This Is War: Chapter 1

I wiped the sweat off my forehead as I jumped over broken branches and boulders. The tree flew by as I ran on. We only have to last a few more miles until safety. I looked beside me and saw the others struggling to keep up so I slowed down enough for them to catch up. I’m the fastest in the group and I guess I got a little impatient. I just want to end the insecure feeling I have. Everyone’s lives are at risk right now because no one is fit to fight from the last battle.
The Unknown had had us surrounded and Zack got in the way of a kunai knife that was directed towards Hikari. Since Zack stopped it from hitting her in the heart, it lodged itself in his right shoulder. There was no time to wrap the wound so we’re hoping it won’t get infected.
Hikari’s having hard time breathing from being thrown into a tree, which possibly broke or fractured three of her ribs. I was cut on my right thigh pretty deep. We’re mostly worried about Kai though because while fighting a member of the Unknown, it bit him in the neck and the wound hasn’t stopped bleeding.
Everyone’s all cut up because of me. In the end I’m supposed to battle the Unknown leader but until then, everyone’s just trying to keep me alive. I haven’t had a lot of training since we’ve been on the move for years now, whereas Zack, Hikari, and Kai had started training earlier than me. I’m the only one who’s not ready to fight the Unknown. I have a different kind of training though. I train inside my head but the others can’t. The reason is I have someone to teach me in my mind, my demon.
We’re running now because it’s not that easy trying to protect yourself and me when you’re surrounded by the Unknown. It’s always me they’re trying to protect when they should be thinking of themselves. That’s what happened to my family. They tried to protect me but they ended up getting themselves killed and it’s all because of me. Hikari always tells me it’s not my fault but then I always tell her “My parents died trying to protect me. They cared about me when they should’ve thought of themselves. It’s all because of me.” Kai doesn’t blame me either. He always gives me a look that says “It’s not your fault you know. It wasn’t something you could control. You were only five. You’re just being too hard on yourself” but I just ignore him. I’m not so sure about Zack. I know he doesn’t blame me, but my demon for choosing me. That’s what confuses me because technically my demon is me, well a part of me.
A sharp sting on my cheek snapped me out of my thoughts. The Unknown, who was falling behind, threw a kunai at us, but it had only grazed the right side of my cheek and stuck itself in the trunk of a tree up ahead. I reached up and touched my cheek with my hand. The small wound was bleeding but it wasn’t life threatening.
I looked over my shoulder and only saw the shadows of the trees. Lucky us, we lost them. Up ahead, I could see the gates of the Hidden Village. The forest ended a few yards away from the gate so we stopped just at the edge of the forest and leaned Kai up against a tree.
Hikari bandaged Kai’s wound first since his was the most severe. We didn’t have the supplies needed to heal everyone’s wounds so all Hikari could do was bandage everyone up and hope we don’t drop dead before we reach the hotel.
Even though Kai’s neck was wrapped up, blood seeped through the bandages. Soon enough you could see red blotches on the white bandage. Zack gave Kai his jacket and told him to keep the hood up to hide the wound. We’re already in hiding; we don’t need to arouse suspicion.
After everyone was patched up, we walked through the gates into the Hidden Village. On each side of the street were food stands and occasionally a restaurant. As we passed, citizens would stop and look at us curiously. We were obviously new in town. Mostly everyone in the village had grown up here their whole life. The Hidden Village isn’t a well known place. It can rarely be found on maps. It’s out far into the dark forest, hidden by the trees. I guess that’s how it got its name.
We approached the hotel we would be staying at. When we walked through the doors, Hikari went with Kai to sit down since they were both winded. I followed Zack who went up to the front desk to check in. I didn’t really listen to anything they were saying because I got lost in my thoughts.
What worried me the most is what’s in store for me in the future. There are only two options that I considered. It’s either I die or survive. If I do survive what would be next?
I felt a tug at my hand. I turned and faced Zack.
“I’ve been saying your name over and over. Come on let’s go.” He told me, sounding irritated.
I rolled my eyes and followed him over to Kai and Hikari.
“What's the room number?” I heard Hikari ask my brother.
“313.” He answered in a low whisper. Hikari nodded and Zack pulled her close with his arm draped over her shoulder and hers around his waist.
Everyone started walking out of the lobby. I heard the hotel doors open and close so I slightly turned my head to the front desk. A young man was checking into the hotel. The creepy thing was he was staring right at me. I could’ve sworn I saw a red glint in his eyes but ignored it. I’m probably just tired I thought. That was my excuse but I still couldn’t ignore the feeling that danger was near. It was slowly building in the pit of my stomach. I did my best to push the feeling aside and caught up with the others.
What I didn’t know was that after I left the lobby, the man that was checking in went up to his room and came back down to the front desk. No one else was in the lobby except for the concierge who was currently on the phone.
The strange man searched the lobby and pin pointed all of the security cameras in the room.
The concierge hung up the phone and went into a back room. The man took his chance and took out a slingshot and loaded it with miniature darts. He held up the loaded slingshot. Squinting an eye he slowly pulled the dart back and then quickly released it.
The sound of glass breaking echoed off the walls as the dart came into contact with a security camera. This repeatedly happened until all the cameras were broken.
The concierge walked back into the lobby and saw all the broken glass on the floor. Standing in the middle of the lobby was the strange man, a slingshot in hand. The concierge’s eyes widened and he bolted for the phone. In a blink of eyes the man flung the concierge against the wall where he laid in a slumped position. The concierge looked up and at first he saw shoes then with eyes moving upward they connected with the strange man’s.
The man picked up the concierge by his neck and pushed him against the wall. The man’s eyes shined a misty gold color and so did the concierge’s eyes. As fast as the color had appeared it disappeared leaving the concierge with his normal brown colored eyes and the man with his green eyes. The strange man smirked in satisfaction as he loosened his grip of the concierge’s neck.
As if in a trance, the concierge walked into the supply closet and got a broom and dust pan. He cleaned up the broken glass and then went back to his post.
Done with his job, the man walked out the back entrance of the hotel. Behind the hotel was the forest and he walked to the edge of the trees and stepped into the shadows. He was on his way to meet the rest of the Unknown to tell them of his accomplishment.


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Back at the hotel, Hikari un-wrapped the bandage on Kai’s neck. She’s the “healer” in our group.
Zack and I were standing by them so we could see what’s going on.
When the bandage was entirely off, Zack and I flinched from the sight of the wound.
There were two gaping holes at the base of his neck and two more a few inches up. The skin around it was torn apart and had turned black and blue. The blood pouring from the wound didn’t put us at ease either.
A bowl of water was placed next to Hikari. She stuck her hands into the bowl and when she pulled them out, it looked like she had gloves made of water. Hikari then placed her hands gently onto Kai’s wound.
As if the water was a living creature, it moved from Hikari’s hands onto Kai’s skin. The water particles then slipped itself into the four bite marks. This caused Kai to groan softly in pain.
Soon enough, the wound slowly began to mend itself together. Zack and I stood gaping in amazement. This wasn’t the first time we’ve seen Hikari heal someone but for some reason we end up open mouthed staring in amazement.
Hikari got a rag, soaked it in water, and cleaned the blood off Kai’s neck. The bit wasn’t fully healed though so she applied the rag to his neck with great care. When she was done wiping away the blood she re-bandaged the wound and told Kai to get some rest.
Hikari repeated the same process with Zack and me. The thing is Hikari can only heal with water when it’s an outside wound. Because of this Hikari had to swallow a special medicine she made herself that speeds up the healing process of internal wounds, in her case, broken bones.
We looked over to see Kai passed out on one of the beds. The sight made us all realize how tired we really were.
Zack tossed me a sleeping bag that was sealed in a scroll and a pillow from one of the beds. I was left to sleep on the floor since there was only two beds and because I was the youngest and more petite than anyone else.
The beds were pretty small and since Kai was the tallest out of our group, he took up the entire bed. On the bed parallel to Kai, Hikari and Zack were snuggled up together and were sleeping peacefully.
I lay in the bed I made on the ground and stared up at the ceiling. Today’s events were racing through my head, making it difficult to fall asleep. Eventually I drifted off into what I thought was going to be a deep sleep, but it ended up turning into a nightmare.



It was January 13th, my fifth birthday. Zack was nine, Hikari was eight, and Kai was 12. We all had gone out to our favorite place on the outskirts of town. It was a clearing out in the forest with a lake and a waterfall. Behind the waterfall was a cave we would frequently camp out in. We had all just finished training and were lying on the ground; weapons scattered and lodged in the trees surrounding us.
Zack looked up to the sky and pointed out to the rest of us how dark the clouds had gotten.
“We should head back now.” Kai said. Everyone grumbled in agreement and got up.
Zack saw how tired I was so he picked me up and set me on his shoulders. I laid my arms on his head and lazily rested mine on my arms.
On the walk home, everyone was cracking jokes and laughed until our stomach’s hurt. That is, until we walked through the gates of our village.
The houses, left and right, had broken windows and the doors were broken off their hinges. There was nothing but the sound of Hikari taking in a sharp breath of air. The worst part was the bodies scattered on the ground, each lying in their own puddle of blood.
As young as I was, I was taught and raised to fight and defend. I’ve seen these types of incidents and worse. I knew something was wrong so I just kept quiet.
We kept walking and entered a different part of town. The sound of glass breaking and screams were faintly heard. The noises kept getting louder and louder with each step we took. This meant that whoever did this had started from one part of the village and made their way to the far side of town.
Soon enough, the noise was so loud that I bet if we turned the corner the commotion would be right in front of us.
The last house on the left of the street we were walking on, the wood was singed and burnt black. There were still small flames burning on the window panes and on the grass in the front lawn. The house looked like it would collapse any second.
Zack lifted me off his shoulder and set me on the ground but didn’t let go of my hand.
The mysterious noise we heard earlier had subsided until it was silent again.
We turned the corner and I stared in horror. Never in my life time had I seen so much blood. It soaked through the shoes I was wearing and covered my feet in the sticky, metallic smelling liquid.
Kai picked me up and put me on his back while I buried my face in the crook of his neck.
We stopped in front of our house to see the door was torn half way off its hinges with bloody handprints stamped on the wood. Zack nodded his head to go check it out. Kai handed me to Hikari and followed Zack into the house, both with weapons in hand.
I was standing next to Hikari who had her arms wrapped around my shoulder. Both of us were staring intently at the door as if waiting for it to do an amazing trick.
The sound of glass breaking made Hikari gasp and let out a shriek. Heavy footsteps were heard running down the stairs. Zack and Kai burst out the front door and ran over to us. Kai took me from Hikari and Zack grabbed her hand yelling at us to run.
Running past burnt down houses and the decaying bodies of people, we finally reached our clearing. I walked over to the edge of the lake and peered at the water. I used my index finger to reach out and touch the dark liquid. Ripples sprouted from the contact of the water and my finger which made my reflection to become fuzzy.
I crouched down and looked over my shoulder. Zack, Hikari, and Kai were gone. I was completely alone.
I turned back to the water but this time, there wasn’t a reflection. I stared hard at the water, my face getting closer to the dark lake without realizing it. In a blink of an eye I felt a force push me into the water. The last thing I saw were red eyes glaring down at me before I was encased in the dark abyss.