A Dark Descent

The Tower

Alex woke up behind the waterfall. In front of him was the treehouse. He looked around. The world seemed to have less life than before. There was a glowing orange light emitting from the treehouse. Alex climbed inside and saw the light behind the old sofa. He moved the sofa over and saw a wooden toy horse lying on the floor with the light spewing out.

He grabbed the horse and the light left it's body and flew to the town. Alex ran all the way back to the town and light was stopped in the same spot as before. The light condensed and formed into a small boy that seemed to be scared, but free.

"Hello there." Said Alex as he waved to him.

The boy seemed as if it was going to cry.

"Who are you? Where's my mamma?" And the boy did cry.

Alex didn't know what answer to give to the boy, but he sympathised with his pain and scaredness. He tried to think of what to say and came up with something that might have worked. He held up the blue stone.

"Here." Alex said, and the light left the stone and traveled next to the boy.

"Mamma?" He said to the tall women standing next to him.

When Alex saw them standing together, he saw the beautiful contrast in the auras. The boy had an autumn orange aura while the mother had a blue aura, almost like an ocean.

"Yes darling. It's me." And the mother cried as they hugged each other, glad to no longer be separated. "Thank you so much for saving him."

"Yeah, it's ok, I'm just glad it's over."

"Yeah, but what about dadda, and Abigail, and big brother." Said the boy

"Yes, your right." Said the mother sadly.

"Wait, there's still more."

"Yes, but you're not alone in this fight." She assured Alex. "We actually have something for you."

The mother and son cupped their hands and inside a ball of light grew bigger and bigger.

"Now hold up your weapon."

Alex didn't know what she meant by weapon but held up the axe and decided it would do. The balls of light flew toward the axe and circled it. The lights flowed upwards and transformed the weapon from an old and rusty axe, to a glorious steel sword. Alex was amazed by what he was holding, yet it felt unfinished like his journey.

"Wow, what should I do?"

"You'll know what to do, you always have and you always will."

And the two spirits flew into the moon. Alex examined the sword further, amazing it was, but he had no idea of its purpose. Alex picked up the blue stone and the new orange stone next to it. He walked to the pantheon and wondered what was next for him to do, his only hint was some sort of cave. He made it around the pantheon and back to the dead forest.

When he entered, he noticed that the old path seemed to have disappeared. The forest looked entirely different to him. It was all still dead, but more thick, and there was no path at all. Some trees had fallen, others stood tall. He continued walking. He saw rock formations, not big ones, but noticeable ones, enough to cover something. He even saw bits of water that almost made puddles.

It really wasn't that different, but he felt that he had walked into foreign land. He heard a far off sound of thunder followed by a small breeze. Then he saw the hands in the air as they swooped down right at Alex. He screamed and summer salted away but it didn't stop the hands as they traveled into the ground and disappeared.

"What? Did they die?" The blue stone dinged twice.

Then the ground where the hands where began to crack and jump up, like something was trying to break. Then the earth was broken and a skeleton arose. It held a sword and shield and looked lifeless until it's eyes glowed and stared at Alex. Then he growled and eventually screamed as it charged at Alex. When it's sword came down to kill Alex, the purpose of his sword became clear and he held it up to protect his face. Alex crawled back away from the skeleton as it continued to try to kill him.