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(Okay, for the most part, it seems like I write realistic fiction. But, I've been writing fantasy for a lot longer and I write it more often. I just haven't put much of my fantasy stories on Kidpub because, well, I don't know why. here's the first chapter of a book I started a week ago. This book is NOT for little kids. It's more for teenagers, really. But, I'll put it on here, anyways. Please tell me what you think of it. Oh, and remember THIS STORY IS NOT FOR LITTLE KIDS. So, if you're a little kid and you don't get what's going on, don't feel to bad. Now, on to the story...)
By the time was born, people had lost all appreciation for gifts. Not gifts that you wrap up in bows. Magical gifts. Like being able to move things with your mind or control weather. Around the time I was born, people that could do these things were looked at as freaks. I, unfortunately, was one of those people with a gift.
Now, there’s two ways you can become a Murdrinite, a word that people call us, implying that we use our powers to murder regular people. You can be born a Murdrinite, like I was. Magic tends to run in families. Both of my parents and some of my siblings were Murdrinites. The other way is to earn being a Murdrinite. Some creatures, like griffins or dragons or unicorns, can grant you a special power if you do something for them. In fact, my Great-Uncle Lurdo healed a wounded griffin once and got the power to be able to talk to griffins. I always wished that I could have earned it in some heroic deed, but I was born this way.
I’ve always had a knack with wolves. When I was five, a wolf was attacking some sheep down the road. The men of the town went out to kill the wolf. I tagged along behind my father. But, as the men drew near the wolf, torches in hand, I couldn’t help but feel bad for the poor creature. As they crowded around the wolf, I couldn’t help but shout aloud. But, I didn’t really shout. I howled. I howled at the wolf to run. But, it didn’t sound like the word “run.” It sounded like two short howls followed by a long one. The wolf ran as the men turned towards me. Some of the men’s mouths hung open. Then, my father said, “A Wolf Caller if I’ve ever seen one.” I could speak to wolves after that. I don’t really know how I did it. I just opened my mouth and the words just seemed to pour out.
When I turned 14, the king of my country passed a law saying that all Murdrinites under the age of 20 had to be taken into prison. Well, actually they said that we had to be taken into newly built Murdrinite homes for-get this- “being able to learn and practice new skills among other Murdrinites.” Yeah, right. It was more to keep us away from the outside world than any thing else. Well, even people in my small town had to follow these rules. My 16 year old brother was not a Murdrinite, so he didn’t have to go. My 18 year old sister lied about her age. But, the whole town new that I was a Murdrinite, because I was always showing off my skills, and I couldn’t have even passed for 15, much less 20. But, there was the problem of my twin sister, Jevine. She was not known to have any powers, but nobody believed that, because she was my twin. I felt almost guilty for having been born at the same time as her.
So, they shipped us off to the Murdrinite prison. I remember the look on my poor mother’s face as Jev and I got onto that boat. She gripped my father’s hand so tightly that it looked like their hands turned red. I suppose she felt guilty about it. Father wasn’t a Murdrinite. Mother was. I suppose she felt like she never should have had kids and should have locked herself away in some dungeon.
The ship was not very well made. It had cracks and holes all over it. The boat looked like it hadn’t been swept for ages. Several times I found Jev bent over the boat’s edge being sick. I was not much better. The boat rocked back and forth, making me fall whenever I tried going anywhere. My sister was a mess. She kept her red hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail. He face had a greenish tone, almost covering up her freckles that she’s always been self conscious about. Her dark, green eyes looked tired and afraid. Sometimes, I just saw her clutching her small body, trying not to get sick again. I suppose I looked a lot like her. Almost exactly like her, except that I’m a boy.
The first couple days on the ship were hard. Jev and just huddled together in a corner, trying not to let anyone see us. But, by the time the third day came along, I was so tired of huddling that I decided to go somewhere else on the boat. I asked Jev if she wanted to come exploring with me, but she just shook her head, not even bothering to look up because she was so sick.
I stumbled across the deck. I fought my way to the boats edge, which had a flimsy rail on it to keep passengers from falling in, though I doubt it helped much. Another boy was at the rail, peering out. I walked up to him and said, “What kind of Murdrinite are you?”
He turned to me and said, “Snake Charmer.” I had heard about Snake Charmers before. They were said to have fangs and venom. They could talk to snakes and get them to do their will. The boy must have seen my worried look, because he laughed and said, “I get that a lot.”
I looked at him. “But, I thought Snake Charmers were supposed to be, well, evil.”
“That’s the stereotype,” He said. “It runs in my family. My father and my father’s mother were Snake Charmers.”
“They weren’t, um, evil were they?” I said, quivering a bit.
The boy looked at me like I must have been stupid, but then smiled. “I don’t really know.”
I raised my eyes. “How come?”
“I never met either of them,” He said. “I’d bore you with the story, but I doubt that you’d want to hear it.”
I shook my head. “No, tell it.”
The boy took a deep breath and then began his tale. “My grandmother was Princess Klinda. I doubt you’ve ever heard of her, because she was the princess of a very small kingdom. From what I understand, she fell in love with the young Duke Harmin. She thought that he loved her as well, but he turned on her and, well, raped her.” I cringed, remembering a young woman in my home town that had been that unfortunate. “She and her father’s slave, Freya, escaped from the kingdom. But, then Klinda gave birth to my father, Garith. My father died when I was a baby. My mother tells me that he never knew what had happened to his mother or the slave or the duke.”
“Wow,” I breathed, it being the only word I could mutter. “My family history is very boring. By the way, I’m a Wolf Caller.”
He looked amused. “Can you talk to wolves?”
“Yup,” I replied.
“Very interesting. I’ve never met a Wolf Caller before.” He held out his hand. “I’m Tri.”
“I’m 14,” I replied, stupidly.
He laughed. “I mean my name’s Tri. What’s yours?”
“It’s Frix,” I said.
“Itsfrix? That’s an interesting name,” He said.
I rolled my eyes. Then, I said, “I should probably go check up on my sister.”
“I’ll come, too,” Tri said. We stumbled along the deck till we reached my cabin. It was small and wet. I opened the door as the boat turned. Tri and I both fell into the small room. I fell onto the floor, knocking my head. Tri fell right on top of Jev.
Jev screeched. “What are you doing! Are you trying to kill me?” She looked up to see Tri. She blushed instantly. “I mean…”
“Sorry about that,” Tri said.
I got up from the ground. “Jev, this is Tri. Tri, this is my sister.”
Jev’s face was bright red. “Pleased to meet you,” She mumbled under her breath. Tri and I exchanged looks. Then I smiled. Jev liked Tri. Back home, Jev had always been very tomboyish. She didn’t like guys and they didn’t like her. But, now she turned bright red just looking at Tri. Tri was not what you’d call a good looking guy. He had light brown hair that was somewhat long. He had a pug nose and his teeth were a bit jagged. But, he had light blue eyes that Jev couldn’t bring herself to look into. It was sort of funny.
Tri and I became good friends. Jev never really talked to Tri, just looked at him. Tri and I were very different. He was an orphan by the time he was seven. I had both of my parents and four siblings. He had grown up in a big city. I lived in a small, poor town. He had an interesting life already. I didn’t.
Tri, Jev, and I were in the middle of a game of Poker when we first saw land. Aw, beautiful land! Some people who I hadn’t met yet squealed for joy when they saw land, because they were so sick of the rusty boat. I wasn’t very thrilled. Land was not a sanctuary, but a prison.
Tri nudged me. “That’s where we’re going to live from now on. On a little island in some old castle.”
I cringed. “How long do we have to stay there?”
“My guess,” Tri said, “is forever.”
“Great,” I said. “Just great.”
When the ship came to a stop, all of us formed a line to get into the small boats taking people up to the island. The boat Tri, Jev, and I got into, along with at least a dozen other people, was cramped, damp, and smelled. Jev looked like she would throw up.
When we reached the island’s shores, we wobbled out, everyone wishing to be somewhere else. I looked up at the castle. It was much taller than it was wide. Like a big tower. The castle actually touched the sea water on two of it’s sides, and there was just enough room on the front side for us to walk on to get to the big front doors. I couldn’t see the back, but it turned out to be much like the front, only darker. The three of us walked up to the big front doors, several hundred young people behind us.
Inside, it was just a little room, there were three doors. The one in front of us led to the main hall. The one on our left led to the West Wing. The one on the right led to the East Wing. A tall man wearing all black and who had a hood over his head yelled, “Children 10 and under in the West Wing! People 11 to 20 in the East Wing!” I looked around. Some people hugged their siblings and said good bye as they left to different wings. Some children no older that three years old held babies as they trudged up the stairs. I was thankful that Tri, Jev, and I wouldn’t have to separate, and even more thankful that I wasn’t one of those babies who would never know their parents.
“That’s sick,” Jev said, as another man in black pulled apart two sisters, one about 15 and the other about eight, and ordered them into different wings. “Now I know why we’re here. So that they can beat all life out of us and make us like mindless, heartless creatures.” Jev spat on the ground.
I nodded. I knew what their plan was. They thought that if they got all of the Murdrinites away from civilization, eventually there’s be none left. Then, a chill went down my spine. If they wanted to get all of the Murdrinites away from other people, what about people over 20 that didn’t come? My heart ached as I realized that they’d be killed for sure. They’d kill the adults and train the children to be like zombies.
The three of us were forced up the stairs into the East Wing. I was surprised that we didn’t have handcuffs on. After all of us trudged up one flight of stairs, a man in black yelled, “Eleven year olds off here!” About 20 people left. We walked up another flight. “Twelve year olds off here!” I wondered who would take care of all of the one year olds on the second story in the West Wing. We crawled up another flight of stairs. “Thirteen year olds off here!” Only one more story to go. “Fourteen year olds off here!”
I looked around. “Hey, Tri,” I whispered. “You’re 14, right?”
He answered, mischievously, “I am now.”
The three of us and about 17 others went through a door on our left. Everyone else walked on to the next floor and some to the ones after that. “How old are you really?” I asked.
Tri answered, “Fifteen.”
The room was dark and smelled horrible. Jev covered her nose. A man in black yelled, “Boys in one, girls in another!” I turned to Jev. She nodded. Tri and I turned left. Jev turned right.
The room was smelly and cramped. There were ten of us in the room and five ugly, very small beds on the ground. Tri and I looked at each other. “I guess we’ll just have to share,” He said. We both sat down on one of the beds. Tri turned to the two boys next to us. “Hey. I’m Tri and this is Frix.”
The two boys turned to us. One of them, a black boy with big eyes, said, “I’m Jeb.”
The fair-haired boy next to him said, “I’m Rill.”
Tri pulled out the deck of cards we had used for playing Poker on the ship. “Wanna play?” Jeb and Rill nodded. Tri shuffled the cards. “What do you guys want to play?”
“I don’t know how to play a lot,” Rill said. “My little brother and I always played Go Fish, though.”
Jeb and I rolled our eyes, but Tri said, “Go Fish it is.” I gave him a quizzical look. He added, “And we’ll teach you how to play some other games afterwards.”
“Should we bet?” Jeb asked.
“How do you bet in Go Fish?” I asked. He shrugged.
Tri said, “Let’s save betting for something else. Besides, I don’t have any money. Rill, you got any Jacks?”
We played Go Fish till I thought that I’d go crazy. Two other boys joined in. One was a tall kid with black hair named Klitz. The other was a fat guy with messy brown hair and bad eye sight named Ferdy. After they joined, we started playing Rummy. “Rummy? What’s Rummy?” Asked Rill.
“It’s a type of alcohol pirates drink, you dim whit,” Jeb said. Rill stuck his tongue out at Jeb.
“I like rum,” Ferdy said. We broke into laughter, Ferdy looking confused. He tended to say things in such a way that you couldn’t help but laugh. His voice was slow and deep. Still, it wasn’t as bad as when we had been playing Go Fish and he had said, “I like fish,” and then started listing all the kinds of fish he could think of. I’m not saying that Ferdy was dumb. He was just a little slow and didn’t catch onto why we were laughing at him very often.
Eventually, the six of us became so sick of playing cards that we quit. I looked at the four people that hadn’t joined us. Two boys sat on a bed plotting ways to escape. One boy, possibly bigger than Ferdy, sat alone on a bed. A thin boy with piercing, yellow eyes glared at us as he leaned against the wall.
The six of us turned to the two boys on a bed. “Hey, who’re you two?” Tri yelled out to them.
They both looked offended. “It’s none of your business,” One of them said.
Jeb said, “The light one is Harris Shanks. The darker one is Hilt, no last name.”
“His last name’s Nolastname?” I asked, sounding almost as dumb as Ferdy.
Jeb sighed. “He doesn’t have a last name, I mean.”
“Oh,” I said, a little embarrassed.
Tri turned to the fat boy alone on a bed, “Hey, kid. Who’re you?”
The boy sniffled. He looked at us. His eyes were red. You could tell that he had been crying, though none of us said anything. “I’m Larry.”
“Larry?” Tri said. “That’s a very unusual name.”
The boy nodded. “It‘s a family name.”
“Oh, well, uh, it’s a very nice name,” I said. The boy looked down again. We all exchanged glances. The boy was fat, had a lisp, and to top it off, he was scared. Then again, who wasn’t scared?
Tri turned to the boy with yellow eyes. “Who’re you?”
“What’s it to you?” The yellow eyed boy said.
“Just curious,” Tri replied.
“Curiosity killed the cat. And it’ll kill you, too, if you don’t watch it,” the yellow eyed boy said.
Tri turned back to the rest of us. “You know, I think I might just hate that kid.”
“Bite him,” I suggested.
“You know,” said Klitz, “I don’t think we’re allowed to use our powers.” We all turned to him. “I mean, if you do, maybe you’ll get into trouble.”
“I thought we were supposed to ‘learn and practice new skills’ here,” I said, not believing it myself.
“That’s just what they say to make people think it’ll be okay. All they really want to do is to keep us from having powers. If you use them, they might whip us or something,” Klitz said. Ferdy looked afraid, like he had actually believed all that stuff about learning and practicing new skills. Yeah, right.
“By the way, what are all of you?” Tri asked.
Rill said, “I’m a Weather Worker.”
Klitz answered, “I’m a Bird Singer.”
Jeb said, “I’m a Fish Talker.”
Ferdy said, “I’m a Mind Reader.” We all exchanged looks. “Don’t worry. I never use it. You’d know if I did.”
“How?” I asked.
Ferdy replied, “You’d feel like you were in two places at one. Your thoughts would only be half way there. The other half would be in my mind.”
“Wow,” Tri said. “Try it on me.”
Ferdy shook his head. “I can’t. I don’t want to get in trouble.”
“We wouldn’t tell,” Tri said. But, Ferdy just shook his head, again.
Suddenly, a loud bell chimed. Everyone jumped. I heard one of the men dressed in black yell, “Down to the main hall for dinner!” Then, I heard a roar of feel above us, running as fast as they could.
“Come on,” Tri said. Everyone, except for the yellow eyed boy, ran out of the room. “Faster,” Tri said. Soon, I felt myself being pushed and shoved by older people coming from higher up. I ran down four flights of stairs. By the time I reached the bottom, my legs ached and I was out of breath. Tri and I pushed our way into the Main Hall. I hadn’t even realized that I hadn’t eaten all day. But, now everyone realized that they were hungry, and we’d kill to get to the Main Hall first.
Jev pulled up besides me. I put my hand on Jev’s shoulder and pushed her forward through the crowd. Inside the Main Hall, there were rows of benches. Tri, Jev, and I, along with all the others, sat at one of the dusty benches. As soon as Jev sat down, she sprang back up as she yelled, “Damn splinters!”
I looked down. In front of me, on the table, was a bowl of something green and goopy. I sniffed it. It smelled like rotten cabbage. There were no spoons. Just our hands and mouth. I picked up the chipped bowl and put it to my mouth, trying not to think. As the green liquid entered my mouth and the rancid taste touched my tongue, I did the only thing I could: I spat it out.
It just happened. I couldn’t explain it. The food was so awful. I had to get rid of it. So, I turned around and hacked it all up on the floor. Tri, who was gulping it down like he hadn’t eaten in weeks, looked at me as I choked. Jev just stared down at her food, missing the hot dinners Mother used to make.
A man in black walked up to my table as I spat out the last of the gruel I had foolishly put in my mouth. “Don’t like the food huh?” The man said. Then, he pulled something out of his pocked. It looked like a metal stick. Before I knew what had happened, the man had lifted the stick and let it down onto my hand. I scream, more because of the shock than anything else. The second time I scream because of the pain. The third time, I just scream. “Go back to your room. You won’t be getting any food tomorrow, either.”
I stood up, not sure if I should run or what. Tri began to get up, but the man in black said, “Not you. Just this ungrateful scum.” That was when I ran. I ran out of the hall. I ran up the stairs. Tears ran down my face because of the shame of it all. When I reached the fourth floor, I swung open the door. Then I stopped. I had forgotten that the yellow eyed kid was still there.
“Aw,” The yellow eyed kid said. “Is baby crying? Does baby need a diaper change?” My mouth hung open. When I realized it, I had the sense to close it. “Poor baby got a nasty whacking on his soft little hands?”
“Shut up,” I mumbled.
“What’s that?” He said, a smirk on his face.
“I said,” my voice raised, “Shut the hell up!”
The yellow eyed boy seemed to find this hilarious. “Strong words for a little baby.”
I called him something particularly horrible and then stomped out of the room. I slammed the door behind me. I sat on the steps, waiting for Tri and the others to come back.
My first day and I had already gone crazy. I could only guess what would happen next.
(What did ya'll think? E-mail me if you liked it or hated it or whatever.)
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