Stand By Me
It was dawn when Landon woke me up.
"Can't we sleep just a little longer?" I asked sleepily.
"No, we must move from this area quickly." He replied.
I slowly rose to my feet, still half asleep.
"Aren't we going to eat breakfast before we leave?"
"Here," he said handing me very little fruit. "Eat this for your
breakfast, it was all I could find. The rest of the fruit wasn't ripe
enough to eat."
I held out my hand to give him some, but he turned it down.
"You need it more than I do. I'll find something for me later," he
said.
"Are you sure? I don't want to take all of the food," I said.
"I'm fine." He replied stubbornly.
We walked and walked for a very long time crossing rivers and streams. My
feet were aching horribly and it was so hot that sweat was falling down my
face.
"Can we please take a break??" I begged.
"No, we have to keep going. I wouldn't stop if I was traveling alone
and I won't make an exception for you."
There was a sound of hooves galloping behind us. It sounded like 5 horses
were heading our way.
"Should we hide?" I
asked.
"No, it's probably some common people taking a ride on their horses; let's keep
walking."
Landon and I had only started walking again for a few minutes before the
men on horses caught up to us.
"Good afternoon young man and young lady!" one of the men called
cheerily.
"Same to you," replied Landon. "What is your business here?"
"Well, we are looking for someone of about this girl's age."
Landon looked at the men suspiciously.
"Why are you looking for a girl like this one?" Landon asked with
much interest.
"I am afraid that I cannot say. Girl, let me see your arm," the man on
the horse commanded.
"Why?" I asked.
"Just let me see it."
"Why??" I asked again.
"Give me your arm or I will have to use force!!" the man yelled.
Landon stepped in front of me and stood as if he was ready to strike the
man at any time.
Landon said cooly, "Why do you need to see her arm? Did you really think
she was going to show you her arm without giving her a reason? It's
just an arm, nothing important."
"It is not your concern elf, now step aside!!!!" The man was now very
angry and he jumped off his horse. The other men on the horses did the
same.
"You will move, now." The man gritted his teeth.
Landon pulled out his bow and arrow faster than I could blink and
said fiercly, "If you value your life, then you will leave us alone."
The man looked ticked off, but climbed up on his horse.
"We will be seeing each other again soon enough," the man said sternly
as he galloped away.
Landon lowered his bow slowly and motioned me to start walking again.
"Do you know why he wanted to see your arm Jade?" asked Landon.
"Um...no?" I replied.
"Oh come on, I can't defend you if I don't know why they are after you
in the first place," Landon said in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Okay, okay. I have this..uh.. symbol-scar on my arm."
"And..that matters why??" he asked.
"Don't you know the legend?" I said in disbelief.
"No."
"Well, the symbol on the arm means that I am 'the chosen one'. A great
evil will come to the world; an evil that only I have the power to
stop. If I can't do it, then the whole world will be enslaved in the
terrible evil, forever."
"Wow," Landon quietly said. "Who would have thought that you of all people would be the one to save us. So, I guess those
guys want to find the one with the scar on their arm, and then kill
that person before it can figure out how to destroy them. Have you
figured out how to yet??"
"No. I had a dream that told me all about it, but I woke up from it
before the lady had a chance to tell me how to defeat the evil. I only
found out half of what I am supposed to do."
"So what do you think we should do to figure out the rest?"
"I don't know," I replied.
There was silence for a few moments but then Landon spoke again.
"You weren't telling me the truth, were you? You were lying when you
said you were lost. Where did you come from?"
"I came from a small village down river. I had only been 5 minutes
away from my village when I met you. I had gotten mad at Rayek, the
man who raised me, because he didn't bother tell me about all of this when he
knew ever since I was born. I grew up not knowing that I was supposed
to save the world. I wasted all those years doing nothing when I could
have figured out how to do it!! It will be his entire fault if I don't
figure this out in time!" I raged.
"Maybe he thought that he was protecting you by not telling you."
Landon said. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to reply to
that.
"Well, anyway, what do you think we should do? It's up to you to
decide." Landon said.
"You mean, after you know that this thing could cause you to lose your
life, you are still going to stay with me?" I asked.
He replied firmly, "Of course I wouldn't leave you by yourself for
this! If you're going to save this world from destruction, then I want
to help you to the end, whether it be good or bad."
