Hidden Shadows

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I can feel the sweat run down my tired body as I work out. My breathing is heavy and my lungs are burning for water. "Can we stop now?" My best friend Jasper gasps out as he tries to keep up with my heavy training. It's hard to keep my face straight as I respond to his question. "You can leave at anytime. You know, if your not manly enough to keep up with me." I can't help but let a small laugh escape when I see his response to my statement. He immediately starts working out faster and he gets a very determined look on his face. "Men." I mutter in amusement while shaking my head. He never could handle rowing machines.

Suddenly there's a loud alarm sounding through the training room. Jasper and I both immediately jump off of the machines and run towards the weapons room, knowing that shadows have been spotted and a fight is about to start. As we run, I pull my hip length curly red hair up into a high pony tail. The weapons room is down the hallway from the training room so we arrive in a matter of seconds. As we're pulling our weapons off the the walls, the boss and creator of our home walks in. His old voice is strong and deep as he talks, and his wrinkled eyes show that he isn't at all nervous. "The shadows are attacking in larger numbers than usual. We need to fight back hard and cut them down quick." As he speaks, more people start arriving to quickly grab their weapons and listen to the bosses plan. Nobody looks at me as they talk to each other and form groups. They all know that I only fight with Jasper and I won't work with anyone else. When everyone is ready, we all leave to meet the shadows at the front doors of our home, which everyone calls the vault. Every group goes to its designated attack point. There are 5 groups, the fifth being Jasper and I. As we prepare ourselves for the bloody battle, we hear a fight start outside. "The woodland fairies decided to help us out!", a random lookout yells out to us. Instead of being nervous about the attack, now everyone is agitated that the stupid woodlanders showed up. They always cause problems when they come onto our territory. We already have one fight going on, we don't need another one. Although nobody is happy about our helpers, we all decide to ignore them for now. We know that there is a bigger problem to deal with. The attack.

Jasper and I are the first ones out the door to join the battle, but everyone follows closely behind. Immediately there are shadows on us. I quickly slash through the first one, but others fill its place right away. There are more shadows than I expected. Usually they attack in groups of about 50, but today there are probably around 200. I attempt to slice off the head of a shadow but it is too quick. It dodges my swing and sends a blow to my side. I barely deflect the hit as another shadow joins its friend in attacking me. This one only seems to slow its comrade down and get in the way. I hurry as I see an opening and swiftly slice its neck open. As its head falls open, blood sprays out of the wound and showers over the me. Due to the death of his confidant, the living shadow quickly gets angry. It lunges towards me and knocks me to the ground. My sword skids a few feet to the right of me and I struggle to reach it. Just as my fingers grasp the handle of my sword, I feel a sharp pain in my wrist. Another shadow showed up right as I seized my sword and pressed firmly on my wrist with its foot. All of the sudden I remember that I keep an extra knife in my boot for emergencies. In a flash, I use my free hand to pull the knife out of my boot and throw it through the air at the shadow pinning me down. My knife reaches its target in seconds. As the shadow falls back with a scream to pull my knife out of its eye, I instantly pick up my sword. Before I can finish the monster off, an arrow beats me to it with deadly accuracy to its head. I take a moment to look around at the battle field and notice that the war is almost over. A third of the creatures have arrows sticking out of them, and the rest have lethal wounds covering them. The few stragglers still alive are quickly being finished off. I would never say this to a woodlanders face, but they helped us a lot in this battle. They prevented deaths that would have been inescapable without them here.

As I walk towards Jasper to see if he's hurt, a woodlander steps in my way. She pushes her short blond hair behind her pointy ears as she sneers in my face. Her voice is annoying and high-pitched as she screeches in my face. "You're like, so lucky we got here in time to help you. You would've like, died if we didn't show up and kill all of the shadows. That just shows how much better us woodlanders are than you." Her comment doesn't surprise me in the least. Most of them act like her, minus the nails-on-a-chalkboard voice. I just give her a blank stare and push past her to join Jasper. As I walk up to greet Jasper and check him for injuries, I notice that she followed me. "You're being such an ungrateful whore. You should be bowing down at my feet for wasting my precious time with scum like you." I keep ignoring her comments and only give her a blank look, but Jasper is easily angered and decides that he doesn't want to listen to her preach. Right before Jasper can open his mouth and tell her off, the hottest guy I have ever seen walks up. He is at least 6'5 and he is a wall of rippling muscle. His dark blue eyes reflect the moonlight and his short black hair shines. His face is covered in dark stubble and tattoos are visible on his arms and chest as they peek out of his tight blue T-shirt. Then he ruins it all by talking. "Hey Ash, are these things bothering you?" He looks at the girl, Ash, and waits for her answer. "Yes! These idiots refuse to thank us for our help!" She smiles at him as she waits for his response. His reply makes me want to punch him in the face. "These fools are too stupid to realize how much they need us. They wouldn't be able to survive on their own if it weren't for us. If it were up to me, I would just let them all die. They aren't worthy enough to live on the same planet as us." He glares at us as if he is daring us to argue with him. Jasper glares back at him while I just give him a blank look, trying to hide how I actually feel about his comments. Furious, disgusted, sad that people actually think that about us. I'm also mad at myself for being upset about him thinking those things about me. He's just a stupid, arrogant woodlander and it doesn't matter what he thinks. At least thats what I keep telling myself. Jasper looks like he's trying to hold himself back from speaking his thoughts to the two woodlanders. Boss always tells us that to be a great warrior, we need to know how to accept things that we don't like. "What? Are you too stupid to think of a comeback? That's not surprising." Ash mocks us as she puts her hand on her hip.

Without warning, a loud familiar voice rings out over the talking. "You all fought very valiantly tonight. We thank you, woodlanders, for assisting us in the defeat of this army. Unfortunately, this is only the beginning of their storm. More is to come. In order to defeat this enemy, we must destroy it at its source." Boss pauses to glance at the woodlanders leader, Queen Fallon. "Queen Fallon and I constructed a plan. It will either create the heroes of the new dawn, or ensure their demise. We have each chosen our 3 best warriors, and if they accept, together they will travel to the shadows portal and destroy the source of our enemy." By now, everyone is looking around at each other and wondering who got chosen for this task. Queen Fallon joins Bosses side and names her 3 best warriors. "I have chosen the three who I believe will do the best they can in this terrifying journey. The three are Gabriel Matthews, Ashley Thorne, and Samantha Holt." The hot, very rude guy and Ash both look very arrogant and happy, but Samantha seems scared. Samantha looks like she is only 10 and she is tiny. I watch her as she thinks over her decision to join the group. At first she looks scared, but as she stands there and thinks, the Queen walks over to her and whispers something in her ear. Suddenly Samantha's whole face changes and she looks determined to complete this quest. When Boss starts talking, all of the chattering quiets down again. "I have chosen three people who have repeatedly proven themselves. They have shown great bravery and perseverance in battle. I chose Kane Horon, Jasper Grey, and Adriana Croft." Kane and I don't look surprised, but Jasper is in a state of shock. He didn't expect Boss to choose him for this mission. By now, Ash and Gabriel have both lost their smiles and are disgusted that they have to work with us. "You six have the rest of the night to get together your belongings and rest. Tomorrow at noon, if you accept this mission, you shall depart for your quest." With those final words Boss and Queen Fallon walked away and left us to pack on our own.

***************************
Please vote and comment!!

Let me know what you think!!