The Skylords

Chapter Four

Three people walked silently down the street. Even though it was morning, the sky was so dark that it could have been night time. Tessa walked alongside her parents quietly,  not wanting to break the silence. She had  gone to Charlie's house before the meeting, to patch things up, as things hadn't been great between them for a while now,  and she felt slightly guilty, but when she got there no one at home.

Tessa presumed that Charlie had gone with her parents to the meeting earlier, but yet she still couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. This was why  she was walking a bit faster than usual.

Finally her father broke the silence. 'So we could be called today, exciting isn't it Tessa?' Tessa nodded,  sick of everything that was happening and shivering at the thought of being called.

They kept walking in silence, until a building rose in sight on top of a steep hill. Everyone called it the "meeting house."  The meeting house had just appeared out of nowhere like everything else had  in the last month.

A crowd of people rushed up the hill. They were rushing so they could get to the meeting house on time. Tessa felt sick at the idea  of them doing this just to impress their leaders, it was a bit sad she thought to herself. She looked over at her parents and they too were rushing.

She sighed and had no choice but to catch up with them. They reached the top of the hill where they saw a big mansion house,"the meeting house."

At the entrance on either side were two Skylords, both of them looked identical, so there was no point trying to tell the difference. Tessa and her parents walked past them into the hallway, where they hung their coats. Despite everything that was happening,  she still took time to stare in awe at this impressive mansion. There could be so much done with the place but despite the size of it, it was very dull and depressing.

The group of people followed two more Skylords into a spacious room with a gigantic circular table with seats all around it, so everybody could sit down. Tessa sat down alongside her parents and focused her eyes on the head of the table where the leader of the Skylords sat. The only way she could tell he was the leader was that he had a silver ring on his finger. There were two Skylords on either side of him.

Around the room people were talking amongst themselves. Tessa picked up pieces of conversation like, 'I wonder who they are going to summon today.' and 'I hope I'm picked mom.' Tessa picked this up from a small boy about the age of five. She looked sadly at the boy, thinking  what the world had been reduced to.

'Silence!' shouted a deep loud voice. Tessa nearly jumped out of her seat at the sound of the leaders voice. Nobody uttered a word and the leader went on. 'The leaders of the people summoned yesterday are as follows...' Tessa tuned out as he called names she didn't know until he came to a name she recognised. 'Charlie Browne.' Tessa snapped out of her trance, as she heard her friends name being called. She gasped loudly and a lot of people turned their heads towards Tessa. The leader however, just glanced at her looking bored and then resumed  talking.

'The people being summoned today, step forward Alec Jones....' Tessa turned towards her father terrified. The sad thing was he looked delighted but also Tessa could see a hint of shock and fear on his face. She knew this was bound to happen eventually and she was always dreading it, but it just didn't seem real. The leader was calling out more names and once he called each name out, people got up eagerly and stepped forward. 'No' shouted Tessa. 'Don't leave us.' Her father looked at her and hugged her. 'It will be okay, it's for the best' he reassured her speaking very calmly. Her father always had a way of making Tessa feel calmer when she was distressed but any amount of talking to her now wasn't going to make her relaxed. Her father turned away from her and hugged her mother, whispering something to her, but Tessa thought he heard him say her name, but she didn't care at that moment.

She couldn't take it anymore. She looked up where the leader sat and shouted 'You can't take people away from their family like this, why are you doing this?' Her parents looked at her in shock and the whole room was silent for a moment before the leader spoke. 'We are helping all these people and some day, little girl,  we will help you.' Tessa was growing more furious by the second, how dare they call her a little girl?

She didn't know where her courage was coming from but she spoke again. 'How are you helping us? What have ye...'she said indicating towards all the Skylords,'done for us?' By now she knew she wasn't going to win as she could see Skylords slowly moving from their place which made her uncomfortable. The room had soon erupted into chatter from everywhere and Tessa could distinctly hear her parents calling her name over and over but she couldn't face them right now. She also felt that a hundred sets of eyes were boaring into her. A noise came from where the leader had sat and she realised he had slammed a book on the table, demanding silence.

She began to shake uncontrollably and slightly regretted speaking up. Again
the room became silent and Tessa could sense fear in the air. The leader spoke 'Take her back to her home and guard the house.'

Before Tessa could respond she felt two hands grab her viciously and she turned to see two Skylords standing in front of her. She hadn't even noticed them coming behind her. She was suprised that her parents didn't do anything to stop them as they dragged her out of her chair, but all they did was stare at her silently in horror. Tessa felt almost neglected but she wasn't that suprised.

They shoved her to start walking across the room and she followed willingly, because they were just too strong for her and even if she did break free, she was sure that more Skylords would just come after her. So she allowed herself to be pushed out the door, but turned around just in time to see the disappointed looks on her parents faces, before she was shoved out of the room, the door banging behind her.

I hope ye enjoyed it! Its starting to get more interesting now!