Alex Day

Just a little ramble of me talking about the new chapter, explaining a couple things, encouraging roleplaying forums and fanfiction and giving many many thanks to all you lovelies ^_^

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Before you go on, know that this is just an early draft - I need to refine the way I type Ronnie’s accent, change a few of the details and the order of things (I want Ronnie’ description to come much earlier), and a couple other things. But for the people who want to know what happens next, this is it =) As always all comments and critiques are welcome.

Chapter 2 - Ronnie Hudson

For just a moment, time had the good grace to stand still while the two strangers looked fearfully at each other, before the man from the cave collapsed forward. He was covered in dirt and blood, but Jamie could detect a shrewd gaze of self-awareness beneath his wounded face.

“W-what’s going on,” Jamie said, still curled up protectively but deciding to take a chance on trusting this man for the moment.
“I don’t know what’s goin’ on!” The man replied indignantly, his voice harbouring a distinctive Cockney twang. He looked up and his eyes bore into Jamie’s face. “I was gonna ask you that! ‘oo are you?” Jamie sighed - he wasn’t in the mood for small talk - but he nonetheless indulged this hopeless Londoner.
“I’m Jamie,” he answered.
“Not that, not that, not that!” The stranger scoffed. “I don’t care about your name do I? I mean ‘oo you are - what you’re doin’ ‘ere, how you got ‘ere, what these caves are for and ‘ow did we both come to find ourselves in ‘em?”

Jamie eyed the man as he rambled. Could this be a trick? He certainly looked like he came from Jamie’s world, not wearing the rags of the men who chased him away from the tower.

“I don’t know,” Jamie responded with an emptiness, pushing himself up on to his feet. “I woke up in this tower -”

Jamie wasn’t sure how to continue explaining the absurd situation in which he found himself, but the other man interrupted him before he found a way of doing so.
“The tower! The big marble one?” He asked.
“You were there too?” Jamie asked back.
“It was rainin’,” the man started, blundering to his feet, “stormin’ it was, and I woke up there - I dunno how it ‘appened, I just woke up there - I went over to the doorway and I suffers from vertigo ya see, so soon as I saw that drop I lost my balance and fell forward over this glass balcony thing and I can’t tell ya how I did it, but I just didn’t want to hit the ground, and then I just …” The man fell silent. Jamie looked at him with a twinge of sadness; it wasn’t just him anymore, it wasn’t his nightmare. It was real.
“You flew,” Jamie finished, and as he spoke the enormity of his situation sunk in, and he staggered back against the cave wall. He felt numb. The stranger looked at him, his eyes wide, and he nodded.
“There was a big crater, massive it was,” - he gestured with his hands - “and I went straight for it, and it took me ‘ere, and I’ve been wandering round ever since.”

This man is no threat, Jamie decided. He approached the man in the cave and extended his hand, his body feeling wearier with every motion.
“I didn’t get your name,” he stated. The stranger eyed his hand suspiciously at first, then lifted his head up proudly and stared at Jamie once more, his hand grasping firmly.
“I’m Ronnie. Ronnie ‘udson.” The two parted. Jamie sighed again, his eyes surveying the area that Ronnie emerged from.
“We should keep moving, find somewhere to lay low, look for a way out.”
“Whysat?” Ronnie retorted. “Way I see it we got shelter and warmth down ‘ere. I wouldn’t wanna give that up, not for nothin’.”
“There are other people here,” said Jamie gruffly. “Hunters … they chased me out of the tower. I don’t want to see them again.” Ronnie’s face was unreadable; he looked at Jamie in silence for a few moments, seemingly sizing up the situation in his mind.
“I know somewhere we can ‘ide,” said Ronnie after the pause. “Come with me.”

With Ronnie as his guide, Jamie started to walk apprehensively through the catacomb of caves that appeared to run beneath the earth of this place. His thoughts were as they were when he was flying; focused simply on survival, not dealing with anything else. The calm of the caves helped him compose himself, however, and he felt more at ease with Ronnie beside him, though he didn’t want to admit that to him; the Londoner oozed an arrogance that he didn’t like.

The caves themselves became less and less conventional as they walked; the brown muddy walls turned a dull forest green, but did not change in texture or smell. It was like they were being illuminated, but the source of this light was impossible to place; seemingly, the walls were just green, for no reason other than that being the way of things. The orange lights that dotted the tunnel were strange too; they didn’t seem to be encased in glass or plastic, but instead in liquid-like bubbles that shimmered slightly as the two Englishman moved past them.

“Where you from?” Ronnie called back as they continued walking.
“Derby,” Jamie answered. “You’re a Londoner, right?”
“‘ackney,” said Ronnie. “Born and bred.” There was a pause where the conversation descended into uncomfortable silence, before Ronnie said something that was clearly on both their minds -

“Do you fink we’re still … you fink we’re still on Earth?” Instantly he followed this with a forced laugh and said, “sorry, I know it sounds mental … it’s just …”
“The lights, and the walls,” Jamie answered for him, catching up to Ronnie’s pace so they walked side-by-side in fair synchronicity. “And the flying.” He knew exactly what Ronnie meant. When he had looked out at the view from the tower it was breathtaking, but impossibly, it seemed too perfect, like it couldn’t be real. It was the same feeling he got from seeing the green cave walls and the bubble-lights, an uneasy sense of doubt at the realities around him, because in the world he grew up in none of this could ever be possible.

Jamie stopped walking, and turned to face Ronnie. It was the first time he had noticed Ronnie’s face illuminated by the lights; he had a tanned complexion, and his face was marred by patches of dirt and weeping cuts, but was otherwise free of blemishes. Short, very dark brown hair was molded into spikes with hair gel and stood proudly atop his head. With his ripped jeans and leather jacket, he looked every bit the London lady’s heartthrob.

“When I was being hunted by those people,” said Jamie, “they had these arrows … they moved like liquid. They weren’t like anything I’ve ever seen.”
“Whajyou mean, moved like liquid?” Ronnie asked. Jamie frowned as he tried to think of an apt analogy.
“Like … you ever used a contact lens, or seen one? They’re so thin it’s like they’re made of water, but with a shape. The arrows were like that.” Ronnie nodded in understanding. “How did you get those?” Jamie enquired, gesturing to the marks on his face.
“I’ve been wanderin’ round ‘ere for hours now,” explained Ronnie. “Well, I guess it’s been hours. There are -”

Ronnie paused. An instant later he flicked his hand up in warning; his eyes were alert, his head tilted like a hound. Jamie didn’t want to say anything, but watched him, as a panic started to stir in his stomach. “Speak of the devil,” Ronnie whispered, before finally turning to Jamie and muttering darkly, “someone’s coming.”

Ronnie leapt into life, darting forward and beckoning Jamie with his hand. “Come on, we’re nearly where I wanted us to be,” he yelled as the two sprinted forward. As they moved, Jamie started to hear what Ronnie clearly picked up seconds earlier; a low whooshing noise, like an approaching train, but without the rumble of the tracks or the roar of the engine … just the wind howling against their ears. Something was coming fast.

Ronnie turned a corner and Jamie followed in pursuit; the wind was louder still, they were moving towards the danger and Jamie didn’t like it; there was a long straight tunnel ahead of them and a form was moving at high-speed towards them, there was no way to get out of its path; Ronnie yelled, “here!” and grabbed Jamie’s wrist, pulling him sideways, and they fell into a cavity the size of a small living room, slightly lower down than the main path, and both men instinctively dived to the floor, watching the entrance. Jamie’s eyes were unmistakably apprehensive but Ronnie’s displayed a gleam of adrenalin mixed in with the rush of dread.

It moved so fast that they barely saw it; a human-sized thing, hanging in the middle of the tunnel like it was riding an invisible rollercoaster, swept past the entrance to their hiding place and zoomed away into the distance.

“It was one of them,” Jamie said at once, sitting up and holding one bloody hand in the other. “The others, the people that live here …”
“I know,” Ronnie admitted. “I’ve seen ‘em fly through ‘ere before when I’ve been walking round.” Jamie’s eyes widened.
“And you didn’t think to tell me this before?” said Jamie incredulously.
“I was gonna mention it weren’t I, just before the poxy thing started chasing us down!” Ronnie replied. “Anyways I’ve been able to dodge ‘em every time, they’re no threat.”
“No threat!” Jamie started, moving forward in animated protest, but he winced as his body remembered the wounds from his fall into the caves. “We need to get out of these caves.”
“It seems like they use these tunnels to get around,” Ronnie persisted, “like their public transport system. I don’t fink they’re gonna stop to pick at us.”
“How do you know that?” Jamie challenged. “Those ones might just be in a rush, because they heard we were here!”
“Well if I’m wrong, we won’t get out of ‘ere alive anyway, so wassit matter?” Ronnie snapped impatiently. “You got a better plan?”

The sentence trailed away into the dusty air. Jamie didn’t know how to answer; he didn’t have a better plan and Ronnie knew the caves better than he did. Laying down on the ground - which felt smooth like laminate flooring but gently rippled under pressure as a waterbed would - Jaime wished he could be anywhere but there, waiting to find a time to leave a cave without being killed by ragged strangers. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept; even before he arrived here, he had been suffering from sleepless nights, and his body was starting to demand rest. Jamie sighed and shut his eyes, commiting himself to his slumber, but the moment he did so Ronnie started, “Jamie! Jamie, Jamie!”

There was a scratching sound, and a shuffle of dirt; Jamie’s eyes flicked open and focused on Ronnie excitedly scraping his hands into the dirt of the cave wall. The rubble was falling to the undulating ground as he burrowed further. “‘Bout time,” Ronnie said, “how can you sleep at a time like this?”
“We’re not all your age, Ronnie,” Jamie exclaimed wearily, noting the frantic energy that Ronnie was exuding.
“Never mind that - come, look ‘ere,” said Ronnie, beckoning the tired man over to him. As Jamie heaved himself on to his feet he saw that Ronnie had made his way quite far into the cave wall.
“How long was I asleep for?” Jamie asked.
“‘Bout an hour, I reckon,” Ronnie replied absently. “Look though mate - look froo there.” Jamie did as instructed and moved his head to the opening that Ronnie had created. “The dirt’s real soft, see, it was easy to get through,” Ronnie stated while Jamie peered through the gap. “You see that light? We can leave through ‘ere!”

It was true - Jamie pushed against the dirt and it crumbled under his fingers as easily as compost. Through the space dug by Ronnie, a sliver of light was struggling through, barely making itself known on the rippling ground underneath them.

“Dunno why these caves would be so weak,” Ronnie wondered aloud, “but if them people only use ‘em for travels and don’t stay in ‘ere it makes sense that they ain’t gonna be so durable eh?”

Jamie looked vacantly at Ronnie, not caring at this moment what the people who built the caves were thinking.
“We need to sleep, Ronnie,” he groaned.
“I’ll be alright for now, I don’t need much sleep,” Ronnie answered.
“They want us dead!” Jamie retorted. “If we don’t sleep now we won’t be able to escape them, we won’t have the energy!” Ronnie rolled his eyes but did not relent; he slid down against the cave wall, scraps of rubble falling with him as he reached the ground in a sitting position.
“OK, Red Ranger,” smiled Ronnie. “We’ll do it your way.” Ronnie didn’t get a response; Jamie was looking at something above him. Ronnie frowned. “What?” He turned, following his gaze; where he had slid against the wall, a single marking had been exposed. Nothing needed to be said; the two strangers moved in hesitant time with each other, meeting at the carving at the wall and starting to scrape away the dirt around it. Minutes later, a clear enscription lay before them, embodied in the rock.

“‘My name is Helena’,” Jamie read aloud. He eyed Ronnie with apprehension.
“You don’t need to read it aloud, mate,” Ronnie said curtly. “But … how can we read it?”

The carvings were not written in English or any discernable language that the pair could identify; yet as they looked upon the inscription, they identified its words as easily as if they had written it themselves. “Who do you think Helena is?”
“Well I don’t know any more than you,” said Jamie. “She could be anyone.” Ronnie read on further.
“Hey, look here - she calls herself a ‘Skyer’. You think that’s what those hunter people are? Skyers?”
“I guess.” Jamie paused. He didn’t really care what the creatures were called, so long as they didn’t keep trying to kill the both of them. “This place is so far from normal it’s ridiculous,” he muttered, and suddenly for the first time since his arrival a trace of wonder laced his tone. “We flew, Ron,” he whispered, looking at Ronnie with the smallest glimmer of excitement. Ronnie smiled, not ashamed to enjoy the memory.
“That we did.” He scanned the inscription more and then gestured near the bottom. “She says she was born on Renshii six years ago … this must be where we are … Renshii, that a place you ever heard of?”

Jamie slumped his enervated body against the carving, looking absently at the wall opposite him. “No, Ronnie. I’m afraid I haven’t.”

I tried reading out the first chapter but it just sounded so contrived, so instead I’m gonna use the Daycast for answering questions, since several people have asked me questions about the Calamity and Renshii worlds.

Two things I’d really like to get going: fanfiction and a roleplaying forum. If anyone is interested in starting a roleplaying forum in Lam’s world or in Renshii I’d give you lots of tasty knowledge to get it accurate ^_^

Chapter 1 - The Man From The Tower

Man from the tower … the man from the tower … man from the tower …

The central forest of Renshii is a haven of tranquillity. Known to the locals as “the Meadowlands”, it lacks the magical ambience of other areas in the world, and is the most Earth-like in its appearance and atmosphere. The only audible noise comes from bright blue birds resting in the trees, singing their morning songs or calling each other together for a game; they liked to race each other across the skies, competing with one-another in affectionate rivalry, their elation an emblem of peace to all who saw them.

Today, that nirvana was broken by a single sound.

“CHASE!!!”

The cry was vengeful, animal-like, furious. It was clear that whoever uttered this proclamation was outraged by something. Just moments after the shriek echoed through the forest, a single man was found stumbling desperately into the woods, his eyes wide with panic and resolve. His bare torso was covered in black tribal symbols, his tanned arms flailing forward. “The man from the tower, the man from the tower,” he repeated madly, muttering the phrase over and over as if it summoned some hidden strength from within him, bestowing upon him the motivation to continue forward.

***

It was the blinding summer sunlight that first aroused Jamie from his slumber. It was wonderful. It was perfect. You may be able to picture a perfect sunlit setting in your mind – be assured that this one was altogether more perfect and more real than anything that could ever be comprehended.

Jamie Striker was a fairly powerful-looking man in his late 30s. His hair, though unkempt from his sleep, was often untidy and grew to the base of his neck, bouncing with volume like a lion’s mane. He was sleeping rather peacefully – something of a rarity for him as of late – but there was something about the warmth of the weather that soothed him into peaceful consciousness, his pupils struggling to see his surroundings through the glow of the sunbeams as they caressed his face. Sitting up and grumbling slightly, Jamie brushed a solitary stray hair away from his field of vision, and moved to peel his bed covers away from his body. It was then he noticed that there were no covers. His eyes widened.

Jamie was in a small circular room with faded white walls, constructed with what looked to the untrained eye like marble. Despite this, however, the walls and the floor were both pleasantly warm. Looking to his left, the ever-more-confused man saw an archway, and through it, there appeared to be nothing but blue.

He was in the sky.

“How …” Jamie whispered fearfully, his eyes wildly wide as he looked out into the emptiness of the air.

Think. Think, think, think.

A lightning-fast process of last night’s events started to play over in Jamie’s muddled mind. He was sitting in a dimly-lit bar … he was drinking alone … a solitary man with long ragged hair had approached him, offering to buy him his next glass. For all his mental recollection he could remember nothing more; everything after that next drink was infuriatingly unclear.

Stumbling to his feet and moving shakily forward, Jamie rested a hand on the archway to assist with his balance, and looked down; he felt intensely nauseated when he did so. He was standing inside a dizzyingly tall tower overlooking a majestic island, a place that seemed like it could only exist in fantasy. The landscape below was pulsating with life; there was a gleaming blue lake with a golden shimmer in its centre; a beach with baby-blue sand; from a comparatively ordinary-looking forest near the base of the tower, a flock of electric blue birds were flying in an apparent panic, their peace disrupted by some force unknown. The air was perfectly still, the warmth of the sunshine enveloping him like a blanket.

All of this observation took but a moment to store itself in Jamie’s brain before he stumbled back into the tower room, clearly distressed by the height of his new home. The man had never suffered from anything remotely like vertigo, but seeing that drop would have been enough to make anyone at least mildly uneasy. Everything looked wondrous outside; this place was like a paradise, but it certainly wasn’t his room and evidently he had no way to escape.

A lift.

From somewhere in the deepest recesses of Jamie’s consciousness, a voice of reason whispered to him, rationalising his predicament. “A lift, of course!” Jamie proclaimed, suddenly filled with elation that drowned out his confusion. This whole room was a lift inside the tower - he was safe, so long as he could operate the lift, and how hard would that be? It was the only explanation; it had to be true.

In a flash he was standing again, his hands scanning the walls for any sign of a button or a hidden panel as his eyes shot erratically around the walls for further clues. As he moved round the room, he found himself approaching the archway once more, and he gulped in apprehension of the sight of the new world so far below his feet; his eyes looked out once again, and he yelped in surprise and backed away against the opposite wall; because unlike the last time he stood at the archway, this time a man was standing just outside the entrance, his feet flat as if the air itself was solid enough to support his weight.

“The man from the tower,” the stranger said to Jamie, walking slowly towards him with an arm outstretched, a look of disbelief on his face. Jamie had his body pressed up against the wall, hoping upon hope that he could somehow get more distance between himself and this crazed stranger.
“Who … where …” he stuttered, finding so many questions coming to him at once that he found it hard to know where to begin. As he drew closer, the stranger suddenly froze, his eyes rolling in his head, and he collapsed into Jamie’s arms.

From his back, Jamie was shocked to see an ornate silver arrow protruding out awkwardly, moving with a slight fluidity as if it was made of silk.

“I need … I, need … to tell you,” the man whispered, staring desperately up at Jamie, who looked horrified by his condition.
“Who are you?!” Asked Jamie fearfully. “What’s going on??”
“My name is Chase,” said Chase, “and this world is falling apart … there was a storm …”
“B-but storms happen all the time,” Jamie protested.
“Not here, they don’t,” Chase chuckled darkly, his laugh quickly transforming into a splutter. Jamie’s eyes widened – he couldn’t be sure if Chase’s wound was simply clouding his coherence, or whether there was a deeper meaning to that statement. He opened his mouth to continue his questioning but was interrupted before he began by a cry of pain from his wounded visitor.
“Listen,” Chase said with more urgency. “There are others … they don’t want you here … they did this,” he indicated, his head nodding to signify the weapon in his back. “Find ruby …”
“What ruby, where?” Jamie asked, listening intently.
“There’s a house … outside the forest,” Chase whispered. Jamie frowned, his eyes glancing briefly up to the archway. “How am I supposed to -”
“Just jump,” Chase interrupted, his voice hoarse.
“Just jump?” Jamie repeated incredulously. “Do you realise -”
“You can jump up to the tower … and you can jump down,” Chase clarified simply, his eyes shutting. “Find the man from the tower … and he will … guide you … to your destiny …”

Jamie sighed, gently resting Chase’s lifeless body on the inexplicably warm floor of the tower room.
“What the hell is this,” said Jamie, his expression unreadable. For just a moment his eyes fell shut and he wished he could be anywhere except in this situation, facing himself suddenly bound by some kind of quest; jump from the tower, find ruby …

Stepping over to the archway again, Jamie noticed something he hadn’t paid attention to before; there was a clean glass balcony just outside, and he took a tentative step on to it, eyes bulging at the scenery below. The nauseating feeling of vertigo returned to him and he swayed unsteadily – but as he turned back to look hopefully at Chase’s body, as if hoping he would offer some final insight, he found that his corpse had disappeared.

With his eyes fixed on the ground so far below him, Jamie made a split-second decision of impossible cowardice and courage. “Just jump,” he whispered calmly to himself. Jamie placed his hands on the balcony’s glass railing and with a small breath to steady his nerves, he gently fell over the side.

On the ground below, a group of tribesmen with ragged clothes appeared at the base of the tower, carrying with them elegant golden bows. Each one was unique with personal customisations – one had a plant similar in appearance to a vine winding around the bow, another had a purple inscription carved into the gleaming wood, but all of them were armed with the same silky silver arrows that had brought about Chase’s demise. As one, the team of archers looked up, and saw Jamie’s body start to descend – and then he changed direction and moved majestically upward as if tethered to an invisible bird, guiding him through the air. Jamie looked down at the ground beneath him and leaned his body left – sure enough, he soared left, surveying the landscape below, seemingly carried by the wind itself like he was nothing more than a feather. Filled with amazement and awe, Jamie turned back to the tower, his airborne body obediently following his will and spinning him around. It was then that the expression on his face changed to an increasingly familiar one, of surprise, anxiety and panic. The archers below him were each jumping one-by-one, and were reaching the tower the same way Chase apparently did, getting carried to the glass balcony by the wind with the same apparent effortlessness that moved Jamie. Then as quickly as they arrived, they leapt fearlessly off the balcony, their eyes locked on the newest arrival to their world. They were pursuing him.

With instinct taking over, Jamie surged away from his hunters, his eyes scanning the scenery to see how he could escape their attack. There was a faint flittering sound, one that Jamie recognised, and to his horror he spied one of the silky silver arrows in front of him, having just whizzed by his head; it flew a few metres in front of him and then evaporated into thin air like smoke. At the same time, a new arrow materialised for the tribesman who had fired the near-fatal weapon, and he took aim again as the chase propelled them forward.

There was no time for Jamie to fit an explanation for all of this into his confused consciousness; his only priority now was to survive. Darting slightly upwards in the hope of confusing his foes, he suddenly plummeted towards a forest on the island’s surface – there was another nearby flutter, and another arrow dissolved above his body. As the nosedive took him closer, Jamie could make out a strange purple glow from the centre of the approaching jungle, and an occasional glimpse of creatures that seemed to be neon like fireflies, but slightly larger and green in colour. Jamie’s eyes were focused on a clearing and he quickly tilted his body to the side when he made it there, rocketing through the woodland under the cover of the trees at an incredible pace, the flutters of the arrows deafened by the whooshing of the trees as they flew by. He no longer had any awareness of what he was doing – there was no sense of danger, no worry that he could impact a tree if he flew too fast and end his quest before it had barely begun; he simply moved on a basic primal level, not daring to look back at his aggressors.

A large tree root jutted out from the forest ground, and Jamie’s foot caught it. Knocked off course by this sudden obstacle, he veered wildly in different directions as he willed his body to rise up out of the forest, but it was too late; in making contact with the ground, he had apparently lost his flying ability. There was a loud thud noise as Jamie’s defeated body crashed into the dirt, and an even louder noise as the ground gave way beneath him, and he fell amongst the rubble into some kind of dim tunnel. The sound of the tribesmen flying forward at full speed overhead, oblivious to the accident, barely registered in Jamie’s pounding head.

For a moment there was blissful silence. Jamie held his head in his bloody hands, his eyes open and staring blankly forward, his soul filling with despair, and he began to cry. Once the first tear escaped him he was unable to stop. The once-proud man curled up in a protective ball and crunched his eyes tight shut, his head catching up with the unexplainable events that just had unfolded. Here he was in a mystery world he didn’t want to be in, where people wanted him dead and weapons regenerated, and he was told to find ruby in an abandoned village in order to … what, save the world?

With nobody else to help him and no way out, Jamie knelt on his knees and took a deep breath, before screaming as loud as he could. The cave around him shook and several small chunks fell from above him onto the ground below. Realising this made him feel no better, he rubbed his eyes and tried to see around him, tears still streaming shamefully across his face.

Jamie appeared to be standing in a long, winding tunnel with a surprising amount of depth – even if he was standing at his full height, he still would have fit comfortably. Up ahead there was a light fixed to the cave wall, and there appeared to be more lights further down, but then the pathway took a bend and he couldn’t see around it without heading forward.

A shadow cast itself on to the wall by the bend. Jamie froze. And then a young man sporting ripped jeans and a leather jacket stumbled around the corner, squinting forward in Jamie’s direction, and he cried out,

“Help me!”

When Deathly Hallows came out, I wrote a fanfic, basically because in the final battle Harry and Voldie have this big monologue, and the students are described as being breathless and hooked on every word, even though they’re talking about things the students just wouldn’t understand, like Horcruxes and such. So instead of being totally enraptured, they’d just be confused. And this is a fanfic about that =)

“Harry!” “HE’S ALIVE!”

And then silence.

The crowd was afraid, yet they could not look away as Harry Potter started to circle Voldemort, telling the crowd not to help him.
“It can’t be anyone else. It’s got to be me.”
Lenis watched from the sidelines and he didn’t really know why that was the case. It seemed a bit arrogant to be honest, and for a moment he considered just shooting an Avada at the Dark Lord’s chest and being done with it. He indulged himself in this thought – of the amusement at Harry just lowering his wand, looking around, bewildered – but thought since he was so eager to have the limelight, he might as well see how the fight played out.
“This is gonna be amazing,” whispered Lenis to his friend Karina Adams, who was standing next to him, her eyes focused on the two wizards in front of her.
“Mm-hmm,” she murmured back, not really listening.
 ”Potter doesn’t mean that,” Voldemort said, his red eyes wide. “This isn’t how he works, is it? Who are you going to use as a shield today, Potter?”
“Nobody,” said Harry simply. “There are no more Horcruxes.”
“What’s a Horcrux?” Lenis asked, while Harry said something about living and surviving that didn’t sound very important. Karina pretended not to have heard the question.
“You think it will be you, do you, the boy who has survived by accident, and because Dumbledore was pulling the strings?” jeered Voldemort.
“Do they know something we don’t know?” Lenis asked. “Keep it down sweetie,” Karina said gently, offering a small smile but making her meaning clear. Harry started proclaiming that his encounters with Voldemort were not accidents, but the result of meticulous and calculated planning. Lenis couldn’t help siding with Voldie on that one, but decided not to make his opinion heard. He still wanted them to explain what a Horcrux was.
“You won’t be killing anyone else tonight,” said Harry as they circled, and stared into each other’s eyes, green into red. Lenis tried to follow the resulting monologue about mystical protection from death, but it pretty much went over his head.
“You following this?” Lenis asked Karina, who seemed strangely irritated by his sensible questioning.
“You don’t learn from your mistakes, Riddle, do you?”
“Who’s Riddle?”
“Lenis –“
“What, do you know who Riddle is?”
“Lenis, this is history in the making, ask questions later!”
“They’re putting on a show, they need to explain things.”
“Dumbledore’s favorite solution, love, which he claimed conquered death, though love did not stop him falling from the tower and breaking like and old waxwork?” said Voldemort.
“Ooh, burned,” whispered Lenis with a smirk. Karina lost her patience – her lips moved and her wand flicked, and Lenis was put under a Silencing Charm.
“…and nobody seems to love you enough to run forward this time and take my curse,” Voldie finished. You’re not casting a curse, thought Lenis, what curse?
Karina continued watching the battle of words with rapt attention, drinking in every syllable of their conversation.
“You think you know more magic than I do?” he said. “Than I, than Lord Voldemort, who has performed magic that Dumbledore himself never dreamed of?”
“Oh he dreamed of it,” said Harry, “but he knew more than you, knew enough not to do what you’ve done.”
Karina looked to her side, distracted; Lenis was holding up a sign, on which he had hastily written the words ‘Are you following this?’
“I brought about the death of Albus Dumbledore!” Voldemort continued.
“Wasn’t that Snape?” A male wizard muttered behind Lenis, who turned and nodded encouragingly. “Dunno about you,” the wizard whispered, subtly using a spell to break Karina’s Silencing Charm, “but they could be speaking Parseltongue for all I know.”
“I know!” Lenis exclaimed. Karina looked unimpressed.
“You thought you did,” said Harry, “but you were wrong.”
“Yeah, cos it was Snape!” The wizard heckled, but the two warriors taking centre stage seemed oblivious. For the next minute or so they continued circling each other, and Lenis conjured some popcorn. The two talked about Snape’s Patronus – a doe apparently – and some stuff to do with Harry’s parents that didn’t really seem important.
“Dumbledore was trying to keep the Elder Wand from me!” said Voldemort. “He intended that Snape should be the true master of the wand! But I got there ahead of you, little boy –“
“Don’t ask, I have no idea,” Lenis said, holding his phone closer to his ear. “Something about a wand, or something … yeah I don’t know, hey you ever hear of a dude called Tom Riddle … no, Riddle, with an R … I don’t know either …”
“I killed Severus Snape three hours ago, and the Elder Wand, the Deathstick, the Wand of Destiny is truly mine!”
“Snape DIED?!” Lenis cried out. Some nearby wizards seemed to be getting disgruntled with him. “OK, I’m so totally calling you back,” he said, hanging up his phone and sitting forward, finally finding himself interested in their seemingly endless dialogue.
“Dumbledore’s last plan went wrong, Harry Potter!” Voldemort jeered. Ouch, Lenis thought, Harry’s getting pwned. He’s probably got a good comeback for this, though.
“Yeah, it did.” said Harry. “You’re right.”
… oh.
Lenis was lost now, and while Harry and Voldie kept on talking about remorse, still not actually fighting – 16 years he’s been waiting, come on – Lenis asked Karina about the story so far. Pleased he was taking things seriously, she explained all; the Elder Wand belonged to Dumbledore, but Snape won its allegiance with his death, so Voldie killed Snape, and now he has the Elder Wand, and he can’t be beaten in a duel.
“The true master of the Elder Wand was Draco Malfoy,” Harry said.
“Um … oh,” Karina exclaimed. “I could be wrong.”
“You following?” Lenis asked the heckling wizard, who seemed to be more engrossed in the talk now.
“Yeah,” he said thoughtfully, “Draco used Expelliarmus and got the Elder Wand from him.”
“But isn’t the Elder Wand unbeatable in a duel?” Lenis asked. “What, a basic-level Disarming spell can beat it, what’s the point of that?”
“Depends on what you call a duel,” the heckling wizard replied insightfully. “Dumbledore didn’t duel Draco, his wand was taken and that was that.”

The heckling wizard punched Lenis in the face.

“What did you do that for?!” Lenis exclaimed.
“That was me punching you,” said the heckling wizard. “It wasn’t a fight. If you had the power to beat anyone in fights, you haven’t started a fight yet by hitting me back. Same thing.”

Lenis nodded, understanding, although he wanted to start a fight now, and he was annoyed that the heckling wizard now sounded a lot like Rafiki from The Lion King.

As he turned back, Lenis saw sunlight appear in the sky above the Great Hall, and then both parties raised their wands.
“This is gonna be amazing,” Karina said, eyes wide. Lenis heard Harry cast another Disarming spell; Voldemort’s wand flew through the air as a jet of green light erupted from it; Harry caught the second wand, the light enveloped his foe, and he collapsed. Voldemort was dead.
“Um … oh,” Karina exclaimed. “I could be wrong.”
“Now that, that there was a duel,” the wizard behind him said as if he was showing an old film to a class of students, “so the Elder Wand shouldn’t have been beaten; but as Harry was the rightful master, he ended up with the wand’s power, so - ”
“So … what, Voldemort’s dead now?”
Lenis looked, but people were cheering and surging forward; it was hard to make out exactly what had just happened. “Um, that’s it, is it?”
“- and although Harry told Voldemort explicitly that his wand wouldn’t work,” the Rafiki wizard continued wisely, “Voldemort still used it, instead of just reaching over to Bella’s during the lengthy exposition that the two opponents shared before the I must say rather short duel took place.”
“So Harry could have just killed him all that time?”
“It’s possible, but Harry didn’t kill Voldemort.”
“… wait, what?”
“Voldemort killed himself. With the Elder Wand.”
“So Harry won with Expelliarmus?”
“Technically,” Karina sighed impatiently, tired of their conversation, yelling to make herself heard as the remaining students carried Harry out of Hogwarts on their shoulders. “Harry owned the Elder Wand, because he disarmed Draco -”
“- so if I go cast Expelliarmus on Harry now, will I own the Elder Wand?”
“Let me finish!”
“Wait, would that work?” Lenis asked hopefully.
“No, listen! Harry owns the Elder Wand, and he defeated all of Voldemort’s Horcruxes, so he was a victim to his own mortality and needed to be told such by Harry before he could be defeated. In trying to kill Harry with his own wand, Voldemort defeated himself in the process, because Harry took control of the wand that he was master of.”

Lenis looked as though he had been Confunded. After a pause, he tilted his head and said,

“Wait, what just happened?”

Renshii is a trilogy of books, of which I’m working on the first (as would be sensible) and will be posting the chapters online.

Let me put this theory to you. you know how we can close our eyes and picture something? I propose the theory that this is because our astral body is actually going to that place, connected to us by a stretchy silvery thread. We’re looking through our astral body’s eyes, and that is how we visualise.

When you picture your happy place, whether it be a beautiful beach with sand of all the colours of the rainbow, or a volcano with purple lava, or a huge marble tower overlooking an island of paradise - all of these places exist in a world parallel to ours. The name of the world is Renshii. Our astral selves can go there at will, to help us find peace of mind.

Only a couple of people have become so depressed, they’ve actually managed to go to Renshii. Physically. They’ve crossed the barriers into the world of the happy places.

The story starts with a man named Jamie Striker waking up in completely unfamiliar ground - he’s in Renshii. He doesn’t know where he is, of course, but before long he discovers that there’s already a civilisation of people that live in Renshii - the Skyers - and they’re pissed off. They don’t want anyone ruining their perfect world.

Jamie has to reunite with the other people who crossed over from Earth; find safety, find purpose.

The three books will be called ‘First Wave’, ‘Second Wave’ and ‘Third Wave’, referring to the waves of people that appear in Renshii. I colloquially refer to Jamie and the other newcomers from the first book as the ‘first wavers’.

The first chapter from First Wave is called ‘The Man From The Tower’ and I’ll post it up soon <3 Bear in mind that all posts on this site are to be considered drafts, and when the whole novel is finished and available for purchase or download, it may vary slightly from what you see here, but you’ll pretty much get the jist. =D

Alex

Calamity is the title of a series of stories that I intend to work perfectly as a TV show. I’ll write the pilot with my friend Alex (Azrepheal on YouTube), we’ll send it off to US networks, and while waiting for something back, I’m thinking of writing little stories in prose to post here, so people can get a flavour of what the story’s like.

What’s it about?

OK, so everyone has a dormant gene inside them which is as unique to them as their own fingerprint. Exactly sixteen years after the moment of their birth, inexplicably but with infallible accuracy, this gene activates, giving the person what might be referred to in our world as a ’super power’. Some people think these powers are gifts, bestowed from a celestial deity, linked to the soul; more intelligent people understand the science involved. Every power is unique - that’s not to say there’s only one person in the whole world who can turn invisible, but that it works in different ways. Someone could turn invisible and visible at will; someone can do it for shorts bursts at a time, or once a day, or turn others invisible, or turn themselves entirely invisible apart from their left fingernail.

With these powers comes a sort of racial prejudice. People look fondly on those with ‘good’ powers - symbols of strength or power - and don’t take so kindly to the people that walk around with their half-slug face. (There was someone who, upon turning sixteen, literally became the black sheep of their family.) And as you can imagine, this world doesn’t need superheroes. If you can manipulate water, you’ll be a firefighter. If you have super strength; builder. People tailor their powers to relevant use.

Into this world we enter Calamity Finley, and the story begins on her sixteenth birthday, as her power is about to be revealed. Her family and friends hold a celebration which is known as ‘the ceremony’ to celebrate this coming-of-age moment. Everything seems to go well, but as soon becomes apparent, there are … complications. Needless to say, Calamity leaves home and falls in with a gang of super-powered street punks who call themselves ‘The Fallen’. The Fallen are quite comfortable settling in an abandoned house, being ignored by the world, before something unites them and sets them all running in the same direction.

Aside from Lam, there are four characters to the Fallen. Two guys; Blake, a wise-ass with angel wings, and Dori, a stoic man bestowed with immortality, who has never revealed his real name. Two girls; Violet, a girl who can shape the world to her will in the form of wishes, but who is scared to use this power; and Kenda, who insists on being called Ken, an independent and opinionated goth girl who can send people to their own private dimensions for safety or comfort, and go there to retrieve them.

Once the pilot’s finished I’m not sure how I’ll approach these stories. I’ll most likely set it after the pilot, so the first story you’ll read will already set Lam and the Fallen on the move, in the midst of adventure and peril. I don’t know. But that’s all you need to know for now

Alex

An introduction to the Daycast, just explaining the point of it

Listen Now:

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Following the stories is easy - in the Categories section on the right, you’ll see links for various things. If you click Calamity, all the Calamity related posts will appear, which obviously includes all the posted stories for it. Same with Renshii. Daycast has all the audio recordings of all the stories, and Announcements are just posts like this =)

Alex

Hey all =D

Right, so let me tell you something; I’m a writer. ^_^ I love stories, I always have. When I was ten, I used to write stories about a Digimon I invented in my mind called Nerimon. It’s what I became known for online, and now the name is synonymous with myself.

I’m currently working on two projects, Renshii and Calamity, and I’ll elaborate on both of those further in other posts. But I really want to share these stories with people for free, so I’m going to be posting them here. Renshii’s a novel so I’ll post it chapter-by-chapter, and Calamity will just be in short stories. I basically want you to be familiar with the world, enjoy the characters and the plots, and just share in my stories with me

There’s also a podcast called Daycast where I’ll read out the Calamity stories and the Renshii chapters with my voice, so if you’re the short-attention-span type or need something to listen to in the bath, you can listen to the stories instead of reading them. I always think that hearing a story, with all the expression and tension, can be more fulfilling than just reading it yourself. The audio will be free as well anyway, so you can choose what you like best =)

Feel free to add this to Google Reader or any other feed reader so you can keep track of the stories if you’re interested. Thanks <3

Alex