0 comments/ 5558 views/ 1 favorites Tales of the Spirit: The Legend of Maras Pt. 01 By: Witheld This is going to be a long story so be prepared to wait for anything really good to happen. I'm just warning you in advance because I don't want anybody sending me any emails saying that it's boring. Well anyway enjoy the first part of my story... * And so it begins... Terra sat impatiently waiting for the school bell to ring. She kept looking at the clock waiting for it to ring her freedom. It was soon to be the summer holidays and Terra and a few of her friends were going to a nice campsite in the mountains for a relaxing and fun weekend. She glanced out of the window, having lost interest in what the teacher was trying to teach them, and watched as the sun rose steadily higher over the earth. She snapped out of the daydream she was having as the bell rang to signal the end of school and the beginning of the summer holidays. The class stood up and raced out the door all shouting and making plans for what they are going to do for the holidays. Terra waited at the back of the classroom as her friend, Kerry, packed up all her books that she had been using. Kerry was one of those study maniacs though she wasn't always like that. She used to be the most popular person in the school, and had basically every boy after her, but then she realized that she was going nowhere in life so she changed. Now she is less popular, has fewer boys after her, has a higher chance of getting a career, and has shorter hair making her a fairly tall girl with stunning blue eyes and short blonde hair. She was wearing some simple clothes because she never really got dressed up for school anymore. Terra on the other hand was different but not so different in a way though there is one thing that makes her stand out among the crowd. She is a fairly short girl with brown eyes and long brown hair with just a tinge of green in it. When she started to grow hair it wasn't really apparent that she had that green but over the years it grew out which caused her parents quite a lot of distress because they knew for a fact that she didn't have any highlights in her hair so it could only mean that it was natural. Terra didn't mind this at all, the fact that she had green hair that is or rather greenish hair, for to her it seemed right though she couldn't explain why it did but to her it did. When Terra was 6 and a half years old her parents died in an accident and with no other relatives that would take her in, since her parents had stayed as far away from their families as possible, she was sent to an orphanage. It was a nice sunny day 11 years ago, when Terra was a mere 7 years old, when Kerry and her parents came into the orphanage. Kerry's parents had been looking to adopt a child because Kerry's mother was adamant that she wasn't going to go through another pregnancy. After looking at all the children in the place Kerry's parents just couldn't find the child that they had been searching for or that is until Kerry found Terra sitting alone under a tree. "Why are you sitting all alone under that tree?" asked Kerry. "Because it's nice and relaxing here." answered Terra. "Sounds nice, can I sit there too?" replied Kerry. "Sure go ahead." They sat there for a while in silence while they relaxed. "You were right, this is quite nice." "I told you." "Why don't the other children come here?" replied Kerry. "Cause they are too busy trying to blow the orphanage up." Kerry giggled. "I had a feeling that was what they were trying to do when I walked in here." "Have your parents come to adopt or are you an orphan here too?" asked Terra "Me an orphan? Never. My parents came to adopt. What about you?" Terra looked away towards the sun before answering. "I'm an orphan." "I had a feeling you were since I didn't see any other parent looking people here." They talked for a long time, while Kerry's parents searched frantically for her after concluding that their house would be in danger if they adopted one of these children, and eventually they counted each other as friends. "Hey I have an idea. When my parents get here I'll ask them to adopt you. We could be sisters then!" said Kerry. "Are you sure they will want me?" "Of course they will." "It would be nice to have a family again." This is how Kerry's parents found them and after about 5 seconds of trying to persuade them to adopt Terra they said yes. This is how Terra became Terra Andos. "Terra? Terra? Terra!" Terra shook her head and looked around until she realized where she was. "You were just standing there looking out the window" said Kerry. "You all right?" "Yeah I'm fine" replied Terra. "I was just thinking." "About what?" "The day we met." "Come on Terra stop living in the past." "Yeah I know. Come on we better leave or else we might be late. Matt will kill us if we are late." Matt looked at his watch. "How long are they gonna take?" he said to nobody in particular. Matt was a tall medium built man with the messiest brown hair that anybody in the district had seen. He was also very athletic and practiced martial arts with his father who owned his own fighting school. At the moment he was standing in the front of his house by his car in blue t-shirt and khaki army pants. "They are girls Matt, they take forever." Matt looked over at his car in front of the house and saw his friend Daniel leaning against it looking as if he was about to fall asleep, like he usually did. Daniel was a tall skinny man with jet black wavy hair and always looked tired. He was also wearing a white t-shirt and jeans. "Yeah but still man, I told them to be here at 3 o clock and it's now nearly half past," replied Matt. "Uh your guys' school only ends at 3 o clock Matt," said Daniel. "You Sure?" "Pretty much ya," replied Daniel. "If you hadn't skipped school today you would only have gotten here about now as well." Just then the door to Matt's house behind them opened and a big muscular man walked out yawning onto the grass. "Hey Taven. You just wake up?" asked Daniel Taven was Matt's older brother and one of the teachers at their dads fighting school. Taven was the splitting image of their father with his big muscular arms and legs and also being a 6 foot giant. He also dressed the same as his dad, a blue shirt and baggy black pants. "Yeah. They not here yet?" "Nope," replied Matt. "Terra you finished getting packed yet?" shouted her mother from the living room. "Matt just phoned and he sounds really impatient!" "Dammit! Didn't Matt realize that school ends at 3?" asked Terra. "Obviously not," replied Kerry. "I'm gonna kill that man," said Terra as she closed her suitcase with her clothing in it. "Finally we are finished. Let's get going before Matt decides to leave without us." "Right." Terra and Kerry quickly got out of the car when it stopped in front of Matt's house. "Finally! What took you so long?" asked Matt in a frantic voice. "I doubt we will make it there before night now." "Oh boo hoo. It's not our fault that you don't know what time school ends," replied Kerry. "Whatever. Let's just get everything in the trailer," answered Matt. They quickly packed Terra and Kerry's bags into the trailer and Matt went to call Daniel and Taven, who had gotten bored standing outside so they decided to go play some games on Tavens' ancient playstation one, who quickly finished off their game and got up. Matt locked the door behind them and sent his dad a message on his cell to tell him that they were leaving. He got into the car, started it up and started driving towards the campsite. "So girls, how was good old school?" asked Taven as he turned around to look at them from the front seat. "Dreadful," replied Terra. "I thought it was okay," answered Kerry. "Why was it dreadful?" asked Taven. "It just took so long!" replied Terra as she looked at Daniel who it seemed had fallen asleep. "Is he asleep?" "Knowing him, most probably not," replied Taven. Terra poked him a few times to check but it seemed that he had in actual fact fallen asleep. 4 hours later... Kerrys head was lying on Terras shoulder whose head was on Daniels shoulder whose head was lying against the window and they were all breathing deeply. Taven looked at the map they had brought with. "I think that we are close." "We had better be. I have been driving for ages. I'm not looking forward to having to drive back," replied Matt. "Well we have a whole week before we have to think about that and the scenery is quite nice. Oh look there is the road to the camp." They had been driving on a valley road with rolling mountains on either side of them a few miles away. There was also a nice small ravine next to the road. The camp road was a dirt path leading towards the mountains on their right hand side. "Thank goodness. Why don't you wake those three up back there?" "Gladly. Hey wake up!" shouted Taven as he poked each of them hard. Daniel looked up and felt something on his shoulder. He looked down and saw a greenish brown ball of hair which gave him quite a big fright and he pushed it away, little did he know that that ball of hair was in actual fact Terras head. Her head flew off his shoulder causing Kerrys head to hit the opposite window, waking her up, and Terras head to hit Kerrys shoulder which woke her up. They looked around and Kerry started rubbing the side of her head. "Ow! What happened to my head?" Taven and Daniel looked at each other. "Um we took a sharp corner and you fell onto the window," said Taven. "But that doesn't matter because we are just about to get to the camp." "Oh good. How long were we asleep for?" asked Kerry. "About 3 hours," replied Matt. "That long?!" "Yep." "Wow look at the mountains. Don't they look stunning?" said Kerry as she stared out the window. "Yeah and the sun is starting to set as well," replied Daniel. They all stared at the sun as it sank towards the mountains, except Matt who was too busy driving and looking where to go next to care. "Hey Matt there is the pay gate," said Taven as he looked forward again. "Everyone give me your money that you were supposed to bring with so that I can pay." Everyone handed Taven their money who, as they pulled up by the pay gate, gave the man waiting there their money before he could even ask them for it. He opened the gates to allow them to go through and soon they were driving through a nice wooded area with great camping areas in demarcated spots and evidently all those great spots were taken. After a long time of driving with only a little bit of the suns rays glaring through the trees they found a site, though it was secluded and not the greatest of places, and they started to set up camp. The guys started to set up the tents while Terra and Kerry made a fire, well mostly Terra as she had been on numerous camps before being the more outgoing type of person, while Kerry got their food together so that they could have some warm food to eat. The guys were having a bit of a problem in setting up the tents because it was getting too dark for them to see and they kept tripping over things and Taven managed to walk full on into a tree. They tried using a flashlight but the problem was that they couldn't find a flashlight because it was too dark for them to see into the trailer. They eventually gave up on the tent and decided that everyone was going to sleep in the car instead. After a long day they all sat around the fire eating the stew, which the girls had made while the boys tried in vain to get the tent up, and overall relaxing with the soft sound of the forest and its inhabitants. "Hey everyone look up at the sky," said Kerry as she lay on her back. Everyone looked up at the stars and the full moon. "Isn't it beautiful," said Kerry. "Yeah it is and this place is so peaceful. Much better than where we live," answered Daniel. "Hey look a shooting star!" said Terra as she pointed at the sky. "And there goes another one, and another. Wait what's going on?" Soon the sky was full of shooting stars. Everyone got to their feet staring at the sky in awe. The sky looked as if it was burning as the comets flew threw space over the planet earth. Matt turned around and saw something high up in the sky falling. "That doesn't look good," he said as everyone turned around to see what he was looking at. "Is that a meteor?" asked Daniel. "I think it is and I think it's heading straight for us," replied Taven. "I think we should get out of here," said Matt. "Everyone to the car." As they turned around and raced towards the car they heard shouting in the distance, no doubt the other campers had looked up at the sky and knew what was coming their way, which caused them to run even faster. They could feel heat on their bodies, more than what there should have been, and knew that the meteor was close. As they got to the car they all turned and looked in the direction the meteor was coming from and witnessed it hitting the earth. It felt like an earthquake as it hit throwing everyone of their feet and then came a scorching hot wind which pummeled them to the ground. Terra opened and saw flames rushing towards her. She tried to get up but was too sore and then the flames hit and it felt as if her skin was melting from her body. She couldn't scream because when she opened her mouth the flames raced down her throat burning her from the inside. She felt, in the midst of all this, her head hit the ground and then she knew no more. Tales of the Spirit: The Legend of Maras Pt. 02 Part 02: The Wakening... "They recovered extraordinarily fast." "Well their vitals are fine so I'm guessing that there is nothing wrong with them." "That may be but this one here gives me the chills." "Me too. There is something strange about this one." A bell rang in the distance. "Finally a break. What are you going to eat today?" A door opened. "I don't know..." The voice trailed off as the door closed behind the two people. Terra opened her eyes. Water swam around her as she woke. She moved her body and was stopped by what seemed like glass. Her head span around as she came to her senses. Panic started setting in as she tried to remember, in vain, how she had got where she was. She put out her hands towards the glass. Her hands were stopped by chord like cables running from each part of her body to the bottom of what she now thought must be a tank of sorts. The cables all connected to a central unit right at the bottom of the tank. She thrashed around as she tried to get the cables off. Her heart rate was increasing as her panic increased. Somewhere close by came a strange beeping sound. Terra was on the verge of a nervous breakdown when she felt something inside of her. It felt right to her, as if it was meant to be there, but she had no idea why. It felt as if it was expanding, reaching out to every part of her body. Panic was replaced by complete calm as she felt in tune with everything around her. Her eyes misted over. Images past her vision but she couldn't make out what they were or meant. That strange feeling was leaving her body now and expanding in every direction around her. It touched and molded itself against the glass around her. She felt it pulsing around her. She felt it without warning push out at an alarming speed. The glass around her shattered to pieces as she fell to her knees. The cold hit her hard as she hit the floor. She shivered and, pulling off the cables, slowly got to her feet. The mist had left her eyes and that feeling had left her to. She vaguely wondered about what had happened but for some reason it didn't seem important to her. What was important to her was getting back her memories. Why this was important to her she had no idea but it seemed right. She looked around where she was for the first time. She was standing in a largely rectangular dark room surrounded by mechanical equipment and what seemed like very large blank T.V screens. The now shattered glass tank was the only one in the room and it seemed as if all the equipment was connected to it. There was only one light coming from the top and two doors leading out of the room. A beeping sounded nearby and as she turned towards it she saw a screen with what seemed like lots of information on it. The beeping was coming from a large button on a panel on the wall. She walked towards it and read what was on it: "PROBLEM IN TANK!" 'I'm guessing that was because of me' thought Terra. She looked up at the information on the screen. 'That must be about me I guess' she thought as she read everything about it. Information on subject: Name: Terra Surname: UNKNOWN Age: 18 Home Planet: Earth -- 'Well duh' thought Terra. 'Duh what? What's earth? Why did I think that?' she thought. Blood Type: UNKNOWN -- 'I wonder what all these Unknowns are about?' Diseases: None Location Found: Meteor Crash site on earth. Suddenly everything came back to her. Everything about her life flashed by her in the space of seconds yet it felt like hours. She watched every moment of her life like it was an ongoing movie. She came back to the present lying on the floor with her arms wrapped around her wet naked body. She was breathing hard. She made her way to her feet and looked down at herself. 'Why am I naked?' she thought. 'And where the hell am I?' She looked around the room and, seeing no clothes and nobody in sight, decided to try the buttons in front of her to see if she could find out any information on where she was. She looked at the buttons and, not knowing what any of them did, decided to push one at random. The door to her right opened as she pushed the button and she saw what looked like a room with strange brown suits in them. She walked in and took the smallest one she could find and, after struggling for a bit, managed to get it on. It fit snuggly around her small lithe body. 'Now that I'm dressed I think I should have a look around this place.' She thought. She walked back into the room she was in before and went towards the other door in the room. As she got near it it opened outwards allowing her to go out. The corridor outside of the room was brightly lit and seemed to stretch on forever. On the right were doors and on the left what seemed like windows. She walked towards the window closest to her to see what was on the other side. A chill ran down her spine as she looked through it. Hundreds of those tanks with liquid in them were lined up in rows. Each one had a person in it and it seemed that they were being monitored by a computer at the far left of the room. 'What's happening here?' she thought as she turned away from the site before her. She decided to try one of the doors. She picked a random one and walked towards it. It opened and she walked inside. There was one tank in here. Inside was a young athletically built male. As she got near to the tank the person inside turned around. Shock ran through her as she recognized who it was. "Matt!" she said. Matt's eyes opened and he looked straight at her. His hands went to hold his head as he crunched up into a ball. Terra realized that that had happened to her before when she got her memories back and therefore Matt must be getting them back. After a few seconds Matt seemed to regain himself. He looked around him and then at her, a puzzled expression on his face, and tried to hit the glass. Nothing happened. Terra looked around for something to hit the tank with and found a light looking stool. During that time Matt was taking off all the cables from his body. Terra walked up and took a nice stance holding the stool up. She took a swing at the glass missing it by an inch. Matt's hand went to his forehead as he shook his head. Terra tried again, this time actually hitting it, and broke the glass. The liquid rushed out everywhere as Matt fell to his knees. He coughed as he swallowed some of the liquid. Terra went and helped him to his feet. "How did you manage to not hit the glass?" he asked once he was sure he could talk. "Shut up and put some clothes on." She replied. He looked down and realized he was naked. His face went red as he moved to cover up his private parts. Terra grinned. "You don't have to be so modest. I already saw it." She said. "Ah. Uh where are the clothes?" "Out the door to the left is a room with another room with clothes in it." "Thanks." Still blushing he left the room to get the clothes. When he returned his head was turned around as he looked towards the windows on the other side of the corridor. He turned to look at her. "Where are we and why was I in a strange tank?" he asked. "I don't know. I woke up in one of those tanks too." She replied. They heard a sound coming from outside the room and as they crept closer to the door, to try and hear better, they realized it was footsteps they were hearing. A lot of footsteps. "I promise you that my informer can be trusted. There is going to be a raid starting in the next 10 minutes. We have to be quick and get the 5 of them out of here without attracting attention. Let's start with this one." Said a deep voice. "For your sake I hope your right. How come the government hasn't done anything to get them out of here?" replied another deep voice. "That's because they are idiots and think themselves invulnerable. Quick get him out of there and move on to the next one." Said the first voice again. "Got him out. Wow he is a big one!" "Yes he is Joal. Now get him in the pod so we can send him away." "Stop stressing Arnie? There it's done." Said Joal. "Good and I'm not stressing. Get the next one while I send this one away." Replied Arnie. "Right. Whatever you say." Replied Joal. The footsteps were coming nearer to Terra and Matt when they heard a door open a few meters from where they were. "Wow this one is quite the hottie! Look at those. Wow!" said Joal. "Stop goggling at her and get her inside that other pod. This one here is nearly done." Replied Arnie. "How long did you say we had till the raid began?" "About 5 minutes now. Why?" "Oh no reason." Replied Joal. "No reason? Ya right I know exactly what you are thinking. That's just gross man!" "Hey I'm pretty sure you have also thought about it. There she is in." "For your information I haven't. Move onto the next one." Replied Arnie. Terra and Matt heard a door open up in what must be the room next to where they are. Matt looked around for a way to escape but couldn't find any. "Hey this one is already gone. There is a dead scientist here as well. He must have escaped!" "What?! How could he-" An explosion rent the air behind Terra and Matt pushing them to the ground and temporarily making them deaf. As they came to their senses they managed to hear a few scraps of sentence that made absolutely no sense to them. "Lets......here......now." "Not.......guards.....surrounded." Terra managed to get a look at Matt, whose face was blackened by the explosion, before rough hands grabbed her and pulled her to her feet. She lost consciousness soon after. Daniel looked around as he heard an explosion coming from where had just been a few minutes ago. After killing that scientist by trying to defend himself, he was afraid of needles and especially when what was being injected into him was supposed to put him into a deep sleep for a few years so he could be examined, and stealing his clothes he heard noises outside. It seemed to be a female and male voice but he couldn't tell. One seemed to tell the other about clothes in another room but at that moment he was too busy looking for a way to escape to really care. The computers were useless as all they did was give him errors about something or other. Not long after hearing those two voices he heard another two voices coming from the room on his right and, thinking they might be here to help the other two out in capturing him because with all this high end computers they must have realized by now that he had escaped, he searched frantically around the room for a way to escape. Eventually he gave up and decided to hit the computer out of frustration. This worked and the wall seemed to open up next to him. He didn't give the darkness coming from behind the wall/door a second glance and ran full out into it. He found himself in a dark corridor and it took his eyes a few minutes to get used to it, especially when the wall/door closed behind him cutting off his only source of light. For the most part of walking down the corridor he had to feel his way with his hands. Not long after walking down the passage he heard a massive explosion which caused him to spin around and look for the source. After realizing that he couldn't see anything in the dark passageway he decided to carry on at a faster rate. He willed his eyes to work better and let him see more. His senses were heightened as he listened for any sign of pursuit. Miraculously his eyes adjusted to the darkness so well that he could see properly. 'Wow that's weird.' he thought. He carried on going and didn't stop to think about what just happened. He saw what seemed to be the end of the corridor up ahead. The problem was that it looked like an ordinary wall and not like a door to escape from. 'There must be some secret button that I must push to open it.' He thought. As he got near the wall he searched the wall on the right frantically for a button or anything to press or pull to open the door. He found nothing so he decided to try the wall itself and see if the button or whatever was one it. Once again he found nothing. He started to lose hope as he turned towards the left of the wall. He looked straight at it and slapped himself on the head. Straight in front of him was a ladder leading up to what seemed to be a man hole cover. Daniel sighed as he started to climb up it. When he got to the top he pushed on it with all his might, which nearly caused him to fall off the ladder as it was as light as a feather, and looked straight up, making him temporarily blind as light streamed in from everywhere, into the most depressing sky he had ever seen. The sky was blood red as if the clouds were bleeding and smoke covered up most of the sky. After raising himself out of the hole and into the open air he looked around. He was in some sort of valley but the river that must have run through here before had dried up and all the grass was dead as well as the trees and bush. In the distance he saw what he guessed was a facility with a huge hole gaping out of the side of it. 'That's were I must have been before.' He thought. 'Where am I? This can't be earth.' he thought. He heard noises behind him and quickly ducked behind a big rock on his right. He peered over the edge of the rock to the top of the valley where he had heard the noise and saw a group of men attired in army gear, though he had never seen that type of army gear before, marching in a straight line. There were about twenty of them all in all and two of them seemed to be carrying people in their arms. He tried to catch a glimpse of the people they were carrying but couldn't and decided to rather stay behind the rock so as not to get caught. He sighed again as he sat down with his back against the rock as he wondered what had happened to him, why he was being experimented on, where his friends were and if they were still alive, if this is earth and if so how did it get like this, who those people were, what to do now and why he was talking to himself in his head. He slapped himself a few times to try to wake himself up but it seemed as if he wasn't sleeping. Daniel looked towards where those men had been and decided to follow them. He got up and moved off onto the top of the valley. When he got to the top the site below him took his breath away and gave him a chill that he didn't like at all. The ground below the valley was blackened and small fires ravaged what little grass remained. It was open flat land and in the distance he could just make out the group of men whom he had seen earlier. Red lightning struck down from the heavens as he descended the valley. He started off across the plains at a brisk pace as he tried to catch up to the men. Halfway across the flat land he heard a roaring sound some distance to his left and right. He looked around for somewhere to hide but due to the fact that he was on flat land with little brush or rocks. The little that there was was on fire so it would be useless hiding behind them. He had only one choice and that was to keep on going and try and outrun whatever was following him. He ran as fast as he could but within a few seconds the roaring seemed to be coming from right behind him. 'Well this was a stupid idea of mine to try to follow those men.' He thought as these strange jeep like tanks pulled out of nowhere in front and behind him. People in cool looking swat gear and helmets that covered their entire head jumped out with weapons. They surrounded him all shouting for him to get on the floor. Daniel put his hands up to show he was unarmed and one of the swat people came forward and hit him in the stomach knocking the wind out of him. He fell to the floor holding his stomach. "Tie him up and get him in the van." Said the one that had hit him. It sounded like a female voice to him but he couldn't be sure as the helmet roughed out the voice. One of the other swat people came forward and tied his hands behind his back. Another one came forward and picked him up and carried him towards one of the vans. He through Daniel in the back then climbed into the back and sat next to him. 'How do I get myself into these messes?' Daniel thought.