Lost and Found

Chapter 3 - Fire

She thumped back down and sat on the porch steps dejectedly. Magic might be real, but it wasn't giving her any help at the moment. 

Footsteps pounded through the forest. The sound was so sudden Nya stood up and squinted into the direction of the noise, trying to glimpse the source, but it was useless with all the trees blocking the way. There was another sound too, gradually coming closer. Something that sounded like hooves. A sense of doom began to form in the air.

Without warning a boy burst through the trees into the clearing of the house. He seemed as shocked as a seashell to see her just standing there but didn't stop running.

"Run!" he shouted at her, "Run! It's coming!" Quite the dramatic.

Most people, she knew from her books, would have been 'paralysed' at this, or their 'feet would have been frozen to the ground' and they would have to wait for someone to save them. But Nya had more sense than that. She did the sensible thing. As soon the boy had yelled the first word, she was off, sprinting after him. He didn't look back to check she was following.

He veered off into the trees dodging left and right, following an invisible path through the trees like he did this everyday. When they were well away from the house clearing but still just in sight of it, he stopped abruptly and fell the ground clutching his side, trying to catch his breath. He looked like he had just run a marathon, which he probably had.

The sense of doom and darkness got stronger in the air, and Nya saw a streak of shadowy black, shaped a bit like a giant fat horse with horns, rush past the clearing, a wall of flickering orange following in its wake. She realised with a start it was fire. Wherever the shadow animal's feet touched the ground, fire sparked in its wake, burning everything around it to ashes before smouldering away.

"Umbra," said the boy, picking himself up off the ground and seeing grimly where she was looking, his eyes reflecting the red flames.

"That shadow horse thing?" Nya watched as the last burnt tree fell with a sickening crunch. She wondered what had become of her house, the log cabin.

"Yep, it means shadow monster. That one was a Bison, one of the less dangerous ones" The boy looked about as old as her thirteen year old self. His clothes were smoking and had a few burns in them, like he'd just run through a fire. Literally.

"Less dangerous? Wow" Nya gripped her lucky stick, thanking the ninjas that she hadn't been standing there when the Bison Umbra went past.

The boy looked at her strangely. "You're not from here are you?"

Nya took a deep breath. This was the time when she would decide to tell the native people that she was just from out of town or she actually came through a magic portal.

"Nup. I, well, I sort of accidentally transported myself here through some kind of magic from an attic. I suppose it's burnt to ashes now." She was always annoyed when book characters didn't tell the native people from the magic land the truth. If the people are from a magic land, they're probably going to believe in magic, right?

"An attic? That's different from what the others said. All they could go on about was bookcases and wardrobes." 

"Wardrobes? I'm not in Narnia, am I?" Narnia would be great, but Nya was hoping she had found a world of her own.

The boy laughed. "Nope. No talking animals here. You're in Lar, but now isn't really the best time to visit. We're sort of under attack"

"Lar?" She hadn't heard of that one before. Nya didn't know if that was a bad sign or a good one. "You mean under attack from the Umbra?"

The boy sighed. "Yeah, it's been going on for a few months now but the attacks are getting worse. More dangerous shadows are being let loose and every available person is trying to help capture them."

"Even kids?" Nya was curious why they would let a thirteen year old go hunt dangerous monsters by himself.

"Even kids, when they're old enough. Dad didn't want me to go, but I know what I'm doing and kids aren't underestimated here." He looked at Nya, like challenging her to argue with him and say that kids should be kept cooped up inside, protected all their childhood. But he got no fight. Nya agreed completely. How else would she be here?

"Come on, we better get going. I'll take you back to the village. We'll go and scavenge that log cabin tomorrow to see if we can pick up anything of yours that wasn't burnt. Though I doubt we'll find anything, we never do. What's your name anyway?" He started to walk through the trees along the invisible path again and Nya followed beside him.

"Nya. You?"

He smiled. "Like the Ninjago ninja? I'm Lloyd."

"You're kidding."

"Yep. I'm Pat. Nice to meet ya"

They walked the rest of the way in silence, both contemplating their near death experience and Nya wondering which questions she should start asking first. 

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Hi! I'm the author!

Sorry, I went back and changed the story from Nya's dad going missing to her mum. I'm really sorry, I know this is annoying and you'll have to re-imagine the story in your mind but I just realised I really wanted the mum to be the interesting one while the dad is stuck at home doing washing, just for a change. 

Thanks for understanding, and thank you thank you thank you for reading my story! 

Comment and vote and all that stuff.

- FranVader