I wrote this when I was twelve. It was my very first ever attempt at original fiction.

Seascastle—a journey

Chapter One

Nothing special happened the first time Adar went to his secret cavern. Nor the second or the third times. In fact, the only thing that was magical was his own imagination. That is, until he found the sword.

He had blundered upon the cave after heading out into the ceaseless rain with a bad case of rainy day doldrums. The entrance, gone unnoticed countless times before, had seemed to beckon him, deep, dark, and mysterious. A perfect cure for his illness. After his first visit, it became his favorite spot to retreat from reality, and he found himself there more and more frequently.

Until he found the sword, the domed ceiling had been his favorite part of the spot. A mural of sorts, it was like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Well, to Adar anyway. Detailed paintings of knights in shining armor, dragons breathing their fiery flames, depicting the legendary battles between the two, starships racing across star systems, and engaging others in a frozen dogfight, all so lifelike, Adar felt he could reach out and touch time.

Now and then a certain knight would catch his eye, forever locked in an endless battle, and he would imagine himself in that place, fighting that battle. Adar had many adventures in this cave, staring at the painted ceiling. Then he discovered the sword.

It wasn’t just a sword that he found, there was armor, a helmet, chainmail, a shield, those sorts of things. But what really caught his eye, what really held him mesmerized, was the sword.

Made of a forged silver-iron-titanium combination metal, it shone like an incandescent star. Now and then it would catch a ray of sun through the minute cracks in the ceiling and it would send out a burst of light equal to that of a sun that has gone nova. The hilt was made of the same type of metal as the blade, but was wrapped in rich brown leather and at the end was a circle, engraved with a shining star with a galaxy symbol in the middle. The same symbol Adar also found on the wool tunic that went over the chainmail, and the black scabbard the sword was kept inside.

Adar pulled on the chainmail, slipped on the wool shirt, and buckled the black leather sword belt about his waist. He then carefully picked up the helmet, forged of the same metal as the sword, adjusted the red feather plume atop it, and put it on his head. Lastly, he hefted the shield, adorned with the same galactic symbol, and looked up at the paintings above. They seemed more alive than ever.

The ground shook. Adar was knocked off his feet. A dense white haze clouded his vision, and a white flash momentarily blinded him.

Adar opened his eyes, then rubbed them momentarily to clear his vision. Staring in disbelief, he clambered to his feet.

He was facing a shimmering sea that seemed to reflect the sky, but with even stronger intensity. In the middle of the sea was a castle. It did not hover, float, fly, hang or sit on, over or under the sea. It was just there. It just was. Adar stared for untold moments, transfixed. he them shook himself out of his dreamworld.

Adar thought he should have felt distressed in some way, worried over something, but he wasn’t. He felt and inward and outward calm. The boy spoke out loud to no one. “I wonder where I am.” A statement, not a question. He gazed around at the surrounding hills, caught sight of some civilization, and immediately struck off towards the unknown city.

Chapter Two

The city did not have a definite beginning. The buildings just became more common, and soon Adar found himself in a city. A city that was not magical or mystical, and only mysterious because Adar did not know where he was.

He began to walk past people in the street, who seemed human in appearance and demeanor. He sidetracked a passing towndweller, and decided to be extremely polite. “Pardon me, sir, but could you be as kind to tell me the name of this city?”

The man seemed surprised. “Enfaba, good sir. The capitol of the land of Endorm,” he said in a cheery tone of voice.

“Thank you, sir,” Adar replied.

The man nodded in acknowledgment and continued on his way.

“Where the heck am I?” Adar asked himself, still mystified. He shrugged to himself, stuffed his hands in his pockets, thought of his good luck to have native garb, and continued his walk through the burgh, observing everything. To the passerby, he seemed lost in thought, paying no attention to where he was going.

The city’s buildings were all made of a similar construct, and not many at all were above two stories tall. Any that were seemed to be on the verge of collapsed, and Adar took care to avoid them. A strange sort of sun-baked brick seemed to be the norm for building material, and the orange-khaki clay tended to be a bit crumbly on the older structures.

Then it happened. A very tall, well-built man, wearing a knight’s chainmail, with the black wool overshirt was striding down the street. Adar didn’t see him and walked directly into him.

Now, being two inches away from the man’s tunic, Adar had a chance to study the intricate design of the knight’s symbol. A white isosceles triangle with a block upside down triangle inside of it, which formed three other white triangles, each with a black dot in the middle.

The man didn’t react to it well.

Pushing Adar with awesome force, the man rumbled with a deep voice that seemed to originate somewhere around his toes, “Watch your step, boy!”

Adar was immediately apologetic, for bumping into him and for fear of bodily harm. “I’m terribly sorry, sir. You see, I was walking and I—”

“You must watch where you are going. And how can a boy of your age wear the armor of the legendary Galaxy Knights?”

Now Adar was thoroughly confused. “Sir, I… I have no idea what you mean.”

“Your clothing, man!”

“Oh! That! I found it.”

The large man was now suspicious and awed at the same moment. “Where?”

“In a cave, back home. It’s a real nice one too—”

Adar was cut off when the man whooped with joy and swiped him up in a suffocating bear hug. After the man had returned him to the ground and his breathing had returned to its normal pace, Adar asked, “Sir, what’s going on?”

The man became stealthy and his voice took a conspiratorial tone. “Come with me, boy.”