Zackariah+Ausgotharp

**Tempus Loquendi. **

They have to account for the blood on his collar,

the dark smudge shields his face in terror of the perfect

dark sound that begins at the edge of the mind.

This is a story I have heard before,

the sun, an affliction hitting white retinue

of figures mindlessly dwindling in blind faith.

In their dissertive cribs-sheet, lies the baby of

mean-Tricks, they speak and repeat

“Tempus Loquendi, Tempus Loquendi.”

Hands of strangers, hold your poison.

Drop you off in some pithy lake,

a terse pond in the middle of forest, surrounded by rubbish.

Along the river’s stony merge

A hundred thousand days of front-page paper events,

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">a half dozen of the retinue are happy to tell us,

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“It was the work of our lord above. Filth she was in his eyes. He dealt with her, as he will deal with you.”

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Fingerprints. Face. Awake. Every corner

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">sleep like mist in grieved eyes hollowed.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The baby of Mean-Tricks, lies.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Wanderer

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On my shoulders sat the Mammoth Crow. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I am the Forlorn Vagabond. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(I slay the monsters of dark woe.) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My compassion is on overflow. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In my travels I came across the badland. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On my shoulders sat the Mammoth Crow. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This did not happen a long time ago. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In the distance I could see the land of Woodwind. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(I slay the monsters of dark woe.)

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I stood upon the unwelcoming plateau. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I heard the cry of a Wolfhound. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On my shoulders sat the Mammoth Crow. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I was attacked by canine shadows of a black glow. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">With my steel, I put their miserable lives to end. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(I slay the monsters of dark woe.) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As they died, my flesh they had to forgo. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A rumble in the air, the demon arose from the ground. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On my shoulders sat the Mammoth Crow. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(I slay the monsters of dark woe.)

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 14.6667px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Of The FOREST.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Deep in the forest there was a giant Sohguth tree, that stood tall and proud by the Proble River. It was a big, massive tree. It had a Light Umber color to it, and a smooth wood texture on the outside, and it stood about 150 feet tall. The tree had been hollowed out in its earlier years by a tribe of Hoblins who had left it alone long ago. The inside was circular and had only one level, no upstairs nor basement, and it had just enough room for a small wooden chair that the boy had placed there, along with a dirty, white bed roll he had found while traveling the forest and placed it ever so nicely in the center of the room. The boy was a small child; he stood five feet tall with medium long white hair, and wore no clothes. He lived in the Sohguth tree and fished his food from the Proble River. The boy loved to fish, he fished all hours of the day. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> One morning after waking up, the boy’s stomach had started to growl. Boy walked across his room to pick his fishing stick. His fishing stick was very makeshift; it consisted of a nice and sturdy wooden stick, a long but thin string tied to the tip of the stick with a hook tied on the end of the string. Surprisingly, Boy was very effective with it. After picking up his fishing stick he then left his Sohguth tree house and started to the Proble River to fish himself some breakfast. As he was walking to the river, he stumped his foot up against a rock and fell down upon a giant, red and deco yellow mushroom. After falling upon this mushroom, the boy heard a tingling and fluttering noise. Confused and curious he jumped up and began to look around, he scoped the area for this new mysterious noise he was hearing. He couldn’t spot anything that would make this sound. This noise was causing him trouble; not knowing what was making this sound concerned the boy. The boy decided to close his eyes and see if he could focus on where the noise was coming from. Upon doing so he stared down at the mushroom he had fallen on. He knelt down next to the mushroom and put his ear up against its soft, squishy outer shell and listened. He then sprung back up onto his feet with his eyes and mouth wide open. The tingle and fluttering noise he was hearing, was, indeed coming from that mushroom! He stared at it, took two steps back, grabbed his sturdy fishing stick with both of his hands, and held it high above his head. !!!WACK!!! He swung it at the mushroom with a swift and off center swing, cracking its outer shell in two. There was now a gash on the top of the mushroom, the boy saw something moving around inside the mushroom, through the crack. He put his hands on the inside of the mushroom to pull it apart when all of a sudden. !!!Poof!!! There it was, flying right in front of the boy’s face. A creature popped out of the mushroom! Its wings were tingling and fluttering. Its lilac colored whale body was just hovering there right in front of the boy’s face. The creature had a goldenrod colored horn, with two small beady white eyes. Its wings were orange with a light blue glow to them. A dust was coming off of the creature’s wings with every flutter. The creature was getting its wing dust everywhere. With every little flap of its wings, poof, poof, poof more dust. This was the boy’s first time ever seeing a Nar fairy; however, he did not have odd feelings towards it. Boy stared at the fairy with familiar eyes, while it stared back mutually. He then reached his hands up to grab it and the Nar fairy then shot off deeper into the forest. The boy, curious, chased after it. The boy sprinting to catch up with this Nar fairy, jumped over a log of a fallen tree, slid under a few odd branches growing low from the trees, and tripped over a pile of leaves, hit the ground rolling and sprung back to his feet running again. The boy came across a giant boulder and watched the Nar fairy fly up over this huge gray boulder, covered in moss. The boy then jumped onto this rock, and began to climb it. Once at the top, he stopped and stared off in the distance. Boy was frozen in his tracks, he saw a village. He had come to the border Of The FOREST. An area he had never crossed. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The boy was staring off into the distance of the waist high grassy green plane that had a few medium sized hills on its surface. He could see the village not far away, with the sea right behind it. The Nar fairy had stopped fleeing about 20 feet in front of the boy; it was just staring back at the boy with the expression, “C’mon!!!!” The boy then jumped off the giant rock, and started towards the Nar fairy with a slow steady pace. The Nar fairy didn’t shoot off away, the boy was no longer chasing the Nar fairy… he was following it. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> When they came to the village there was no gate blocking outsiders from coming in. The backs of all the houses together acted as a wall, with few alley ways as entrances’ and exits. The village was a decent sized village; it was the village of Artarboor. Artarboor was smallish fishing town that got its supplies through trade of the seas. As the boy walked into the village, he saw other people. Lots of people, he had never seen another human before, he was excited. He wore a huge awe-faced smile. The villagers, however, did not. They were astonished. A child Of The Forest had walked right into their town. The villagers started to gather around the boy and the Nar fairy, surrounding them. It was then, that one of the village fishermen through his black fishing net over the Nar fairy, capturing it. The fisherman then pulled at the Nar fairy, trying to tug it out of the air, the Nar fairy was struggling and doing its best to fight out of the trap it was in, the fisherman then with a swift jerk yanked the Nar fairy to the ground. The Nar fairy hit the ground hard, knocking itself unconscious, the fisherman then quickly pulled and jerked the Nar fairy closer to him, it was then the boy dived to grab the net the Nar fairy was trapped in, but he missed. Landing a few inches away from the Nar Fairy, straight on his belly, another village fisherman placed his foot on the boy’s back, trapping Boy to the ground. “Get some rope!” shouted the village fisherman as he stared down creepily at the boy. “We’re tying this one up” he said in slow and exaggerated tempo. You could sense the man’s bad intentions in the tone of his voice. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Nar fairy, regaining consciousness, saw the boy in distress; it saw him struggling to get out from underneath the man’s foot, failing at every attempt. With quick thinking the Nar fairy then opened its mouth as wide as it possibly could, stretching from one side of its face to another, it then began to almost let out a scream of some sort. The entire village, watching and the two fishermen harassing the boy and the Nar fairy, began to scream in pain! The villagers and fishermen then all grabbed their ears, crying and screaming (“AHHHHH!!! THE PAIN!! PLEASE STOP!!!” They would yell, “I’M BEGGING YOU! PLEASE STOP, IT HURTS MY EARS!!!” and they’d cry, “WE’LL DO ANYTHING IF THAT NOISE WILL GO AWAY!!!”) The boy heard nothing but the cries and screams for help by the villagers. He seemed to be the only one unaffected by the Nar Fairy’s scream. The man on top of the boy took his foot off the boy’s back. Inside the boy’s head, he could hear a voice speaking, “RUN! RUN! RUN, NOW!!” <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The boy then sprung to his feet and shot off towards the forest, pushing villagers out of his way, and tripping over a few chickens. One of the villagers noticed the boy running, and shouted, “THE CHILD IS GETTING AWAY! AFTER HIM!” A few of the villagers then started chasing after the boy, the boy jumped over some crates, and into one of the alleyways, out the back of the village and through the hip high grass of the green plane, back towards the forest with the group of villagers not far behind. The boy hopped over one last log and hit the ground, rolled two times over a 17 foot distance, slamming right into the base of a tree. He lay underneath the tree for a few seconds moaning. He quickly jumped up to his feet see how close the villagers were, and they were right there. Standing right in front of the log he had just jumped over. The villagers were just standing there staring at the boy with mundane faces not saying a word nor moving, their heads followed Boy’s every move. The boy took three steps towards them and stood there staring back at them in confusion. He slowly took one step back still staring at the villagers, noticing that the villagers had no intentions of crossing the border, and then shot off deeper into the forest. Passing trees, and bushes, hopping over piles of leaves and twigs, and bundles of mushrooms; he turned his head back around one more time for one last reassuring look. Upon doing so he smacked right into another being. They both fell on their asses and the boy, tired from running, passed out. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> The boy had awoken in a bed. It was a soft bed, definitely better than the bed role he had been sleeping on for no one knows how long. The bed was the perfect size for him, he had half a foot of space between him and the edges of the bed on both sides, the mattress was soft and it reminded Boy of the clouds he would see every day. The blanket that was upon him was smooth, it had to of been made from the smoothest silks. Boy looked around the medium, wood walled room. On one wall, he resided, the wall to his left had a small little wooden desk. To which the boy thought it odd that the desk had no chair with it. The wall in front of Boy had a huge closet full of very exquisite clothing, and the wall to his right had a door. “Do you like my room?” said a yielding voice. The boy quickly turned his head to the darkened corner of the room. “Well, do YOU?” the voice sounded a little irritated that time. The boy just sat there, looking at the body that was speaking. Boy just stared, he did not speak. The figure stood up from its chair, walked into the light, revealing itself. It was a young girl, not much older than the boy himself. She had long blood red hair, a white complexion, soft silver eyes that sat below her thin clean kept eyebrows. She owned a small straight nose that sat pleasantly on her face, just above her small luscious lips. She looked into the boy’s eyes from across the room, “Do you like my room?” <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Boy shot out of the bed towards the door, he grabbed the knob with his left hand and swung it a quarter of the way open before the girl threw her arm in front of the door, stopping it, and slamming it shut. “Where do you think you are going mister?” she put her hand on his chest and stopped, she stared at her hand for a second, then pushed the boy away from the door “You haven’t even answered my question, yet!” The boy looked at her and raised his left eye brow. “What’s your problem?” she snapped at him. “Is this how you treat someone who takes you under their wing and tends to you after you assault her in the forest and pass out?” she raised her hand, “Huh?! Will you answer me?!’ Boy just stood there examining her every move. “How rude.” She said under her breath. The boy eked towards the door slowly. The girl stepped in front of the door and folded her arms. “You have some serious mental issues.” Boy just stared and her and blinked. “Fine, if you want to leave so bad, go ahead and leave me!” She grunted out as she folded her arms. “But I can’t let you leave my house completely naked. People may get the wrong idea; let me at least clothe you before you leave me?” <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Boy continued on with his stare at the girl. The girl grabbed his wrist and pulled him to her closet. She opened the slide doors all the way, and started to go through her clothes. Throwing the ones she didn’t like behind her onto the floor. “Here! This will be great!” The girl pulled out a dark green long sleeve sweater and held it up to the boy’s chest, “Hmm, the sleeves are a little too long.” She scrunched her face and put her hand on her cheek. “Oh well, it’ll have to do.” The girl through the sweater over the boy’s shoulder, and walked towards her dresser and started through it. The girl pulled out a pair of brown shorts and walked over to the boy and knelt down. She held the shorts up to the boys legs, “hmm, now this is funny.” She snickered a little, “These are a little too short, they stopped like 5 inches above your knees!” she laughed, and then cleared her throat. “They are the boyish shorts I have, so they will have to do as well that sweater.” The girl then stood up, laid the shorts over her shoulder and grabbed the sweater off of the boy’s shoulder. She then lifted both of the boy’s arms up and began to put the sweater on him, “Stop fussing, I’m helping you!” The boy fought her a little but he succumbed to her. He popped his head out of the neck hole in the sweater and gasped for air. “Oh don’t be so dramatic.” She said as she stuck her tongue out at Boy. The girl then knelt down again and lifted one of the boy’s feet a few inched off of the ground “Yuck!” she exclaimed “your toe nails are raunchy nasty!”, she grabbed the brown shorts off her shoulder and put the boys foot through the first hole, then she grabbed his other foot and did the same. She stood up as she pulled his shorts up and buttoned them. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The girl took a few steps back folded her arms, lent to her side a little and looked at the boy, “Well, I think you look pretty damn good.” She smiled; the boy just stared at her with his arms wide out to the side. “You can put your arms down now.” She said and she walked back to her closet. The boy put his arms down and followed her to her closet. The girl then went through all her shoes. She picked up a pair of brown leather boots and looked at the boy’s feet, “Ya know what? I think your feet are too big for any of the shoes I have.” She said in disappointment. “Oh well. I did what I could” she smirked and stared at the boy. “Now what?” she sighed. The boy then turned around and went for the door, “Hey!” she shouted at the boy, he jumped and turned around, his eyes wide open he started breathing heavily, “Whoa, calm down.” She walked towards the boy, “I was wondering if I could… um… follow you around a bit?” The boy just stared at her, like he always does. “I’ll take that as a yes” she said as she smiled. “Oh, by the way… The names Seraph.” She put her hand on her chest, “Seraph.” The boy looked at her and stared her in the eyes… then he turned away and headed out the door. “Where are going?” she followed the boy. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The boy continued to walk away, he stepped out the front door to Seraph’s house and stopped, his eyes opened wider, his breathing got heavier. He remembered this location, just 30 feet in front of him was where he was attacked and the Nar fairy captured. He sprinted off towards the location. “Wait!” shouted Seraph, “Where are you going?!” she sprinted after him. Boy stopped running right when he stood in the middle of the location where he was attacked. Seraph stopped right behind him, “What is wrong with you?!” she shouted at him. The boy began to look around, he paced the area looking off at the houses and taverns and boats at the docks. “Are you looking for something or what?” said Seraph as she raised her hands and shrugged her shoulders. The boy heard some men shouting off in the distance near the boats, he then looked in that direction at the harbor. The boy pointed towards the boats and Seraph looked at them. “You wanna go that way?” The boy looked at her, and shot off towards the boats. “My goodness.” She shook her head and went off after the boy. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> The boy and Seraph arrived at the docks, they hid behind a few wooden cargo crates that had been stacked up, and they peaked over the top of the crates at the blue boat parked at the docks. “Son of a bitch!” shouted a weak voice of a man off in the distance, “its horn is sharp!”, “Oh quitcher bitchen, ya wuse! Just pick it up and get off this ship! Take it to the Hokulun, she’ll know what to do with It.” shouted another more masculine voice, “Yes sir captain!” said the weak voice. A man began to walk up the stairs of the blue boat, Boy and Seraph could see the top of his head. The man then reached the top of the stairs and turned around. Boy grunted and quenched with teeth, the man they saw on the ship was holding the Nar fairy. The Nar fairy seemed to be out of consciousness and was still wrapped up in the net it was caught with. The boy started to jump up, but Seraph grabbed the back of his sweater and pulled him down, “That creature the man is holding…” said Seraph “It’s yours isn’t it?” The boy stared her in the eyes; a tear fell down the boy’s cheek. She saw the boy’s tear and said softly to herself while nodding her head. “It is.Well, you can’t just go aboard some ones ship without permission. It’s against the law; they could kill you for it.” The boy looked at her in confusion, then jerked Seraphs arm off of him and jumped over the crates and sprinted towards the boat. Suddenly a loud ear striking noise went off! <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sirens were going off, and bells were ringing. The boy stopped in his tracks, “PIRATES!!!!” yelled one of the watchmen who was cranking the hand crank that was sounding the alarm at the top of the wooden tower. “PIRATES IN THE DISTANCE, THEY’RE COMING IN FAST!!!” The boy looked off into the distance. He could see their ships off in the sky they were descending down from the clouds into the sea; the ships were black, solid black with red dashes on their flags, the flags high and tall in the middle of each ship. There was one ship unparticular, that stood out more than the others, this ship had spikes coming off of the side and a long black, brown, mossy green rusted sword sticking out the front of it. It was as if that ship used that enormous sword to ram through other ships. The ships splashed into the sea, the villagers began to scream and run around! The pirate ships came close to the docks and all the pirates on board began to jump off their ships. There were hundreds of pirates swarming off onto the harbor like ants on fire. “BOY!!!” yelled Seraph. “WHERE ARE YOU?!” Boy could hear her cries; he knew they were for him. He looked around for her, but there were too many people running around and screaming. The boy couldn’t see her. He was lost in the confusion and hysteria. The pirates were attacking people, stabbing them, slashing them, grabbing them and tying them up and pulling them back onto their ships. The pirates all looked the same, they were black shadows. Fuzzy solid black shadows, their black outlines were constantly moving as if they were made of black static electricity. They had solid white circular eyes. There was nothing behind those eyes, no emotion, no love, and no life. One of the pirates spotted boy and ran towards him, the boy stood there in shock with his eyes stretched open and his mouth shut, his heart beating faster and faster but he did not breathe nor did he move. He couldn’t move. The pirate came up towards the boy and raised its sword and swung down upon the boy. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The pirates blade stopped. Inches from the boys head, another blade had blocked the pirate’s sword. Actually, it wasn’t a blade. It was a horn, a golden rod colored horn. The boy looked up to see the Nar fairy had stopped the pirate’s blade with its horn. He looked into its eyes and smiled. Then the pirate jerked its sword back and swung at the Nar fairy, the Lilac colored whale dodged out of the blades way and shot itself into the pirate’s stomach. Black smoke shot out from the pirate’s gaping wound. The pirate then let out a loud ear piercing screech and vanished into a dark cloud of smoke. Several more pirates looked in the direction of the screeching pirates. The horned lilac colored whale fairy looked back at the boy, the boy pointed off behind it. One of the pirates snuck up behind the Nar fairy grabbed at it, catching the fairy, it then fled off back into the crowd of pirates and villagers. The boy jumped to his feet and chased after it only to get knocked down by one of the villagers trying to escape. The boy lay down on the ground trying to get back up, but couldn’t every time he would try to get up he would get knocked back down by another scrambling villager. One villager, a woman, screaming holding her child in hand came running away from a pirate, just as boy got to his knees the woman came across him and bumped into him, accidently thrusting her knee right into the left side of Boy’s jaw, knocking him out cold. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Boy awoke to see fire and smoke. And rose up on his butt, with his legs sprawled out and his hands lay in his lap. All the buildings in Artarboor were burning and the blue sky could not be seen, instead, in its absence, dark black and gray smoke. Dead villagers lay everywhere. There was no one, nothing left alive. Boy saw a shadow in the distance; he watched it eking its way through one of the alleyways. He jumped to his feet and ran after it, he slide his way through the alleyway and came out on the other side of the village, he stopped and fell down to his knees and screamed at the top of his lungs, “SERAPH!!!!!!” The forest was on fire, smoke rising up from the Sohguth, Minoots, and Kalakalyry trees. The red flame turned the trees black, brought the trees down, and took away their life. “BOY!!!!!” shouted a voice off in the distance. “BOY!!!!!!!” screamed the voice again, off in the distance, “HELP!!!!” Boy arose to his feet; he saw the group of pirates at the border of the forest with their torches. One of the pirates had Seraph in its arms. Boy screamed again “SERAPH!!!!” He ran towards her, getting closer and closer until suddenly he was knocked off his feet with a missive force. He fell to the ground landing on his back, boy then grabbed his right shoulder and screamed in pain, blood was leaking from his shoulder, his neck felt paralyzed and he couldn’t move his right arm. He looked down at his shoulder, there was a black, brown and mossy green bolt, from a crossbow, stuck in his shoulder. One of the pirates had shot him. A dark, dark smoke was leaking from the wound, the smoke began to form around the boy’s arm, engulfing it in its shadowy presence until his entire arm was covered in the smoke. Boy started to breathe heavier and heavier, his heart beating faster and faster. The bolt in his shoulder disappeared into the smoke and the boy, slowly coming in and out of consciousness, could hear off in the distance as he slowly passed out… “BOY!!!!”…” <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">BOY!!! <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> ”….” <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 10.6667px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">HELP!!!”….”HELP ME BOY <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">… <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 9.33333px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Boy!” <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 8px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“HELP!” To be continued…