Two Page Shorts by Nick Venom (story read aloud TXT) 📖

stagnant and he wouldn’t have to worry about his lifespan. The second skill, Gate, allowed Kira to open a portal that can transport him to any destination that he’d visited before. The last skill was Freeze Strike, a skill that allowed him to freeze any person or object’s motions. Kira could leave people frozen for large amounts of time or defuse situations by preventing each side from attacking the other side. 

“Freeze Strike? That can stop people’s motions. I could use this… ” He turned around and chanted Freeze Strike---which activated instantly by saying its name---towards the dragon. The skill froze the dragon in place. The skill left no visible trace, making it out as if the dragon stopped suddenly and refused to move a muscle. 

Kira stared at the dragon with his eyes widened while his jaw nearly collapsed on him. “Why didn’t you tell me this beforehand? I nearly died!” He exclaimed, directing his anger towards the portal. The Laxin emerged from the portal and kicked Kira in the shin before leaving the same way he entered. Kira yelped and grabbed his leg, jumping on the other one. He shook his fist at the portal. 

As a response, the Laxin popped his head out and stuck his tongue out before disappearing through the portal. The portal collapsed onto itself, disappearing from the world. Kira stood dumbfounded at the Laxin’s childish actions. What a rude… gnome?

“Whatever,” He muttered, now turning his attention towards the dragon. The dragon stared at him, his eyes filled with a lit fire. Kira kept his distance from the dragon but managed to get close enough to see the monster in better detail.

“How dare you do this to me, you puny human.” The dragon barked at him. Aside from its mouth, everything else was frozen.

“Y-Y-You can talk!” Kira questioned.

“Of course, I can talk! I’m an elder dragon! How dare you compare me to your puny race!” He declared. His carbon-black scales reflected off the glistering sunlight, creating a bright glow. His blue eyes were a dark shade and his tail was darker. 

“What have you done to me?” He shouted.

“I-I froze you!” Kira declared. 

“You froze me? How?” The elder dragon asked. 

“I-I-I’m not sure.”

“Let me go!” He roared. 

“You’re going to kill me if I let you go, right?” Kira asked him. 

The elder dragon chucked. “Of course, I will. I have my pride as a dragon to kill my prey!”

“Then I can’t let you go… I… I don’t want to die again.” He remarked before turning around. He took a few steps forward, intending to leave the dragon frozen until he was enough away.

“Hey! Wait! You can’t leave me like this!” The elder dragon cried out, changing from his arrogant and ruthless tone to a softer one and appealing to Kira’s heartstrings. Kira took a few more steps, hesitant to go any further. “I won’t kill you!” The dragon pleaded. Kira ignored him and took more steps away. I have to be strong! I can’t die yet! He thought to himself. The dragon, by this time, grew anxious and panicked. “Okay, can we make a truce?”

Kira turned around. “A truce?”

“I’ll leave you alone! How about that! Now, let me go.” The elder dragon pleaded tears streaming down his face. 

“You won’t kill me?” Kira asked him. The elder dragon nodded profusely. Kira deactivated the skill by saying the name again, allowing the elder dragon to walk freely. The dragon crept closer to Kira but didn’t attack him. Instead, he bowed his head to Kira. 

“What are you doing?” Kira asked, his eyes questioned.

“To confirm the truce, you must certify it by giving me a name.” The elder dragon declared.

“A name?” Kira repeated. “Then… how about I give you the name Nazifa. King Nazifa?”

“King?” Nazifa repeated. He then stood up on his hind legs and let out a roar. “I like that name. I’m now Nazifa, the King of the Dragons” He declared. The roar bent the nearby trees and shook every living creature in the forest.

With the announcement over, he stood back on all four legs. He motioned for Kira to follow him, heading into a deeper part of the forest. “My children are in the nest. I want you to protect them if anything happens to me.” 

“I will,”

***

A year later, Kira had figured out the ins and outs of Astrial Forest. During this time, he built a small camp for himself. The camp consisted of a straw-filled bed and a tent with makeshift fences surrounding a circular area. He used materials from nature and items that Nazifa discovered to build his camp. He lived off the apple trees he found nearby and a small farm plot he created. 

He rested on a straw-filled pillow---that he put outside of the tent---and watched the stars overhead. Since the beginning, Kira had used the stars to sleep. A memory of his new life. However, tonight’s stars were different. Unlike the therapeutic feeling it usually gave him, instead, he felt goosebumps rising on his arms. He jumped up, his eyes adjusting to the nighttime. The moons shined slightly on the camp, illuminating a part of his way. The moons were crimson red and ocean blue.

Kira grabbed a metal pipe by the side of his tent and crept closer to the outskirts of his camp. He heard the sounds of branches snapping and glass ruffling in front of him through the darkness of the dimly lit sea of trees. He waited for the sounds to reach him before activating Freeze Strike. He fired his skill into the forest, hoping that he caught the cause of the sounds. 

He held onto the metal pipe tightly as he hopped over the fence and went to find the cause of the sounds. Frozen stiff waiting for him, some distance from his camp, was a wounded animal - a red and blue hawk. The hawk had a large chunk taken out of its left wing. The hawk was crying out as blood---which hadn’t been frozen by Kira’s skill---leaked out. Kira unfroze the wounded animal and brought it to his camp, watching as his life was slowly being drained from it. 

“What do I do?” He asked himself. “It’s dying.” He looked around and noticed a box next to his tent. Nazifa dropped items he found at the edge of the forests and delivered them to Kira as gifts - some of them were useful as they were normal clothes, such as a black tee-shirt, matching black jeans, and black boots that he switched out from his usual attire. He accepted them as part of the truce---that’s been developing well since their initial encounter. 

Kira ripped the box open and dug through it, discovering a red potion hiding within it. “What is this?” He asked himself.

“A healing potion, dummy,” Visa told him. She made a portal within Kira’s camp, popping her head in to oversee the situation.

“It can heal the bird?” Kira asked her---a hint of desperation on full display in his tone. 

“Only if you can heal the hawk now. Waste any more seconds and the hawk will die.” Visa muttered, sounding bored.

Kira nodded and got to work, forcing the dying hawk to devour the healing potion. He carefully dripped the potion’s liquid down the hawk’s mouth, allowing it to enter its stomach and break apart. The liquid acted immediately, regenerating its missing chunks, closing the hawk’s wounds, and leaving no scars behind. It was as if the hawk had never been wounded.

The hawk’s heartbeats---which has been fleeting---stabilized. Life began flooding back into the near-colorless body of the hawk. The hawk regained its beautiful and vibrant red and blue colors. The hawk’s eyes regained their color, illuminating its black pupils. 

An hour passed before the hawk managed to recover its strength. The hawk could stand properly and fly for short periods of time. Kira was amazed at the hawk’s strength. The hawk flew around Kira for a short while before perching onto his shoulder. “What a beautiful hawk. Should I give you a name?” He asked out loud. The hawk nodded his head frantically as if it could understand him. 

“How about I call you… Jordan.” Jordan immediately let out a loud keeeeeee-arr into the air while flapping its wings, ecstatic as its name. Kira smiled as he watched Jordan fly around. “Well, it’s nice to meet you Jordan. My second companion.”

***

Half a year later, a goblin ambush woke Kira up. The sounds of the goblins’ collective roar jerked him awake. He jumped out of bed and picked up his trusty metal pipe to deal with the attackers. Jordan followed after him with immense speed using a skill known as Godspeed. Fortunately, after Jordan was healed by Kira, he had developed two skills. The first one being Godspeed and the other being Sonic Roar.

Without being ordered, Jordan flew into the air, watching as the chaos unfolded on the perimeter of the camp. He then pointed himself downwards before launching Sonic Roar. The attack was angled to hit the goblins and not the fences. 

Meanwhile, Kira smashed the goblins’ brains in. He used Freeze Strike to stop a large group of goblins before using his pipe to crack them on their heads and killing them. However, the pair couldn’t defend the entire camp by themselves. The dimness of the night didn’t help them either. 

Kira launched his pipe at one goblin before freezing another. He reached into his pocket and took a bronze dagger out, leaping onto a goblin and stabbing at its brain. He jumped off the goblin and leaped onto another. 

By this time, Jordan was busy eliminating every goblin he could from above but stopped when a sudden roar attracted his attention. Jordan looked up and noticed a stray wyvern approaching him - a long distance away. The wyvern was more than half the size of Nazifa and lacked the beautiful black scales he had. Instead, the wyvern had dirty green scales with hints of yellow scattered on it. 

Jordan flew down and perched on Kira’s shoulder as he jumped off a goblin. “I heard the roar. What is it?” Kira asked him. Jordan responded in screams, giving Kira an answer that he hoped was wrong. “Wyverns? Can we defeat one of those?” He asked. Jordan screamed at him, comforting him. “You’re right. We can’t let the wyvern trample on our progress. I’m going to need your help in defeating them. Are you up to it, Jordan?” Jordan nodded without hesitation. 

They both then pushed themselves in exterminating the pests of the forest and were able to defeat them with some luck on their side. Although it was a great feat to eliminate as many as they did within a minute, a new threat had arrived and it bared its fangs immediately. The wyvern was nearly over them, intimidating the weaker Kira and Jordan. 

“It doesn’t look like we’ll be surviving this. If I go down, then run.” He instructed Jordan. Jordan shook his head while now perched on Kira’s shoulder. “I see,” Kira remarked, grinning. He looked up at the wyvern as it was upon them. It roared as it circled the camp, preparing its magic. Kira activated Freeze Strike and fired it at the wyvern, but the monster was too quick and dodged the attack. This difference in speed didn’t dishearten him, instead, doing the opposite. Kira fired the skill multiple times---all missing. However, this wasn’t the peak of his plan. Jordan flew off and swerved around the sea of trees to flank the wyvern and attack it with its Sonic Roar. 

Kira continued to throw Freeze Strike at the wyvern---who treated it as a game. The wyvern didn’t consider Kira a major threat, treating him like an ant. However, its overconfidence would be its downfall as Jordan finished flanking the wyvern, and now an opportunity to attack quickly arose.

The wyvern dodged two more attacks and noticed that Kira was running out of gas. He intended to attack once Kira was out of attacks, but never detected the presence of Jordan behind him. Jordan activated Solar Roar and launched it at the