Chapter One of With Masked Eyes

ꉓꃅꍏꉣ꓄ꍟꋪ 1

The crowd yelled, standing around. . . her. They sounded triumphant about it, too. All the bloodshed, all the screams. And once they turned to me, I ran in fear, ran all the way to a place my mother, the one they killed, told me never to go to. I ran to the Forest of Silence.

I heard them stop chasing me as soon as I got into the forest, but I kept going, deeper and deeper into the dark forest.

After running for quite some time, I came to a man with a blindfold… or, I guess, a humanoid bird-man. He wore a gray coat and his tail was faded from black to blood-red. He had horns that twirled around each other like a tall, beautiful spire. His eyes… Well, his eyes were covered by that blindfold, but I could still feel them boring into my soul inspecting every inch of my being.

I backed away slowly, but tripped on a tree branch. I could hear the cracking, not physical, but I hit my head on the ground hard enough to give myself a concussion, or something like that. My vision soon became blurry, and I became disoriented. I couldn’t see much. The only thing I could see was the bird-man’s hand slowly reaching out towards me.

I grabbed his hand, and he pulled me up and helped me over to a fire that he had made. I couldn’t really see him, but I saw the outline of another man, sitting down with a helmet on and a cloak covering him entirely.

“Child, why have you been running? What do you have to run from?” The bird-man said, a golden crow now sitting on his shoulder. . . or maybe that was just my vision disrupting what I actually saw.

“I. . . I do not wish to speak of this.” I said, staring into the fire, in which I saw myself, but bigger, and with my body more technical than biological.

“Child, tell us your name. I am Dave, and this is Quiet-Song.” The man in the helmet said, the fire reflecting off of him like he was made of metal entirely. . . or maybe it was just my eyes again, showing me who they really were..

“I am Sunset. . .” I said, and Quiet-Song put a hand on my head, my vision and my pain soon clearing up. “Thank you. . .” I whispered, the fire was much more beautiful than I remembered seeing it before. I no longer saw the other version of me inside the fire.

He opened his bag and handed me a paintbrush. “This was mine, when I was your age. I painted myself a hero with it. But it was all in vain, because the color soon faded. Maybe you could be of more use with this. . .”

“Why are you giving me this? I just met you. You don’t even know who I am.” I said, and I saw a small look of recognition on his face.

“Because I was like you once. I ran from what you ran from. I know you are very special. You can do great things, things I couldn’t.” Quiet-Song said, his blindfold slightly glowing with a golden color. . . or was that his eyes?

I held the brush, and Quiet-Song waved his hand over it. It slowly grew into a long sword, blue, with black and gold engravings. The engravings were strange. I’d seen them before in old viking books from my mother. It said, “ᚹᚺᛖᚾ ᚦᛖ ᛟᚲᛖᚾ×ᛊ ᚠᛁᚱᛖ ᛁᛊ ᛖᚲᛊᛏᛁᛜᚢᛁᛊᚺᛖᛞ, ᚦᛖᚾ ᚹᛁᛚᛚ ᚦᛖ ᚹᛟᚱᛚᛞ ᚲᚱᛁ ᚠᛟᚱ ᛁᛏ.” I didn’t know what it meant.

“Thank you for this kind man.” I said, staring at the sword..

“It is named Tantum Mundus Noster Pluviae, I hope one day you will understand the name.” Quiet-Song said.

“Why is it named that?” I asked, curiosity seeping into my mind like the dripping of water when it rains a little.

“Sunset! Come quick! Quiet-Song has passed out once more!” I heard Dave yell, and I immediately ran in his direction.

As soon as I got to where he was, the little hut the three of us resided in, I immediately began to cry. He had streaks of blood covering his head, which probably had occurred from hitting his head when he fell.

“Wait. . .” I immediately noticed that Quiet-Song’s blood wasn’t red, but golden instead. I rummaged through my head about golden blood, and remembered something.

It was Ichor, the blood of the gods. That meant the Quiet-Song was one of the gods.

“Dave. . . what. . .” I struggled to create words, the shock of it all bearing on my wings.

“Sunset. . . my sweet child. . . take care, for I will be with you forever-” Quiet-Song slowly whispered, weak and slow.

He cut off abruptly, and we both looked down. A bullet had passed through his heart.

I quickly turned around, only to find an empty forest. The strange thing I had noticed was that Dave was no longer there.

“Come out and fight like a man! Fight me!” I yelled, anger rushing through my veins, my wings spread as wide as possible, brushing against the trees nearby.

A man walked out of the forest, tall and metallic. “You think you can fight me? Ha! Nobody has been able to do that in years!” He stood there with a smug look on his face, like he thought he could get away with trying to kill QuietSong.

My anger went past its limits, I closed my hands into fists, closed my eyes, and forced all my anger into the deepest part of my mind, but even there it couldn’t be contained.

I lashed out, my claws scratching one of his eyes and pulling it out. The man screamed in pain and clutched his eye, but he just painfully disconnected it with his knife.

He looked back up at me, anger written all over his face. “You’ll pay for that in blood!” He yelled, charging at me with his knife.

He ducked as I swiped my claws at him once more, and stabbed me in the leg. I returned with a bite right to his neck. He struggled, but I kept him there, and he soon bled to death.

I quickly ran back to Quiet-Song, falling to my knees next to him. “My sweet sorcerer. . . I will be back, there is-” He coughed quite violently, “there is quite a lot you do not know. I will be back, young one. . .”

His head fell back, lifeless. He slowly disintegrated into gold flakes, rose petals, and cherry blossoms. A slight wind blew through, carrying his ashes into the sky very slowly.

I cried, tears falling from my eyes, falling down to the ground below.

I got up, knowing I had to leave, and ran. I ran through the forest again. . . through the night.

I did copy and paste this from a different place, but it took me a while to figure out how to make this chapter. It may be a bit short for now.