Chapter I. The small house on a highland (part 4)

Gate of Chaos

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As a natural reflex, he turns around, just to see Grandma Mely standing there, and her dog jumped pass him. The dog runs into the fog, fearlessly. When Lenny looks back into where the figure was supposed to be, it is not there anymore. Both the dog and the figure has disappeared completely. It is like they just vanished into thin air, with only a small disturbance left on the fog where they were.

"Wha...what it that thing?". Lenny asks the grandma, clearly with a confused and scared voice.

"It is just AAPEP, don't worry, Old Fart will take care of him." She smiled.

"What is AAPEP? I don't understand, what is this place? What are you?" He can not hold all of his questions anymore. This place has became too confusing for him lately.

The old woman looks at him, smile again.

"Young man, I see you have so many questions in your mind. Why don't you just go inside and I will give you a cup of hot cacao?"

The great invasion

Then she turns her back to him, walks into the door slowly. Lenny decides to follow her, he does not know what else to do anyway.

The grandma asks him to take a sit, just before telling him do not forget to wipe the chair first because of its two inches thick layer of dust. Lenny does as she said then sits down, while his eyes still follow her every movements. For now, the old woman is busily boiling water in her old small pot on the fireplace. She takes out some cacao nuts in her sack and pour them into the pot, then stirs them swiftly. All of those things happened in a mere five minutes, as fast as Lenny can wipe his chair and be comfortably sitting on it. Before he can ask her any question, two cups full of hot cacao are already placed on the table in front of him.

"Wait, this doesn't make sense, none of these things make any sense. How can you cook that fast? And since when the fireplace is fired?"

"Ha ha young man, I am going to tell you all of it, just be patient." Again, she smiled mysteriously. For some moments, Lenny thought his old granny is trying to make him feel like an idiot, but her smile, her calm eyes looking at him were so gentle and nice. That makes him even more confused.

She puts a hand gesture indicates asking him to wait for her for a minute. She then walks into the corner of the room, where an old, dusty big chest is located. She opens the chest, and starts to pulling everything inside out, searching for something.

"Hmm, where is it? ...oh, here it is!" She mumbles.

Shortly after that, she return to the table with a very old book on her hands. The book is huge, it is so big that the has to hold it with her two hand, firmly on her chest. Then she throws it on the table, shaken it to the point that the cacao cups almost fall off.

"Lets get started, ha ha", she smiles, then throw herself on the chair and continues with a calmly voice.

"I found this book at the same place where I found you, but six months earlier. That was one day after the great invasion of your people started."

"My people?"

"Yes, your people. They are the human of the other half of Terra. In case you may not know, which I think you don't, Terra is the name of this land we are living in, or dying in. Some people lives, and some people dies, you know. Terra is a rounded land. Your people also call it a planet, as there are so many other planets on the sky. A rounded land means that, if you walk straightly to a direction, after a while, you will end up coming back to where you started. And we are now in the Dark Half of it, as your people always say."

"Dark Half? do you mean that there is a Light Half of Terra?"

"Yes, there is. The Light Half is where you came from. I don't know how it looks like, because I have never been there in my life. Maybe you will have to try recall your memory yourself, and tell me about it some day."

"Then how do you know that I came from that place?"

"Because you were one of the people who came from there, and started a war with this land's people and lords. The lords are powerful people and being that are believed to have the blood of the ancient gods in their vain. They either rule this land, or live among the normal people. The Great Invasion is a name we call that war and it happened six months ago. Until now, still, none of us know the true reason behind that invasion."

"Six months ago? I have no memory of that event.."

"Yes, six months ago. That war was devastating, many people died on the border line, both from your army and this land's residents..."

"wait, you didn't say we have an army." Lenny cuts her flow.

"Be patient young man, there will be more surprising things coming next for you, I believe." She smiles.

"Okay, I am really sorry for disrupting you, please continue." He says, politely.

"Don't worry sweetheart. Yes, you people came to this land with an army, a big one. One day, suddenly from the sea of the north, the border between our two worlds, your huge ships appeared. They are all made of metal, and each of them was as large as a small island. Even our greatest wizards couldn't understand how your people can make metal floats on water. That must be a very powerful spell." She pauses for a second, then sighs.

"And from those ships, your metal birds were coming out and in. They spitted fire every place they went to, bombarding our towns and cities with a destruction force we could never imagined.. Many people lost their life, and their families on those days..." She stops again to wipe a tear rolling on her wrinkled  cheek.

"I am really sorry for that.." Lenny expresses his feeling of sympathy for her people.

"No, please don't. The past is already the past. What I am about to tell you are even more horrified than that, and I think we own you our own sorry." She continues.

"The lords decided to fight back to stop all of that nonsense killing. They released seven deadly sea monsters of legend. They are a giant octopus, a giant serpent, a white whale, a Tiamat and three other creatures no one has heard of before. They were imprisoned in a secret crack under the deepest ocean by the ancient gods because of their potential power to wreck havoc and chaos on the surface. We only have one lord that is capable of fighting on the sea, Leviathan the great sea serpent, and he was chosen to sink your people ships. We were naive. Our initial plan was to release the monsters to help us fighting against your army, so they would kill each other. However, the plan backfired us. Only one monster attacked the ships, while most others were either went on hiding or randomly attacked our cities and towns along the shore. That monster who attacked your ships successfully sank some of them, but when Leviathan arrived, it had became nothing but a giant blood pool on the sea. Apparently, your navy also has extremely firepower on board and under the water, not just the fire spiting birds on the sky." She pauses again, looking down to the table with a sad face.

"Leviathan tried his best, but he alone was no match for such a powerful threat. He were found drifted onto a beach, with barely any life left in him. Despite of his numerous wounds everywhere on his body, he used all of his last breath to tell us how strong your navy is, then passed away. The last son of our great sea god has died like that. He was loved by everyone who knows him. Without him, our fishermen could never have so much fishes on each of their sail back from the sea..."

"I am really sorry to hear about that, that war is so meaningless." Lenny says in a low tone.

"Yes it was meaningless. But his dead had waken up our greatest sin. The lords was angry and vowed for a revenge at all cost. Leviathan's lover, the female lord of fire, Stata, convinced all other lords to use their power to open the Gate of Chaos, our last line of defense. It is not a weapon or anything, but a magical gate that connect this world and the world of Hell. The gate was faced toward the borderline. The lords intended to open it for just one day, enough time to release ten thousands of hellish creatures into the battlefield and put a stop to your people. After that, they will send them back to hell." She sighs a long one.

"However, we didn't know that, shortly after defeating Leviathan, your ships started to deliver hundreds of thousand soldiers onto our shores and our cities. They ether came from the sea or dropped from the sky. Stata and all other lords combined all of their magical power to open the gate right in where your soldiers arrived. They'd never known how much destructive that event caused. Your soldiers captured many civilians but didn't kill them. However, the hell creatures didn't have any mercy for any of the human. They killed all, both of your soldiers and our people. They just massacred every one they see, turned them into lifeless bodies or ashes..."

"Ashes? That is just like my dream!" Lenny stops her with a horror look on his face. "I remember that now, I was there... My friends were slayed one by one, and Joe... He never had the chance to come back for his daughter... That's awful memory...". His eyes become red and tears start to run down his chin.

"As I said, our people has done an unforgivable sin. Millions of life were lost at the end of that day... painfully... "

"It was our fault to start the war first..." Lenny says, trying to comfort the granny.

"..And it was our fault to open that gate and destroyed everything we have... " She slowly wipes her tears and continues.

"The lords realized that horrible thing they have done, but Stata did not. She kept the gate opening to pour the beasts into our world. Vengeance was the only voice she can hear at the time.. The other lords decided to convince her to close that gate, and ended up into a large conflict with her. It turned out that she had planned for this to happen all along and did not use all of her power with other lords to open the gate. While the other lords are weak, they are no match for her power. Several lords was killed and others fled."

"She was consumed by hatred and pain of her lost love, right?..." Lenny concludes.

"Yes, she was..." She says, with an even more sad look on her face.

"However, there was an event happened that changed her mind, and shaped our world into what it is today. After all, she was the only lord left to save our world from herself.."

<To be continued>

Leviathan