Atlantis's Time by William Wieler (fox in socks read aloud txt) 📕

I was running for my life.
How this happened to me, I had no idea.
Let’s back up a little. My name is Cryst Summers. I’m seventeen, and I live in a tree house, but not the normal one you see in a tree in someone’s backyard. I live in a forest that has massive oak trees. They are big enough to hold a five story condo that is my home. It’s a mansion. I am an orphan, along with my girlfriend Ember Rost. We live together in the mansion of a tree house.
I have a brother, but he got adopted when I was eight and he was ten. Lucky bastard. Ember could’ve got adopted, but she chose to stay with me.
But back to running for my life.

It started out like any other day. Ember and I were on our way to school. We were about halfway there when some shadow beings appeared in front of us. We had no idea what they were, so we ran. Tell me, what would you have done?
We were bolting through the forest, with the Shadows on our tails, when suddenly a pyramid appeared. It was like one you would see in South America. We didn’t stop, even though we were wondering where the hell it came from. Ember and I ran up the stairs, two at a time. When we got to the top, we turned around to see the Shadows climbing up the sides, not using the stairs at all. I ran into the room, with Ember right behind me. The door slammed shut behind us, and we jumped.
A text on the wall started to glow, and I start to read it subconsciously.

If you can read this, Congratulations!
You are one of the chosen Protectors!

“Whaaaa…” I said. I had no idea what was going on. A brilliant flash of light lit up the room, and when the light dimmed, I was holding a sword.
“Whoa!” Ember and I said in unison. The door slides open, and the Shadows were waiting for us. I raise the sword, ready for battle. The sword was surprisingly light, considering how big it was. The Shadows charge and I stand my ground.
I swipe at the first one and it disappears. The next one to rush me got stabbed and disappeared as well. This is too easy, I thought. That’s when the last one raked his shadow-claw-things down my side. I gasped and fell to the ground. There was a gasp and a flash of red light, then darkness.

I wake up on my bed, and the sword was on my dresser. There was a wolf in my room, staring at me. A WOLF!!! I jump up, only to scream in pain. Ember came rushing in my room, not even noticing the wolf.
“What is it,” she asked. “Is it your side?”
“Duh!” I retorted. “What’s with the wolf?”
“That’s your father, Slash.”
“HE’S MY WHAT!!!”
“I’m your father, Cryst.” The wolf started to morph into a man, and I’m staring at an exact copy of me, except I have hazel eyes, his were blue. He had the same hair, face, and close to the same height. He even had the same body build!
“Ember, just how can you be so cool about this?”
“Believe me, we had plenty of time to talk and be surprised. You’ve been out for two weeks.”
“WHAT!!”
“Could you please stop screaming!? You were poisoned by that last Shadow. I blew it up.”
“How?” I said carefully.
“Well, you know how you got a sword. Well I got magic.”
That really surprised me. One, I was poisoned; and two, Ember, the most down to earth person I knew. She would usually never believe in magic, but after what just happened, I would believe anything.
“Is the poison still there?”
“Of course not,” Slash said. “Would you be alive if the poison was still in you?”
He had a point.
I still didn’t get how I was an orphan for these seventeen long years, and then my father comes out of nowhere and introduces himself. Slash had to have heard my thoughts.
“I realize how this might been, not knowing you even had a family somewhere. You don’t have to feel that way anymore, because I’m here now.”
Suddenly without explanation, I jumped up and ran out of my room and the house, the sword at my side. I ran down the last few steps and sprinted out of the clearing our house stands in. I kept running for an unnaturally long time. When I stopped to catch my breath, I started to feel uneasy.
I turned around, sword drawn. My friend Leaf stood in front of me. She had her hand out in front of her, with my sword in it. I gasp and pulled the sword out. She screamed out and started to cry.
“Oh my Gosh! Leaf, are you ok?” I asked. She just backed away. “Leaf, I am truly sorry. The thing is, I just found my dad, and he is not what I necessarily expected. I ran out, leaving Ember and my father behind.
“All these weird things keep happening to me. I just got over a poison in my system for one, there’s a pyramid in the forest, and these things keep chasing us. I am totally freaked out. Please don’t be scared. This sword is just another issue in the spectrum of my current life.”
“It-it’s ok. I really don’t understand half of what you just said, but based on that sword, I believe you,” Leaf told me.
“The sword?” I was extremely confused. How could this sword explain everything?
“Of course. That sword is not made from any metal that exists on this earth. I’ll explain more on the way back to the tree house. My hand is starting to bleed excessively.” I looked at her hand and it was flowing pretty fast.
“We should really get back. You are losing a lot of blood.”
“You think.”

Publication Date: 03-27-2012

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Dedication:
To all the Teachers and friends that have helped me be a better writer