Tristan McCrow and the Dragon Riders: The Intruder's Son

Chapter 1 - A Band of Pirate Toads Attacked Our House

Look, if you’re reading this book for the sake of entertainment, I highly recommend that you stop it for your life might as well be in grave danger. Numerous people have been reported missing after reading this book. There are dark minions around us right now that banish every single person who happen to read this. Otherwise, if you’re reading this because of such unknown force that tells you to, I congratulate you. The guardians have chosen you to witness a world different for what it is right now. A world inhabited by creatures that has long been lost in our busy and modern world.

My name is Tristan McCrow. I am twelve years old and my childhood was like a gallery of mystical creatures. Every night before I go to bed, my dad was always telling me stories about a land cannot be seen in any maps, where humans astride dragon. He called this land Windlemoore. In this land, humans interact with different creatures, such as the Gorfs. They were talking creatures that have the head of a wild boar and the stout body of a toad which were as large as a cat. There were also dwarves, the smaller version of humans. They were the best blacksmiths of Windlemoore. There were also Travians; they were human-like creatures that have wings of a bird.They were the ones who ruled the skies even before humans rode dragons. There were elves that took care of nature, and lastly, the draconians, the reptilian guys who inhabited the forest. They have masculine scaled body, a tail of a crocodile and a head of a dragon.

We used to live somewhere in the forests of Oregon, until my dad mysteriously disappeared. None of us knew where he is or where he went. But one thing is clear to me. Before that incident happen, I saw my dad writing something in his journal. His sweat was all over his face, and was very much afraid like somebody would try to kill him.

Not so long after my dad disappeared, my mom died of lung cancer. She was so depressed about the loss of my dad that she smoked heavily. I can remember that time when she was able to consume four packs of cigars on just one day. I tried to stop her, but she just ignores me. If not, she would have hit me with my dad’s baseball bat.

After my mom died, my aunt, aunt Bettina, took the custody over me. We moved somewhere in California where she lives with her husband, Rick. The house where we were staying was Rick’s ancestral house, and it was huge. It has six large bedrooms, a huge dining hall, and a living area that you can almost play basketball, which, I thought, was awkward. There were only three of us living in that house. What are we supposed to do with six bedrooms?

Aunt Bettina and Uncle Rick don’t have a child, so they treated me as their own. They were not that terrible parents, but I don’t feel the love my parents gave me, maybe because I am not close to them. Every day was like a day in an asylum, I don’t have friends to talk to, or even toys to play with. There’s only me, my uncle, my aunt, and that old rusted bicycle inside the house’s storeroom.

Then there was this one day, when I was curiously wandering around the house, I noticed a closed door near the kitchen. I tried to open it but it was locked. And then I thought, “Why would they lock a door inside the house?” maybe they were hiding something. I left the door and headed to where the keys were stored. After I found the keys, I headed back to that locked door and opened it. From the sound of the door, I can say that this house was a hundred years old already. Its creepy squeaking sound made a chill on my spine. As I open it further, the smell inside it came out and it was awful. It was like a mixture of rotten fruits and burnt wood splashed with hundred-year-old stagnant water. Inside it, there was a stairs going down. On my left, I saw a light switch. As I turn it on, the light emanated from downstairs. I looked at my right and then at my left then headed downstairs. I feel like asking myself, “What the hell am I doing?” but it was like there was something telling me to go further, curiosity I suppose.

It was a little bit creepy down there. There were cobwebs all over the place combined with that awful smell. I walked around the basement and saw a lot of old things, there were decades-old gas stoves, old lamps, old wooden tables and chairs, and stained portraits of people I don’t actually know. I continued to walk around and saw an old chest but it wasn’t covered with dust unlike the other things there. I opened it and saw familiar things: my dad’s things. There were his clothes, his eyeglasses, his pen, and his journal. I dug in further and saw two metallic silver rods with different lengths; the first one was about twenty inches long while the second one was only half a foot long. I don’t know how my dad used those things so I just left it behind.