Crystals From Within by Emberdawn and her awesome friends! (the gingerbread man read aloud .TXT) 📖

Prologue

They are there. You can't see them, but they were definitely there, just lurking out of sight.
Three small, slight figures race in the darkness of the forest, desperately running from something that was after them, hearts pounding and minds racing
They slow down, thinking that they had lost it, but no, in this part of the world you must be on guard.
It jumps out lashing at the girls...
A bright flash of light illuminates the forest,
And then...
...nothing.

Chapter 1: Musilica

"Do you feel that?" I ask my cousin, Kizana.

"Feel what?" my other cousin Lily tilts her head towards me. I start to answer, but not before Kizana interrupts.

"The monsters. No attacks for, what, a month now? Isn't that kind of strange?" she suggested.

"Now that you mention it..." Lily said, looking around. My cousins and I are the protectors of village. Usually monsters or demon spirits attack the little village every week or so, and we fend them off. The silence from them was eerie. For some strange reason, the three of us couldn't remember anything, our names, ages, even our pasts. The village, not our birth village, found us and gave us new names, which were Kizana, Lily, and mine, Musilica. Fourteen years old each. Appearances were unknown until we looked into a mirror.

I had waist-length long dark blue hair that I always kept in a high ponytail, pale blue eyes and a petit frame.

Lily had shoulder-length black hair with cerulean highlights that match her darker cerulean eyes, which were framed by long eyelashes.

Kizana had beautiful flaming red hair that barely touched her shoulders, except a long side-bang that covered half of her left eye. Chestnut-brown eyes. A tomboy.

'How do we fight monsters?' you might ask. The answer is simple. We have powers. Lily could mold things out of clay and amazingly, they come alive. She had great art skills, and she's the one who designed our home. She has an art tool-belt complete with chisels, paintbrushes, and pencils. She also has a crossbow.

Although she has an excellent aim, daggers and shurikens, Kizana was more of a plant-type. She had a way with magical medicinal plants and poisonous herbs. She could also communicate with animals.

I have (this may sound stupid) a magic flute that causes a slight hypnosis to the demons. That's right, a flute. It can calm humans with low notes and animals with high notes. Whacking monsters over the head with my flute is surprisingly effective, too. It can turn into different instruments. I'm claustrophobic, though, which is why our house is on a hill.

"Do you think that all the monsters are all planning one big monster assault on the village?" Kizana suggests, though slightly dubious.

"Impossible", Lily snaps briskly. "The monsters will tear each other to pieces before they'll rip us apart." She had a point. Monsters don't get along. AT ALL. On sight, they'll go full rampage mode on each other, even if humans are standing right there.

"Maybe," I said slowly. "We should-"

"Check the forest." Kizana finishes, somewhat hesitant. Lily shuddered.

"I don't like that place." She cast a nervous glance towards the forest.

"Neither do I," Kizana says. We all don't like the forest. That's where the villagers found us lying there, unconscious. What could have been so horrible in the dangerous depths that made us lose our memories completely? We tend to avoid the forest, but now...

"We have to go," Lily states quietly. "For the sake of the village."

"All right," Kizana says reluctantly."But we have to make sure we're packed."

So we stock up on weapons and supplies, and we, very nervously, enter the darkness.

*

For the first couple of minutes, we trudged on in silence. We just kept walking, and soon we couldn't see a foot in front of us. We stopped.

"Great. Just wonderful," Kizana muttered. "There are probably hundreds of...of who knows what around here, and I can't see my own hand."

Suddenly, as if on cue, a dim light sprouted from behind us. Lily let out a strangled gasp. I turned around and gave a muffled yell, too.

A monster. The first one in a month. Just great.

 

Chapter 2: Lily

I had to curse out our bad luck, because here we are, in the middle of the more-than-creepy forest, being attacked by a (seemingly) strong monster, added on to the fact we haven't got enough practice in 4 weeks to fight one.

Tall and looming, the monster was made out of sand, always forming and reforming itself. A grotesque face seemed to be considering whether to attack us or not. I felt Kizana tense beside me, and a flash of dark silver informed me that she had slipped a dagger into her hand. At that moment the monster decided to target Musilica and charged at her, roaring. Quick as a flash, Musilica jumped and disappeared into a tree. She looked down at us and mouthed, "Battle strategy."

Kizana nodded. Little by little, she moved around the monster until she and I were on opposite sides, with Musilica in a tree above the monster. The monster then opened its mouth and shot sand darts in all directions - the perfect set-up. I gave the signal to Kizana and she sprung into action. She threw a shuriken at the monster and it struck. While it (he?!) was distracted, and started toward Kizana, Musilica hopped from her position in the tree and played a high, wavering note, right next to his head. The monster stalled and tried to aim at Musilica, but the aim was off by a lot. Perfect. I notched an arrow in my crossbow and let it fly swiftly into his sand body. Success! I expected him to fall down, but it seemed our blows were off-centre (due to our lack in practice) so he got up and shot a dangerous sand dart at Musilica, who wasn't expecting it. I heard a muffled cry and she fell down, clutching at her shoulder.

"Musilica!" I yelled. Thankfully the thing only grazed her, but she needed some treatment. Kizana bolted toward her and dug out some emerald-colored plants and pressed them to Musilica's arm. The bleeding stopped but there was still a gash there. She couldn't fight, for now. Kizana, it seemed, suffered a worse blow than Musilica. She had large cuts all over, so she was panting and pressed those same plants on her body. Which unfortunately, left the monster to me.

The crossbow didn't seem to useful at the moment, so I decided to go with my clay. I reached inside my bag and pulled out a large wad of the stuff. I quickly went to work; trying to decide what will go best (or, go worst) with the monster. Soon enough, a clay falcon was resting on my arm. I put all my energy into it, willing it to become alive. Just as fast as I made it, it was already flying to the monster's direction.

In a few minutes, the battle was over. The mangled remains of the monster were scattered everywhere. With a triumphant screech, the falcon melted back into clay and flew to my bag.

We started toward our house again when a chunk of stone flew out and hit me right smack dab on the head. I momentarily passed out.

*

I woke up to the sounds of discussing. Kizana and Musilica were examining the thing that had hit me on the head.

"What's that?" I asked as I make my way to them, though a little miffed because they weren't looking after me.

"Oh, you're awake?" Kizana glances up. "Come and take a look at this," she holds the thing up. I caught my breath. A crystal. Pearly white, it was about the size of my palm. There were elegant transparent streaks all over it.

"C-can I see that?" I reached out, though wary because that was the cause of me blacking out. The moment I touched it, the moment we were all holding the crystal together, it shone brightly and when the light dimmed, words replaced the transparent streaks. A musical voice, like chimes rang out:

"Let three crystals shine bright among the dark

One up high, one causing a spark,

One where the current doesn't reach.

Once united, lost memories will return.

So many mysteries to solve,

You will learn."

Silence.

"What was that?" Kizana glanced rather suspiciously at the crystal, which now lay innocently on the ground.

"I dunno," Musilica frowned. "What could it mean?" And then, as we stared at it, new lines started to appear.

Musilica let out a small gasp and Kizana backed into a tree. I flinched but kept watching the lines until they were deeply set into the crystal. A map. It was very small, but detailed. A deep line, the most solitary one, was slightly tinted blue, which was the path to our goal...whatever it was. Well, it seemed like there was three goals. Like three checkpoints that we need. And we need to start heading...south-east to begin.

"What could this mean?" I ask.

"It means that we've got ourselves a quest!" Musilica announced.

"Right. That's settled then," Kizana said a hint of sarcasm in her voice. "We find a prophecy, a map that can lead us to our death and we set off, not even knowing what our goal is?!"

"Exactly, Kizana!" said Musilica. "That's what we do!" I laughed and gave Musilica a high-five. It was true. Back then, whenever 'back then' was, we remembered that we were really reckless, but brave.

Kizana rolled her eyes, but we all knew that she was smiling, too.

"Guess it's time to get a little rest...we start our adventure in the morning!" We started heading back, ready for anything. Or so we thought.

Chapter 3: Kizana