape the wraths of those monsters. 'Are those goblins?' Lai thought to herself again. She had guessed that's what they were based on the fact that if she had to guess what they were, that would have been it. They had stubby, short legs, yellow hair and green skin. Their teeth looked as if they hadn't been cleaned in their entire lifetime, and they smelt really, really bad. They looked all slimy, like they take their baths in a swamp. They looked like really horrible walkers and runners, as they kind of wobbled when they walked. But they could climb like anything. Lai was just trying to go over this in her mind. Never had her village been under attack, and never have they had to fight. She stared around again, just noticing that people were dying. A young couple had just been stabbed and their child was standing in the middle of the street screaming. The goblins were going for him. Lai finally knocked out of her trance-like-state, thought fast and ran towards the boy. She picked him up and then turning around, snatched a club and knocked the first goblin right in the face. He fell immediately to the ground. The others just stared at him for a moment then slowly looked up at Lai, and charged at her meaning to kill. Lai, still holding on to the club and the child, ran for it. She was indeed a faster runner than them, but there were so many of them climbing everywhere that she didn't know where to go next. She placed the boy in between a few boxes behind a fruit stand, turned around and was faced with one of the menacing creatures. She punched him in the face once, then hit lower and finally kicked him in the stomach, where it flew right back against a rock solid building and collapsed. The others, she tripped, hit them with the club a few times, and started throwing boxes and such on them. Lai turned around to find the boy, but the goblins had taken him. As she made a go for him, they grabbed her from behind, but she was quicker. She dug her feet into the ground, crouched as low as she could, jumped, and flipped right over top of them, where she kneed them in the butt. While they were on the ground, she took her club and set it on fire on some nearby stands lit them on fire one by one. They began to run around furiously, and squealing at the top of their lungs.
Out of breath, she looked around once more for the boy, but could not see him. The other goblins were looking around petrified and fled. Just then remembering her parents, Lai set off at a run. She came to her house, but it had been set on fire as well. Her parents were no where to be seen, and suddenly, everything was quiet except for the crackling of the fires around her. She was alone, completely and totally alone….