Starter Scrolls: by Nick Venom (best fantasy books to read TXT) 📕

Uncle Henry. I’ll be with you guys in five hours. I expect you to act on your words. I want you to say “welcome home” to me once I land.

However, the plane never reached London.

“Help! Arrrgh!” Someone from the cockpit shouted. “Heeeellllpppp!” His screams were blood-curdling, frightening the passengers and staff. Aviana, who was the nearest staff member to the cockpit, approached it. She rattled her knuckles on the door, asking if everything was okay.

It was not.

“Bless the gods! I’m returning home!” The pilot shouted.

“Heeeellllllpppp mmmeee!” The co-pilot screamed as the plane nose-dived. It became chaotic as the plane descended at a horrific speed. Everything then went silent for a split second as Kyle turned to look at Emma who had on a horrified expression. It turned dark after that.

***

Water entered his nose, shocking Kyle awake. He sat up, his feet being soaked by the shallow waves. He looked around, noticing that he was on a beach. Several people he recognized laid on the beach in different conditions. Ryder was standing, looking around. Lucy and Aviana collapsed next to each other, holding hands. Emma was unconscious some distance away from him. Flynn and the businessman were farther away from him than the others. Neither of them was awake. Only Ryder and Kyle were awake.

Where am I? Wasn’t I on the plane? Where’s the plane? He thought. He stood up, grains of sand trickling down his clothes and being lost in the endless pit sand below him.

Ryder turned his attention to Kyle, taking long strides to meet him. “Are you okay?” He asked.

“Y-Yeah… where are we?” Kyle asked, brushing off some stubborn grains of sand. “What happened to the plane.”

Ryder shrugged his shoulders. “I… I have no idea.” He glanced behind at Flynn and the businessman. “I woke up a minute ago, so I know as much as you.”

“Did we crash?” 

“No idea.”

Kyle turned around and peered into a large forest that appeared at the edge of the beach, seemingly five hundred feet away from him and the shore. “We must’ve. The question is where’s the plane and the pilot.”s

“They’re gone. However, that’s not the weirdest thing.” Ryder said as he faced Emma, crouching. He lightly poked her face before rising. “Look around, none of us are badly wounded. Even if we crashed into the water, some of us would be greatly injured. And-” He pointed at how almost everybody was spaced away from each other. “-for the most part, everybody seems to be spaced away by five feet. That’s weird.”

“It’s also weird we don’t see the plane. If we crashed into the ocean, shouldn’t there be the wreckage of the plane that drifted with us?” Kyle asked. “That’s what happened with last year’s incident.”

“Yeah, but that incident was normal. This one doesn’t look like it.” Ryder grabbed a handful of sand and watched as it leaked from his fist. “Nothing here is normal.”

“What now then?” Kyle asked, glancing at Emma. Even with sand staining her face, she was still stunningly beautiful.

“We wake everybody. Get everybody up and moving. If this is an island in the Atlantic, then the water-” He pointed at the incoming waves. “-is saltwater. We need fresh water and a source of food.” Kyle nodded, following Ryder’s instructions; he woke up Emma. She glanced at him, feeling the harsh sand against her cheek. She shot up and went to stand before falling on her back. Her hands grabbed at her right knee. 

“It hurts, I think my knee is broken.” She told Kyle.

“Broken?” Kyle questioned. He looked up at Ryder for help, but he was off waking Flynn and the businessman by kicking them into consciousness.

Kyle helped Emma sit up. She couldn’t stand as her right leg was out of operation, faint blood staining her damp jeans. “Do you mind me checking your leg?” Kyle asked.

“Go ahead. It’s probably busted”

Kyle carefully rolled up her jeans up to her knee. As they expected, there was semi-dry blood on her knee. Being masked by the blood was a small gash, large enough to be worrisome against infection but small enough that it could heal on its own. 

“A small gash. I want to say… maybe when we crash, you hit your knee on a rock or something sharp.” Kyle guessed.

Emma nodded. “Will I… be okay?” Her voice cracked slightly.

Kyle nodded, half-certain she would be fine. “It isn’t deep enough for surgery. As long as your body is healthy, it should heal on its own, I think.”

“Well, thanks, doctor.” She sarcastically said with a small smile.

“You’ll be fine, patient.” He played into the joke. They both looked at each other, letting out a short laugh. It felt good for them to laugh amidst the confusion and tension in the air.

“Everybody up!” Ryder ordered. While Kyle was tending to Emma’s legs, he woke Flynn and the businessman and sent them to wake the others. In the time Kyle finished up, the three had gotten everybody up.

“We can’t waste sunlight. We need to begin scavenging for food and water. We need to-” A loud voice overtook his voice, throwing it in a deep cavern.

“We?” The voice boomed, appearing in front of them. A large near-transparent screen poofed into existence in front of them. It resembled a large television screen, 15 feet in height and 12 feet in width. “There is no ‘we’.” The voice boomed from the darkness. The screen was completely black. 

“Welcome-” The screen was suddenly injected with visuals. A small boy, around Kyle’s age, dressed in a tuxedo sat cross-legged on an office chair. His nose and above were masked by the dim light. The room he sat in looked like the stereotypical of a wealthy boy’s room, which was reflected by the kid’s tuxedo. “-to Dead End.”

“Hey! Who are you!” The businessman spat. 

“Edwin, isn’t it?” The kid grinned. “If I remember, you’re on your way back to your wife after spending a week with your mistress, right?” The grin grew toothly.

Edwin’s face flushed. “I-I-I w-wasn’t… I d-didn’t-”

The kid’s grin disappeared. “Shut up.” He snarled.

Edwin nodded violently, taking a few steps backward out of fright.

“Good.” The kid’s grin reappeared. “There are twelve of you. Twelve competitors, one winner. You get it?”

Everybody nodded their heads.

“Good. Real good.” He looked at something or someone off-screen before turning back at Kyle and the others. “You wonder why this island’s named Dead End? Because there is no exit… or maybe there is one for the winner.” He then picked up a pencil from seemingly nowhere. “Appear.” He told the pencil.

Monsters stumbled out of the forest, growling. Twelve of these monsters appeared, stumbling like drunks. Their flesh, however, was different from a drunk. Black charred flesh that didn’t seem to fit on these skinny and tall beasts. There was no face on these creatures, only the head. 

One arm was at its side while the other grabbed a hold of a large box. The large containers were dragged through the sand towards Kyle and the others.

What is wrong with their bodies, they look like sewn-together monsters like Frankenstein. Kyle thought.

The kid chuckled to himself as he watched everybody’s faces of shock, fright, or misery painted blatantly.

“Say hello to the hunters, the Melted. Think of them as the losers of the previous hunts.” 

That’s why their flesh looks like that. They’re the ones killed on this island. Kyle inched backward, but Emma held onto his arm tightly. Her eyes were widened and her mouth gaped. She couldn’t speak, - grunts and cries being stifled before they could develop into anything.

Kyle inched forward, shortening the distance between Emma and himself. He kept an eye on her while staring at the Melted as they crept forward.

“Take the crates. They’re your beginning supplies.” The kid remarked. The Melted stopped simultaneously ten feet from the survivors, the ugly bastards holding eye contact without eyes. “Inside are a week's supply of food and water. After one week you’ll be out.” He chuckled softly to himself. “You could… go and hunt animals… or humans for food.”

“Well, before that, let’s go into the rules. The first one is that escaping via boats isn't allowed. The second is that every kill gets you a new crate.”

“Did… Did he say kill?” Lucy’s voice could be heard from her spot next to Aviana. Everybody else thought the same as Lucy. The kid was telling them to kill to survive.

“Teaming is allowed, however, keep it at seven or under… or else.” He lingered on his threat for an uncomfortable amount of time. “The final rule is that in the first month, to survive, you need at least one kill. This number will increase every month.”

Ryder hesitantly raised his hand. The kid stared at him, tilting his head. “Yeeess?” His voice resembled a snake’s.

“Do animals count as kills?” Ryder asked, staring up at the kid.

The kid grinned. “Yes, but let me warn you, there’s a limited amount of animals. So-” The pencil in his hand disappeared. “-you better get to them quickly. Disappear.” The Melted trekked backward, quickly disappearing through the dense vegetation. 

“You’re free to do whatever you want, but your supplies won’t last long. The Melted will also attack soon. Better… get… hunting. ” The screen lingered on his grin for a moment before disappearing. The screen disappeared as quickly as it appeared, leaving behind questions and complaints in its wake.

Ryder turned to face everybody. “Open up your crates and let’s-”

Edwin interrupted him. “Share our supplies? Hell no!” He exclaimed. “I ain’t sharing my supplies with anybody.” He grabbed ahold of the wooden crate’s latch. The latch was on top of the box, turning to the right. A small ‘pop’ sound was emitted before Edwin tore the crate’s lid off. He dug his dirty fingers into the contents, ripping out water bottles and bags of ramen. He tore through a water bottle, gulping down the contents before going in for more of the supplies. He pulled out a note, skimming through it, before stuffing it in his damp pants.

The others followed Edwin’s lead, tearing through their crates and stuffing themselves with the contents. Ryder, who tried to step up as a leader, wanted to organize the supplies but nobody listened to him. He was thrown out of the equation once people’s hunger came into play.

Meanwhile, Kyle dragged his crate closer to the shore. He did the same to Emma’s. “Want me to open it for you?” He asked her.

“If you can.” She told him. He nodded, turning the latch and popping the lid off. He searched through the contents, finding a black backpack. He looked up and found people with similar outfits. Some found body armor while others carried magazines of ammunition with no gun in sight.

“I’m going to stuff your supplies in your bag.” He reported.

“Thanks.” She told him, staring up at him as he worked to stuff her bag. The large backpack fit eighty percent of her supplies, the remaining ten percent being stuffed in the backpack he found for himself. 

“Here,” Kyle found a locket on the very bottom of the crate. “This must be yours.”

Emma stared at him dumbfounded. “Where did you find that?”

“In the crate. It was at the bottom.”

Emma extended her hand and Kyle handed over the locket. She looked over the purplish locket, opening it with tears bubbling at the corner of her eyes. Inside the locket was a picture of her parents and a younger version of herself on one side and her grandparents on the other side.

“Are you okay?” He asked, glancing at Edwin. He was looking at everybody’s crate, seemingly to steal supplies.

“Yeah, it’s… it’s this locket. I lost it three years ago while in Florida. It has the only picture of my parents and grandparents.”

“Oh… do you mind me asking what happened to them.”

“They, uh… They passed away several years ago. My grandparents to old age and parents to cancer. I was busy with model stuff, that I never knew