Welcome to Gaia! ::

(and here's a story for your reading pleasure)



We’re in the forest. It’s raining very heavily. We’ve been running… try to escape… him

“Guys, hurry up! We’ve got to get away from him.”
That was Gerald. We were running as fast as we could. Several of us had already slipped in the water and failed to get up fast enough to escape him… as Gerald did right when he finish talking. He tripped on a root. I tried to help him up but his foot was caught. He yelled but his face told me what I already knew. I had to leave Gerald behind. The only friend I had made on this long journey. I knew Gerald was unafraid to face death from this man… this demon of a man. So I left. I ran and ran for longer than I can consciously remember. For a few seconds I thought he had passed Gerald, but the instant the thought hit my mind, so did a loud scream of pain… and I knew that Gerald was now dead.

There were four of us now. We kept running as our lives depended on it. One more of us fell and slipped into the night. I had my coat over my head now, for whatever good it was doing me. Something told me that we were doomed, but hope said to keep going. And that was when we saw it. A huge shimmer of light and another man standing next to… a portal of some sort.

“Get going. Through here; you’ll a man waiting on the other side to tend to you. I’ll fend off the demon while you escape.”

Another scream in the night, and we didn’t question him. All three of us that were left entered the portal… but we never saw that man again.

The portal took us to some sort of mountain refuge. He was right because there was another man there to help us. He took my companions to another room, but, since I escaped without so much as a scratch, told me to ask one of the ‘students’ for a room… and he handed me a piece of paper. I did as he asked and was taken to a room where I instantly collapsed to sleep on the bed.

I woke the next day to the man who had handed me the paper. He was staring out a window in my room. When he noticed I was awake, he told me of my companions’ fates. One of them had died of blood loss and physical and mental exhaustion. The other had survived the night but was in a deep sleep. They didn’t know when he would awaken. He noticed I had a medallion hanging around my neck and was shocked speechless. When he regained himself, he told me that the medallion belonged to a hero who had hunted demons. He had used the medallion as a young boy to keep them away until he became strong enough to kill them himself.

I spent many long years at that place. I trained myself until physical or mental exhaustion put me to sleep until the day came that I finally decided to leave this place. That was the day that my companion awoke from his sleep. He was pale from the long years of slumber. He told me of the demon, and the forest, and that night. He told me of something I had to do before I could face the demon… and now I stand at the edge of the very forest where I lost my friend and our companions.
I walked through the forest and recognized many the things. The scratches on the trees where we had used them to keep our balance at times. The skeletons of my companions and the man who rescued us that night. But as I drew closer to the cave that had unleashed the demon, I saw something that shouldn’t have been where it was. It was Gerald’s ring and his pouch of various items he brought with him. I took it and kept it; slipped the ring on my finger and attached the pouch to my waist… and at that, I entered the cave. As I walked through the cave it became more demented. The walls became twisted and I saw many skeletons and deformed figures. Many lesser demons tried to attack me but I had learned to use the power of my medallion to fend them away.

I reached the point in the cave where I had taken the medallion from a pedestal and I noticed an inscription written at the base of the pedestal.

This is where the hero left his medallion to seal the serpent
He might one day return to get it, but if he doesn’t someone will take his place

And at that, I knew what Gerald had never revealed; what I had never figured out through all his stories and the tale of a treasure he had to find before the time came. I now knew that Gerald was the hero. A great hero that legends spoke of but no one had truly known… and now it was my turn to take his place. I took out Gerald’s knife and inscribed a new inscription. Here is what I wrote.

Bravely fought, though their duties were unfinished;
Here rest the heroes who have fallen at the serpent’s hands.

Underneath the inscription I wrote Gerald’s name and two others who passed through my mind. I did not know them, but something told me that they were heroes before Gerald. I put away the knife and trekked through the cave, fending off more demons and noticing the increasingly gruesome surroundings. I finally reached the chamber where the demon- the serpent, as the inscription called it- had been unleashed. I approached and shouted, in a voice that boomed out so loud it seemed to belong to someone else. “Come and face me you serpent. I will avenge those who have fallen before me.”

The cave shook and the serpent appeared before my eyes in the center of the cave. He talked to me in an unnatural voice that brought a chill to my spine. “Ah, the one I never managed to kill on that fateful night. You think that you can fell me, just as the ones before you have thought? You can certainly try, but I have never been truly defeated.”

I fought the serpent for longer than I remember. We both seemed an equal match, even with him summoning lesser demons that I fended off with my medallion. Finally, the serpent managed to catch me with a blow to the back. I felt a crack and fell to my knees. The serpent stared me down and raised his hand for a final blow. At that point, something spoke to my head. “Discover your power; the power that belongs to the heroes.” The medallion began to glow at that point and something clicked in my head. Unafraid to face death, I wrested the medallion from my neck and stood to face the serpent. In a split second, the serpent slashed across my chest as I brought the medallion up to his face. “If I go down, we go together. I will not leave you kill more innocents.”

The medallion shot of a brilliant blast of light that penetrated the serpent and shook the cave violently. The serpent let out a cry that sounded like a banshee’s shriek. As the serpent fell to the floor, I fell once more to my knees from exhaustion. I looked up at the cavern ceiling as it crumbling and it threatened to crush me. I felt unafraid and at peace and I knew… I knew that this was the end; the end of The Man Who Never Was. And as I thought that, the cavern finally gave away, and collapsed.