Cursed: Book 1

Chapter 1-Awake

Chapter 1-Awake

He was lying on the ground. He could feel the twigs and leaves under him. He slowly opened his eyes; the sunrays were passing through the pine branches, causing his eyes to burn. His eyes began to settle and he saw his surroundings, he was lying in a small rough clearing in the forest. He began to stand up, but as soon as he tried his arms faltered and gave way. He was exhausted, out of energy, he could barely move. He laid his head down on the leaves and twigs on the ground. His silvery hair falling in front of his eyes.

He saw the little ants climbing up a faraway tree, he could hear birds chirping even though there were none, and he could smell blood, lots of it. He looked down at his arms; cuts had been recently made as with his legs. He knew he was going to die out here if he didn’t move fast, here it was kill or be killed, predator or prey. He had lived in these woods for as long as he could remember, but there was something different about this that he couldn’t quite remember. His head was aching far more than his body was and he had no idea why.

He then heard footsteps, not just one but many, heading in his direction. By the sound of it they weren’t any animals he was familiar of. Two males arrived, or at least he thought they were. They appeared not long after, they were wearing silvery armor around them that covered their entire body, and only their eyes were showing. They stood upright on two legs and their arms dropped from their shoulders. Were these humans, a thought passed by his head, a memory, unfortunately it slipped away before he could remember. They smelled very, very bad it was almost unbearable.

“Hey I found a one”, one yelled.

He felt as if the soldiers were next to his ear and screaming at the top of their lungs, causing his head to ache even more.

“Is he alive?” yelled another.

“I think so, but you might want to see this”

“What is it?”

“Well, he’s, um, nude sir”

He heard the footsteps get closer and closer. He had closed his eyes in order to “Play dead”, something he had done many times out here in order to survive. They approached him, he could feel them. One of the men reached to pick him up, he could feel their bony finger in his back. He focused all his energy to stand up. He leapt up and snapped the man neck, he grabbed the dagger from the man and through it at the one standing behind. The dagger flew and hit the man straight in the opening between his eyes, causing blood to squirt out all over.

He felt a moment of weakness and almost fell to the ground, catching his balance on a tree. Both men were slumped on the ground, dead. One had a pool of blood under him, while the other had his neck in the opposite direction it should be. He felt a wind of cold air, and remembered how he was still stark naked. He felt bad but he stripping the man whose neck was in the opposite direction, but he wouldn’t really need his armor anymore, he didn’t want to take the bloody armor of he other man. He grabbed the sword, he had seen many in the woods, the daggers, a wooden stick bent back to make the form of a stretched c and with a string connecting both ends, and a pair of long wooden sticks with feathers tied at one end and a metal arrow on the other, shoved in a leather quiver.

The plate on the armor was tiring him more than everything so he ripped the metal armor off, leaving the revealing the leather armor underneath.

He had no idea where he was going, he felt drawn to the west. He reached a large boulder that was beside a large river, with many smaller boulders around it. He inspected it; he had been here before but couldn’t remember when. Between the large boulder and a smaller boulder they created a small cave like area. He crawled in and was surprised by how large it was, the passage was tight but the distance it went was quite large. At the end of the tunnel, laid many things, a pitchfork, some ripped and torn clothes, and a piece of string with a ring hanging on it. The ring was a silvery white substance with the shape of a dog running around it and on the front laid a bright milky white stone in it. He was mesmerized by the stone, it was magnificent yet gave off a dangerous feeling. He knew better than to put it around his finger, something wasn’t right about it so he put it around his neck. The sun was beginning to set and the sky had already turned grey/blue. In the distance he saw lights shining and a castle peak passing over the pine trees. The moon was a crescent shape; it radiated its magnificent white light, which seemed to fill up his body with energy. As it surged he felt the power inside him, he crouched on all fours and began to run wild.