Hello! Welcome back reader. I do hope you arent reading these out of order. Whats that? Oh! You read them in order and think they are wonderfull? Aw shucks. Then enjoy this peice of garbage as well. (im not being negative i just like calling my creations peices of garbage. Remind me never get married and create children .)

“Always keep your guard up! this isn’t a battle of weaponry, it’s a battle of the mind.”

My sword clanged with his dagger, well it USED to be a dagger. At his command its blade had elongated several feet. Its length was now equal to my own sword.

“ Why can’t i just, blast em with a fireball?”

Suddenly with a swift thrust of his sword he hit the sword from my hands and it clattered to the floor.

“That’s why.” he shrunk the dagger and slid it back into its sheath.

“You have no idea how to use that thing anyway. By the time you managed a fireball i could’ve killed you 6 times over.” he studied me for a second. “7 if you include that time you saw that bird.”

“IT WAS PRETTY!” i objected. He smiled a little bit. Huzzah, he is not as emotionless as a pile of dirt. I picked up my sword.

“I don’t think this sword stuff is cut out for me. I just don’t see the point.” (bad pun, sorry.) 

“… you did alright kid…” he said softly, as if worried others would hear. He cleared his throat looking up to the left for some reason. “still terrible of course, but… you might improve with time, “ he turned to me.

“Go get some rest. You’ll need it.” 

So i did. I slept in a bed, for all da peeps who were wondering. Man it was comfy.

Morning eventually crept in. Ryan Slept in for hours, so eventually I just gave up waiting and got some fresh air, the fiery sun hung low in the sky, only barely beginning to rise. 

An abrupt scream echoed through a nearby alley; It sounded like a woman being mugged.

 I did a fist pump.

 Ok, im offended by people mugging women as much as the next guy, but this is my perfect opportunity to prove myself, same thing happened with all the other bigshot heroes, spiderman, superman, Shazam, all of em.

I ran around the corner, tried to draw my sword and just about ripped my pants off. I finally fumbled to take it out.

“Hey! Get your hands off of-”

Would it surprise you if I said I didn’t see a normal non-magical everyday thief? No. of course it wouldn’t, that would be too easy. Instead what stood before me was a massive reptile easily longer than 2 school buses, it’s long serpentlike body was thick as a monster truck tire and covered with gleaming scales the size of frying pans. But the worst part by far were its eyes, when I looked at them I felt like they were sucking the will to live from my body. i might as well be dead.

I stared at the sword in my hands, it hummed and crackled with a familiar glow. Then I remembered why the hell i was using this thing in the first place. The beasts glowing red eyes pierced into me as if reading my soul. The dragon studied me probably wondering why it’s snack was trying to defend its other snacks. With incredible speed it lunged, claws and teeth blurred before my eyes and everything went dark.

“Oh my gosh im dead im dead im dead im dead!” I thought. Wait… no i wasn’t . I slowly opened my eyes, the dragon hissed and clawed at its face which was now in flames. Fire blazed along the blade of my sword. It was raised in my hands as if i was come kind of ninja, how i did that,i have no idea.

“Holy shiz i am so awesome” i thought.

“Ha! Noob!” I yelled at the dragon. This was a mistake. The dragon’s tail lashed out like a whip and sent my sword flying into the street, probably giving some morning commuter a heart attack.

“Son of a-” suddenly a massive set of claws tore into my chest and tossed me into the wall like a rag doll. My shirt felt wet… blood. I was tempted to just lay down and die. I looked over at the woman that cowered helplessly, the dragon eyed her with satisfaction and hunger. It edged towards her slowly, at its own leisure.

I had a choice to make, i could just lose, but the woman would die… I would have a painless death… I decided to do the noble thing. I got up and called the dragon a deflated balloon animal. Then i got that same “focused constipation” look, I didn’t have the sword but …it’s hard to explain. I felt that it was still with me, i couldn’t hold it. I couldn’t wield it. But i knew it was mine, like a beacon in the distance giving me hope. I thought about my family… i thought about my sisters smile….about how much it looked like my moms. A tingling feeling shot through my whole body and a massive plume of fire shot out my hands like I’d just detonated a nuclear bomb. The dragon reared onto it’s back legs clawing at the flames as if that would make them go away. Unable to fight it, it threw back it’s head and let out one last deafening roar before collapsing into the cloud of fire. I was about to strike some sort of sick pose, [maybe start performing orange justice?] Instead I promptly collapsed to the floor completely out of energy and probably bleeding to death.

Dang! Your still reading? Maybe this isnt garbage after all! My dear reader if u just read dat sentence and dissagreed then i strongly urge you to hit yourself in the head with a shovel. If not, then pretend the intro hasnt gone for way too long and keep reading.

I awoke, my family was nowhere to be seen, and what used to be my house was now a broken pile of rubble around me. I could see broken remains of things I’d once known, there’s a wing from a model airplane my dad had once bought me. There’s my sisters hairbrush, embroidered with fake gems and now buried in a coat a dirt.

The brush had once been my mothers. But my father had given it to marcella after her passing. I smiled nostalgically at the memory. Marcella had taken that thing everywhere. One time she lost it at school, and she refused to come home until it was found. she cried and cried for what felt like hours. I don’t remember most of the things the teacher said, but i just remember my dad had gotten on one knee and put a hand on her shoulder,

“You like that brush don’t you?”

She nodded and “mhm”ed under a wave of sobs.

“Mom wanted you to have it, but more than that she wanted you to be happy. We’ll find it. I promise.”

So she calmed down, and took off her backpack and tossed it through the door then sat in the car herself. And as the backpack hit the floor, guess what fell out of it?

“My brush!!!” She exclaimed with a huge grin as she snatched it up off the floor.

I now picked it up and held it close. How sadly ironic…she once lost her brush, and now I have the brush. but I have lost her. 

It was the last thing I had of the 2 girls who made up my life. I tucked it safely in my pocket.

My father had left me this sword. No idea why. But I decided I had to keep it. And not just to defend myself from homicidal santas.

I could hear a cold breeze passing overhead, an October wind carrying leaves into the distance. Against their will; the will to cling to their branches. I wondered if the trees ever missed their leafs, if they ever cry when they’re taken away from them. 

They dont. Because theyre trees. But i felt like i would… I would miss my leafs. I would want my leafs forever.

Then I heard someone clear their throat. I wasn’t alone after all. Unless- was the spirit still there? I turned around ready to shank the son of a biscuit. Instead stood a guy maybe 2 or 3 years older than me; dark brown hair, blue leather jacket and jet-black Levi’s. He was …familiar. Yet i couldn’t quite place his face.

“Bad time?” He said with a kind smile, his hand extended my way. I reluctantly let him help me up.

 finally I placed his identity. He was one of my cousins, but it had been so long and frankly the day was so confusing that I didn’t recognize him at first.

“R-Ryan?” 

he nodded solemnly. It was hard to be cheerful in a place like this, when darkness and the cold hung so prominently in the air.

 So he remained relatively quiet. 

Naturally I revved up my motor mouth, it was sort of my way of relieving stress. If i was talking, then i couldn’t be thinking as much.

“Where did you come from? What happened? How did you find me?-” 

He looked at my sword, which still felt warm in my hand. 

“saxrijoqab…” he admired. “Where did you get this?” 

“My father gave it to me…” i said, my voice trailing off in despair.

He pursed his lips but didn’t say anything.

“So what does…snack.. sacksr… “

“saxrijoqab” he corrected.

“Yeah, sack ridge crab whatever, why is it so important?”.

“Its one of the most powerfull weapons in existance. Its like…” he paused trying to think of a way to put it. He settled on something more my style. “Its basically a magic fire sword. Youve probably seen enough movies to know what that entails.”

I nodded. Usually id be more excited but…. Dead family.

“let’s get you outta here… take your mind off everything. I have an old washing machine you could sleep in.

“WHAT!?” my eyes widened.

He laughed.

“im kidding. Now are you just gonna stand there or follow me?” 

My brow furrowed, how could this guy be joking right now?

He lead me to a house, by normal standards it was just another house. By rich people standards it was a crusty pile of crap. 

“Nice pile of- i mean, nice home you got here Ryan.”

He rolled his eyes and shut the door behind us. 

“Now let’s have The Talk. The your-world-is-actually-filled-with-magic talk.” he explained where my sword came from, how my dad had stolen it from the tomb of some dead guy to save my mom. But when i asked how he knew all this he simply waved it off as if it where unimportant. He looked me in the eyes.

“Now, I’m sure you have a lot of questions,”

Then without elaboration he walked away.

“HEY WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?”

“Leaving.”

“You can’t just leave!!!”

“Watch me.”

I was steaming (Not literally). more than anything i was just confused. Like what kind of person would just walk out like that? He almost looked….scared. No, i was just imagining it. Right?

He grabbed his jacket and started going to the door. I held up my sword and concentrated, I hoped that my sword would shoot a huge column of fire like in the movies, but nothing happened. So for a few seconds i just looked like a very angry very constipated boy with a sword. He laughed.

“Cage, tsk tsk tsk. You can’t expect for anything on the first try. It’s much more complicated than that. Anyway, good luck with your cursed sword. Try not to die-”

 suddenly a warm tingling feeling shot down my arms into my fingertips and the sword crackled with sparks. A billowing burst of flames erupted from the blade. The smoke cleared, and his eyebrows were singed off. I really hoped he would decide to give me a shot like in the movies: try and train me and stuff.

Instead he gave me a thumbs up and walked away.

“Ryan!!!” I stormed after him.

“Thats my name. Please go away.”

“C’mon, we could be like some sort of magical duo!”

He paused to think

“Hmmm, you know what?”

“Yeah?” I grinned.

He grinned back at me.

“I think I’d rather die.”

“Please? You saw what I did. Please? Please? Please? Please?”

“AGH!” he threw down his tattered jacket.

“Fine! Just…. Please…. Stop.”

“Yes! Thank you!”

‘But i have rules.”

“Okay, is the first rule to have fun?”

“Rule number one, don’t talk too much.”

“But-”

“TWO” he interrupted “never blast me in the face like that again.”

“Ok.”

“Three, don’t talk too much.”

“But you already said-”
    “YOU JUST BROKE TWO OF MY RULES CAGE!” 

I gulped.

“Oky dokey then.”

We walked in silence for a while. But If we were going to be friends…we might as well try to actually like each other. I cleared my throat.

“So…. you got a magical sword?”

“Yes.” He answered dully.

“Cool, so what’s that like?”

“ it’s not a sword.”

“What is it? It have a cool name? Ya-know, you look like the kinda guy who would wield a steve into battle doncha think?” he shook his head. And here i was thinking i was funny. 

“It’s not named steve, i named it Sma-ibkhep-esh. it joins my burning soul to the blade, it keeps me alive.” 

“Oh …thats neat. Sort of like my grandma and her contagious rash medication.”

That ended that conversation pretty fast.

“We’re here” by here he did in fact refer to the tiny little house in front of us. It was a small little cot, adorned with an old and rickety shackled roof. If anybody lived in there, I didn’t want to meet them. 

“Go on” he said.

“Go on what?”

He shoved me forward and rang the doorbell. Strangely, the closer I got to the house, the more comfortable I felt. the sword felt lighter in my hands. I saw more clearly. The door opened and a girl who seemed to be about Ryan’s age glared at me.

“What do you want?”

“Hey lena.” Ryan Said actually sounding pleasant. The girls snarl disappeared.

“Oh! Ryan, what are you doing here?”

“ we found a… a very special item.”

I lifted my sword, assuming by “special item” he didn’t mean me. Her eyes widened.

“Saxrijoqab…” lena said shaking her head with astonishment.

“ you’d better come in, get comfortable.”

“Oh, thank you.” 

“I was talking to Ryan. You don’t touch anything.”

I walked in, it wasn’t anything much.

“Where did you find it?” lena said gesturing to the sword, avoiding any small talk whatsoever.

“My dad stole it, he gave it to me.” I said matter-of-factly. I felt strangely vulnerable talking about all this. I didn’t like it.

She nodded and looked into my eyes, not at all easing my anxiety.

“Oh I see…your a Cabell. ah… “ she leaned closer. “yes, You have that same fire in your irises, though your pupils hardly hide it as well as Ryans.”

She looked at Ryan And… smiled? It was too fast to tell. She looked back at me staring more intensely than ever. Very intensely. To the point where it was uncomfortable. I tried to focus on something else. On her fridge was a mickey mouse magnet which I gladly stared at instead.

“Have you figured out the sword yet?”

I didn’t look up from the magnet.

“Once, but I still don’t really understand the mickey magnet- i mean the sword.” she stopped with the weird stare.

“You’ve never used a magical sword before?”

“No, not really. My understanding of swords is pretty straightforward: wack people with it until their dead. If they get back up whack them again. Repeat as necessary.”

She looked at Ryan As if to say your friend is an idiot 

“Look, Cage, this sword is one of the most powerful weapons in existence… when used properly of course.” basically she was saying i couldn’t mindlessly wack things with it.

“Then… how about you take it?” I said. But then again, I wasn’t sure I wanted to directly disobey my dads dying words like that. I could still hear them, permanently engraved into my brain:

 “Cage, you must never let anyone deprive you of what is ours, you must never relent…take this sword!  let it be our family’s beacon of hope.”

I was still confused on what that meant exactly.

What was ours? The sword? I hardly considered it mine. Maybe he meant something else…

She laughed.
    “Oh I could never use it, for obvious reasons.”

She did not elaborate; simply changed the subject as she looked to Ryan.

“You must protect him. Should the sword fall into the wrong hands like last time…”

“Of course. That would be catastrophic.” he agreed.

“Yes of course…. What happened last time?” I asked.

They both ignored me.

“Don’t let him out of your sight, without a doubt they’ll be after him. Besides,” she turned to me with a knowing smile.

“I think you’ll grow on each other.”

Ryan Obviously wanted to object that i was a drainy sack of annoyance, but she didn’t give him the chance.

“Now leave, i have some magic crap to deal with.”

She shooed us out.

“Well… she definitely likes you. Wink wink nudge nudge.” I said with a smirk.

“Shut up. Stop talking, i hate you.”

I didn’t plan on letting the whole Ryan x lena ship go but I shut up.

“She said they’ll be after me, who exactly is they?”

“Well, mostly your usual demonic spirits, magical assassins, tax collectors, and if you’re unlucky…” he cleared his throat.

“Dragons, but we won’t see any of those, their exceptionally rare.”

“Say we do see one… what do we do?”

“Oh you wouldn’t have time to do anything, you’d be sliced up to bits or burnt to a crisp before you could escape. So um…..I don’t know, you can stop drop and roll or somethin” My eyes widened.

“But… like I said, we won’t see any of those…”

“Well then,” I said, changing the subject. “what now?”

“Well , we are gonna have to work on your swordsman skills… which are so far nonexistent.”

He took me back to his “house”. 

Ok first off, this is based off a story i did a while ago and just gonna let ya know that it will most likely get better and more entertaining the further i get. Unless it doesn’t. Anyway! Good luck reading all this.

I stared at the sword in my hands, it hummed and crackled with a familiar glow. Then I remembered why the hell i was using this thing in the first place. The beasts glowing red eyes pierced into me as if reading my soul, the eyes of the dragon. The dragon studied me. No doubt wondering why it’s second snack was trying to defend its first snacks. So with incredible speed it lunged, claws and teeth blurred before my eyes and then everything went dark.

I suppose you’re wondering how i got into this mess, join the club. I’m Cage Cabell. And this is the story of how my life went down the toilet.

I suppose it all started at school, it was a monday. The most dastardly of all the days. And the city’s local jerk, Mrs.Wiggs, was teaching my history class. 

“Cage!” She said slapping her ruler onto my desk with a violent “Crack!”. I jolted up with surprise, i wasn’t exactly paying attention. I was slumbering. Dreaming about what it would be like to get a cup of coffee with Lebron James. The guy was a monster on the court, but man could the guy juggle. Anyway what was I talking about? Right! The devil.

Mrs.Wiggs eyed me with contempt. And I looked up to her, rubbing my eyes.

“Tic tac?” I offered.

She did not appreciate the gesture.

“Well? What is the answer, Cage?” She said; her belly jiggling as she adjusted her stance.

“I’m gonna go with Christopher Columbus”

The class chuckled. That’s how i liked it, stareing the devil right in the wrinkles and making sarcastic comments. 

Mrs.Wiggs did not share the classes sense of humor. In fact she looked like she was going to kill me.

“I asked where the battle of the Alamo took place…and you answered ‘Christopher Columbus'”

The class looked at me with sympathy. But personally, I thought it was pretty funny the way things turned out. And I chuckled a little.

“Oh, I didn’t know that.”  Again, I swear, this lady is just one big sack of evil. A large smile slid onto her face. It was as if she took pleasure in the suffering of children. Which i’m pretty sure she does.

“Well, Cage,” she said, spitting out my name as if the word itself left a bad taste in her mouth.

“You just earned you and the rest of the class a pop quiz!”

The class groaned.

“Way to go cage.” A girl said mockingly, and Mrs.Wigg made a special show of giving me the first quiz sheet; sporting a triumphant smile as her eyes lingered on me.

The quiz was hell. I didn’t know a single answer. In fact, I wasn’t even sure if this was a history quiz. It seemed more like rocket science.

Well, a lot of things seemed like rocket science these days. Like for example, girls. I had my eye on a few of em. But i wasn’t really looking for anything. 

The rest of the school day wasn’t any better, you see, I had sort of a reputation. I didn’t really have any friends, sure i had people I ate lunch with and stuff. but it didn’t really extend further than that. But I didn’t really care. You see, I live in the suburbs of california, and in fact, one might say that my family is pretty wealthy. My mom said that my grandpa had won the lottery or something. But instead of spending it, he gave it all to his family. And oh no here I go again, look. My mom actually isn’t around any more. I get that it’s sort of cliche for a book but…she died of cancer 7 years ago. My family hasn’t been the same ever since. If it wasn’t for the positivity of my little sister, i don’t know if we would’ve made it.

 I returned from school and opened the door to see my sisters bright smile greeting me.

“Cage!” she ran up and hugged me in her little arms. Her hazel eyes glittered with joy and positivity. Nothing could ever get her down for more than a few minutes, not with all that joy. She’d always pop back up and want to play with me. Marcella was basically the best sister in the world. Not even a contest.

“How was school?” she asked bouncing up and down on the couch. So I gave her my classic “you-don’t-need-the-trouble -so-i’ll-just-lie-and-say-it-was-great” smile.

“It was great.”

Her smile broadened and her eyes lit up. She seemed to think I was some sort of hero.

“Did you see Mrs.Wiggs?”

“I sure did! In fact, she said that she’d never seen anybody score on the quiz like I did.” (Im not wrong)

Marcella giggled, I loved seeing her happy. It was the highlight of my day.

“Dads making meatloaf!” She said as if that was the greatest thing in the world, wich it probably was to her.

Suddenly the freaking walls exploded.

Gee Cage why’d you skip so far ahead like that?

Oh, sorry did i scare you? I’m so sorry! Oh wait, no im not. I about crapped my pants right then and there, a wave of cold air hit me like a semi truck and a chilling voice boomed through the walls

“WHERE IS IT!?” 

In the kitchen my dad froze in his tracks. He didn’t look up, just sighed and answered slowly.

“I don’t know…”

I suddenly saw where the voice was coming from: hovering above what used to be our kitchen wall was a disfigured and very cranky old man. His beard was frozen and caked with icicles. Now maybe your picturing an elderly jack frost, or a homicidal santa, whatever it is, it’s not scary enough. The guy radiated unfiltered fear like smoke from dry ice.

“but I don’t have it If that’s what you wanted, Frosty.”  my dad said trying to sound defiant, which is pretty hard to do when your friendly neighborhood ice poltergeist is giving you the stink eye, but somehow he did. He returned the figures icy gaze and he did it with a humorous smile. The spirit did not like this. He showed his distaste by slamming his fist into my father’s gut with enough power that it literally made a shockwave of ice shake the room.

he went flying into the table wich shattered underneath the impact. Icy steam sputtered and steamed  where he had been hit, he gasped for breath and looked back at us.

“Cage…Marcella…” my sister was now bawling her eyes out screaming “Daddy! Daddy! No!”. She tried to run to him but i couldn’t let her get herself killed, so I held her close to me. As tight as i could, i couldnt lose another member of my family…not again. If i lose my father then at least i can protect her…..

“You’ve had your chance, Cabell…” he puased and peered around at us with a menacing grin. “oh. Children. I love children.” he turned to my sister. It happened so fast i didnt even process what happened. a dagger of ice slid from his sleeve in the blink of an eye, and before I knew it he had it pressed to marcellas throat, i looked down, how the heck he had stolen her from my arms so fast i had no idea, But i didnt like it.

“Their great for revenge!” He said with malice.

My sister screamed and my dad turned to me. his face wasn’t fearful as I would expect, more contorted with rage than anything else. he was gonna beat that homicidal santa into the ground if he could. But then something different flashed on his face…like he was in on some private joke that I didn’t know about. He slid something to me from under the debris of the table.

a sword.

“Cage, you must never let anyone deprive you of what is ours, you must never relent…”

“But-” I stuttered with disbelief.

“take this sword!  let it be our family’s beacon of hope,” what was he talking about?! I was just a kid darn it. I couldn’t like …fight…

“Now go! There’s still time for you to escape. I’ll try to save your sister” he hesitated, the odds of saving her were close to nonexistent at this point. 

the spirit locked eyes on my father and his giant frosty white brow furrowed.

“Very well, you mortals are a stubborn bunch. you will pay for this treachery… all of you.” the air seemed to drop about 30 degrees, I could feel the cold trying to creep into my skin. His skin steamed and at one glance, you could tell he was gonna explode or some shiz. Anger boiled inside me. Who does this guy think he is? He thinks he can just walk in and turn everybody to popsicles?! But…i knew i couldn’t do anything to stop him. this only angered me more. I clutched the sword to my chest and screamed with all my heart, if my father was going to die, the least i could do was head his words. This sword would be my beacon, and I clutched it until my fingers ached and then some. The ice seemed to fade away, i mean… I could still feel it. In fact I could’ve sworn I heard the spirit scream and lunge at the sight of the sword, but his process of self-exploding had already started. either he was freezing us or taking us on a surprise trip to antarctica, but it didn’t bother me. Then i passed out, and the shockwave of ice blew over my unconscious body as if i were a ghost.

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.

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