Chapter One

The sunlight, it's too bright everything is blurry and my head hurts. I finally sit up taking in my very blurry surroundings as my vision clears everything seems off.

The sounds of the village are in chaos, everyone is screaming in horror, and I also don't remember how I got here; or who I am.

All I know is that my head is bleeding and the world seems to be crashing down all at once.

"Luke" I hear but I don't know where it's coming from.

"Luke, come on we have to go!" All of a sudden a girl is taking me by the arm and pulling me down the streets of this strange place.

Tripping and falling she's not letting me get my footing, there must be something wrong.

"What's going on?" I called out as we were running towards a heard of people

"You must have hit your head pretty hard if you don't remember, look we don't have time for reminders we have to keep moving, I'll explain everything when we get out of here." Not knowing if I should trust this strange girl pulling me down god knows where, but something just seems...right to follow her lead.

So I do, I follow her through all the rubble and falling pillars, to the gates that are being pulled apart by other civilians trying to leave this disintegrating place.

My head spun I thought I’d pass out but I pushed through to help pull away the breaking metal and debris.

With everyone's force, we finally got the gates open and continued running for a safe haven, or where ever it is that we were heading if any of that even exists.

Things got even more odd as trees are everywhere swallowing us whole, with adrenaline in our veins we continued to run. A woman ahead of me ran directly into the massive gap in the tree, and with the force of shock I fell backward for a brief moment, she never came out the tree sputtered and sprayed blood all over the field.

I stood up and maneuvered my way in and out of the trees, in this case, we were to surely die, more and more civilians are being eaten and spit out from these horrid things we thought were trees.

A booming voice came over the forest and sent everyone running. "Run! leave the Forrest! Go!" We finally get out of the forest not looking back until the screaming stopped falling to the ground trying to catch my breath I dared to look back.

The survivors including the girl who brought me here all looked silently at ash where all the trees were. black snow falling in the sky with a withering old man with long white hair and a long white beard with a blue robe standing in the middle of the devastation.

"Do you not know what treants are? Where have you been for the past fifty years," The old man boomed; He started walking toward us with some sort of walking stick I have never noticed he had, until now, not that I had the time to really notice such miniscule things.

"Alright... come on no time for introductions if you want to survive this place." He said walking past all of us in a stride. We all stared at him not moving; he looked back.

"I know the way, follow me." So again I did as I was told to, I barely knew who I was I didn’t want to die as one of the nameless.

I decided to try and talk to the girl who brought me here.

I matched her pace in stride.

“Do you really think he knows where we are going?" she whispers under her breath.

“He know’s more than what I know I don’t even know why or where we are going,” I reply honestly.

“None of us really do, but this was your idea so we are following your directions.” The girl says as we continue to walk the winding road of the unknown.

She began to walk a bit faster to keep up with the mysterious man, I quickened to catch up with her.

“What do you mean by it was my idea?” I questioned.

None of this makes sense there's a complete gap before I woke up with a bloodied skull and questionable surroundings.

“Luke, we really don’t have time to be filling gaps, in your weird jokes. This is a serious matter.

I didn’t reply, Instead, I just stared at her, I am completely lost, and just want some answers.

That's when I think she finally clued in that this in fact was not a sick joke.

"You really don't remember anything do you?" She asked bewildered.

"If I did would I ask you all these questions?" I asked, as the feeling of helplessness kicked in.

How could I, lost and confused, know where to these lost and confused people were, there was one difference however these people knew me, even if I don’t remember myself or my own name, also who is this ‘Luke’ person, is that my name?

I guess it had to be if that's what she called me.

Up above, the clouds started piling in the sky making it go dark and eerie; and the rain quickly pelted the ground, they felt almost like shards of glass from above.

"We should get out of the rain, let's go look for cover." the old man ordered walking in what seemed to be a random direction on the path

We soon approached a cave; it was so dark the light from outside didn’t help our eyesight. Or at least until the old man snapped his wrinkled old fingers and the cave lit up as if it were magic. I opened my eyes wide as if a little child watching a fake magic trick.

"How did you do that?" I asked, amazed.