The Light | Break of Radiance BK #1

Woods

We rode peacefully through the forest. I saw above the branches of the trees swaying and birds of many colors jumping on the branches and chirping to each other. the sun rays flickered through the leaves. The butterflies fluttered through the grasslands and a hour later we hit the forest at the south of the island.

My parents, well I guess my foster parents, told me about what the island looked like when I was a child. It was like a tiny blade flying across the Arian Ocean. They showed me the island on a map when they were homeschooling me.

We were at the tip of the blade, where our mission of scouting out shore to shore begun. We found the two small shacks used for travelers and we cleaned them up and made the inside sleeping-proof and not full of bugs and rats.

We planned out our day near a fire we created then fell asleep in our shacks. I was sitting on my bed that night. Thinking of how fast my day went. I had just finished reading my knight training book for the night.

I laid down and looked out the window where faint moonlight shined.

Suddenly I saw something blue glow deep within the forest and I jolted up. I watched the glow for a moment. My pose composed of both fear and shock. For a moment I thought I saw blazing green eyes along with the blue glow...then everything vanished.

I pulled the small curtains of the window together and ran to the door to make sure it was closed just in case it was some type of bandit.

What the heck was that thing?!

***

I woke up in the early morning feeling very tired. I had a natural instinct of waking up at the break of dawn, but never was I this tired. After that weird thing I saw in the forest last night I couldn't keep my eyes closed.

I got up from out of the bed and stretched all the muscles of my body and yawned. Today we were going to go separate ways. I was going west while Sir Nick was going east.

I grabbed some raw pork chops from out of my bag and roasted them on a pan and put them on the fire. I laid back onto the log and watched the fire crackle and the smell of the pork rose into the air.

Sir Nick woke up a few minutes later and ate the neatly cooked pork with me. After a hour of discussion we got on our horses and headed our separate ways.

I watched every corner of the forest. Ugh, I should of told him what I saw last night. He probably wouldn't have believed me anyway but I was he's squire. What I saw last night quickly escaped me as soon as it came. But maybe it was just fireflies or maybe a dream.

I stopped at a stream and filled my cup with water and drank from it and put the lid back on. Comet was also drinking from the stream and after that ate the grass. I sat there for a moment until he had finished.

We crossed the stream and I ate the blueberries growing in the grove and collected some for the journey. I feed comet some of my blueberries I had collected.

I rode comet for awhile in the woods. I started to see seagulls in the sky. We're almost towards the beach.

When we met the beach the sun started to set. I sat down next to the waves and remembered the times I went out on the beach with my cousins. We would go so far into the ocean and catch grey fish in the tides. There were so many of them but unluckily they were too small to be served as a proper meal. But sometimes we would catch as many as thirty and then roast them and eat them all.

I should head back home. I thought. It was started to get dark and I could hear the crickets start to chirp and the seagulls started to go back to their nests in the palm trees.

I got on top of Comet again and rode out into the dark forest. 

The owls hooted and the moonlight started to shine up above. Full moon tonight. I thought about the legends about werewolves and vampires and demons. They all creeped me out. Papa told me that they all eat only the meat of humans and vampires only sucked the blood instead of ate it. The stories all told of little children going into the woods at night and being hunted down by one. But I knew none of it was real.

At least I hope.

But what was even more frightening was the war raging from beyond our island. Kingdom against kingdom fighting for a millennium. Mother told me that was the reason why we live here because no one ever knew about us and would never fight us. That made me happy to live on this island.

***

It had been a few hours of racing through the forest and thinking up a apology to make up for being late. But then I saw the trees started to look weird. Like they were pulled to the side by something huge. Then I saw the blood stained on the floor. I looked up in horror towards the flickering light of the fire.

To see Sir Nicks dead body...