Legend of the Sky Guardians

Chapter 2

My heart started beating at a rapid rate. My stomach churned. I was frozen on the spot. I heard a crackling noise. Quiet at first, but slowly growing, getting louder and louder, until I felt something warm beside me. I turned to the book.

It was on fire. Suddenly a burst of flames lit up a tree and I ran. I didn’t run in the direction of the school. I ran away. Away from everything.

Blood was pounding in my ears. My heartbeat was getting faster and faster. I used all of my strength to keep going. I ran straight into the forest beside the river.

I paused to catch my breath. Everything stopped. I slowly started stepping backwards, one foot at a time. Things were too quiet. I heard the sound of a twig break and I was off.

The fire was chasing me again, moving so fast that it couldn’t have been real. It was lighting up trees faster than the speed of light. I knew that I had to reach higher ground.

I remembered a hill on the outskirts of the forest. But if I didn’t get there fast enough, I knew I would die.

My pants were catching onto everything, leaving large gashes in my legs, and slowing me down. I tried as hard as I could to push through the throbbing pain.

I needed to get out of here.

I rapidly jumped over roots, swiftly dodged undergrowth and kept going though I was gasping for air.

Everything was red. I started to slow down, but I knew it wasn’t much father now.  I took a big gulp of air and ran again.

I knew I was slowing down, but this was not how I wanted to go. Suddenly I tripped, and hit the ground with a thud. The fire did not stop.

Pushing myself out of the dirt with the last bit of energy, I wiped the sweat out of my eyes, and I saw the foot of the hill.

I sprinted as fast as I could. Slowly the number of trees got smaller and smaller, and the fire was no longer surrounding me, but I could still smell the chocking smoke, and hear the soft crackles of the burning forest.

The second I reached a place far enough away from the fire, I collapsed onto the ground. It was dark now. My eyes felt heavy, and they slowly closed.

The last thing I remember from that night was watching my favorite place burn.

“Hello?” I blinked my eyes open to a boy shaking me.

I screamed.

“Who are you?” I tried to get up and run away, but he grabbed my arm.

“Don’t struggle; it’ll just scratch you more.”

“Get away from me!”

The boy laughed.

“No way, I’ve been trying to find you for too long now. You’re not going anywhere.”

I managed to free one of my arms, and I elbowed him right in the stomach. He gasped in pain and started rolling down the hill.

I tried to run away, but I was too hurt and exhausted from last night.

Looking down on the forest, everything was black. Every tree covered in ashes, the ground no longer green.

And if I looked far enough, I could see the school in the distance.

It had burnt too.

“Gwen!” I heard the boys voice again, “I’m not trying to hurt you!” I stopped.

“Stay down there and we’ll talk.”

“Fine,” he called, “I caused the fire!”

“What? How could you possibly have done that?”

“Easy. I was invisible.”

This boy obviously didn’t have his head on straight.

“Come up,” I said.

He was quite small; and had a light, perky voice. His jet-black hair was now covered in ashes from the fire. His clothing was generally covered in dirt from the fall.

“Explain.” I said, “You get five minutes.”

The boy nodded.

“My name’s Luke,” he said, “and where I’m from, you are a big deal.”

“Continue. I want to know about the fire.”

“I was sent here to get you from earth for your mentor, Miki. You are not who you think you are. I caused the fire to get you away from the school.”

“Yes,” I was still unsure whether to trust him, “How?”

“Easy,” he laughed. “I became invisible, and lit up your book. I used a spell to get the fire to chase you up here.”

I couldn’t help it anymore. I started laughing.

“You know, I’m not completely visible yet,” the boy said.

I tried to calm down my laughter, and looked at him. I saw a bright flash of light and for a second I thought he was trying to blind me, but then everything returned to normal.

The boy was different. I could tell.

From the front, the only thing you could notice was that his clothes were no longer tattered.

But as I slowly walked around him, I saw something silver on his back. Once I got a good look, I realized; they were silver wings.

“Nice costume,” I chuckle. “What did you do, glue those to your shirt? That’s a first.”

The boy didn’t say anything towards my remark. The wings started to spread out, until the feathers fanned into different patterns, and I had to move, for fear of getting hit.

I walked around him a few more times, skeptical, and came to the conclusion that this was a lot more than I thought it would be.

“Ok,” I said, “you have a great costume, I’ll give you that. But it will take a lot more to get me to believe in whatever magic you claim to own.”

“Fine,” Luke smiled. He walked closer to me; his hand straight out, and out of his hand came some sort of black fog. It surrounded me, and I looked around, my eyes growing wide and soon I was drowning in it.

I collapsed to the ground.

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