《The Story of Boy》


 Chapter 1: Boy

    Our story starts in the gulf of a valley. There is nothing particularly interesting about this valley, apart from the fact that there was a simple village situated within it. No one really knows why the village sits in this valley, as in the winter months there was no sun to speak of. So the village relied on pickling vegetables as well as salting their meat supplies to survive these hard times.


    Our protagonist for this story begins his journey from here. In this sleepy old town which barely had a name; ¡°Exeter¡± is what the locals called it. He himself, our protagonist, doesn¡¯t have a name past being called ¡°Boy.¡± So why do we follow such a generic character from such an obscure place? I guess you¡¯ll have to find out.


    Boy, as we meet him, has barely started to grow hairs on his chest. Nondescript as can be with a face you¡¯d feel you¡¯d seen somewhere. The only potentially remarkable feature are his eyes. Brown hair covers his face which makes him seem all the more ¡°forgettable.¡± That is unless you spot the two piercing specks of soot on his winter stained face are the only indication of the type of past he has had.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    What is his past? No one knows.


    Not even the boy remembers.


    Boy had parents once upon a time but they are a distant memory for any of the inhabitants that live in the towering ravine.


    There is one path in and out of Exeter where supplies in the summer months could pass through. However few merchants ever take this way as the villagers themselves have little or nothing to barter with. The townspeople are filled with riches compared to Boy, who has but a meagre brown sack he throws over his shoulder as he travels through town. No one but him has seen what is inside his bag but it seems insubstantial.


    Lives are about to change.

 Chapter 2

    A few green specks in the distance can be seen on the path as the sun sets. The locals pay little attention as far bigger worries are on their mind, living through the winter months with their meager harvest.


    Only the boy senses something is up. A hero might call attention to others around them but they would not be in Boy¡¯s situation. A villain might think of a way to capitalize on what is about to happen but Boy is not one to be greedy.


    His only thought is to survive.


    He scampers away from the only place he remembers; never looking back. He is right not to as the band of green specs slowly come into view and focus. Skin like parched desert and eyes of a scavenger. These are the Reptilians, a humanoid species, armed to the teeth that pillages forgotten towns like Exeter, well soon to be a ruins of Exeter. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    Boy dives into a familiar gulley by the boundaries of town. Screams can be heard but Boy scarcely has time to worry about the inhabitants as survival is the focus at hand. Soldier crawling, he creates as small a presence as he can. His eyes flitting around for any potential movements in front of him, melding into the darkness as the sun fully sets.


    He spots a gap unknown or missed by others but he himself calls it home. The acrid smell permeates the air as the sounds die down, Reptilians appear to have succeeded in their endeavor. Boy crawls into the hole and takes deep breaths and calms his adrenaline crazed heart. While he might have appeared calm and workmanlike to anyone watching he was still just a boy starting his teens.


    For a moment, he recalls the past, a kind elderly shopkeeper who had provided him scraps of food with a wink of acknowledgement of his circumstances and the many others with their small gestures of kindness. He sighs wishing he was a hero but faced with reality a sense of reality. This world he currently inhabits, he knows no such leader or heroic figure. Every person in Exeter was just fighting to survive up to this point. Their lives culminating in being ended at this moment.


    The boy, a realist, knows why he survived and it eats at him. The world is not fair, not a battleground of good versus evil, but a place filled with real life dangers that will kill you.