The Forbidden Quest

Chapter 1- The Present and the Lost

I wake up coughing. I have been given such rude awakenings for two weeks now, and desperately wish I could say I'm used to it. But as I sit on my bed, lungs burning, desperately gasping for breath in between coughing fits, I know I could never become accustomed to such misery. After a few minutes, the coughing subsides, and I get up and walk to the window.

I always look out of the window as soon as I wake up in the morning. Ever since I was little, I loved looking out through the large glass pane at my street and watching as the world awakens.

But things are different now. My window is boarded up completely, blocking all light save for the few dull rays that struggle through the small knothole in the wood that I now peer through. The streets, which were always filled with friendly villagers chatting as they made their way to work, are now empty. The bright wildflowers that had grown along the road are dead, and I know that almost every plant in the village has suffered this fate.

And it's all because of the fog.

Technically, no one knows the cause of the coughing, fevers, withering plants, and the sudden deaths of the weak. All we know is what we can observe.Two weeks ago, a strange, heavy fog engulfed the valley where our village is situated. Almost instantaneously, plants began dying. Days later the coughs came, and within a week we had lost many of our elders and children to mysterious sickness. Now, nearly everyone is sick, no one can go outside for fear of getting worse, nearly all our food is gone, and the Council still has reached no conclusion on the cause of any of this, let alone a solution.

I let my head fall against the rough wood covering the window. I had always drawn strength from the peace and safety that my little village had to offer, but  now all that it offers is pain and emptiness. My fingers find the knothole, and I trace the ridge that is my only steady contact with the outside. I miss my life. A warm tear runs down my cheek, and I don't bother to wipe it away. Tears are real. Tears cover the expanse of any world, any situation, any emotion. I try to imagine that the tears are happy ones. I force my mind to think I am crying because I get to go to the merchants' festival with my friend Alyx and I am so happy I can't contain my joy. For a moment, I believe it... almost.

"Nazza?" My father. I drop my hand from the knothole and whirl around, blocking the ray of light from his gaze. I get the feeling he wouldn't approve of it. He is a firm believer in the fog being the root of our problems, and doesn't want me to do so much as look at it for fear of me getting sick. I can hear him from the other side of the curtain that serves as a door for my room.

"It's so early. What do you want?" I'm not exactly sure how early it is, but he can just assume the sickness is making me more tired than usual. No, then he'd be even more protective than he already is. "I stayed up reading last night, so I want to sleep in," I lie quickly, hoping he doesn't remember that my candle burned out two days ago and I am without light.

"Alyx Amor is coming over today with his family, remember?" I do, but I didn't realize that was today. Endless days inside have caused me to lose track of time. "You need to be ready for their visit. Can I come in?" The curtain ripples slightly, and I know he's standing behind it.

"Um, yeah," I reply. He walks in, carefully positioning the heavy curtain over the door after him. A few tendrils of heavy fog drift in with him, and I assume the front door must have been opened recently to allow it in.

"Maybel Heathers came to give us a message, and I let her come in for a breath of clean air," he explains when he sees me looking at the fog. Mrs. Heathers is the village messenger. She must be miserable making trips in this awful fog. "The Council is going to announce their conclusion tomorrow." Father's voice is  as sure and strong as always, but I see in his deep hazel eyes that he is truly worried. It is a look I have grown used to; my father is tough, but he has the habit of overthinking everything, of seeing every possible wrong turn that our future could take, and holding onto it. The stress of the situation is taking a particularly large toll on him. I can see it in the bags under his eyes, the way he scans my face for any sign of sickness.

"Do you have a fever?" He holds the back of his hand to my forehead, and I push it away quickly. I press my back against the knothole, blocking the light almost completely, so that I can no longer see further than Father's face.

"Not today," I respond quickly, "now get out, will you, I need to get ready for when the Amors come."

As he is leaving, I walk towards the table next to my bed to get my clothes. I don't realize until a moment later that I have left the knothole out in the open. I try to block it, but he already saw.

"Nazzani." His voice is so soft I can barely hear it. "This is not something to take lightly. You could die."

I turn away from his face, fixing my gaze upon the knothole. "I wanted light."

"You're putting us is danger. Every time someone decides to ignore the fog and live their lives normally, they get sick. I don't want that to happen to you."

I look up to see that tears are streaming down his cheeks. It makes me feel awful, knowing that those tears were caused by me. I reach out and hug him.

"I want everything to be normal again," I barely whisper.

He holds my face in his big hands, tilting my chin so I'm looking into his eyes. His thumb wipes a tear from my cheek.

"Nazza, I get the feeling that things will never be normal again."

A/N: Thank you for giving The Forbidden Quest a chance! I know this chapter is pretty short and a bit boring, but it gave the information you need to know. I promise things will start getting exciting soon! Before now, the only people who had read this chapter were my mom and sister, and only my sister knows what's going to happen later on, so I haven't had much input yet. If you liked this, please vote/comment. If you disliked something, or have any criticisms, please comment that too! I will try to post a new chapter every Sunday. Feel free to pester me about it if I miss a Sunday.