The Kingdom of Alefgard. (A Dragon Quest / Final Fantasy Fan Fiction)

Along time ago, so long ago that it was the year of our lords 1990, there existed a kingdom named Alefgard. It's citizens were an odd pack what the gods termed "Non Player Characters." 

Being an NPC was a responsibility in itself. The Kingdom itself was made of a castle town and a nearby small hamlet nearby. Across a raging sea, there lived the Dragon Lord in another castle separated from the mainland by mountains and a noxious swamp. He sat on his throne jealously peering into a glass ball.

The Dragon Lord had purchased his forsaken castle at a lower price than that of the other castle had cost its King. The first day he arrived to open the door to his Dark Castle, the magic key he'd bought at the key store vanished into thin air, leaving his front door incapable of being locked ever again. You see, the owner of the key store was an evil magician and the Dragon Lord's cousin.

Having opened the door he had unwittingly allowed an invisible beast that feasted on its victim's fears was released along with its copious offspring. Before he knew what happened, the Dragon Lord was dragged down a confusing array of catacombs beneath his castle where he was forced to sit upon a hidden throne.

Suddenly, there appeared a hero in blue & white armor. And at first glance of him, the villagers feared him because he stood as a giant and was at least ten stories tall. He slowly walked toward the castle which surely would be trampled by his enormous feet. The king sounded an alarm and had himself locked into his throne room with only his most trusted guards and advisers to accompany him.

“Who the hell is that?” he asked as he looked out his window.

“Don't you know?” asked a guard as he paced about the chamber. “He is the Dragon Warrior!”

“The Who?” asked the king.

“The game is named after him, sire,” said another guard.

It was at this moment the king made a tragic proclamation: “everyone just play dumb!”

And dumb they became. Some citizens would stand or sit still for all eternity at their assigned posts. Others would wander about foolishly and for some reason a visiting hero would hear the same “BUMP!” he would hear if he were to walk into a wall!

And then the hero finally stepped foot into the castle and was warped straight into the King's chamber. “Holy crap!” cursed the king. But the hero was frozen solid in place. “What the hell is he doing now?” he asked.

The pacing guard said “the game just asked him his name, sire.”

At that moment, a pigeon flew into the window. The king opened a letter attached to the leg of the pigeon. “HELP! A giant, red warrior has appeared in the town square of our fair city of Cornelia!” read the king. “Where the hell is Cornelia?”

“It is the first city of the game Final Fantasy, sire!” said the pacing guard.

Shattered Consciusnesses Part One

Shattered Consciousnesses

by

Michael Woodard

I

Bleach just ran. He heard something rustle in the leaves behind him up above and he looked frantically over his shoulder. It wasn't the darkling following him this time. It was the vulture. It had left its prizes up in the tree where it had landed earlier. He dared not look back again. The soldiers had found him in his camp!

He was certain he heard the crash of hooves on the ground speeding towards him. Visions of the dead soldier atop his now skeletal horse came to mind and he couldn't shake them off.

If not his former friend whom he had buried; only to have the man rise from his own grave to haunt him later in that village far from the mountain's peak... surely Death himself rode at his back.

A wet pair of hands grabbed him by the shoulder and uprose the panic level again. Amy was also back from her watery grave to claim his soul! He tried to run but the clutching grasp kept him in one spot.

He looked back and no one was there.

The talons of the vulture sunk into the meat of his back and threw him to the ground. Then before he could get a grab at it, it had flown away with a large part of his cape in its arms. His special cape.

He cried and in his sudden despair and he realized he was lost. Laying upon his face, he began to throw a tantrum. His fists and feet banged in the dust as he bawled like a much younger child.

Oh, grow up! Came a voice in his head. He heard it but not with his ears for it had no sound. But it rasped in his mind. Don't you humans spend enough time as babies in your cradles?

“I'm not a baby,” he said aloud, falling still. No longer crying.

Cradles of Sin they be. Sins against the Greater World of Nature you live in. The voice seemed to come from the vulture. Friendless you are... twice a runaway.

“You laugh like that crow had laughed,” Bleach remarked, turning onto his back to look up at his tormentor. “Before my brother had killed it.” Then he remembered the burning casket.

Before he could begin to weep again, the image in his head shattered like a pane of glass. It was replaced by a spark of white light.

If I were a predator, so easily would I have sunk my beak or talons into your neck and drank your blood, said the vulture in a casual remark.

“Well you did attack me, didn't you?” Bleach wanted to know.

“Only because my wings were getting tired from following you.” Not surprisingly, the vulture had chosen a tall gravestone to perch from.

A shadowy figure landed next to Bleach. On its waist there was a scabbard and belt for the dagger. Upon its head it wore the steel helmet. The rest of its features were cloaked. He could not tell how tall this latest arrival was.

Before he could address this person, it spoke. “So a scavenger complains about the chase for you? Indeed. I have been chasing you even further... grandson.”

“Grampah? Am I dead now?” He climbed to his feet and almost fell. Grampah was clean-shaven and was missing his glasses, but he still recognized him.

The figure grabbed his elbow to steady him. “You look older.” He laughed. “In fact you look older than me at this moment.”

Bleach felt his face and found his beard was still there. And then he found out that his hair was a tangled mess as well. “Why am I old?”

“You wished to be older. Older and wiser. But you wished too hard and your age got too far ahead of you. And your wisdom has dimmed.” Grampah mused for a second. “You also have grown more than a little insane since I last saw you.” 

NEW FICTION.

Two canoes came rowing along the shallow water of the river. One boat had three people in it, the other only two. This was weird though because the river had been dammed at some point and only puddles remained in the river bed.

The five people had cut out holes in the bottoms of their boats and would walk a few paces around, drop the boats down so they could sit and pretend to row in the muck for a bit.

Confused, Bleach ran up to them and started to walk in the muddy river bed towards them.

“Do you see what I see?” shouted one of the men in the two-person boat. He was small, wearing a black pointed hat and a blue robe. The robe was dirty. He was dirty. And his overall look was funny-looking.

The much larger man sitting in the boat with him struck him very hard, knocking his hat from his head and sending him backwards into the muck behind the boat. “Damn you, Tinli, I wanted to be the first to say that line!” He began to fiddle his fingers on a gold chain he wore around his neck.

Tinli didn't say anything: he was out cold.

“TIRSK!” shouted an older man with a bald head and grizzly-looking gray goatee. He wore a gray robe. The man he named was wearing a red robe. They exchanged angry looks and shrugs.

“Praise be The Lord!” shouted a mannish thing in a brown robe. Then she tore her fake beard off along the robe, revealing a dirty light gray dress she wore underneath. At some point when it were clean, the dress might have been white. “He walks upon water!”

Tirsk growled again, but didn't dare hit the woman as well. “Great. I knocked out the third wise man because he angered me!” he groused. He slapped Tinli's face, causing him to stir a little but still he remained on the ground unconscious. “We bring you ---” he began.

“GIFTS!” shouted his companions in unison. Again the man in red fumed.

A third man wearing yellow tossed a wrapped package at Bleach and it bounced off his head before he could duck away from it. “I am your father!” squeaked the man in yellow robes. He also wore a necklace but his was made from a leather string.

Rubbing his head, Bleach noticed that they all five wore similar amulets. They were red jewels encased in gold.

The oldest, the one of the gray robes, shook his head. His necklace was made of silver. He sighed. “I am a servant of God, Oh who art Christ!”

“What is a Christ?” Bleach wanted to know.

“A Christ performs miracles, Lord Jesus!” yelled the woman. “I am your mother, Mary, and my... husband... is Joseph!” She very carefully kissed the yellow robed man on his bearded cheek. Neither one looked happy about the kiss.

“Yosef!” he corrected.

She hit him in the crotch with her fist.

Yosef gasped. “Call me Joseph, please,” he said weakly.  

Sorry I haven't posted much. I am seriously considering a new, 21st Century approach to my fiction.

.... by posting it as much as possible in the future on the internet. Getting people to read a blog seems easier than getting them to read a book by an unknown author like myself.


SPOILERS BELOW...

In the last year I have (of course) made a new draft but this one is stream lined for "new media" such as TV or Film or stage or even animation. 

I also have come up with a solution to the one criticism my mother ever brought up with the story... "they are too young" to have gone thru the risque things I put my characters thru. Amy is lying about her age because she's 18 and claiming to be 13 to be closer in age to Bleach. 

And Bleach himself is actually a great deal older than 10 because he somehow got stunted in his growth cycle a century ago and only recalls ten years of his life.... for some reason. Oh, and he's an undead-zombie kinda thing without a soul because his brother murdered him as a newborn. .... 

The damn thing evolves even after twenty some years of writing. :( 

My sister-in-law's new blog.

Red Flag Parent

Good stuff. As a "Learning Disabled" adult, I can really dig reading about my nephew's life as described by his mother. :D

Love ya, Hollie. :D

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