Eric Elmoor and The Gauntlet of Godric

Chapter Two: EVERYTHING CHANGES

CHAPTER TWO

“EVERYTHING CHANGES”

Eric Elmoor heard his alarm going off – rousing him from his slumber.

He flung his hand out to turn it off, but he accidentally hit it too hard as it shattered to pieces. Not another one, he thought.

His feet ached as he looked down and saw that they were dangling over his foot-board. His mother really needed to get him a new bed. Over the past several months, he had been growing at a rapid rate and every bone in his body felt it. This morning it was more-so his ankles. Eric had been short pretty much his entire life, but when he finally turned fifteen this year, everything changed. His voice became deeper, his feet no longer comfortably fit his shoes. He was, as his mother called him, a “late bloomer.”

“Better later than never,” Eric had told himself with a shrug.

Leaving his bed behind, he stepped into the bathroom and viewed himself in the mirror where he beheld his groggy image staring back at him. Unkempt hair, a few whiskers emerging on his chin, and an unusual set of purple eyes looking intently at a boy rapidly becoming a young man. He decided to keep his hair exactly the way it was as he washed up and returned to his room.

An array of images adorned his walls. From elf underground band posters to paintings of ancient battles with armies gilded in steel poised to face off with monstrous creatures and high-flying dragons.

Eric was clearly a boy...a young man, stuck in between two well-defined time periods.

One side of him was distinctly modern while the other yearned for the years of the legendary past. But still, the room was small. His mother, Morwynn, worked in one of the Citadel offices and the Assembly provided this apartment for them. If they didn't, she would be spending an outrageous amount of money on a private apartment somewhere in the upper decks of the city. The middle deck was all reserved for Assembly assigned living quarters. If she wanted anything cheaper, they would have to downgrade to the lower deck, the “Nethers” as some would call it. Crime was rampant down there and she didn't want that for him.

He loved his mother and knew that she did the best she could. It was just the two of them, after all. His father had died long ago when he was just an infant. He never knew him but Morwynn spoke of him quite often. She never had anything bad to say about his father, which made the pain of not knowing him all the more hard to bear for Eric. The only thing she wouldn't tell is of exactly how he died. She kept that a closely guarded secret as if her life depended on it. Eric never pushed the issue though.

After finally getting dressed in his well-weathered pants and white school shirt, Eric slung his bag full of books over his shoulder and left his room. On his way out of the apartment, he noticed that his mother had already left but had made him some toasted bread for his tram ride to school. He snatched up the bread, instantly scarfed one down his throat, then closed and locked the door behind him.

Today was their last day of school for the year and he was looking forward to spending the next three months of vacation doing what he loved most – sleeping in.

“Let's get this over with,” Eric whispered to himself as he left the apartment building and approached the tram headed for District Five.

As he boarded he noticed one of the United Novogard Initiative troopers standing near the tram asking a dwarf some questions. Eric really didn't understand the need for so many of them to be present around the tram platforms here lately, but whatever. They seemed to be a nuisance to some, though. As the dwarf boarded the tram he muttered a few curses under his breath. The trams were the only way to quickly get around the city, unless, of course, you wanted to walk. Nobody wanted that, so interaction with the Initiative was all but inevitable. Eric ignored the dwarf still cursing under his breath and continued to scarf down the deliciously Assembly-issued toasted bread.