Swithelo: World domination

Chapter 1 - Jocky

"Alright, we'll see you later! Don't leave the house until we return!" The voice of my parents echo through this house. It's as if the walls shake every time they talk, as our house is very brittle, but one of the best in our town. Most of the other houses have huge holes the size of fully grown men in the side of them, sometimes even able to fit in horses. But luckily our house is one of the few that doesn't have any huge holes. We do have a few cracks here and there, where we've been hit by rocks and other things, but nothing significant.

 I got up to make my way to the kitchen, but I didn't find anything that I wanted, so I went to find some mal. Mal is the money we use, but sometimes it can be quite hard to get any mal. My parents only make about M1000 a day, which is nowhere near enough to get anything. However, I managed to find M100, which is going to be enough to buy some bread from the bakery nearby. So I decided to disobey my parents; they won't know I'm gone. I'll only be about five minutes.

As I left, I began to feel a sense of pity for my town. It's so unfortunate how run down our town is, but after the last ghost attack, who knows how long it will take before this town falls to rubble? There's only 45 of us left, and it seems every day we're only losing more. Sometimes you can just go walking down the street and see people getting chased down by ravaging wolves or other hostiles. If only there were others in this world to help us! It seems we are alone, with no one to call for help, no alliances, no outside trades, but at the cost of no enemies and no invasions, I think it's worth it. Well, beside the usual ghost attacks that are brought onto us, at least. 

Ghosts are a big problem in our town. They are the souls of the thousands of hostiles created that were needed to be killed in order to expand our kingdom. They have only caused havoc to everything they touched and we thought killing them off was the only solution. Instead, they came back to life in the form of ghosts, and now are much harder to kill and seem to be stronger than their older forms. We have an army, ten men strong, which protect us from these sorts of invasions. Some day I'll become one of their hardworking soldiers, and it will help us to become so strong we won't need to worry anymore! Our small civilisation will begin to thrive! There should be no reason why we should fall when I become one of the soldiers. That will definitely be years away, anyway, and I might not even be able to make it there. 

The bakery wasn't anything too fancy, it was also run down. The windows were cracked but "fixed" with some transparent tape, and there was a man-sized hole in the wall, about a foot from the door, obviously from the last ghost invasion. But it was the best they could offer me. Fortunately it was only M40 so I got myself some cookies whilst I was at it. The baker was a very round man with a bushy mustache, and had a very fancy accent as he asked me what I wanted. But he did seem quite intimidating and not too fond of a child going into his store in case I created a mess, but he served me nonetheless. So I tried getting out of that store as soon as possible. I didn't have any other plans for the day so I went to walk back home to prepare my food.

Suddenly, the ground shook. The trees began to rattle, as the sky began to darken. Then flash! Lightning struck a nearby tree as it went up in flames. Heavy rain began to fall, but I was far from my house, so I took shelter under a barn. But then bam! Lightning hit right around me, and struck a cow! I believe it's dead now, there's no way it would survive. But I must go and try to revive it, it's no use standing around. But as I walk to it, it began to move unexpectedly. It's sort of a jolting action. Its head began to twist around, and I saw it. Only his skull remained, as it began to scratch its hooves on the ground. I knew what was next, and got prepared to hide. He charged at me, but with my agility, I was lucky to dodge. He continued running until he hit the barnyard. It got knocked over, far from being able to be rebuilt. I ran away to a dense forest to the east of town. I ran and ran, hoping he wouldn't find me. I heard trees collapsing behind me, probably from the bull. 

I guess this is it. My adventure is short-lived. This bull is only going to get closer and closer to me, no matter how hard I run or how fast I try to be. If only there were a way to hide from him, but this forest is only getting more dense as I continue running into it. No matter where I go, he'll find me, and there is no way that he'll give up until he sees blood. But suddenly I tripped on a long stick, with a weird purple-blue algae or something at the top of it. It looks like it could be a good weapon, but I don't want to risk getting hit. Unfortunately, I felt two strong breaths on my neck. So then I knew it was all over. He caught up to me and now I'm about to die. He raises his hooves above my head, ready to beat my skull in. How I wish I obeyed my parents, now. 

My primal instincts came in to play, and I swung the stick at his skull in a windmill action, with the algae end away from me. I hit him directly between the two eye sockets, but it didn't seem to be too effective. It stopped him in his tracks, and he began to shiver. Suddenly, the algae began to glow a jade green colour, and started getting brighter and brighter. Then boom! I got blinded by the light, and the explosion caused pushed me many meters back. The heavy rain suddenly vanished, and the sun was out. 

My vision came back after a few minutes as I looked around.The grass around me was charred and trees were uprooted. I saw the bull quite a while away, or what I could make of a bull, as it definitely was not one anymore. It was just a bloody, meaty mess. Five birds flew in a V-shape above me, much larger than any bird I've seen before. It looked like they were looking at my stick, and began to swoop in on me. At that point, I realised something - they were not birds.