Short Story

Wrote this last year for a colab project with a friend, meh, might aswell start the thread ^_^


Take the darkest shade of black. Make it 10 times darker, and cover it in a layer of black paint. You have just come close to what Markii was seeing. Eternal darkness; it’s nothing to take lightly. You may understand some day. As I was saying, black; nothing but black, everywhere. No sound, no feeling, no anything; just black. But, gradually, a small, nagging sound, a buzzing of some sort, would creep up to you. Louder and louder, until it almost consumed him com-pletely.
But finally, salvation. The darkness began to fade, and the sound slowly fleeted away to the darkest pits in Markii’s mind, to stay there until he dies; he’ll always remember that sound, that darkness. All at once, the darkness was gone, replaced by the familiar darkness you see when your eyes are closed. And that too soon left, when his eyes cracked open.

Blinking twice, he looked around, his eyes filled with confusion. Around him, bland white cement brick walls, and the faces of many concerned friends around him. As his eyes focused, he slowly began to pick up specific details. First, the area around him; He saw two big blue mats, a rack filled with swords. But none of that was important. What was important was the concerned friends around him. First, he focused on the one farthest to the right. His curly blond hair stretched down an inch below his ears, and his vibrant blue eyes, scanning him with concern, put one word into his head. Aiaros. He didn’t need to make sure, he knew that face no matter how hurt he was. His dark red long sleeve shirt, covered partially by his bronze chain link armour; Black low cut pants topped off his outfit, save for the dark silver sword sheath on his back, held up by a light brown strap running from his right shoulder to the left side of his waist. They weren’t truly friends, but they had conversed a few times, and he was surely somebody else.

The other faces were not important. Ben, the owner of the training arena, (Which he now recognized) stood over him as well, his gruff roughly shaven face showed a slight sign of recognition, which was quite reassuring if you knew him. He rarely smiled, frowned, or showed any emotion. And when he did, you would know he was serious. Glimmering from the light hanging over the arena, was his silver knight armour, which he kept with him after retiring from the forces.
Mitch, a young boy aspiring to fight in the forces one day, was also standing over top. His inexperienced eyes were filled with fear, but they slowly returned to their normal, happy selves, when he realized Markii was alright.

But, he wasn’t. He was slowly realizing he had no memory of what happened, or what that darkness was. Standing up slowly, he started to stumble his way to look for his friend, James. But he couldn’t find him. Perhaps he was off fetching water, or had left before this hap-pened, but where ever he was, he wasn’t by Markii’s side. And that was disappointing, because he really only wanted to see him. He was the only person Markii ever connected with. Suddenly, it happened. A flush came from the bathroom, and out of it came James. It was unmistakable. That was James, no doubt about it. From his short, curly red hair, to his blue tanktop and track pants, he was one odd kid; and on top of that, Markii’s best friend. At least, he thought. Casting one casual glance at the hurt figure belonging to Markii, he continued his walk to one of the blue mats, where he promptly unsheathed his sword and began combat with a training dummy.

Devastated, Markii plopped down to the ground with a sickening thump. He fell back-wards, to tired and hurt to care, and his head silently struck the cold tile floor. And at that sec-ond, it all came back to him.

He was in combat, his ebony long sword swiftly heading straight for Mitch’s head, cov-ered by his helm. But before it contacted, Mitch quickly blocked the blow with the butt of his shiny silver sword. That style of unorthodox fighting was normal for Mitch. Soon, Markii came to realize he couldn’t control what he was doing, like a bystander inside his own mind. Memories were interesting like that. The fight continued for a few minutes, before the final strike occurred. A blur of ebony steel lunged sideways towards Mitch’s side, stopped just in time by his silver blade. And they stood like that, for what seemed like hours, pushing on each other’s blade, a struggle fit for a movie. Finally, Markii made his fault. His sweat hand slipped just an inch, and his sword shifted, causing Mitch’s sword to slide up the ebony blade, letting out a deathly screech in its wake. Finally, it reached the end, and was propelled off the blade, straight towards Markii’s head. Mitch, as a last ditch effort to save Markii’s unprotected head, spun his sword around before jumping back. The butt of his sword hit dead on his left eye, and everything went black again.

Sweating and shaking, Markii snapped out of his memory, and stood back up again. Tak-ing one step, Aiaros quickly came to his side and helped him out of the arena. Casting one last glance at James, who was still locked in combat, his eyes showing no signs of worry for Markii whatsoever, Markii exited the arena.

“Mark... You took quite a blow... Are you okay? How does your eye feel?” A raspy voice that belonged to Aiaros sounded; a voice Markii rarely heard.

“Yeah... Uhmm... I’m okay...” Stumbling, Markii paused, panting for a moment, before making his way over to the pond at the edge of town. As they walked through the bustling primitive town, Markii absently brushed his eye and the area around it lightly, wincing every time he came in contact with it. After a few minutes, they finally arrived at the pond, and Markii collapsed at the edge of the pond, looking into the water.

What he saw didn’t amuse him. His reflection was mostly normal, save for the black eye and red scar he had running down his left eye. Disgusted, he pushed himself backwards, and sat down in a lounging position, his arms behind him to support his weight. Aiaros sat silently next to him, his worried face examining Markii.

“So, are you... Sure... you’re okay...?” Breaking the silence, Aiaros spoke while he picked up a flat rock from the ground around him. Tossing it lightly into the pond, it skipped across the water.
Shaking, Markii glanced over at Aiaros, and a slight grin floated upon his face. “Y-Yeah... I’m... Say, you wanna’ hang out later?” Aiaros looked at his new found friend with a surprised air, before nodding solemnly.

“... Yeah, I’d like that...” The grin on Markii’s face grew, and Aiaros even managed a small smile, happy to have a new friend. Standing there for a good hour, they finally stood up, and made their way back towards town, heading for the tavern, to talk and have a drink, as new friends.

I changed the names for privacy reasons, I'm sure you'll notice Aiaros, Markii is the user of a xat friend, and Mitch is a name of one of mah chars.