The Ring of Fire

PROLOGUE

Albert stood near Arianna, keeping her close to him and giving her warmth. He had to find the ring soon or she would die, snatching away a huge part of their life and perhaps the very existence of mankind. He looked at her dishevelled form. Her skin stuck to her bones and her once pretty and vibrant hair now looked almost dead, reflecting her worsening condition. Her eyes were sunken but she held onto the final shreds of her existence with unnatural strength. "I will find it! I will find it and make it right! Do not worry. I will be back with it. I promise", he said while gasping for breath. He looked around him, to find a source of moderate warmth and water but here, near the vast deserts, he found nothing. With a heavy heart, he disentangled himself from Arianna, lightly placing her head on the hard ground of sand. "I will be back. Do not lose hope. You will survive. You have been in worse conditions. You were born to make an impression and blaze as bright as the flames of a raging fire. I will not let that flame be quenched", Albert promised Arianna and ran back the way he had come. As he ran, he racked his brain about everything he knew. He had to find the ring and he would need all help he could get or nothing would exist.

Arianna watched him depart. Her whole body hurt. In pain, the only thing that ever kept her going was her memories of the mortal world and her friends David, Luke and Oak and his little daughter Eve. Arianna had always played with fire, even when she was very young which was aeons ago. She had grown into a beautiful mare but with it, a huge weight had been placed on her shoulders and every time she got into trouble Luke would always be there to get her out of it. And she would soon turn into her usual self - laughing and playing among the trees and racing with her friends to discover the world. But she hadn't seen any of her friends in recent times. She knew that their life force was in some peculiar way connected with that of nature. But she couldn't imagine any sort of danger threatening her friends. And she truly wished that none of them was hurt.

With those thoughts, she lay there in the sand, collecting as much of her energy as she could and hoping that this precious world that she loved wouldn't fall prey to the forces of destruction.

Albert ran as fast as his legs could carry him. The little object that was causing all the trouble lay heavy in his pocket. In a trivial effort, he tried to save himself and the precious object from falling into the wrong hands. He had sworn to protect it and he would keep his word. He took out the tiny thing from his pocket and carefully hid it between the charming rocks. He made sure that this was the last place anyone would look for. Knowing that it was hidden in probably the safest place, he ran as fast as he could. He rounded the corner and climbed up the roofs. He kept slipping and tripping, for, the roofs were slick with the water from last night's rain.

He ran two more blocks before he rounded the corner and met with what he feared. The beast stood there waiting for its prey, waiting for him. The last thing he remembered was the vast endlessness before darkness claimed him forever.