The Dark King, Part One

Okay, here's the beginning of the short story. If you spot any mistakes, (my spell and grammar check isn't working on my Word), please comment and tell me! Must be the first time I ever asked someone to criticize me...

Anyway, it's titled 'The Dark King'. Unfortunately, it is not allegorical, although it does have mysterious ties to my novel. :)

It actually was a language arts thing. I had to write a narrative story, and when I asked my mom, she said she didn't care how long it was. Haha! So I worked for the next day on it, and it ended up being three and a half thousand words. Nice, right?


The Dark King
(Part One)

By Jake

The fiery sun beat down on the two hikers as they slowly climbed higher. They seemed to be close friends, grinning at one another through the sweat lining their brows.

They stopped at the edge of a gaping crater, panting for breath. They were smiling in exhiliration, glad that they had finally made it to the top. One of them, a tall but stout man, turned and admired the extravagent view from the top of the crater. He whistled through his teeth.

“My, it is beautiful. Well worth it, I'd say.”

His companion was looking down into the crater. “What's beautiful?”

“The view.” The man turned and saw his companion getting on his hands and knees, looking down into the dusty darkness of the pit. “Szifa, get back up and stay away from that edge. You could fall.”

The man's companion, whose name was Szifa, rolled his eyes but stood back up anyway.“I tell you, Jerz, it's unnaturally dark, that crater.” he said.

The man, who Szifa had adressed as Jerz, looked into the crater himself, careful to stay away from the edge. He frowned, his brow wrinkling. “I don't know about you, but it seems like there's a...” Jerz struggled to find the right word, “...an absence of light.”

Szifa snorted. “Sounds like a definition of darkness.”

“No, it's like there isn't... like there is nothing in there.”

Szifa opened his mouth to reply, but the sound of a rock falling stopped his speech. “What was that?” he asked.

Jerz shrugged. “A rock.”

“A rock doesn't fall on its own.”

"Sure it does. If you're scared, then why don't we check it out? We still have an hour or so before we have to leave.”

The two walked in the direction of the sound, and despite Jerz's earlier skepticism, he was starting to get nervous. More sounds came from ahead of them, causing them to freeze. “What in the world?” Jerz whispered, his brain freezing in fear.

In an instant, everything turned to chaos. A strange wolf-beast burst out from beyond a rock, and sprinted towards them, a terrible yowling sound coming from its mouth.

Szifa gave a cry of surprise and stumbled backwards. Jerz stood frozen a second, and then turned to run. He tripped on a rock, sending both he and Szifa tumbling to the ground. As soon as they hit the ground, they were back up again, not caring where they were running, just that they had to get away.

Adrenaline pumped energy through their veins as they stumbled up to the rim of the crater. They reached the rim and turned. There was nowhere left to go, except over the edge.

The wolf was leaping at them, jaws open wide....

Szifa's hands closed on a sharp rock, raising it high.

The three figures, beast and man, human and wolf, collided.

And fell.