Miss Taylor Young
Ed’an couldn’t sleep with the pouring rain, the howling wind, the thought of his mother, and the faint glimmer of what to do on the edge of his mind. But he couldn’t do anything; the wind was too strong to fly.
CRACK!! The lightning bolt danced across the blurry black clouds, sending a white flash throughout the cave. He immediately forgot what he was going to do and jolted up in panic before realizing what it was.
Ed’an stood up and suddenly remembered that one day, when his father had come home from work, he had taken a scroll out of his seaweed bag. (A seaweed bag is a bag that is made out of seaweed, and if it rips it can be fixed with saltwater.) Ed’an had asked what the scroll was, and his father said that it was a map. It was closed with a red wax seal that had a watch symbol pressed onto it. Ed’an had never seen anything like it. They had many maps. Too many, one might say. Why would this one be any different? He might as well check it out. Ed’an broke away from his thoughts and stood up, his tail dragging on the cave floor in misery, as he walked to his parents’ sleeping cave. He paused as the image flashed in his mind. His mother being carried off into the pouring rain. Her pitiful wails. His father’s cold eyes. Ed’an shut his eyes, willing the images to go away. He was relieved when they stopped, but the feelings of dread and terror and despair that came with them still lingered.
Ed’an walked into his parents’ sleeping cave and saw familiar surroundings. In the back of the cave, there were his parents’ moss nests. They were on a naturally raised part of the cave floor, only about a foot off the ground. On the wall, to the right of the cave entrance, there was a bookshelf that had all the maps and other scrolls on it. Some of the newer looking ones, with fresh, crisp paper that hadn’t yellowed with age yet, looked shoved and scrunched into the shelf, as if the dragon who’d handled them had been perpetually grumpy and frustrated.
Ed’an walked to the bookshelf and started pulling scrolls out to see if there was the one that had the red seal. He had little motivation, but it was the only thing he could do, while the rain was still pouring and the wind was screaming. After pulling out almost a shelf full of scrolls, plucking them out one by one, and chucking them on the floor, Ed’an found the one with the red seal. He sat down on the cave floor, realizing he had strewn scrolls all over it. Before he broke the seal to read, he grabbed all the scrolls rolling around the room, and shoved all them back on the shelf of the bookcase. Deciding that was good enough, he sat back down, his head against the bookcase. Ed’an took the scroll from the floor and held it up for a second, admiring the beautiful image imprinted on the wax holding it shut. Using his claw, he easily sliced through the soft wax seal. Ed’an rolled the scroll open, only to see that it was just a map of Crizam.
“I knew it. This is absolutely hopeless,” he sighed. “I’m never going to get anywhere with this.”
Ed’an carried the scroll with him as he walked to the main cave. He tossed the scroll a little ways to where the floor was wet. He flopped down, sprawling on the floor, looking at the scroll, open by the entrance of the cave.
As a couple of drops of rain landed onto the scroll, splotches of color bloomed where the drops landed. Ed’an stood up, his curiosity sparking. He walked to the entrance of the cave picking up the scroll, and reaching out into the rain gripping the scroll hard in claw. After a couple of seconds, Ed’an brought the scroll inside and set it down, fearing it would have disintegrated into a soppy mess if he held it for too long in the downpour. Ed’an looked at it and there was one big color stain all over the outline of Crizam. it was a yellowish orange color, and it was marked in scratchy handwriting. Hivewing territory.
It covered all over Crizam, even where they lived, where his father said that the Hivewing queen had no reign. Ed’an didn’t know what to believe anymore. Who was his father really, was he really his father, was he working with the Hivewings and the Knightwings? Ed’an stood up and paced around the main cave, his mind whirling with all of the possibilities. Overwhelmed with how many things happened in such a short time, and how he couldn’t do anything with a storm in the way.
Ed’an walked over to the scroll still on the floor breathing heavily, thinking he might explode, or something like that. He didn’t care anymore, picked it up, and threw it out into the storm, watching as it became engulfed in the very same screaming rain his mother was carried off into, by that thing Ed’an didn’t even want to be related to.
He lay down by the edge of the rain-soaked entrance, hoping, hoping, hoping, that this was just a dream, and that maybe his mother would come back.
Ed’an let the almost soothing sound of the rain and wind make his thoughts drift to the dark abyss of his mind.
When Ed’an woke up, it was in complete darkness. He could see himself in an apparent reflective black floor, but nothing else. Ed’an stood up and looked around. He was so confused. He couldn’t remember anything, but he knew something happened, something important. “Hello?” Ed’ans voice didn’t echo, it didn’t even move across the space he seemed to be in. It was like it dissipated right in front of him, for only himself to hear. He got up and shook his head to clear it. Ed’an wasn’t scared, but wasn’t excited either. It was like an absent feeling, something calming. In the distance of the seemingly forever-stretching black, there was a distant light. It seemed blue, but Ed’an couldn’t tell. He walked towards it. It got brighter but not closer. He started running, now interested in the blue light. Ed’an became horrified, now he couldn’t stop running. Would this go on forever, chasing after that glowing ember in the distance?
As Ed’an got more frightened of the blackness of the world he was in and that had suddenly faded into nothingness. Not black, no colors, just nothing. With no thoughts, no sights, no sounds, and nothing to worry about.