The Ancient World
PrologueThere was once a world; a utopia filled with lush green forests,
vast bodies of water, and mountainous ranges. The inhabitants coexisted with
every being and creature on the planet as they thrived from their world's
infinite resources. These inhabitants were one with nature, for they were
anthropomorphic. This world was created for a single purpose; so that one could
live in peace, away from the retches of Earth. It was through the last breaths
of a dying world maker that this was possible. Thousands of years ago, the
old kings of Earth sought out these individuals for their own greedy purposes. A
whole world for themselves is what every king desires. This was a time of war. A war between the provinces of Earth, and
the world makers were caught in between it. Some were captured and tortured to
death, for they would not create a world filled with violence. Others
disappeared, never to be found again. The last world maker was very old and
weak. And as he lay on his death bed, he asked his followers to take him to a
place in the woods near the mountains where he visited often. They laid him down next to some tall,
manipulated rocks that were etched in cryptic code. As the world maker took his
last dying breaths, he spoke to the imbued rocks and sealed the gate as
he etched more code into them. But before he died, he spoke to his
followers and told them the secret to opening it, but it was in riddle:"To pass this gate and to
escape this danger, You must surrender yourself and be one with
nature.Look to the forest and turn
to the wild,For that is where you'll
find the key my child.A key to a place of warmth,
a place of prosperity,A place to settle down and
escape this barbarity."Those were the last words spoken to his followers as his last
breath was taken from him. And so ended the life of the last known world maker.It did not take the followers long to figure out what needed to be
done, for the stones reacted to the presence of the wildlife around it. The
animals were not easy to catch. It would have been much easier to kill the
animals and bring them to the stones, but that was against their teachings.
They proceeded aptly; some caught wolves, mountain lions, and cougars. A few
managed to catch some birds. Others went to the nearest village and lead the
tame horses, cats, and dogs to the stones. A strange thing had happened though.
Of the wild animals they caught, when they reached the stones they became tame
as if they knew what was happening.One by one the old man's twenty followers took their companions
and led them to the stones. The cryptic language etched in them illuminated the
darkness around them, shining bright blue. As they held their companion in one
hand and touched the stone in the other, they were pulled into it, disappearing
from this world and reemerging into another. As each follower went through the
portal, they merged with the animal of their choosing and morphed into their
anthropomorphic state as they entered this strange world the old man had
created for them.Several hundred years passed and their civilization began to
thrive. There was leadership, and their king was just and humble. A town was
built, creating a comfortable environment for all to live in. Life was without
dismay...or so it seemed. Trouble was brewing on the other side of the portal. An
evil king, who sought destruction of any civilization lesser than his, happened
across the stones while traveling. He thought nothing of them as he got closer,
but the horse he rode on accidentally set off the aura in them. This intrigued
the king. As he rode closer to them and touched the rock, he was instantly
pulled into it. The king reappeared in the strange world, not as an anthropomorphic,
but as a man and his horse. This was a safeguard that the old man imbued to the
rocks. Only the innocent shall reap the rewards of this world. The king,
fearing for his life, grabbed hold of the rock again and is ported back out to
earth. As he reappeared on the other side, he had an evil grin on his face. He
told a messenger to bring forth his armies, and that there is new
territory to claim.All of the evil king's men wore wolf masks, enabling them to enter
the portal. Thousands of the king's men entered the portal and reappeared as
human to the strange world. Marching along through the jungle they came across
strange beasts that attacked them instantly. Many of his men died, for the
beasts were strong. This didn't stop the king from reaching the town.
The inhabitants were caught off guard. No one had anticipated for this to
happen. As the king walked into the town, he saw the strange inhabitants as an
abomination that needed to be exterminated. The males, females, even the
children, were all struck down. It was genocide.The king's newly found world was his for the taking. The king and
his men laughed as they plundered through the town, burning it to the ground.
After several hours, his men grew restless. There was a chill in the air.
Something wasn't right. As the men rested from their acts of evil, there was a
commotion coming from the forest. The trees moved and the ground shook. The
beasts of the forest were on a rampage. The balance of nature was out of
alignment and the beasts laid waste to the evil king's army in sheer
minutes...none escaped.For thousands of years the world was left forgotten. But now
a new threat is emerging; a threat that will endanger the lives of humanity. The Ancient World"I'm home!" my father says as he does everyday coming home
from work. He walks to the kitchen table where I'm doing my math homework. "How
was school?" Unaware that the question was directed towards me, I look up
at him, "Oh...It was, alright...I guess." I say, but it really wasn't. I am sixteen
years old and a freshman in high school. It wouldn't be so bad, but I'm kind of
a loner, and I don't like sports. So I don't fit in with many of the 'groups'
in school except for the nerdy group. So I get picked on...a lot."Oh it couldn't have been that bad eh sport?""Ugh...don't call me that! I don't even do sports." I retort.My father laughs and smiles at me, "Fine...what are you
working on there?""Math! Wanna help?" I say, teasingly, knowing he isn't very
good at it."Umm...you should probably wait until your mother gets home,"
he pats me on the head and walks to the den.I roll my eyes as he walks away and I turn my attention back
to my homework. My attention doesn't stay on task for very long though. The
small TV sitting on the kitchen counter is on, and a reporter from a helicopter
is on the news saying that some archeologists found some ancient carved stones
that date back thousands of years ago. It doesn't really interest me, but my
A.D.D. prevents me from looking away. Just then, my twelve year old brother
comes in and asks me if I want to play some video games. I turn from the TV and
glare at him. He really knows how to get me. I would so much rather be doing
that than my math homework. I look down at my book and back at him."Sure! I need a break from this anyways. Besides, we need to
do something to pass the time. The midnight release for that new game is
tonight." I say as I get up from my seat.My brother smiles and jumps up and down yelling, "Yay! I
forgot about that."We walk to the living room and sit down on the couch. He
already has it on and both controllers are by the couch. I enjoy spending time
with my brother. He is really good at video games and presents a tough
challenge for me. I do mostly win though, but not always.We play for a few hours and its eight o'clock before my
mother gets home and walks to the living room. She smiles at us and asks us
about our day then leaves to her room and we continue playing. I glance at the
clock on the wall and its thirty minutes past eight.I turn to Johnny, "You know what time it is?""We're going to leave now? It's only eight thirty..." he says,
a bit confused."Yeah, but if we want a chance of actually getting the game,
we'll need to leave early.""Oh...Ok then!" Johnny jumps up and turns the console off.We both walk to the den where our parents are watching some
TV and tell them where we're going."Ok honey," my mother says, "Johnny...stay close to your
brother.""Ugh...I know!" Johnny says in disgust.I just got my driver's license and my parents got me a
little truck to drive back and forth from school. We hop in and take off
towards the city. It's only a few miles out, so it doesn't take very long. I
drive up to the mall parking garage and find an empty parking space and we start
walking towards the game shop in the mall. We can already see the line backed
up throughout the mall."Oh man...I hope we're not too late." I say.We get in line behind a cute girl I've seen from school.
She's about my height, five foot and six inches. She turns around and catches
me looking at her. I quickly turn away, but it's my brother who speaks first."Hi!" he says with enthusiasm. I swear, he will talk to
anyone he sees.The girl laughs and returns a simple "Hello," then she looks
at me. "Hey, I know you from school. What was your name?""Oh, it's...""Jason! His name is Jason," my brother interrupts me before
I have a chance to complete my sentence.She giggles, "My name is Lily, but my gamer's name is
Lilura.""Oh, I like it. Mine is Link.""That's cool!" she says enthusiastically. "Ugh...how about
this line? I sure hope we got here in time."I nod, "Me too."For the next few hours we all talk about the new game. It's
the first of its kind. A VRMMORPG they call it, or Virtual Reality Massively
Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. That's a mouthful, but the game itself is
called The Ancient World. The game requires a headset to play. From what I've
read, you start off in this new unexplored world. You have to craft your own
weapons. You start off with whatever you can find in the world. Eventually it
says you can mine for better materials to make better weapons and such. You
have to have better weapons to kill more dangerous creatures. There wasn't
really anything about a goal for the game, other than surviving. Sounds like a
fun game to me.Not paying attention to the time, the crowd ahead of us
starts to move. They are letting five people in at a time. It's our turn; Lily,
my brother and I, and two others walk in the store. When we walk in, there are
hundreds of boxes scattered around the store, each with a different insignia.
All the other games had been moved out to make room for them and the store was
decorated with these blood red banners hanging from the ceiling; each of them
had the different insignias. They depicted different animals: a horse, a wolf,
a fox, and several others. I wondered about this as we walked up to the men
behind the counter. There were two middle aged men dressed in black suits and
shaded glasses. They didn't say anything until all five of us reached the
counter."Hello, and welcome to The Ancient World. Each of you must
choose from the insignias before you, but be warned; you will not be able to
change it once you've entered the game...You sir," he looked at me, "Which will you
choose?""Umm..." I hadn't really given it much thought. I figured you
could change it when you set up the game. "I'll go with the fox please.""Very well," he said in a sophisticated tone. The other man
standing with him retrieves a box with the fox insignia on it and hands it to
me. He says nothing. It was a simple black box with the red insignia printed on
it."Umm...how much do I owe you?" I say. I'm rather confused."It's on the house, and that goes for the rest of you." He
says with a half grin on his face.'Ok..this is really weird,' I say to myself. I am both
astonished and weirded out by the whole situation, but I do manage to say thank
you as I step back and wait for the rest to pick their insignias. My brother
picks the same as I do, and so does Lily. The other two guys both pick wolves
and we all walk towards the exit. I'm the last one to the door and as I turn
around to look at the store for one last time, the man behind the counter says
one last thing."Enjoy..." he says with an expressionless face.My eyes go wide as I close the door behind me. I was
officially freaked out. I know they tend to do these things on midnight
releases, but they really did a good job this time. I shake my head. Oh well,
we got the game and it's time to go home. Lily, myself, and my brother all walk
towards the parking garage and go our separate ways to our vehicles. As Lily
walks off, she turns around."Make sure to add me!" she yells."Lilura, right?" She nods and turns around to walk to her car. I stand there
for a moment, looking at her as she walks off. My brother looks up at me and
pokes me in the ribs."You like her don't you?"I just roll my eyes and tell him to get in the truck. We get
to the house and my mother is still up, of course. But now that we're there, she
kisses us goodnight and tells us not to stay up too late. It's Friday night so
we don't have to go to school tomorrow. I look at my brother and we instantly
drop our things and open the boxes at the same time to get our new headsets
out. They were really cool looking, also quite heavy. They were metal and made
quite well; aluminum I think, and they were painted black. Another thing that I
thought was cool was that on top of the device laid a small polished stone with
the fox insignia etched into it. They really put a lot of thought and time into
just making the headset, which made me wonder about the gameplay. The game also
came with a controller. You use the controller to move around and the headset
to look around at the environment. "Ok, the instructions say to sit down somewhere before
putting the headset on. I think we should play from our separate rooms since we
can talk to each other through the built in microphone." I say to my brother."Ok, I'll see you in the game then," he says as he walks towards
the door, but stops just before exiting. "Umm...how will I find you?""I'm sure they have some kind of friend request system. Just
look up my name and you should be able to join my party."He smiles, "Ok! I'll see you in the game."When my brother leaves, I plug the headset to on open outlet
and place the headgear over my head. As I press the power button on the side, the
display lights up in front of my eyes. A black eerie background appears in
front of me, a dark forest with leafless branches that seem to be right in
front of my face. Then, words appear on the screen and mysterious voice follows:Welcome to the Ancient World young traveler.This is a world that has yet to be explored.The mysteries have yet to be uncovered.And you have been chosen to do just that.But be warned...There is a danger here that should not be taken lightly.Everything that lives and breathes here wants to kill you.Should you enter, there will be no turning back.Are you ready? ...Press "A" to continue...Ok,
first of all how does this thing know I'm a "young
traveler?" And second, what the hell does it mean there's no turning back. Do I
only have one life or something? Damn this game is really freaking me out. They
made it seem like a regular survival game on the trailer. But now it seems like
more of a horror game. Oh well, I better hurry up and get into the game. I'm
sure my brother is already in; he loves these kinda games.A press the "A" button on my controller and the screen goes
blank. The headset starts to make a winding sound and I can feel air start to
circulate around the device. My eyes grew wide, but thought nothing of it as I
realized they were probably cooling fans. 'Well that's a cool feature' I
thought to myself. Then the screen turned bright white, causing my eyes to
squint.You were warned..."Ugh here we go with the creepy dialogue again," I say
aloud.Just then the fans start to wind louder and I can hear
something on the headset powering up. A flash of light blinds me, so I close my
eyes for a few seconds. But when I open them...my headset is gone, the
temperature has changed, and I can see my hands in front of me, but they weren't
hands. They were paws! I looked over the rest of my body. I had been morphed instantly
into the being of my choosing; a fox. I have a tail, and fur has covered my
entire body, but I am sitting on a fallen tree in a dark forest like a human
would."What the hell just happened? I thought this was a visual
virtual reality console. Did this thing really just tap into my brain?" I say
aloud as I stand up. "No...that can't be it." As I stood up I could feel my
muscles being strained. I started jumping. My heart was racing and my legs grew
tired. "What the hell is going on?" I yell. I can feel everything.Something from behind me startled me. I jump and turn
around. There's something in the bushes, moving around. I can't see very well,
my eyes haven't adjusted to the darkness. To my left I could hear something
else, but it was further off. A deep howl from some creature ringed in my ears,
making my hair on the back of my neck stand on end. The bushes stopped moving
and the howling continued. I heard a scream. That was from a person! I start to
run, opposite the direction of the howls. I'm running through the forest,
dodging trees and vines; the lush leaves of the forest brushed against my face
as I ran past them. My heart was pounding, my adrenaline was pumping, I could
run faster though. With this body I felt less fatigue and could hear better. I
got distracted. I crashed into something, or someone. When I rose up off the
ground and looked around, I saw a wolfess on the ground, holding her shoulder;
she was scared."Hey! It's OK, I'm not going to hurt you. Let me help you
up." I say to her.Reluctantly she holds out her paw and I pull her up to her
feet."What the hell is going on?" she asks in a frantic voice.I shake my head, "I don't know. I was in my room with my
brother and I," I stop mid sentence. "Oh god! My brother!" I say, looking
around frantically. Then the howling continues. It was closer, and closing in.We both take off running, but it's too late. She was right
on my heel when the creature jumps through the brush and tackles her to the
ground. I stop and turn around. It's a feral wolf. But this beast is twice my
height and has her neck in his jaws. The beast has his eyes fixated on the
wolfess. She is still alive. I take a step towards them and the beast looks
right at me. He growls and clenches harder around her throat. She starts to
scream, but is cut short as he crushes her throat in his massive jaws. She
gurgles in her own blood as she desperately tries to breathe. Her eyes go wide
and she stops moving.Is this really happening? I can't move, but as I'm frozen in
fear I manage to take a few steps back. Tears are falling from my eyes. The
beast has caught his prey and hasn't shown any signs of pursuing me. The wolf
keeps a careful eye on me as I turn around to run. I look back as I'm almost
out of sight and he has already started tearing apart his fresh kill. My heart
is pounding out of my chest. I've never been this terrified. I've never seen
anyone die before. She was innocent! All she wanted was to play a harmless game...and
she died because of it! I start to get angry. Who could have done such a thing?
I was seeing red. All I can think about was getting revenge
and killing anything that stood in my way, but I couldn't do that without a
weapon. I stopped running and looked around for something, anything to defend
myself. Rocks and sticks were all I saw, besides the vegetation of the forest.
I had an idea. While cautiously looking around, I grabbed a rock and split it
in half over another. I then took a sturdy stick off of a branch that had
fallen from a tree and started sharpening the end of it with the jagged rock,
looking up and around every other second or so. I could hear small creatures
scampering around out there. They were watching me, I could feel it. My spear
is ready; it's sharp. It would maybe last for a few strikes, but it was all I
needed for now.I continued to trek through floor of the forest. There was
no moon. Nothing to light the sky except for the stars which shown brighter
than any I've ever seen. Even through the tall trees of the forest, they shown bright
enough for me to navigate through the dark overgrown forest. As I jumped over
fallen trees and dodged the branches and brush around me I could hear the squeal
of something above me. It sounded like the high pitched scream of a bat. I continued
to run. I didn't stop, but just then I sensed something behind me; it grabbed
me by the arm and bit into it. I let out a scream from the pain as clamped its
jaw into me. I tripped and fell to the ground as I beat the thing off of me. I
quickly rose to my feet and saw the creature flapping its wings on the ground.
It gained its composure and stood to its feet. It was only about 2 feet tall
and resembled a moth. But this thing had
sharp teeth protruding from its closed mouth and talons like a hawk. My arm was
hurting badly and as I looked at it, there was blood seeping into my fur around
the wound. I looked back at the creature and it let out its high pitched scream
as it launched itself in my direction. I took the spear in my hand and swung it
as hard as I could, landing the blow against its face. The creature squealed as
it fell to the ground. Something hit me from behind and grabbed at my neck, but
I rolled forward before it bit me, causing the creature to fall to the ground.
I rose to my feet and took the sharp end of the spear and ran it through its
abdomen. I held it there until it stopped screeching and moving. The other creature
watched the whole thing as it recovered from the blow to its face. I ran
towards it, spear in hand, and it took off into the air, screeching loudly.I yelled at the creature as it took off. It didn't come
back. As I caught my breath from the fight, this overwhelming fear built up
inside me and I came to a realization. I dropped my spear and fell to my knees.
I was still breathing hard. I felt like I was about to pass out, but I shook myself
out of it. This is to be my reality now. A world filled with dangerous
creatures; a world of survival and only the strong survive. I don't know why we
were summoned here, but I plan to find out. I AM going to survive this and FIND
my brother. I will FIND HIM! ...whatever it takes.