Every once in a while I unearth something from my childhood years that I forgot existed. I have no idea where this small remnant of a story was going, but it’s something I was starting to write back when, my best guess, I was around 10 or 12 years old. Figured I’d type it out and preserve it here:
(This was the working chapter title I assume?) Horrendous Yet Familiar
The town of Heradrin, located in the highlands of greater Mirlanda, was filled with the noise and excitment of hundreds of people, all out having a good time and enjoying the festivities of the Christmas season. A couple of houses sat at the edge of town lighting up the outskirts. One of these houses was owned by the Halworth family. Their house was located by a long dirt road serving as the main way to get in and out of town. Their house was old and run down, but that didn’t matter to the Halworths. They considered it home, and had worked hard to make it into a place where they could build a life.
The house was made up of two rooms. In the smaller of the two, Mrs. Halworth lay on her bed, her long blonde hair falling over the sides of her slender shoulders. She was in such a heavy sleep that a trumpet being blared in her ear couldn’t have woken her. One door down her two young girls, both 2 years apart but with similar feisty personalities, were stirring with restlessness as they awaited the coming dawn. In the other room a shabbily dressed 14 year old boy named Edward sat at a warped and faded wooden desk staring intently down at two thick books that lay open on the desk in front of him. On the open page of one of the books there was written an ancient legend. The legend starts with a man named Gilbert A. Walworth,, who lived way back during the time of the Great Awakening. It told of a long lost treasure that was buried deep in the farthest depths of these legendary caves, known to the locals as the Caves of Death.
Everyone in the town of Heradrin knew about these caves. They were located just a 45 minute drive northward. They also knew of the cave’s protecter, a mysterious fire breathing dragon that lurked deep within the cavernous underground lakes. This dragon, as the story goes, keeps watch over the treasure. Many desire it, but all who venture to find it meet with death. Save for one. This is the one the legend remembers.
It is a town tradition to share the story at Christmas time of this man named Gilbert A. Walworth. As the story goes, Walworth was a man who once coveted untold riches, and upon discovering this map to the promised treasure he sacrificed everything he owned and loved to attain it. Determined to succeed and believing these riches would give him everything he desired, he eventually found himself lost in this cave and unable to find his way back out. Having disappeared for years, the towns-people assumed his death. Until one day, a Chistmas day not unlike this one, they saw this shadowy, weathered figure making his way down the road. Walworth had returned.
In the days that followed he would tell of his experience, describing his perilous journey deep into the darkness of these passageways, eventually one day coming upon a great expanse overlooking an underground lake. Here he found a treasure not made of gold, but of Wisdom. Angry about his findings, Walworth threw this treasure into the lake, thus awakening the great beast that lay sleeping beneath the surface. The beast was the most fearsome thing he had ever seen, with fangs as wide and as tall as he stood, and fiery red eyes that pierced staight into his soul. A body made of scales that glistened as though it was made of prized medals. Frozen in place, he prayed for deliverance, which is when he found himself suddenly subsumed by a glowing light, with an unfamiliar voice seemingly speaking from all sides all once. Here he was imparted with a choice. Desire the secrets of this Wisdom and these riches would serve as the true master of his heart, freeing him from the passions of his will and giving him an untold power over the forces of the world. Choose the passions, and he would become a slave to the dragon, giving him the untold powers of the world.
Walworth chose Wisdom, and upon his return he began to seek the gift that, for him, had become his salvation. For the rest of his days he grew more and more to love this Wisdom, giving him a power greater than anything he could have imagined, spilling out into the lives he surrounded, and over the years his renknown began to spread over the lands, forming into the greatest legend Herardrin has ever known. Eventually he would die, the secrets of his Wisdom being buried with his body where one day such riches might be unearthed by another, but ever since the people of the town came to believe that by telling this story each year, the mystery could be preserved. That in the telling it they might continue to experience and seek its power. As the legend goes, for those who’s hearts are guarded, the treasure of the dragon remains their desire. For those who journey to find this treasure, they are faced given this same choice. Apart from Walworth, no one else who has entered has returned to share their story. Thus, the sharing of this story year after year has been a way of protecting the town from the allure of the caves.
The Stories of my Life 