Chronicles of The Four: The Winter Journey

Chapter 1: Winter Wanderer

Someone once told him, Fate is the only thing that has been done by you.

That didn't make much sense to him. Not even he could understand that senile old man he had been travelling with. He was crazy and sarcastic. Very sarcastic as himself though. Having a thought of him, he wondered.

How long has it been after he disappeared? Three years? Maybe Five? He wasn't so sure. He couldn't even remember nor describe how the old man would look like up until now. His name wasn't known to him but he did tell his.

You are Jokul Frosti. A low deep voice rang into his head. It was a strange name for someone to be named that way. And he didn't seem to like the last name-- Frosti-- when he thought that it sounded more feminine just by pronouncing it correctly. After his disappearance, however, he began to like the name. He didn't know why but now he understood.

Jokul sighed deeply as his breathe came out filled with puff of cool breeze when he mouthed quietly.

"Where are you old man?"

He looked up to meet the blinding rays of the sun and under his old fabricated frozen hood were two pairs of blue sapphire eyes. He tried covering them with his hand overshadowing them to protect his vision from the glow before he would go blind. Then he resumed his walk.

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Today's winter evening was usual. No sights of wild animals nor territorial beasts roaming around these leafless but snow covered woods that he sprinted through. Not a single chirp was sang by a polar gale as it did earlier. He can only hear his footsteps. Stepping on the tiny bits of snow with his barefoot, he could feel the chill tingling through his veins as if he was about to freeze himself up but he was okay with it. The cold didn't bother him, anyway.

As he walked on, his mind quickly drifted elsewhere. He tried to remember something. A memory of his past. Clearly, he just met the old man in the middle of somewhere within these snowy regions. But he couldn't remember of having parents of his own. And he didn't have a thought of how they appeared to be just like he forgot the old man's face. Though, he tried and tried. Sketching their appearance in his self-concious. Painting the traits that he held which were possibly from one of them. He smiled carelessly at his masterpiece but his smile faded into a frown once he realized that the picture was erased and long gone from his mind.

Here I am, his voice echoed in his imagination. Acting so childish at some fantasy.

Jokul snapped when he stepped on something. His right barefoot touched an object. It felt cold but it was smoother than the snow itself and there was this sharp sensation which the young wanderer almost sliced his toes if he reacted, he would dare. Slowly, he backed his foot away and glanced down to see a pointed blade almost buried by the thick white snow.

Curious, he picked it up by a hilt that the blade was attached to and examined the discovered object. Just as he thought. It was a modern dagger with the blade having its tip sharp but the edge of it was more sharper as if it can probably cut off someone's leg or arm. Or possibly. The head. Jokul shook, scolding himself for thinking something that violent much to a psychopath who would be crazy enough to do it. Though, he was not that psychopath but the owner of the dagger itself.

He began tracing the blade. Gazing at its strange drawings of characters that he could not describe but they somehow shown something related to a tale which he wasn't quite familiar to as well. Tracing it once more, he found something carved in the middle of all the characters. They were alphabetical letters in a serif font.