Realm of Fiction

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Zack closed his eyes and braced for impact. That sword was so large that there was no way he could get out of the way in time, and it was so sharp that it would probably kill him in a second. From the look of the creature in front of him, it was alright with that. All he could do now was wait for the inevitable.

After a few moments, he still didn't feel anything. Figuring he was already dead, he opened one eye to see what the afterlife looked like.He had always imagined that there would be grand palaces and beautiful fields, with towers of clouds stretching up to the sky. He would get to meet his great-grandpa, who he had always been told he looked like. What he saw was not like this at all.

The first thing he noticed was that he wasn't dead. The next thing he saw was a man in torn up clothes that looked like he could be old enough to be Zack's great-grandpa. This man looked familiar somehow, but Zack wasn't sure why. Finally, he realized that the strange man was parrying the attack of the creature with another sword.

The man blocked several poweful strikes from the beast, then began to deliver serveral of his own. Slashing at the beast's armor, he was able to force it backwards. The giant crashed into a tree, taking both the large plant and the large creature down. As the monster fell, it dropped the sack that it had been holding onto the forest ground..

The old man ran in for the kill, leaping towards the monstrosity. With a swift motion, the monster back-handed Zack's defender, sending him flying at least fifty feet away. The creature stood up, dropping its weapon and picking up the tree that it had toppled moments earlier. As the man struggled to his feet, the beast rose the tree above its head, swinging it downwards towards the old man.

Quickly rolling out of the way, the strange man dodged the attack by mere inches. Struggling to his feet yet again, he leaped onto the tree trunk with an incredible grace for anyone, let alone someone his age. As the creature rose the tree above its head yet again, the man ran down the trunk, rose his sword, and stabbed it into the beast's face.

A moment later, the tree fell with a thud, and the monster had burst into a swirl of black mist. Zack's saviour brushed himself off, then walked over to the creature's sack. Using his sword to cut off the rope that tied it shut, he opened the bag and pulled a familiar face out of it.

"Drew!" Zack ran towards his friend. He was scratched up in several places, and wasn't moving. Zack feared the worst, that his best friend could have been killed by that.... thing.

"Don't worry, he's not dead," said the strange old man, "But he is hurt and unconcious. I didn't think that this day would come for a long time, but it's time now to take action. If I hadn't shown up in time, who knows what could have happened."

Zack was incredibly confused. "What was that thing?" he inquired, "Why did it attack us? Who are you? What's going on here? Is he going to be alright? How'd you do that."

The man was silent for a moment, thinking about the rapid stream of questions he had just been asked.

"An ogre, you are chosen ones, The Caretaker, fantasy is becoming reality, yes, and I was trained to protect you," he responded with a tone as if that was obvious and actually made sense.

The boy had trouble proccessing all of that. He had asked so many questions without thinking that he wasn't sure what those answers meant. Anyways, the answers were so strange that they would have been confusing even if he had heard them more clearly.

"Let me rephrase that," the man sighed, "I am known as the Caretaker, and I am here to protect you boys, as well as a few others. You are destined for great things, and need to be cared for. That was an ogre, which comes from another realm of existence. It wanted to capture at least one of you, and possibly both of you. See, it wasn't trying to kill you with the sword, probably just trying to knock you out."

WIth that, the man picked up Drew and started to walk in a direction nearly opposite of Zack's house. He had made it a decent distance away when he turned around and called out to Zack.

"You are coming, aren't you."

Zack hadn't completely processed what was happening, so he relied on the primal instinct of staying away from strange men.

"Uh, I need to get home. My family's probably, uh, wondering where I am."

The Caretaker looked sternly at the boy, "You could either go home and wait for more creatures like the one you just met to attack, killing you and everyone you love, or you can come with me. If you come with me, I can prepare you to be able to fight off creatures far worse than ogres, and you can still send a postcard to your family every once in a while."

Zack stood silently for a few moments, than made the only decision he could, running after the caretaker.