Act I
Alliance
"Team work is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results."
-Andrew Carnegie
Chapter 1 - Something New
Jake Eno was dying. The room's dark walls pressed in on him, surrounding him. A man stood in front of him, hidden in the darkness, his cloak billowing around him.
The wounds covering Jake's face stung and bleed, and he could barely remain conscious. The sound of his ragged breathing filled the air, drowning out everything else around him.
The cloaked man stepped forward; a loud crack of thunder dramatized the scene.
"How many men have you killed, Jake Eno, how many men, women and children - just tonight!?"
Jake did not answer the question. He was afraid. Not of the man; he was scared because he didn't know the answer.
- Several Months Earlier -
Birds sang and the wind whistled through the trees as Jake ran through the winding paths of Aroma Woods, the lush scenery and variety of wildlife passing him by in a flash. It was days like these he lived for.
Adventurous as always, he found any excuse to leave the busy streets of Gradi City and head out to the woods, as they were large and held many mysteries; he loved to explore far and wide through the trees and always regretted having to go back to the city when night came.
"Slow down!" The weary call of Tom, Jake's friend, came through the trees not far back. He had known Tom since they were both children, and now that they were sixteen, they both explored the woods in their spare time, along with James, the son of the blacksmith who worked in the city.
When Tom had caught up and had caught his breath, Jake noticed the sound of running water coming from nearby. The boy stood with his hand shielding his eyes from the sun, waiting for James, who had not bothered to keep up with the two of them.
Jake sat down on the soft green grass and pushed his brown hair out of his eyes. Staring upwards, he watched the clouds drift lazily above them, blotting out areas of the forest with their shadows.
He found it strangely comforting to sit here and listen to the rustle of leaves, the twittering of birds and the slow steady sound of the stream. At least it was, until James gave a loud yell.
"Look! Look!" he was shouting in excitement, mouth opened, a child gawking at the festival attractions. Jake jumped to his feet and saw that he was pointing at a small hilltop that was split by a deep pit in the middle, with a bridge connecting the sections.
"What are you pointing at?" Tom scratched his head, dark black hair flopping over his eyes; a trait inherited from his late mother, who had once been mayor of the city, and who had died two years ago, leaving him in the care of a foster family. "There's nothing there!"
Jake searched the hilltop, eyes squinted for anything out of the ordinary, but found nothing of interest.
"Did you see it?" exclaimed James, running over to them, eyes alight. "It was a dragon! A blue dragon, flying around the hill!"
Jake laughed; this hadn't been the first time James had come up with some fantastic story, one featuring a mythical creature hardly broke his usual stride. "Come on James, you know dragons haven't been in Revek for over sixteen years. They left around the time King Yerga's rule began!"
Next to them, Tom's face darkened. He detested King Yerga, mainly because his father had been taken by Yerga's soldiers for selling supplies to the resistance fighters who fought the King; the event had been talk of the city for weeks afterwards, the extreme brutality and bloodshed on both sides causing a stir among the habitually docile people of Gradi. Not much was known about the resistance, except that they fought against the King with unbridled consistency and ferocity, and were always looking for new recruits.
The fight against the King had begun sixteen years ago, a few weeks after his rule began, or so the story, repeated by local storyteller Rust Araman on a regular basis, went. The rumour was that the King had taken the throne by force and had murdered the previous ruler, King Forsythe III, in cold blood. Jake did not know whether rumours like this could be believed - Rust was often thought of as a common liar and swindler - but as far as he could tell, their life was normal and simple, away from the hustle and bustle of the larger cities and guerrilla warfare tactics that the resistance commonly employed.
"I'm telling you, I saw a dragon!" James, still watching the place he had thought he had seen the dragon, spoke up again. Tom rolled his eyes at Jake, grinned, and continued onwards.
"Where are you going?" asked Jake. "We might as well go and see if James was telling the truth about the dragon."
"Fine, if you want to waste your time."
Satisfied with the answer he had received, Jake began walking through the trees, followed closely by James, with Tom trailing behind, still brooding, his thoughts elsewhere.
Soon they reached the bottom of the hill. One side was slanted downwards, while the other was inaccessible from the bottom. They climbed up the right side of the hill and stared across the woods splayed out before them; if Jake had a firmer grasp on description - a detestably childish novel he had penned in his spare time lay hidden under his mattress as his mind drifted - he would have explained the forest in detail to himself, speaking of the way the trees rustled majestically in the breeze, or how the cool gush of the high wind on his face relaxed and calmed him as nothing else could.
The boy was jerked back to reality as Tom and James approached the bridge, connected with thin wooden planks and ancient pieces of rope, memoirs of the journey of another group of overly-adventurous sixteen-year-olds.
"This doesn't look sturdy," said Tom, speaking all of their minds, eyeing the bridge nervously. "It could collapse as we're crossing it!"
"Don't be so stupid," James snapped, stepping onto the bridge. "The chances of that are very small." Jake watched as James safely crossed the bridge without incident. Now it was his turn.
He felt something in his mind calling, telling him not to do it. I must be imagining things. He looked into the dark pit that extended in the space under the bridge. He took a step onto the bridge. Nothing happened. He walked slowly. All was going well, until...
The stone cracked, the wooden planks creaking with a sense of ominous foreboding that one got usually before things started to go very bad.
I knew I shouldn't have thought 'I must be imagining things'.
Suddenly the whole world was vibrating, shaking with extreme force. Tom and James were yelling, telling him to run and jump, to get across to safety. He sped forward, running as hard as he could, all the while wondering why the ground was shaking so violently, and whether he could survive.
He tripped and fell off the bridge, catching the edge with one hand, splinters digging into his fingers like icy daggers. The vibrations were getting stronger, rattling his whole body. Can't hold on...
The bridge collapsed and fell into the pit, along with Jake. Tom and James stared down after their friend, who was now probably lying at the bottom of the pit, impaled on a sharp, deadly spike.
As it so happened, Jake was not lying at the bottom of the pit, impaled on a sharp, deadly spike. He was lying on a pile of dirty rags which smelled of rats. He was still at the bottom of the pit, though.
"Where am I?"
His voice sounded small and frightened, something he found abhorrent; it echoed off the walls and through a narrow tunnel ahead of him. He got to his feet, dusting off his old shirt and pants, before reaching for the torch that was hanging from a wall next to him.
Why would a torch be down here? Why would anything be down here? These questions pounded in his head as he inspected the cave. He took a closer look at the pile of rags. Then he realised they were actually the clothes of people. Dead people, he thought. People who fell down here like I did and either hurt themselves and were too injured to move or who were killed...
Killed by what? At that moment, a screech came from the tunnel. Just some bats. Maybe.
He definitely did not want to stay here any longer. Time to leave. If there was an exit. He started walking down the tunnel, footsteps echoing loudly, the only sound apart from the crackling of the torch and the slow, steady drip of water from somewhere close by. Bats fluttered around the ceiling, trying to avoid him. Light flickered off the stone walls, creating frightening shadows.
His foot slipped and he almost fell into a hole in the ground, a gaping black pit, yearning for another to fall victim to its presence. This one, he was sure, lead to a horrible death. Edging around the hole, he continued on. The tunnel was beginning to grow wider and a strong smell filled Jake's nostrils, one he could not identify, yet one that seemed strangely familiar, nostalgic, to him.
Suddenly the tunnel opened up and he was standing in an oval-shaped room, stalactites jutting from the roof, their corresponding brothers, stalagmites, bursting from the ground less frequently; the place was lit by the same flaming torches as before. Then he saw what was making the strange smell, and what he saw made him feel sick.
They were corpses. Bodies upon bodies were lying strewn around the cave, rotting and filled with maggots, bloated white creatures crawling in and out of every orifice, bones sticking out from various places, dusty grey and orange in the flickering light. Now he knew what had happened to all the people who fell down here; the pile of rags he had fallen on were the clothes of these corpses. What was even worse than that was that the corpses were being eaten, skin and flesh torn off, ripped into pieces, swallowed whole, by warriors in crimson armour, their eyes gleaming - members of the United Revek Kingdom Army.
Jake stumbled back, trying to prevent himself from throwing up. He tripped and his torch flew out of his hand onto the ground, wincing as the clatter echoed around the cave. The warriors stopped feasting on the bodies and looked around in his direction.
Jake's mind raced, panic flooding through him, cold sweat breaking out on his brow. What the hell is going on!? What are these things? Why is this happening? I have to get out of here!
Scrambling to his feet, he reached for his sword, hands fumbling on the hilt. He had saved up money he had got from working around the city for weeks to be able to buy it - it was one of the best the blacksmith had ever made, so he said. Probably said that so I would give him the extra money for the red sheath.
He shook his head. Why am I thinking about this right now? When I'm about to die? The flesh-eating warriors were closer now, muttering to each other. Jake saw something on the one closest to him. The insignia of the King. These were King Yerga's soldiers. But why were they down here? And why were they eating corpses like some sort of nightmarish creatures?
"Stay back!" he called, waving his sword, a warning that the warriors took no notice of, continuing to approach him slowly and cautiously, as if he were a bird that could take flight any second.
There was no other choice. He was outnumbered, by at least forty to one. He saw a passage at the other end of the cavern - that would be his exit, if he could get to it.
One of the soldiers leapt at him, the surprising speed catching him off guard, the creature or man, he couldn't tell, slashing his sword viciously. Jake dived out of the way, crashing into a pile of rotting bodies - he struggled to stop himself from retching. The sick decaying smell was overwhelming. He coughed and gagged, getting to his feet, picking up his sword.
The warriors were closing in; they had all drawn their swords, ready to attack. Jake jumped forward, slashing at the nearest one, knocking him to the ground. Jake dodged a blow from another soldier, shoving the ones ahead of him aside, forcing his way through.
One of the soldiers hissed something strange and incomprehensible; Jake flinched.
The voice of the soldier was strange, inhuman. What are these things? Yerga's soldiers are all humans, yet they speak like monsters and eat human flesh!
Elbowing past another soldier, Jake continued on. The exit was almost in reach. If he could just get past the last few soldiers...
The main group of soldiers ran forward, their swords gleaming. Jake stabbed wildly out at them, wounding two of them. A soldier jumped forward, his sword held high. Jake rolled out of the way and the sword hit the ground with a loud crack. Another soldier swung his sword in Jake's direction. Jake parried and their swords met, sending sparks flying. Jake kicked out, knocking the breath from the soldier, turned and ran as hard as he could towards the exit.
He ducked every attack thrown at him, every blade that whistled through the air, and every fist that came his way. Finally he got to the passageway out of the cavern. Ahead he could see another room, and in that room there was a door, raised on a small platform of stone. Light filtered through the rock that barred the exit.
He ran forward, followed closely by the soldiers. Into the next room, up the small rock platform, and to the rock. He pushed it as hard as could and it slowly began to move. But not fast enough. The soldiers were now scrambling up the platform, voices hissing, the stench of decaying flesh hanging over them, their brightly official armour belying their high-pitched hissing and malodorous scent. Nearly there...nearly...
And then it had moved aside. Light shone through like a beacon, signalling freedom. Freedom at last from this nightmarish cave and its monstrous inhabitants. He ran through the doorway and out into the bright sunlight of Aroma Woods. Free at last.
The soldiers did not follow, but instead pushed the rock back into the place, sealing the cave once more. Jake collapsed onto the grass, panting, staring up at the sky above; he watched the clouds drift lazily above them, blotting out areas of the forest with their shadows.
His mind was not safe, however, replaying back the event he had just witnessed, been a part of, some tale stranger than fiction, yet not quite fantasy, a dream-like nightamre that repeated itself over and over again in his mind, always ending the same way, the wrong way, the way he had just escape, his mind telling him that he had no right to exist, it was a fluke, he could have been snuffed out, wiped out from exsitence, only a moment ago.
Jake Eno was already dead.