//Hey fellow penguins. Another chapter.

I would really appreciate any comments, rating votes and most of all critiques. This is my first fiction and I’m trying to improve my writing. Well enjoy. 

//also just a side note, italics means it’s a thought.

Chapter 2

Awake but not Awoken

“For if the soul is strong enough the body will be reborn”

The boy awoke, his eyes shot open and he convulsed. Coughing blood, spittle and some strange light, Lewis feels around in the darkness he found himself in. The ground was cold to the touch but littered with pieces of stone.

Lewis didn’t know where he was, maybe he was in a prison somewhere. Or maybe this is where they throw the bodies of dead street kids, but why are there no bodies, and why is he alive. A sobering though came to him. This could be the where orphaned go, imprisoned in an eternal darkness and left to rot. Slowly dying from the hunger pangs and going insane from being alone for so long. He was only 17, and wanted to live.

Lewis had his life in front of him, he needed to get back to London and become strong and survive, and he needed to make

himself the man his father and mother expected him to be.

He slowly got up feeling his blood soaked clothes stick to his chest. Wait, where are my wounds gone. Lewis felt his mouth and he had all his teeth. He bent down and felt his ankles and none of the burning fire that he felt when he broke it arose. Even the cuts from the glass had disappeared. Only the tattered clothes remained.

In fact he felt much stronger, liberated in fact. Almost like before the air he walked through was filled with invisible sludge and now his body is free.

“What is going on?”

Slowly, he felt the floor and walked himself to the side of room he was imprisoned in and stood up. Painstakingly feeling every inch of the wall he moved covering the side he was on. Etchings covered the walls, Lewis thought they were some kind of glyph. Then the next wall, finally he felt some loose rocks lying behind was he thought was moss. Pushing with all his might the wall started to creak.

Light began to stream in to the room in single streams, then as the wall began to cave and fall, the whole room was illuminated.

What on earth, Lewis thought, as he looked down at the wall he had just pushed over. It was half a meter thick.

“Must have rotted, this place looks pretty old anyway”

The light came from above. Looking up the boy saw the curved ceiling thousands of meters up, holes with sand slowly pouring through was where the light came in. But they didn’t detract from the sheer size of the place the boy found himself in. Looking round he could see the glyphs from the room surrounded him. They were everywhere, even rising to the ceiling, thousands upon thousands of them filled up the huge walls and ceilings, so dense the touched each other. Some of the walls like the ceiling had started to decay, holes in the marble walls breaking the glyphs continuity.

This must have taken years to build.

Ambling through the wondrous ancient ruins after many twists and turns he turns into another huge room the ceiling higher than the other room, although it had a raised altar in the centre. The marble had not rotted and moss hadn’t clung onto the surface of the stone like the other places he had seen. It was pure white and had an almost celestial feel to it, light danced across its surface illuminating the huge glyphs which covered the floor in a circle around its base.

“Why is it so clean?”

Apprehensively he crept forward, cautious of the mysterious untouchable nature of the altar. Upon reaching the perimeter of the large glyphs, he could see even smaller ones inside the curves of the larger ones, and inside those even smaller ones.

“Maybe if I had super sight I could see more glyphs inside of them”. Looking up, Lewis realised there was an old book lying closed on the altar. It was covered by huge scales which shone iridescently in the light. I’ve never seen those before, what kind of animal has those kind of scales, he thought.

He put one foot on the circle of glyphs, nothing.

He put a second foot in the glyphs, nothing. Slowly he moved through the glyphs into the circle, his curiosity getting the better of him. Silence.

He looked around and realised nothing had happened and strode up to the book, flipping it open. Suddenly a loud chiming filled the air the glyphs shone with a bright blue light filling the entire room. Lewis fell the floor blinded, tears streaming down his face.

“So you have arrived” a deep voice rang out. Still unable to see Lewis scrabbled to the altar and took cover. Waiting for his eyesight to recover, he called out.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to break it.” Slowly the tears dried and he could see, rubbing his eyes, he looked around the altar

and saw no-one.

“Hahaha, broke what?” a deep chuckle rang out.

Confused, Lewis searched the surroundings and still saw no-one. Standing up he cried;

“Show yourself, who are you”.

“I’m right here, Faerwald. As to who I am, well if you’re willing to listen I will tell you everything.”

Looking down in surprise, he realised the book was open and a transparent, miniature wizened old man floating above the book was the source of the voice. He backpedalled in shock, how is this possible. How can, this…

“You must be wondering how this is possible” picking the thoughts out of Lewis’ head. “Well, my boy, the most barebones explanation is magic”

Magic, it exists?

“Magic is real enough alright. As, for who I am, I am Auraleos Rasina the last and greatest mage of the Antarian culture. And you are the first and last Faerwald. “

“Faer..what? How can magic exist? Where am I?” Lewis shot out question after question.

“Relax, slow down, I’m not going anywhere. Well, actually that’s a lie, I am. I liked it better when you were stunned.

Well first, Magic can and does exist. Many types of magic exist, inherent magic which gurgle forth from the dragons mouth, powerful spoken magic of the elves, mind magic, blood magic, there’s plenty. What I use, or used to use, since I have kept my consciousness in this soul book for thousands of years, is Antarian rune magic. It used to be the most powerful magic in my era, but now I don’t know what is happening on the surface, and that my boy, leads us to where you are.

You are in the ruins of the Antarian capital or more specifically under it. The city which housed the greatest human race in existence. Capital of the human force which possessed the greatest magical language in history. And now the birthplace of a unique existence. The Faerwald. Although now humans are probably a husk of what they used to be.”

Lewis was stunned; “elves, dragons and magic, unbelievable. Unbelievable.”

Auraleous laughed. “The best, or worst depending on the perspective, is yet to come. The final question is what a Faerwald is”

The young boy held his breath.

“Faerwald in ancient Antarian glyphs means world traveller. You, young man, are now in the fantastical planet of D’lrow, an immeasurable distance from your home planet Earth, home of Gods, monsters and great races and minor races alike.”

Lewis still hadn’t released his breath. Dammit, what the hell. Why does it have to be me, I want to go back to my family. I want to see, my father’s face Wait.

“Why I my memories of my family leaving me” Lewis breathed. “Why can’t I remember their faces, my own father’s face,

why can I remember them? I can still hear their screams but not remember their faces? WHY”. His voice builds into a shout.

“Ah yes to the crux of the matter. You see the Antarian mages thousands of years ago discovered a secret that the Gods themselves probably did not know. What is it you ask? Well you.

You see, before the stirrings of the civil war, us mages discovered an area under our great city which was so unstable that it warped and condensed the mana around it. I could obviously feel such tremors under my own feet, even if they lasted for only a second, so I took an expedition of our greatest mages, the greatest of the world, and journeyed into the belly of our city. There we found strange cards and papers, we knew instantly they were from another world.”

“How could you possibly know that, quickly” Lewis thought out loud trying to distance himself from the fact that he was trapped in a new world with slowly fading memories of his old one.

“Patience, patience. The best stories have the most interesting beginnings you know.” Floating down he sat on the open pages of the book on the altar.

“As I was saying, we knew it was from a different world since everything has mana. Even the rocks and water you drink. However the objects which materialised were void of mana. Slowly they developed large amounts of it and shattered or exploded from the incompatibility.”

Shit, that can’t be good.

“We realised that the space we found was what we called a ‘break’. An interspatial connection gate between our worlds, we calculated the time it would take for a human or animal to come through before the mana around the gate would be eaten and realised it was far beyond our mortal life spans.

Worse, above us the Antarian civil war had blossomed into full scale war, houses devouring each other and mages destroying each other’s armies. We knew we could not entrust this boundless task to our kin, we could possibly have none after the war finished. So we slaved away building this sanctuary around the gate. You materialised in the stabilising room we built. The etchings on all the walls, ceilings and floors are the work of all of the greatest Antarian magic minds put together. They contain almost every glyph ever created.

I was chosen as the greatest and wisest of them all to stay behind in this soul tome, to serve as a storage for you memories among other things. As soon as you materialised into this world, our glyphs siphoned a copy of your memories into this very tome before they de-constructed in your brain.”

“Shit. So I’m losing my mind. I’m just going to de-construct like those pieces of junk you found. I just want to go back, how the hell do I get back” Lewis howled in desperation.

“Calm yourself boy, they were inanimate objects, incapable of adapting to a mana rich environment. You are a human with control over your body, the moment you gain mana control your body will stabilise and you will begin to grow a mage force.

Not only that, you already are a powerful warrior, I’m sure you felt some strength in your body. The world you came from must have created in the absence of mana, well that’s what we speculated all those years ago, although I’m sure you and your elk never realised, since you all had the same strength, even the materials and animals of your world had the same strength.

As your strength increases memories will unlock from me and you will remember things. As for getting back, well if you’re strong enough to subdue the gods maybe you can. Oh yeah, I can only come out when you unlock your memories. Goodbye for now!”

With that Auraleous was sucked into the tome which then slammed closed and shot towards his chest. Passing through is clothes is disappeared. Ripping open his the tattered pieces of his shirt he looked down and saw yet another glyph, but engrained on his chest glowing a deep blue colour.

“Hey,hey, you didn't teach me how to control my mana!” Shit.

The young Faerwald looked up and saw glyphs everywhere beginning to shift. All of them glowed red and returned to their original state, but one shifted completely.

Կրակ

slowly began to shift and transform. The glyphs form morphed and changed finally he could see the word Fire.

It's in English! Seems like that’s the only one I have enough power to use, but I don’t know what would happen if I did use it.

He could already feel his body de-constructing from the lack of mana circulation, chest constricting and a raging headache. He coughed up more blood.

Looking up he could see the final exit of the entire underground sanctuary which felt like a labyrinth. Dragging himself to the light he finally reached the opening and felt his legs buckle. Falling on his back he saw the opening slam shut as stones materialised and sand covered it up.

It seems he found himself in a desert and the Antarian ruins exit disappeared like it was never there in the first place.

He feebly looked up and saw the dark night sky and realised there were two moons.

I really am in a different world,he thought as he slowly faded into unconsciousness.

//Yaay, hoped you liked it and picked up on the reference to a recent movie heeheheh.