An Uneasy Alliance

Chapter 1: Maybe One Day

Chapter One: Maybe One Day

(Third Person Omniscient) Autumn's Point of View

         The world was once peaceful. However, the people saw the place of natural things such as sickness and death as a plague upon them. This changed when a man named Augustus, known by his followers as Tanti Ducis (The great leader), formed a group of magicians, who called themselves the Alliance of Heroes. They summoned an ancient power, forcing spirits of the Earth and Air to do their bidding. The magicians used the spirits like slaves, for they were bound to the those who summoned them, but some of the magicians became too greedy.

         Many members of the Alliance used more of the spirits' power than they could handle and it overwhelmed them, eventually taking their lives. Once freed, the dead magicians' spirits fought against The Alliance as well as humans, who often fought with their fellow men (magicians). The spirits also fought against many of their own brethren, who were controlled by magicians. This created the bloodiest war in history, known later as The Great War.

         Every member of the Alliance was killed, by spirits or his or her own greed, until only Augustus was left. He made a stand singlehandedly against the power of the spirits. He battled the spirits for days, but could not win the fight. Yet his power was great and he was equally unbeatable. He was eventually forced to let all but one of his spirits go free to spare his life force. The spirits still could not kill him, but they locked him and his last spirit away for eternity.

         Although powerful, he was still mortal and it was assumed that he would die in time. When the war was over, the spirits took one more step to prevent anything like it from happening again. The few humans that survived were banned from walking the Earth. They were condemned to a life underground in a group of dug up tunnels created by the Earth Spirits.

         The humans suffered in their new environment. There was hardly a scrap to eat or a drop to drink. Bugs, rats and snakes covered the ground. Even with the small amount of living humans, it was far too crowded. Some people snuck into the outside world to get food, news, or just to escape from their horrible life underground, but most were scared to get caught by the spirits. Life was far from good for the humans, but nothing eventful happened until quite some time later. That's when the dead started rising.

         No one knows why, but a few years after the war had ceased, the dead started to awake from their supposedly eternal sleep. They haunted the earth and the sky but couldn't seem to penetrate the ground to do the same to the humans. The humans watched, amused by the troubles of their torturers. The spirits tried, but could not do anything to end the ghosts' lives for the second time. Although it humiliated them highly, they had to call on the help of humans.

         Three siblings, Dominika, Adrian, and Elias Carter answered the call. They returned to the surface and fought the ghosts, but they too were unable to kill them. They knew that they had not the knowledge nor the power so they came up with another plan. They decided to keep the ghosts underground, like the spirits had done to the their kind. They told the Earth Spirits to dig another vast system of tunnels. This one, however, was far deeper than the first.

         The three siblings stood in the dark tunnels as bait, waiting for the ghosts to arrive. The ghosts came but there were many and the the siblings had to hold them off for days. They fought the ghosts, only able to get rid of each for a minute before they reformed.

         By the time all of the ghosts had been captured, the siblings were practically dead. They used their last ounce of energy to tell the spirits that they had done their duty. The Earth Spirits broke the ground beneath the three unconscious heroes, putting them into a long, thin tunnel where they were pulled out by the Air spirits.

         Dominika and Adrian awoke in a few days, tired but unharmed. Sadly, the same could not be said for Elias. His siblings placed his dead body into the entrance of the Keep of the Dead (as it was now called), the place where he had so bravely fought.

         When they turned to leave, they heard a sound. Elias was alive! The overjoyed siblings ran to meet each other only to find that Elias could not come through the barrier between life and death. He decided to live out the rest of his life as an overseer of the dead. His siblings wept with grief once again.

         The spirits pitied the remaining two siblings, for they had fought a great battle and lost their own brother only to return to nothingness. It was then decided that each sibling could bring their loved ones to the surface and live like royalty in each one of the spirit kingdoms. Dominika became the Queen of the Air Kingdom, and Adrian became the King of the Earth Kingdom. Elias remained the King of the Dead.

         Each sibling, once they had taken the throne, was given special powers by the spirits to help rule their kingdom. Dominika was given a power over air, to create winds and storms, and to fly (the equivalent of walking in the Air Kingdom). Adrian was gifted with the power to move and shape the earth around him. No one is certain of the powers given to Elias, but we can only assume he can talk to the dead, and it is said that he was able to choose one person to bring back to life. He chose his wife. When brought back, however, she had to live like him, in the Keep of the Dead, never again seeing the light of day.

         Although the original siblings were able to take members of their non-related-family with them to their kingdoms, their children could know no humans beyond their own kin. In order to continue the royal family lines, each child of a royal family travels to the human world for a year at age 21. They choose one person to spend the rest of their life with, and return to their kingdom. To this day, the royal families continue to prosper above the ground.

         The original royals helped the human race to regain at least some honor and trust from the spirits. They created something of an uneasy alliance.

         Autumn slammed her history book shut, creating a gust of wind powerful enough to send her papers and various writing utensils flying off the table. Her puffy, cinnamon-colored hair blew back and specks of dust and dirt shot into her eyes. She got up from her grimy stool, pushing it under her desk lightly so as not to get splinters from the rough wood. Before bed, like she did every night, she walked over to her viewing tube. Putting her eye up to the rusty circle on her dirt wall, she stared up at the surface.

         A wide view of the outside world was spread before her eyes. The blues of the sky differed and moved, going from a blue so dark it was almost black to a blue almost as light as the daytime sky. Wispy clouds moved restlessly, forming shapes for mere seconds before changing into something completely different. Silhouettes of the trees and grass swayed in the wind and the silhouettes of tiny animals scurried and jumped with glee. The thin blades of grass, small leaves on the trees, and the shadows of happy animals were all illuminated by the silvery glow of the full moon.

         Autumn stared out at the stars, naming the few constellations that she knew "Orion, The Big Dipper, The Little Dipper, Hercules, Pisces, Virgo..."

"Autumn!" Autumn snapped her head up to see her mother standing beside her. "I've been calling your name for quite some time, you know," Autumn's mother said with more of an amused tone than an annoyed one.

"I'm sorry, mom. I was just doing some school work," Autumn said as she climbed into her bed.

"I could see that by the way your things are scattered on the floor and your head was in the clouds, staring through that viewing tube of yours," Autumn's mom laughed.

"I wish my head was in the clouds," Autumn sighed, "but my head's stuck down here, underground."

"Maybe one day you'll be able to go above ground," said Autumn's mother with a hopeful grin, "maybe we all will. Goodnight honey, sleep well." And with that, Autumn's mother blew out the candles and left the room. "Maybe one day" Autumn muttered as she lay down on her dirt-filled pillowcase and drifted to sleep with thoughts of adventure and exploration dancing through her head.

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Hey people of Wattpad! So this is my first part of my first real story. I know it isn't great, so I'm totally open to constructive critisizm. Anyways, I hope you liked it despite its badness.

Peace out and back in, Sami