Gifted: A New Beginning.

Gifted: A New Beginning: escape

(AN. I have removed the original Gifted from wattpad due to personal reasons, i am currently re writing it, most will stay the same but there will be significant changes. This is the new beginning. Thanks to particular friends that encouraged me to repost this. This is for you)

CHAPTER ONE



escape



They were coming, thought Edward, just like they had come for his mother. Everyone who had the Gift were Taken, just like Edward's mother.

Rage clouded his mind, as he thought of his mother, tightening his chest uncomfortably. His mother had always been there for him, every scraped knee, every stubbed toe, she had been there wiping away his tears and kissing it better.

Edward had always loved his mother's sparkling rock collection, how she could make them glow and glitter and change colors. His mother had been a pretty woman with a slender build and long dark brown hair and bright green eyes. Edward had cried for days after his mother had given herself up to the Chaser's to save him and his dad from the Chaser's sick idea of fun.

The Chasers were the Dark's servants, clad in black with glass face masks, their right arm was cut off and a fire stone was sown into the end, giving them the power to replace their arm with fire, fire that could take the form of any object. 


 Being made into a Chaser was a punishment worse than death because not only did the fire stone give you the power over fire, it also wiped your mind, destroying it, connecting it to the Dark and every other Chaser, if the stone was removed it would leave you completely senseless, unable to think, unable to talk, unable to do anything. 



If you were to just touch or hold a fire stone created by the Dark it acted like a tracing device, any Chasers in the area where instantly drawn to you, but if you had one inside your flesh it would burn and throb, tendrils of dark energy would seep into your blood stream and into your mind destroying any barriers or protections and instantly converting all information, every single thought, every intention, straight to the Dark.

The stone would attach itself into your flesh and bone, turning them into stone and that way connecting itself further into you. This would continue for years before it would eventually turn to many blood vessels to stone and stop the Chaser's heart, killing it slowly and painfully.

Edward had to get away from the city, for his mother, to find someone with the Gift to teach him how to avenge his mother and everyone that the Dark had harmed.

He quickly ran to his room and packed two daggers, lock pick wires, a bundle of food, a water skin and his moneybag into a rucksack. Then he put his leather belt made from two pieces of leather sown together around his waist and strapped his sword that his father had helped him make on to his belt, he shoved the handle of his hammer through the belt and lastly donned his thick green travelling cloak that his mother made him and snuck out of the trap door that led to the scrap metal yard that he and his father used to get the metal they needed, and crept silently along the small, round tunnel to the scrap yard. 
In Illyria, the city in which he lived, it was a vital skill to be able to move without being seen or heard and he had mastered it before his tenth birthday.


When he reached the scrap yard he saw a faint smoke in the air, the word Chasers raced around his head in a jumble of fear and anger, he had to get to the center of the city as fast as possible before the Chasers where drawn to him.


The Dark's fire stones gave the Chaser's the ability to sense the Gifted and that fact made them all the more dangerous. When a Gifted child turned thirteen his Gift grew more powerful and therefore it made it easier for Chasers to sense them. 

His plan was to get to the storm water drain, which had an opening at the center of the city, and from the storm water pipes, north-west to the Black Forest where he could make his way to the White Mountains and find the person to teach him. 



He ran toward the center of the city, glancing backward momentarily to check if he was being followed as he turned around a Chaser appeared at the end of the alley, facing away from him, a fire whip flaring out from its stump. Edward skidded to a halt and ducked down into the shadows, he dared not even breath. The Chaser walked slowly down the street, his hard leather boots clacking on the cold stone street. As the Chaser grew closer, Edward shuffled down further into the shadows wrapping his cloak tighter against him, willing the Chaser not to notice him. The black clad Chaser slowly reached edward and past him, disappearing down the end of the street. Edward aloud himself a shallow, shaking breath before cautiously getting up and creeping along the edges of the narrow streets. He continued carefully making his way to the centre of the city, stopping every now and then it avoid detection until he turned down a side street straight into a towering Chaser, he instantly dashed away, but before he could escape the fiery whip lashed out and wrapped around his ankle burning through the thick coarse fabric of his pants in an instant, scaring his leg underneath and yanking his feet out from under him. Edward's face smashed into the ground with a sickening crunch, breaking his nose. Thoughts flew wildly around his head but he knew that there was no one who could save him now. 


Suddenly with a loud thwack the whip slackened and disappeared. Edward jumped to his feet and in the split second that he turned around before pelting off down the street, he saw the Chaser lying face down on the road with a black arrow shaft embedded in the back of his skull, blood trickling onto the smooth, flat stones of the road.

Edward ran into a small side alley and crouched down pressing himself against the wall, his breath coming in shot ragged bursts, his ankle and nose burned in pain, tears prickled at his eyes blurring his vision slightly. He wiped the tears away angrily and stood up to see another Chaser standing menacingly at the mouth at the alley a large fiery hammer blossomed front his stump of an arm. The Chaser charged at Edward, swinging the massive fire hammer down at Edward's head, Edward jumped to side as the hammer smashed into the ground, sending sparks flying out across the stone ground.

The Chaser jumped at Edward pinning him to the ground at his neck with his forearm, a blazing curved blade extending from the Chaser's stump, as the Chaser was about to bring the blade slashing down Edward whipped his hammer from his belt and planted it in the Chaser's throat. The Chaser rolled off Edward wheezing and gasping but Edward had already pelted down the street, limping heavily, toward the storm water grate in the center of the city square, not bothering to check if the Chaser was following him.

When he reached the drain he collapsed down onto the cold, hard paving stones that created the ground of the city square. He desperately tried to wrench the heavy iron grate off but it wouldn't budge. Adrenaline coursed through his veins charging his blood to a burning torrent and sharpening his senses to an unbelievably high definition. He forced the heavy iron grate to move again, willing the grate to move. Suddenly it sprang free and he leapt down the grate replacing it as soon he was down, sealing himself in. 



Edward collapsed on the clammy cold floor of the drain. He felt oddly and utterly drained, the last thought that raced through his mind was the arrow coming out of nowhere, before he collapsed into unconsciousness.



A figure cloaked in grey moves silently along the rooftops the Chaser he just shot his attract more and they will be able to trace his arrow. 
His cloak flapped in the wind as he sped over the roofs, he reached the end of the line of house and launched himself over the gap created by the road, as he lands he rolls cushioning his landing. A Chaser appears on the edge of the roof to the side of him and another on his other side, one with a fiery whip and another with what looked like an arrow. The Chasers move toward the grey figure, the whip flash out, in an instant the figure whips out a sword, that had been concealed in his cloak, and slashes it into the whip, the whip curls around it and the figure jerks the Chaser forward and ducks as the other Chaser fires his arrow. The arrow smashes through the glass facemask of the first Chaser and kills him its whip disappearing. The figure swings his foot around to trip the second Chaser but it jumps and lands on his foot, the cloaked figure bring his other foot down on the Chaser's ankle, shattering it. He jumps to feet and plants his foot through the Chaser's mask, killing it. The grey-cloaked figure sheaths his sword and disappears into the night.