One Millennium Later

The start of the story :D

One Millennium Later

The day started out much like any other for Sarah.

"Rylie, Dria, and Jaya... please stop chatting and pay attention." reprimanded a stern teacher.

"Why do I always get in trouble?! It's ALL these fools!" exclaimed a girl with soft brown skin and delicate features who was currently sitting between two girls with freckles, one with blond hair and the other with wild curly brown.

"AHA! Poor you! you get lumped with us!" grinned the blond ignoring the boundaries of personal space. A new rowdy squabble ignited and escalated quickly, though it was not serious on any side. Sarah quickly snatched up her drawing supplies as the rough wooden table that she was sitting was over turned dramatically by one of the girls. There were no boys in their classes. Since the Great Fall 1,000 years ago the relationships between men and women had been carefully monitored. They were told it was because such things could be dangerous... Though Sarah wasn't sure how. 

The Great Fall... somehow everything in her life seemed to come back to that. Supposedly this had once been a land of, well, land and light and misery. Or so the teachers said (well actually it was more so-the-teachers-said-and-then-one-of-her-friends-re-explained-for-the-rest-of-the-class) It was ruled by a greedy king and his witches who enjoyed stealing and oppressing the people. But a few resisted. A clever Duke and his friends out smarted the wicked king and killed all of the witches in the land. According to the stories God had bestowed eternal life upon the Duke in thanks and he became, as they knew him now, the Millennium Earl their savior. However one thing was for sure; the witches had not gone down without a fight and as a result the earth was flooded and eternal darkness covered the sky. 

"Sarah! Sarahsarahsarahsarh!!!"

"Huh?" said Sarah jumping and coming back from her thoughts to turn to her friend who was sprawled out across the few chairs that were not upturned.

"I am hungry..." she moaned, light brown bangs falling over half her face. "Let's go eat!"

"Ah..." said Sarah glancing around and realizing that though the chaos continued, class had long since ended, "Okay Rachel."

The two girls quickly picked their way through the joyously romping girls and out the door. Since interaction between men and women was always under such suspicion (because of what happened with the king and witches as one theory went) they were only placed together for the necessary time to concave a child and then immediately separated again. The children, once born, were sent off in groups of 24(12 girls and 12 boys) to different castles where they lived (girls on the top 5 floors and boys on the bottom 5 floors and middle floor for the kitchens with no contact to one another) and were educated according to the Earl's standards and then given a particular job that catered to their strongest skills. These people became as much of family as any of the girls had ever known.

"At least we are only on the 7th floor." Sarah tried to cheer her friend.

"That is still a whole flight of stairs and misery away from food..." moaned Rachel, "They should install room service."

"What's room service?" asked Sarah frowning.

"Something I read about," said Rachel shrugging, Rachel was always reading, Sarah was sure she'd finished all the books they were allowed to read long ago yet she was always seemed to be reading anyways... Sarah didn't want to dig into the implications of that, "Apparently before the Great Fall there were these people who would deliver all the food you wanted to you in your room and all you had to do was call them!"

"That sounds nice..." said Sarah wistfully, though she never knew whether to believe the facts Rachel spouted out sometimes about things before the Great Fall... they seemed so strange and outlandish.

"Are you whistling?" asked Rachel suddenly.

"No." said Sarah blinking .

"Oh... huh, that's weird." said Rachel frowning. The two girls walked on in silence for a bit. Then suddenly they both stopped. There was no question, Sarah could hear it too now; there was a shrill, trilling, lilting sound coming from somewhere... it was so sweet like bother Sarah had heard before. Yet it was somehow familiar like a-

"A bird..." breathed Rachel pointing to the ledge of a window. Sarah wasn't even sure why they had windows; all you could see was darkness outside normally (unless it was rain) and it far to cold to ever have them open. But today there was something there. Perhaps it was a bird, like Rachel said, but it was not like any of the nocturnal birds they had around. It was small with golden fluffy feathers that poofed out so that it was almost a little round ball... and it was unmistakably from it's throat that the strange sound was coming. 

"What on earth..." whispered Sarah walking close to the window in strange fascination. 

"It's a day-time bird... I think they're called "finches" but they were all supposed to have died out when the witches blotted out the sun..." commented Rachel leaning against the windowpane. She whistled uncertainly trying to mimic the bird's song. The golden bird stopped singing to c**k it's head at her slightly before starting up again with more vigor. 

The day started out like any other for Sarah. But what she didn't know was that it was today that the 1,000 years were up. What she didn't know was there was a prophecy concerning the end of all she knew to be true that was going to come to an end. What she didn't know was that she and her friends would have a major role in this occurrence. What she didn't know as that the clasp on the window that Rachel was leaning on had completely rusted through so that when her friend leaned up against it to get a better look at the bird it broke causing Rachel to fall forward with a yelp out the window and down into the endless dark water below.

What she did know was that nothing survived a fall into the witch cursed water.

"RACHEL!" 

The golden bird took flight.

****

Something must be wrong with Allen Walker.

Everyone seemed to be in agreement about this; even his friends. His hair was as white as snow and had been since he was born. His arm was a blackish color and had a strange green crystal imbedded in it that would not come out no matter how many doctors hacked at it. He had an odd scar across the left side off his face. He ate way more than a normal person did. 

He didn't seem to have that natural born sense of how to fit into the Millennium Earl's "perfect world" and somehow, nobody seemed to think he was meant to.

Odd things had always happened to Allen. Things that should not happen in the Millennium Earl's world happened to him. It had started when he found a day time bird. A Golden ball of fluff and feathers he named Timcanpy. It should not have existed. Shortly after his scar started tingling every now and then and he would think that he could see and hear strange, creepy, ghosts prowling around and pleading him to save them from the Millennium Earl. And the few times he had gotten badly hurt with winds that should have killed him (like the time Tyki, the Earl's nephew, had accidentally stabbed a hole in his heart when they were rough housing in the basement with swords they had found) but other than feeling horrible afterward there was absolutely nothing wrong with him.

But of all the things that had happened to him that meant something was wrong with him, nothing topped this.

He had been looking for Timcanpy. The little bird had flown off again and he was worried that the teachers would find him and confiscate him. He had just discovered the slightly open window his pet had escaped from when he heard the cracking sound followed by the startled yelp. Something must be wrong with him because when he was the person fall from a floor far above his into the cursed water he didn't even think about his actions. Allen just jumped right in after them.

Cold.

It was the only thing he could register for a moment when he hit the water. Then the pure blackness seemed to close around him and he could no longer remember what way was up and what way was down. Allen started to panic, thrashing wildly. Then he froze. His scar tingled. A clammy... rotting hand had just closed around his wrist. The ghosts had never touched him before.

'The heir! It's the heir! he's here!'  the voices whispered from all around. Suddenly there were many clammy hands on him and... he could see; green light was shinning from his hand. But suddenly he didn't want to see again. Thousands of rotting corpuses were trying to claw their way towards him. Allen felt paralyzed with fear. Bubbles floated up from below him. Allen glanced down and saw the person who he had dived after unconscious sinking further and further into the blackness. 'he's here at last! the thousand years are finally up!'

'I am not staying here and neither is this person!' Allen thought at them quickly grabbing the sinking form of his fellow student.

'Noooo! we've waited so long for you! you can't just go back!' wailed the dead as one. Allen tried to ignore them and kicked towards where he hoped the surface was. 'No! we won't let you go!'

They started snatching at him but couldn't seem to touch him. His companion wasn't so lucky; one of the corpuses gabbed onto the unconscious persons long hair and tried to pull both of them. Allen reached blindly behind him on the rocky wall for some sort of weapon. His eyes widened as his fingers closed around the hilt of a blade. Without thinking he lashed out forward and cut the hair from the dead ones grip (incidentally cutting it quite short) there was a brilliant flaw of light and all the dead ones seemed to dissolve in it, 'thank you, my king.' he heard them whisper as they went; it almost scared him more.

By now his lungs were burning and he kicked the rest of the way to the surface, gasping mouthfuls of air when he got there. He dragged himself and his unconscious companion back throughout the window and then back into his room.

Timcanpy had already returned to his usual perch among Allen's things and was watching them curiously.  Allen laid his companion out of the floor. They weren't breathing. Quickly Allen pressed his mouth against theirs and breathed in a breath on air and shoved firmly against their chest. His companion's eyes flew open and they started choking and spluttering up water as they turned away. Allen felt a bit like choking and spluttering too. Just because he had never seem one before.... that chest was not flat like he had expected. 

He had just saved a girl.

Something had to be wrong with him.

****

Niether Allen nor Rachel had seen it, but the moment Allen had drawn the blade the waters had started to recede ever so slowly...

"Ohooo! the 1,000 years are up! ❤ but I will not be dethroned so easily! I'll find you soon little prince! You could not have drawn any of the blades without an Elflien... So I'll start by crushing your heart! ❤ Let the game begin!" Sang the Millennium Earl.

Author's Note

Whew... that took an age. Actually when I had this dream it was mostly about Tyki and Siana... We'll get there!

Reviews

[StillShorterThanYou]

about me and TYKI ?!?! :D that sounds AWESOME! you must tell me about it some time :) and great chapter!! I joyed it very much! totally my type of thing (and I just finished trickster's queen so---totally hits the spot)

[PokemonFan#1]

UWAHHH!!!! SO SUSSPENCFUL!!!! D:

I look forward to the next chapter! :D

[Imagination-mage]

oh s**t!! this sounds exciting!!! i read the prolouge and was all "....hmmm?" but chapter 1 was AWESOME!! i like how its portrayedXD lol u should've seen my face when u mentioned ur hairXD

[TheEverHungryOne]

WC keeps correcting my work incorrectly and it only does it after I publish! So annoying!

Ahaha though, I said "the bird cocked it's head" and it *** out c o c k. Ahaha what do they think I am writing here? XD