CH.1: It Began With The Dream

Eric is walking on the beach and stops to stare out into the horizon. He has an impassive yet dazed look about him. Behind him is sand and rocks leading up a small hill. Atop the hill was a curious jungle with very strange trees. Each tree has a stocky purple trunk, with glistening blue leaves. From down here, he could vaguely make out some pink and green fruit hanging amongst the trees. Above the treetop, he could make out a plume of smoke alongside a tall stone tower looming off in the distance. A short time passed, and then he continued on down the beach.

He couldn't really recall where he was, but he felt this odd sense of familiarity with this bizarre place. As he kept pondering over this nostalgic feeling, he decided to take a closer look around him. He notices the wet sand underfoot felt as hard as stone, and each step echoed as if a galloping horse was right beside him. He also realized the way his footprints trail behind him as if he had just walked over freshly fallen snow, and they gave off a warm, orange glow.

A little way down the beach, he saw a stray tree at the foot of the hill. As he approached it, the bark seemed rigid and rough, but to his surprise, it was as soft as satin! He reached up to pluck one of its magnificent blue leaves and, to his frustration, ends up struggling due to an oily substance covering the leaf. As he goes to go back down the hill, he notices the fruit he'd seen before hanging from its branches. They were dark pink with bright green stripes and had a strange oblong shape and were bunched together, and to his astonishment, he realized they were floating from the branches almost effortlessly in midair.

After he turned to walk away, he saw someone running down the beach away from him a little further up ahead. Eric went towards where he first spotted the person, and as he approached the brush the person ran through, he heard the sound of splashing water. He crossed through the brush and entered into a massive cove. It has a long sturdy looking pier leading from the center of the coves beach and a majestic waterfall feeding into the far back end. The water looked deep but was clear and had a bright blue color to it. Littering the bottom of the water were shells of different shapes and sizes, but all of them twinkling and shined like precious jewels.

He stood there awestruck as a boy about his age emerges from the cove and climbs onto the end of the pier. As the boy dried off his brown and black swim trunks, Eric realized his brown shaggy hair had been untouched by the water. Eric decided to approach the strange boy, and as he got closer, he noticed the boy had a tribal tattoo that covered his torso and arms. As he walked up to the boy, the boy turned around to reveal to separate colored eyes. The boys right eye was a rich scarlet color, and his left a deep majestic sea blue.

"Hey man, what is this place," Eric asks. The boy doesn't reply. Instead, he points into the water just off the end of the pier. Eric looks at what the boy was pointing at and sees a bright yellow light glowing from the bottom of the cove amongst the sea of shells. Before he really knew what he was doing, Eric had dove into the water to investigate. He swam down towards the light for a while before he realized he didn't need to hold his breath. With this in mind, he picked up his pace a bit, after what felt like miles he had finally swam to the bottom, and was almost within reach of the odd glowing light. Once he was within reach, the light started pulsating. Out of curiosity, he reached out to grab it. As his fingers wrapped around what felt like the neck of a bottle, the glowing yellow light faded to nothing, and he swam back up to the surface. Right before resurfacing, Eric noticed something rattling around inside the bottle.

Eric was now back on the pier, and the boy was nowhere in sight. But he was too enthralled by the now mossy bottle in his hand to realize he was completely untouched by his recent swim. Eric sat at the end of the pier and shook the bottle. Again, he heard the sound of something hitting the glass from inside. Before opening it, he noticed a black seal over the cork made out of a waxy substance. It has some symbol of a dragon fighting a knight on it. Eric popped open the seal and pulled out the cork, but when he looked in, he was disappointed to see just a rolled up piece of parchment. Puzzled, Eric dumps the bottle contents into his hand, still hearing the rattling within the bottle. Yet when he looked back inside, the bottle was now empty. Confused Eric decides to open the parchment and discovers a message written upon it:

To Whomever finds this,

Beware and good luck! Have fun unlocking your inner strengths, and don't let it go to your head!

Truly Yours,

S.L.

P.S. The attached item should now be in your right pocket, KEEP IT SAFE, and DONT lose it!!!

"Attached item," Eric thought as he picked the bottle back up and no longer heard the rattling sound. He decides to check the other side of the parchment and finds nothing. A little weirded out, he stood up and checked his pocket, which had been empty before, but now had a cold metallic object inside. Eric pulls out a strange skeleton key with a stone base hanging from a silver chain. Looking at the stone he saw what looked like liquid and smoke flowing around inside, the liquid being a deep dark blue, and the smoke was of a scarlet color, almost like the boys eyes from before. "Where did this come from," he mumbled to himself. Eric then notices the strange boy standing in the entrance to the cove where he had followed him in at. As Eric strained his eyes to see what the boy was doing, everything around him started to fade into nothingness.

Eric blinks as he takes in his new surroundings, and his eyes adjust to the lighting. Once he became adjusted, he looked around and saw he was in the woods somewhere. He sees white decaying trees covered in vines. They weren't clustered together like some trees but fairly spread out. There was grey grass and weeds growing knee high in some places and waist high in others, but like like the trees looked shriveled and had been long dead. Eric smelled something sickly sweet in the air with the after smell of mold and became very unsettled, so he wandered through the trees for a little ways. After a short while, he came across a river with a path on the other side. Eric stepped into the water to follow the newly found path, expecting shallow water. To his horror, he fell into the river, couldn't feel a bottom, and panicked as a strange current swept him under. He struggled hard against this strange current and got thrown against a rock and lost consciousness.

Eric's eyes snap back open as he spews out water. He's back on the river bank, but by the looks of it much further into the woods. The air here was thick and heavy with the smell of death and rot, the trees clumped close together with their decaying husks looming eerily in the shadows. The leaves and the branches wove together and formed a canopy over the head, blocking out most of the light. Worst of all, he had this very ominous feeling he was being watched... Eric jumps up to walk away when he sees the key laying on the ground a few feet away. He walks over to pick it up and puts it on around his neck, and cautiously follows the river bank forward, hoping he wasn't going further in.

After what felt like hours, Eric met a fork in the river. The other way was across the water, but the path accessible to him led to a thick brush of thorns. Remembering his last encounter with the river, he decided to risk the brush this time and bite the bullet. As Eric pushed through the thorns, he caught glimpses of orange lights and movement from the other side. Eric could also make out the faint crackle of fire. Tired and exhausted, he pushed himself to the edge of the brush. Once there, Eric collapsed on the ground and went to close his eyes but caught a glimpse of a village out of the corner of them.

Before his head could hit the ground, Eric caught his second wind and threw his arms up to push himself off the ground. He stood up then jogged to the village, and as he neared, he could see that it wasn't a regular village. All the huts had thatch roof tops with bones tied together by leather strips forming the structure of each building. There was a giant blood red oak tree in the center surrounded by a pool of what looked like blood on one side. On the other was a big bonfire surrounded by pale white goblins fashioned with loin cloths and massive skeletal clubs. Eric backed away slowly and looked around, and assessed his situation. Brambles and thorns behind him, a river of fuckery to his left, a village of death straight ahead and more woods to his right past the village. Eric stood there trying to make a hasty decision as he hears something clatter by one of the huts. He looks over to see a goblin holding a leash to some kind of orc like dog running his way. Without hesitation he took off towards the treeline at the edge of the village.

Eric ran along the village as he heard an ear splitting screech behind him. Eric grabs his ears as he runs and feels the ground starts vibrating underneath his feet as the village erupts with life. All of its inhabitants rushing towards the disturbance, eric being its source. Eric heads towards the woods at the edge of the village hoping to get away so he can find somewhere safe to hide. Eric doesn't attempt to look back in fear of seeing them hot on his tail. Rushing into the tree line with out hesitation, he bob's and weaves trees pushing ahead.

His brain was in fight or flight, but he knew he couldn't fight and hope to win with his odds. The sounds didn't seem like they were losing ground, they seemed to be getting closer! As Eric ran he scanned around looking for somewhere to hide, but his foot catches on a branch and he slams into the ground. Breathless, Eric gets up and sees a tree with a massive trunk and what he hoped was a hole at its base. He moved towards it trying to catch his breath praying the hole he may have seen was uninhabited. Struggling to catch his breath, he collapses from dizziness as he almost reached the tree. Eric indeed saw a hole at its base and with his last bit of strength crawled in and fell into a small cave and passed out from lack of oxygen.

Eric wakes back up some time later grabbing at himself relieved, and no longer heard the sounds of that village from before. He checks his neck for the key and found it to still be there. Eric crawled out of the hole and kept going further into the woods away from the village. As Eric walked the trees began to thin out and rocks started appearing more frequently. After what felt like hours Eric had forgotten what he was doing or where he was even going. He wondered around and stumbled across a giant boulder cracked in half by lightning. Half of it was perfectly spherical the side that cracked was perfectley flat with strange pictures strewn over its surface. Eric notices a strange jagged door in between some scribbled doodles no bigger than his palm. He sits down at the base of the "mural" and lights a cigarette. As Eric smokes the little door starts to dance across the boulder face, and starts to pulsate as it grew bigger behind him.

The door grew to be bigger than him a0s Eric was crouched down in front of it, and it opened inwards as the sky immediatelely turned velvet red. Eric looked up with panic as a shadow slips out the edge of the door way and stretches across the boulder surface. Two massive shadow hands pop out and grab onto Eric's waist from behind and pull him into the door. Eric kicks and screams in fear not knowing what to do as everything began to grow really cold all around him and very, very, dark as the door shut right in front of him. Eric wakes upkm

covered with cold sweats in his own bed. He jumps up and runs to the bathroom and splashes some water on his face to see his multi-colored eyes staring back at himself.