Chapter One: I Get Myself a Shiny New Sword After sleeping in a stolen sleeping bag, in an abandoned gas station, I awoke to a loud noise. It sounded like the crack of a baseball bat, but I knew it wasn’t. I stood up silently. and walked out of the gas station, pulling out one of my bronze golf clubs on the way out and cautiously advancing. I wondered if it was a snake lady. They were nasty monsters with snake tails for legs and green, scaly skin. They usually carried twin swords. I thought that I could maybe manipulate my golf club to look like a sword. I willed my driver to become a wickedly curved bronze scimitar, and that’s what happened. White mist gathered around it, and when it dissipated, I was holding a 13-pound bronze scimitar. When I got out to the road, I saw a flicker of movement in the dark. Something had punched a hole in the side of a gas terminal, and oil was leaking out on the dark pavement, making it look like black blood was all over the road. Then I realized; I was standing on oil. Therefore, if it were to catch fire, I would be burnt to a crisp. I crept forward, trying to catch a glimpse of the monster. Unfortunately, I succeeded. The monster was easily the ugliest thing I’d ever seen, and I'd seen a LOT of very, very, very ugly things. (Including my ex-stepmother. BOOM!) It wore tattered rags for clothing and had grimy, disgusting skin. It carried a bronze rapier with a cruel, sharp blade. And the worst thing? It had one red eye in the middle of its forehead. Hey, I thought, I could use that sword. Looks better than a golf club! I ran over to the monster, and before he could acknowledge me being there, I jumped up and clubbed him over the head with my golf club (currently disguised as a scimitar). The ugly brute turned around and roared angrily. “YOU TRY HID ME WID YO TINY TOOTHPICK??!?” the Cyclops roared, brandishing his wicked blade. “No?” I squeaked, slowly backing away, but then it turned into a sprint towards the gas station. I splashed through puddles of oil, trying not to slip, and then I got into the store. I grabbed a cigarette lighter and ran back out. “WHAT YOU GON DO NOW, TINY HUMAN? WACK ME WID A STICK?” The Cyclops laughed, stepping into the large oil puddle I had run through earlier. “Nope!” I said, starting the flame with the lighter, “But I don’t think you’re gonna like it!” And with that, I threw the lighter. FLWOOM!! The oil on the ground lit, and the searing flames coursed along the ground toward the Cyclops’ legs. When they got there, I remembered something. CYCLOPES ARE IMMUNE TO FIRE!!! The monster roared and ran towards me, yelling insults in a language I couldn’t understand and waving his sword. I ran around the flames, narrowly avoiding the Cyclopes’ blade. When I got out near the road, I noticed that the flames were almost to the gas terminals. I willed my golf club/scimitar to look like a bronze machine gun like the kind you see in WWII movies. It changed to look like one, and I yelled, “STAY WHERE YOU ARE, YOU OVERSIZED BABY MAN, OR FACE YOUR DOOM!!” The Cyclops stopped, confused by what I was saying. There was a clatter as his sword dropped to the ground. Behind the Cyclops, the fire was still spreading and was almost to the gas station’s terminals. BOOM! The gas station exploded, leaving pieces of metal and glass and lots of other things scattered around next to me. The store at the gas station still had a few unsold products inside that I had eaten the day before, but now, they were all burnt to a crisp. I was still on the ground because the pure force of the explosion had knocked me off my feet, and I looked back to see if the Cyclops had survived. He hadn’t. All that was left was his sword, which I tried to pick up, but dropped because it was still steaming from the heat. After waiting for a while searching the gas station for anything I could salvage, I went back to pick up the sword from where I had left it, there was a small black ballpoint pen in its place. Click. Shing! As I pressed the pen’s button, it quickly elongated into the bronze rapier I’d been holding before. There was a small button on the bottom of the hilt, and when I pressed it, it turned back into a pen. “Hm.” I said, “Handy!” I put the pen in the chest pocket of my ragged black jacket. My sleeping bag and money were gone, along with the other golf clubs. All that was left of those was a puddle of steaming bronze goo. “Oh well.” I said to myself, “No more need for those anyway!” And then I heard the sirens.
I'll post new chapters every week (maybe). Enjoy the prologue to The Hidden Myths!
