《Nameless》Arash - Little Brother
Advertisement
Strong winds buffeted him as soon he set his foot on the cobblestone pathway. Cold snuck past his defenses, slowly chipping away his precious heat. Arash shivered, shifting in his wools to get what little comfort he could afford.
Normally a boy of thirteen wouldn't dare to walk alone on the streets. The winds took anything lighter than 30 kg. But even at the age of 13, Arash stood 6 feet tall and weighed a whole 80 kg. Winds bothered him little, but the cold made it impossible to stand still.
He wanted to run to the warmth of the house. To sit beside the engraved hearthstone and doze off to sleep. But today the cold bothered him little. He stared up at the dark sky riddled with rivers of burning sapphire light. He heard a slight humming sound at the back of his head.
"Crying of the souls." People of Harra believed that the soul of man ignited the sky. Providing little light to the land of eternal darkness. Arash followed the rivers from one end to another. They shone down on him with deep blue light. The light humming turned to a dull aching pain until he was forced to look down.
He clenched his right hand and acutely felt the coldness of the mana stone. He found refuge inside a narrow alley between the tightly packed houses. Little light ever reached the alleys and winds sounded more like the seething river.
Arash found a strange solace in these alleys. He couldn't see anything and nothing could see him. He loosened his fist, pale blue light slipped out the crevices between his fingers.
He opened his hand and stared at the tiny stone. Inside the darkness it looked like a piece of sky river, burning bright with a deep blue hue. He stared at the stone, his eyes prying for the secrets of the stone. But no matter how hard he tried the stone kept his secret. He let out a long sigh and clenched his fist. Darkness engulfed him like a blanket. He closed his eyes and focused on the sound of howling wind.
His breath aligned with his heartbeat. Soon the sound of the wind was replaced by the low hum of his heartbeat. He focused on the sound of his heart. It felt like a fierce river coursing through his body.
Advertisement
He imagined himself floating above a terrible river of blood. In his mind's eye, he stood inside a rumbling sea of blood. The sea roared and seethed around him, but he stood still like a stone. The sea felt real to him. He could feel the blood red water around him, feel its pressure.
He imagined the alley in which he sat. Suddenly the red sea morphed into a dark alley. Imagined himself sitting in the alley. He looked at the walls, the ground, and the sky. Everything was as it should be but at the same time some things were missing. Everything was vague at the edges. Arash tried to add details to the alley, but no matter how hard he tried something was always missing.
"What am I doing?" He shook his head in dismay. He willed himself into a black sea of darkness, endless and formless. He envisioned the light rune. Drew it stroke by stroke. But like the walls, it felt vague and incomplete. When he fixed one part, another would become crooked. He tried again and again. Each try met with a new failure. Frustration rose in his heart and his concentration waned. It became harder and harder for him to draw the rune. He slammed his fists on the ground, breaking out of his mental state.
"What am I doing wrong? What is it? Ahhh!" he gritted his teeth and stared into dark nothingness. He took out his engraved wooden stick and traced his index finger across the rune. He imagined the rune shining with sapphire blue light. "Why don't you shine like this? Why is it so hard? Why..." Suddenly it hit him. Just now when he imagined the rune. He imagined it as a single entity. "I have been doing it all wrong..."
Arash once again slipped back into the trance. This time rather than drawing the rune stroke by stroke. He drew all the strokes at the same time. Slowly, the whole rune started taking form. Each stroke sprouting from a single entity, living and breathing in his imagination. But, Arash found himself mentally strained. Nonetheless, he felt himself brimming with a strange new excitement.
Advertisement
He forced himself to concentrate on the whole rune, watching it grow slowly towards completion. Suddenly his head throbbed with a sharp pain. "Ahh!" He screamed in agony, grabbing his head in his palms. The pain disappeared as soon as it came.
"So close! Dammit..." He cursed out loud, but his lips curled into a smile. Before the rune was always elusive to him. But now he could see it in its true form. He felt himself getting closer and closer.
"Only a little bit and the rune would have been complete. Ah!" He remembered the true form of the rune, but the one that he drew in his mind's eye was intrinsically different from the one he etched into the wooden rod.
He closed his eyes, felt the flow of his blood, and slipped into a trance, but as soon as he tried to envision the rune, the pain came running back.
"Dammit!" He winced in pain, got back in position, but the ringing pain in his head convinced him otherwise. He sat in the silence of his sanctuary, listening to the howls of the wind.
After resting for a while, he slipped out of the alley, and went through the jungle of concrete and mortar until he stood before a short squat building which he called home. Arash knocked and placed his ear against the door.
Just as he was about to start pounding the door, he heard the sound of feet shuffling behind the door. After a few moments, the door finally opened, revealing a small boy. He had been wrapped up in so many layers of wool and leather that he looked more like furball than a human child.
"Where is she?" Arash tried to hide his hatred for his mother. But it still manifested in his tone. He hated the woman who gave birth to him. Arash closed the door behind him and hung his cloak by the wall. Looking back at his little brother, he couldn't help but notice that his brother was wearing his fur coat. "Why are you wearing my coat?" Arash couldn't help but smile.
"I have grown big. My clothes don't fit me anymore." Firuz tried to stand tall. But even with his height of 4 foot at 10, he appeared to be a midget in front of his brother.
"Have you? Then why is there a knife tied to your waist?"
Firuz stared at his feet, while his face burned red with embarrassment. "But you won't believe me." He protested.
"Tell me whats wrong?"
Firuz looked up with a troubled expression "I... I saw a man, crying for help. He was injured. Something had happened to him. "
"And what do you plan to do?" Arash said with a bemused smile, staring at his scrawny brother, bundled in layers and layers of leather and fur.
"…I am going to save him."
"Firuz!" Arash glared at his brother. "You should be able to differentiate between dream and reality. There is no man outside and you are staying here inside."
"I am not lying. I saw him beyond the mana deposits. He was crying for help. He is still there"
"Firuz its just dreams." Arash felt exasperated.
"No, they are not! I have seen it. It's real. Beyond the mana stones to the left. He was crying. There was blood all over the place." Firuz defiantly stood before him, tears threatening to burst out. "You never believe me. You never do! I never lie to you. But... he is dying. We have to help him."
"We are doing no such things." Arash felt anger boil over him.
"Yes, I am. I don't need you! I am not going to let him die." Firuz tried to open the lock. Arash pulled him backwards, and thrust him towards the bed.
"You will go and stay there." Arash glared at his little brother. His voice tinged with anger.
"No..." Firuz tried to resist. But hit was futile under the cold stare. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he ran back to his room. "I hate you! I hate you!"
Advertisement
My World To Live
[Do Not Read this version, New FINAL version uploaded August 9th, 2021 as separate fiction, click to link here on RR. Essairyn had never felt truly alive on Earth. It felt like something was missing ever since she was born, but even after nearly 20 years of mundane living, she could never pinpoint what this or the emptiness in her heart was. Suddenly, she awakens in a grandiose, primordial forest and encounters both demons and spirits in a parallel world called Sol'h'meyr. She befriends, in particular, a sassy fox-spirit named Akari who just reincarnated after three millennia. Essairyn is an abnormal human with elemental powers, and Akari is being chased by those of her dark past. Together, they set out on an adventure in a world of magic, danger, mystery, and intrigue. But this not a game. That simple adventure is actually the modest beginnings in a chain of disruptions that tear even the dimensional fabric of time and space. No one, not even Essairyn, was who she thought she was. And not even the gods can change the destiny of the universes... A single promise shook eternity’s existence. — Fantasy || Adventure || Romance || Action || Mystery || Drama || Science Fiction — The My World To Live (MWTL) series, the alternative short name is Canaan, is comprised of three books symbolically named My World, To Live, and My World To Live. Two years prior, the entire story had been planned and detailed out from start to finish before actual writing. Thus, the story will never be dropped. While the genre is largely Fantasy, the book is comprised of many other elements including a School Life (Magic Academy) story portion. MWTL has a lot of scattered symbolism and allusions, hence, the mystery aspect. The science fiction elements progressively become more pronounced, and the slow romance is a late bloomer. The female lead is strong and independent, and her backstory and identity unravel as drivers of the plot. Expect lots of action/fighting throughout and scattered philosophical and psychological themes arising. It's a human journey to find the essence of one's living and purpose. What kind of world do I wish to live for? Any feedback is greatly appreciated. I hope to share the journey with you~! Canaan's Original and New Covers: If you're curious about my art and the various covers I made for this series and other authors, I have a RR thread that makes free covers and shows art processes. [October 1, 2020 Notice: Hello, I aplogize to all followers for suddenly taking an extended hiatus. Life threw a lot at my face and then the pandemic happened, so I hadn't been able to write until around the last month when I decided to challenge myself and finish the first book in this series. I am ok now, and thank you for your patience and understanding. No words can express how much every reader means to me. RR was the first writing platform that I ever felt accomplished to any small degree, so I am forever grateful to it. Multiples changes have been made since this final revision and writing of the ending, so please see the latest chapter detailing the update. This also includes my decision to submit this story to the 2020 Wattys contest (the deadline was Sept 30th). That means I will not be posting the updated version of this story on here until the contest is over (since I doubt I'll win anyway lol). And so, if you want to read the full, now completed (woohoo!) story, please go to my Wattpad. Thank you once again, and wishing you all the very best health and happiness! FINAL UPDATE, March 7, 2021: The complete story has been re-posted after the Wattys. This version that was on Wattys is the one being re-posted. However, the Final Version (which will be on a separate book from this to remain organized, and is technically the fifth version of the story xD) will be released May 2021. For more information, please read this update linked here. Thank you to all readers for taking this two year journey with me!
8 187Oh Great, I Was Reincarnated as a Farmer.
What do you get when you cross Home Alone, Isekai, litrpg, and a farming simulator? You get Arnold’s life, that’s what you get. Accidently murdered by a cleric in another universe in a botched resurrection, Arnold, a semi-pro gamer, finds himself incarnated into the overweight corpse of that universes version of him. It could be a bad joke, but apparently, it happens so often that they have a standard procedure for returning you. That standard procedure doesn't apply to Arnold. Now stuck on a new earth with no way home, Arnold must use his gaming skills to figure out how to level his farmer class to 100 and gain a new class that doesn't make him want to beat his head against the wall. There is one little problem. Farmers don't gain experience from killing monsters. Like at all. Follow Arnold as he comes to grips with his new reality and discovers creative ways to improve it.(This was originally put up for feedback purposes, so I could finish my final edit, before publishing on Amazon. There were originally only going to be 20 chapters, but I needed more feedback so I bribed the readers to reread my new first chapter with 4 more chapters. The whole novel will not be going up on royal road. This novel will be taken down on the 10th of May.)Amazon link below. Oh Great! I was Reincarnated as a Farmer
8 69The Arbiter: Midgard
Tiberius Stone, aka Toaby, is an honest man. A loving husband and father who works hard as a senior accountant to provide for his family. He works for Techavant, the world's largest tech company. That was until he uncovered something the company wanted to stay hidden. Coming home to find his wife murdered, Toaby takes the fall and is sentenced to life in prison. Forced to take an alternative form of punishment, Toaby's mind is uploaded into a virtual prison while his body is destroyed. The prison is run by AIs who take form of the Norse Gods and offer him a unique class opportunity. They offer him to become the Arbiter. A class focusing on bringing law and order to a virtual world full of the world’s worse criminals. Toaby is reluctant at first but agrees when offered the chance to communicate with the real world as a reward for a job well done. Can Toaby bring justice to a land full of the lawless? Will he ever be able to convince his daughter he's not guilty? Can he bring down the corrupt organization that sentenced him to an eternal life in prison? Can he simply survive amongst the world's worst? Find out this and more in, The Arbiter!
8 151Friends with benefits
You and Bryan have been friends since you guys were six. You guys did everything together, what happens when you start to catch feelings.
8 106Don't Fall
Damian suddenly decided to leave, or perhaps return the mantel of Robin to its previous owner, Tim Drake, without any explanation or discussion with his family. No one knew why. Only Damian knew why, and it was probably for the best.
8 187Those Zombies Again
One day Sam wakes up in a world full of zombies and tries to survive.PSFirst of all i would not recommend this novel if you haven't read like hundred of novels already. Its pretty weird and depressing novel.This story is told almost completely from MC point of view. Third person.MC is a pretty ugly random guy with different psychological problems. He is antisocial and limited person.Lore - Since MC is limited and barely interested in people or just surroundings, you will get pretty limited descriptions on stuff, it was meant to be like that.Characters - Obviously for the same reason, you will not see much characters, usually you wont get their description or even names.Fights - I personally hate those fights in novels which take like few chapters to describe some shitty encounters. For example MC is making his "move" and then you get half chapter of description of his thoughts and the ways his face is looking, and the way like his opponent surprised and the way crowd is reacting and so on. I really hate all that shit so fights in this novel will be described not that often, only if an equal or a new opponent, and only in a strict and straightforward way, no bullshit.Now this novel is not exactly fantasy, its more like grim realistic-fantasy.But i will have to explain what i mean. Lets take rape in most novels as an example. Usually MC will be justified to rape a girl one way or another. Common example is aphrodisiac. Or the girl were trying to kill him so he had to "punish" her. Or she just happened to jump on his thing and then after rape she become his girlfriend etc, Those are examples of "fan service" in novel. So MC would be justified and readers woun't feel too uncomfortable to read something like that.So there is no "fan service" in this novel, like at all. You will have to read some stuff that will make you feel uncomfortable and you woun't like it.Common sense also means that there is barely gonna be any "random" events which MC is gonna be part of. No treasures and superpowers he founds because he is "special". He will not meet antagonists on his way.This novels world will not spin around MC in any way. He will usually sit in his deep cave and no one around will give a damn about him or even know of his existence.So this novel is not for you to have fun and enjoy reading. Not to make you feel comfortable, satisfied or happy.Its probably the opposite.There are some standards which novel usually sticks to in order to become popular. Obviously i did not meet those standards at all.
8 150