Moonless World [EDITING]

Chapter 3 - Emyr

"The Moon should have guided us through the night, but she left us to rot."

- Book "Epic Tales Throughout History" by Amelie Stratshpoff

He woke up to the unforgiving cold of the nearly eternal winter. Emyr's blanket lied on the floor, near his bed. However the cold, he was sweating, and his breath was uneven. He throbbed, trying to get up. The entire room spun around when he sat on the mattress.

The raked a hand through his hair, pulling some strands that had glued to his forehead. "What is it, man?", He heard. Bernard, his roommate, was also sitting in his bed, staring at him. "Another dream?"

Emyr nodded. Yes, another dream indeed. One of the same, nothing different. Except everything was different this time. "She was in danger," he said, cupping his face in his hands.

For the most part of his life, he had known that face. That girl that kept appearing in his dreams, keeping him awake at night and daydream when he had to stay awake. Emyr didn't know who she was, where she was or even if she was real and not something his creative mind had imagined. She felt real enough to him.

He sighed and turned to the window beside his bed, opening the curtains a little. It was still dark, but he knew it wouldn't be long until dawn.

"I'm sure she's okay, bud.", Bern said, letting his body fall on the bed again. Emyr chuckled. Bern didn't really believe that. He, himself, sometimes doubted it as well.

"We'll have to get up in a bit," the boy said, jumping from his bed. He was already fully awakened now. No point in trying to go back to sleep. Bern moaned something incomprehensible and threw a pillow at him. Emyr dodged it and threw it back at his friend, before leaving the room.

He liked how the academy looked at that hour. It was silent as if nobody lived there, but pulsing with the expectation that in a few minutes it would be burning with life. Emyr loved that feeling since he had gotten there, a few years before.

The man stretched his forearm and stared at it. The tattoo he carried since he had been chosen seemed only to deepen in his skin. The dark lines revolving around one point, leading to his heart. It was his call and just his.

It was an honor to carry that, to be one of the protectors. He couldn't have chosen another path in life since his parents were like him before his time had come. Not that he really had a choice since kriegers could only become kriegers when picked up by the Sun God himself.

Emyr was about to lose hope that he would be like his parents, until the day he woke up with that tattoo on his arm. He was getting too old, not that it mattered, and the Sun was getting too dead. And until the present days, he remained the last warrior chosen by the God.

His schedule was usually more laborious than the others. Emyr was the last one, and he had been chosen really late in his life, he had to catch up fast to all that he had lost, what was mostly tiring, sometimes fun. The kriegers were decreasing in number, and they needed every trained protector to watch over the country they could have.