Half Dead

Chapter 1: The Beginning (Obviously)

The monster reared its head and roared, plasma streaming from its mouth.

It lowered its head and began to charge.

However it was obliterated into tiny white particles by a plasma grenade.

"Yes! I beat level 69! Now to gear up for that boss at level 70 and I can get the mechanical warrior!" I shouted in glee.

My father turned around and looked at me sternly from the front seat of the car.

"Ray Micheals. We talked about this." He said, palm outstretched.

I sighed as I took out my earphones and handed over my phone. "Yea, yea. No electronic devices on our summer vacation."

"I seriously don't see what you kids see in all this technology. My generation never had this stuff. We went outside and played and we turned out OK."

"Your generation didn't have Mecha Space Warrior 3. If it did you would have all stayed inside and sent up the electricity bill."

My father sighed and passed my phone to my mother who was currently listening to music while tapping at something at her phone.

"Look! Mom's using her phone and you had to notice me first!" I pouted.

"Okay first, you gave yourself away. And second I'm sorry Martha, but no one is exempt from this rule." Dad said to Mom.

"But I'm finishing up work." Mom complained.

"Forget about that. You always complain that you want a break from work, and now that you have the break, you want to do nothing but work. "

Mom sighed but she turned off her phone and put it and my phone in the box (that dad had built specifically for this purpose) and locked it.

Yes dad was that serious.

It was summer (as you'd have guessed) and my family was on its annual summer vacation to the little medieval town of Earnest. We always went there for the summer. It seemed that Dad was attached to the place for some reason. But don't get me wrong. The place was nice. It was surrounded by a dense forest and had multiple rivers nearby where you could dip. The best apple cider I knew came from that village. Nearly got drunk once. But that's a story from another time.

"Here we are! Earnest!" Dad said, smiling.

We got out of the car. The same view greeted me. Earnest hadn't changed much.

Well it would never change.

See the people of Earnest vowed to never modernize the village. So basically it was still in the medieval ages. No electricity, no TV, nothin'.

I could still see Ed's tavern where I almost got drunk. I could also see the blacksmith's shop. The women were already at the well, drawing water and sharing gossip. The farmers were in the field, tilling the soil. And above them all, the church towered.

The church was the gem of the little town. Set in the heart of the town it looked more like a castle than a church. It was very well kept so it seemed that it was still in those old days. It also doubled as a museum. Although not as majestic as other castles or churches it still was magnificent in its own way.

The church was looked after by the man who lived there. Like the secret creepy man he was he wore a cloak with a hood that his his eyes in dark shadow and showed only his mouth and nose. I remember that when I was smaller he used to scare the living daylights out of my sister and I. We'd always hide behind Dad when we saw him. Nowadays we were to immersed in the music coming from our headphones that we barley noticed the man.