Phoenix Chronicles:Eternal Flame

Prologue

So there I stood, looking at myself in the mirror. My sunset orange hair, my bangs and my emerald green eyes all that drove girls crazy. I contemplated for a bit what it was about me that girls at my academy loved about me so much. Was it my voice? My eyes? My hair? My brain? I couldn't fight at all though no one knew that. So I looked at myself, baffled at why girls loved me when all of a sudden I heard my mom yell "Xeno hurry up or were going to leave you behind.". As good as that sounded I knew that my parents wouldn't dare leave me alone. It was time for our families annual hiking trip up the Kokurohime Mountain Trail. I never looked forward to this because it was the same crap every year. We get there and we walk the whole trail in a couple hours because my parents forced me to be an overachiever, a name I frequently get called in school. Then we take some photos, cook some steak, sleep then leave the next morning. As per request of my mother I hurriedly packed the rest of my stuff then went downstairs. "There you are Xeno, only took you forever." My mom always had the same sarcastic tone with me because I did things differently and it always annoyed me more everytime. So mother and I casually walked downstairs to the garage where my father sat in the car as anxious as always. "Good morning to you too sleepy head." my father exclaimed in the same sarcastic tone my mother used with me. The only difference between my mom and dad was that my dad was never serious about anything and my mom was serious about everything. "Come on you two, put your stuff in the back and lets get moving." My father was way to excited this year but ignored it and sat in the back and remained quiet until my dad spoke to me. "So Xeno, how's school going." I answered "same as always dad, top of my class for the tenth year in a row." My father asked this question too much and its quite frankly irritating. He gave me a nod and yet again I remained quiet. I was always top of my class, even when i was 6 I was learning college material due to my parents overachieving nature. I'm sixteen now and even now the only thing I get beat at is combat with weapons. Hand to hand combat was a breeze because I was forced to get world championships for six freaking types of martial arts. I was never trained with magic or weapons of any kind, not even a knife. So after a while of mental ranting I proceeded to doze off and fall asleep. I awoke later to find my mom and dad gathering their individual bags. My dad looked at me and said "there you are sleeping beauty, get your crap and let's get going." After wiping the sleep out of my eyes I grabbed the one bag i packed and trailed behind my parents. The usual happened just like every year, photos at the same landmarks, I get asked the same pointless questions and nothing changes. I would say that except this year was worse than the last. We began walking down a long dirt path with plenty of shrubbery. The next events with my parents would come to be the last ones I'd share with them. As we walked down this path I remember hearing a loud and ear screeching roar. The wind picked up, and the shrubbery shook with this while the roar had stopped us from moving. I sat down next to a bush and closed my eyes for a second to shake the pain in my ears but when I woke my parents were gone. I searched around the surrounding area to find a creature that was twice the size of a bears with its spine bursting from its back. Its fur was pitch black and its eyes were a piercing dark red that froze me in my place. It walked towards me and as it got closer bodies were revealed in a pool of blood. At first the bodies were unrecognizable but as the beast slowly walked closer, the bodies became unmistakable. These were the bodies of my parents who were taken away in an instant which means I was either resting long than I thought or this beast is incredibly fast. I knew I was next as the beast pounced on me and dug its claws into my stomach and bit down on my chest. I couldn't even scream but I felt tears stream down, tears that came from my fear, my sorrow and anger. The beast continued dining on me but as my vision faded I looked up and saw a light. It was a bright orange and was careening towards me and I thought it was aiming for me but it wasn't. Instead the light ripped through the beast and a cloaked figure pierced the beast several times with a rapier and killed it. The figure than turned to me and said "Your safe now, just relax". With a bloody body and the loss of my parents, I had nothing left but hope at a second chance.