Chapter One: My Story Begins
It was around three in the morning and I was trying to fall asleep in the gutter across the street from the local Seven Eleven. I sleep on the street and sometimes in the park if it’s nice outside; but today it is raining. As it rained, I wrapped more newspapers around myself and tried to fall asleep
I was about to doze off when I noticed two men at the end of the block. I thought nothing of it at the time. They just looked around and walked behind the convenient store. I wrapped some more newspaper around me and went back to sleep. Five minutes later however, I was being dragged out of the gutter. I saw it was of the men who went behind the store.
"Who are you? What's your name?" asked the man.
"Mike Anderson sir," I replied.
"What are you doing sleeping in the gutter?" asked the man. “Don’t you have a home and a family?"
"No sir," I replied "my parents died in the fire that destroyed our house." The man seemed taken aback but quickly straightened his face. He opened his mouth as to say something when his companion appeared next to him. He asked the man a question and then reached into the folds of his cloak and pulled out a white gemstone. The stone was a little smaller than a football and weighted about the same when he handed the stone to me.
"Guard this with your life," said the man as I starred at the stone in my hands. "My name is Roxus. We might not see each other again, but I am pleased to meet you Mike." I was going to ask what it was, but before I could, Roxus and the other man quickly stood up, turned, and faced the end of the street from which they came from. At the end of the street, three men wearing red cloaks appeared.
They looked around the street and saw the two men and me. At the sight of Roxus and his companion, the three men in red cloaks drew the swords that were at their belts.
“Quick! Hide yourself and don’t make a sound!” ordered Roxus, so I ran and hid in an alley. Roxus brushed off his cloak and drew the sword that he had attached to his belt. His companion did the same and the two of them turned and faced the oncoming trio.
The first red cloaked man that reached them jumped up and aimed a slice at Roxus, but Roxus blocked it and sliced at the cloaked man, cutting off his arm. The one armed man threw back his head and shrieked at the moon as he dissolved to dust. Roxus had just killed someone and it was to protect the white stone I was holding in my hand.
At this point the other two cloaked men were fighting Roxus and his partner one on one. Roxus easily defeated the cloaked man he was fighting with, but his companion was having some difficultly. The cloaked man had already cut the man twice, once from behind his ear to the base of his cheek and once across his sword arm.
Suddenly, the companion disarmed the cloaked man in one fluid motion by cutting off one of his hands. The cloaked man slumped to the ground and I thought he had passed out. I cheered inside but it was short lived. The cloaked man stood up and pulled out a gun and shot the companion twice in the back, once through the head and one through the heart.
As soon as he was done with the companion, the cloaked man turned and picked up his hand and reattached it to his arm. After reattaching his hand he aimed his gun at Rowan. However, before he could fire, Rowan threw a knife into the gun’s chamber. This caused the gun to blow up in the cloaked man's hand, causing his hand to be ripped apart again. The again one handed cloaked man drew his sword with his good hand and rushed at Rowan.
