Dawn of a New Age

Noah

Noah Farfield, a slender, pale, dark haired boy in his 16th year of life, blinked his dark brown eyes open, laying spread out in his bed, furrowing his brow as he saw his window open, but not one eye-burning ray of the shimmering sunlight that made his mornings painful to go through. It was dark. But he knew he didn't wake up in the middle of the night. 'Something has to be going on,' he thought as he sat up on his bed, stretching his arms and back, and shoving his feet into warm slippers.

Putting his clothes on; old rags, since that was all the casual clothing his family could afford, he walked out into the combination of a kitchen and a room for leisure. "Mother," he called to the gentle looking woman in front of the stove, who hummed in response. "Why is the sun not out?" He furrowed his brows, pulling a chair from the table and taking his own seat.

"I don't know, dear. I'm not as wise as you think I am. But that has nothing to do with us," the woman said, turning to serve a pan of fried eggs and to cut slices out of the loaf of bread that laid under the flickering light of a set of candles. "Now, good morning, and eat your breakfast."

He shrugged, grabbing two pieces of the day-old loaf and making a sandwich with the eggs. "Do you think it's going to take long before the sun comes up again?" he asked, absent-minded, staring out the window as he bit into the bread.

"What I think is that this has never happened before, so I can't answer you, and that you should stop worrying about it." She fixed his hair, before walking away. Her face was also pale with worry. 'This shouldn't be happening. It's just an old tale...'

Noah mumbled to himself, leaving his unfinished sandwich on the sturdy wooden table and clapping his hands together to get rid of the crumbles of bread on his calloused fingers. He pushed himself up, stepping towards the door. "Mom, I'll be back in a bit," he shouted to her, getting an exclamation he didn't pay attention to as a response, right before he closed the door behind him. "It's supposed to be completely light out." He frowned, looking up at the sky, which was covered in a misty twilight. He shoved his hands in his pockets, squinting to try and see in the darkness, aside from flickering candles and lanterns held by the people trying to carry on with their usual lives in this unusual situation.

He could make out the outlines of rooftops and trees in the village, with the help of the flames passing by, held by the few villagers out. The door opened behind him, a reddish glare of light making him turn around. "Don't go walking around I the dark, you silly boy," his mother mocked softly, holding a brightly burning candle caged in glass and iron. Noah took the light, thanked his mother and turned away, hearing the creak and the small click of the closing door.

Holding the small cage by the metal handle, Noah walked along the sidewalk, heading to the nearest exit from town. 'Sorry, mum, I'll be late,' he thought, snickering to himself.

He reached the edge of town, the candle's flame lighting the way up until the twisty trees, which in the dark seemed to be alive, moving. A crow landed in front of his feet, bending its head to look up at Noah with its glassy black eyes. He shooed the bird by taking a step forward, looking up at the treetops, which had just enough light hitting it from the flame that he could barely see the swaying leaves. Stepping carefully over a raised tree root, he entered the small woods, his attention turning to a few flowers, which he had seen before. They were lilacs. Normal lilacs. But now, they had a faint sort of glow coming from the edges of their petals.

He approached the dark-violet flowers, touching one of the glimmering petals with the tip of his finger. "What the..." he thought aloud, taken aback. His village and the woods around it were always the most boring thing. Now there were glowing flowers and a night that never turns to day?

The light purple shine faded and was no longer there, but a bluish light could be seen from behind a tree. 'Glowing bluebells now?' As he went to look, the glow seemed to get stronger. There was a small indent in the tree, the natural veins in the bark forming a swirl around it, and... a pendant inside. Noah pulled it out of its tight encasing in the wood, having to yank, carefully not to break the fragile-looking chain. There seemed to be a flickering blue flame inside a small glass ball. "This can't actually be real..."

The light emanating from the bright blue fire inside the pendant was outshining Noah's lantern at this point, as he hung the necklace around his neck. He blew his candle's flame out, as the surrounding area was perfectly lit by that small sphere of glass. Progressing through the forest slowly, looking for anything else out of ordinary, he heard a footstep that made him stop in his tracks and look around. "Who's there?" he asked to no one, voice low. No response was heard.

"Who is there?" he repeated as another step in the fallen leaves sounded. "No one," sing-singed a concerned voice, which Noah followed behind a tree. Nothing there. "I said no one, don't you know what no one means!?" the same voice said in a hurried whisper. "'No one' should be a little more discreet," Noah mocked, walking around the tree to find a cloaked old man, who sighed frustratedly. He looked at the kid through bushy dark eyebrows, disappointed in himself for his lack of stealth.

Noah furrowed his brows, looking up at the tall man, who, despite still-dark hair, looked rather elderly, with a weird, naturally scrunched up nose and dry lips. "Who are you? Why have I never seen you in the village, and why are you out here?" he asked, skeptical already of anything the odd man could say. "I'm Silla," the man said, after a moment of hesitation. "Silla Erob. It might sound like an odd name to you, but it's quite common. I think," he added, an expression of pondering taking over him. "I was... I was sent here, you could say. I was sent here for you. To gather you and the others."

"The others?" Noah repeated, looking even more confused. "The others what?" The man looked at the pendant the boy had around his neck, a slight grin twisting the corners of his mouth up. "Others like you. Who can see things ordinary people cannot. Who can do things ordinary people can't," he said excitedly, looking away to the outer edge of the forest. "And we must go find them. I must bring all of you together and you shall do grandious things; fulfill your destiny." There was great passion in his voice, like that was his sole purpouse. "Not too far from here, there is another village. That is where I feel we should go. That is where I know we should go. We should go!" he exclaimed, widening his eyes.

"The sooner the better, and sooner is now! Come with me," he said to the boy, starting to walk the tricky steps over the logs, branches leaves and roots on the ground, made even more difficult by his cloak. He stopped, looking back at the boy, confused. "I said we must go," he said, waving the young man over. "I never said I would trust you. I don't know why I would trust you," Noah said, still very skeptical, crossing his arms stubbornly. The man took a moment, mouth gaping a tiny bit. "What do you mean? You're not going to trust a cloaked old man you just met in the suddenly magical woods around your home village?" He paused for a while before it hitting him. "I'm not making a very good case here, am I?" he asked quietly, fiddling with his hands. Noah shook his head, almost expressionless.

"Look, kid, I need you to trust me. There's a magical artifact around your neck right now, and the fact you found it and me, that means something. There's no denying that. I bet you think it's very strange, how the sky never lit up this morning, huh? Well, you can fix that. Don't you want to be a hero?" A grin grew in his expression as he notice there was a flare of intrigue and interest, like pure adventure sparking inside Noah, who shrugged. "I'm going to do this. But if anything happens," he threatened, and the man immediately shok his head, putting his hands up to his sides, and they both started walking, setting off to the land outside the forest, where Noah admitted he'd never been.