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Leurheart

Chapter 1. The Book of Mystery

The name's Michael, Michael Henley. I'm 17 years old and I live at London, in England. I live in a small appartment with my mother, father and little sister. It was the 16th of June and I was on my way home from my flute practise. Yep, I play the flute. I got it from my grandfather when I was 10. He said that he used to play with it when he was my age and he wanted to give it to me, so I've been practising ever since. He died a year after that, so this flute is pretty important to me. It's a precious memory of my kind grandfather so I'm allways keeping it close.

I arrived at our appartment and pushed the door open.

"I'm home!" I shouted as I kicked my shoes off my feet.

"Welcome back dear!" My mother shouted from the kitchen.

"So, how was your flute practise?" My father asked and raised his head from behind the newspaper.

"Same as allways..." I said and walked to the stairs

"Practised the same songs over and over again. I could play that song in my sleep now."

"That's nice dear." My mother said and smiled turning the stove on.

I walked up the stairs and into my room. It was all messed up like allways...

'I really should clean up more often...' I tought to myself as I placed the flute on it's stand.

I jumped on my bed and looked at the bookshelf in the other end of the room.

"Maybe I could do some reading." I tought outloud and searched for an intresting looking book in the shelf wit my eyes. A dusty old book caught my eye. It was placed on the top of the bookshelf where I probably hadn't seen it before.

'That's weird...' I tought and walked to the shelf. I tryed reaching for the book, but couldn't get my hands on it, it was too high.

"Gah! I need a chair..." I muttered and pulled the chair from my desk to the shelf. I climbed on it and took the book in my hands. It was all covered in dust and some of the pages had ripped off.

I wiped the covers with my hand and sneezed as the dust got into my nose.

"I wonder what this book is about..." I tought outloud again and walked to the bed again.

I layed down and opened the book infront of me.

It was full of funny curly letters and all sorts of weird pictures and sigils. Where did a book like this come from...? Nothing about the book really made any sence. The language was something I had never seen before and the pictures didn't really look like anything in our sience book. (altho they made just as much sense...)

I closed the book and walked downstairs. Dinner seemed to be almost ready.

"Hey mum." I said and walked to my mother.

"Do you have any idea where this book might have came from?" I asked and showed the old book to her.

She looked at the cover for a while and blinked.

"I think that's an old book of your grandfather's." She said and looked at my father.

"Isn't that right honey?"

My father just shrugged and continued with his reading.

"I guess." He muttered.

I tilted my head and walked to the livingroom, my sister was there, and she was watching some cartoons on the TV.

"Hello brother." She said happily and smiled.

"Hey..." I said as I consentrated on the book. I sat on the coutch and turned the pages looking for something that might make even some sence. The search payed off, since I happened to find some notes.

'That's funny...' I tought and started humming the song in my head.

"Hey, I could probably play this on my flute!" I said and ran upstairs.

I took my flute off of the stand and looked at the song.

"Song of the lost love..." I read outloud... Seemed like a sad, but a beautiful name for a song.

I was just about to play the first note, but then I heared my mothers voice.

"Michael! Dinner's ready! Come and get some while it's still hot!" She shouted.

"Allright mum!" I yelled and put the flute down. I WAS getting a little hungry...

After dinner it was allready 6 PM. I decided to take a look at the book and the song again, so I went back upstairs and opened the book again. I took the flute in my hand and placed the moutpart on my lips. It took me a while to get the melody right, but after I did, I noticed that it was a beautiful song. It could have just lulled me to sleep right there, it was so calming and it had a really soft sound to it.

Suddenly, as I played the song, a sigil on the next page of the book started glowing.

My eyes widened as I almost dropped the flute on the ground. A small glittering lightball rose up from the sigil and slowly flew trough the window of my room, outside. I ran to the window and looked for the lightball, it hadn't gotten pretty far so I grabbed the book and my flute and rushed downstairs.

"I have to go, I'll be back by nine!" I yelled as I ran trough the door after the glittering sparkle.

As I cathced the sparkle up it started moving quiker and quiker.

'What the heck is that!?' I tought and ran after it, curious to see where it was going. I stopped running after I saw that it was going towards the forest.

No WAY I would go in there! And it was allready getting dark too!

I pondered if I should go after the sparkle or just turn back home...

Eventually, curiosity got the best of me so I ran after it into the forest. I followed the sparkle for who knows how long, until I suddenly came to a pond, where the sparkle slowed down. It flew over the pond and landed into the water and dissapeared. I rubbed my eyes and slowly walked near the water. You could see the bottom of the pond because the water was clear.

'I wonder if it's deep..?' I tought and slowly walked into the water.

The pond wasn't too deep, the water reached up to my waist, but I noticed that there was a round really deep looking hole in the middle of it. I tryed peering trough the surface of the water, but couldn't see the bottom of it.

Then suddenly, I saw a pale light shining from the bottom of the hole.

"Wh- What the!?" I studdered and stumbled backwards.

I fell down into the water and cursed as I popped up back to the surface for air. My flute had sunken to the bottom and the book was floating on the surface of the water. That's when I saw it. A little whirlpool was slowly forming above the hole in the pond. I quikly realized I should get out of there as fast as I could, but it was too late. The whirlpool had allready gotten ahold of me and I was spinning towards the deep hole in the middle. The last thing I remember was that I was being pulled towards the light in the bottom of the hole and that's when I lost contiousness...

Chapter 2. A new world, Esperia

I slowly managed to open my eyes. I felt wet and my vision was really blurry. I could make out something blue, and white... Clouds, the sky? I sprang my eyes open and quikly Stumbled on my feet. I was at a seashore.

I looked around and my eyes widened.

"Wh.. Where the heck am I...?" I asked my self and walked on dry land. My flute had washed up near the same place I was floating at and I picked it up while cleaning some sand off of it.

Suddenly I remembered the book. It was in the water too, and where had that sparkle gone to? I searched for the book with my eyes, and saw a tiny brown spot floating above the waves.

"There it is!" I called out and waded my way to the book.

The pages and covers were all wet and some of the pages had ripped off, some of them probably drifting off somewhere in the ocean.

I walked back ashore and looked around again.

"Maybe I'm dead... And.. Maybe I'm in HEAVEN!?" I screamed and turned to touch the sand.

"This sure doesn't seem like heaven, feels pretty real and all that..."

I suddenly saw a pair of feet with wooden sandals on them appear before me. I rose my head and saw a little boy, about the same age as my little sister. He had blonde short hair and was wearing a light blue tunica.

I blinked and quikly stood up.

The boy looked at me like an alien and scanned my clothes with his eyes.

"You look funny, why are you dressed like that mister?" He asked and smiled to me.

I looked at my clothes and then at the boy.

"What's wrong with my clothes?" I asked.

"Well, they're wet... And look weird." He anwsered.

Indeed he was dressed utterly differently than I was... Maybe I had flown back in time or something?

"What is this place?" I asked and crouched so that my face was on the same level with the boy. "Please, can you tell me where I am?"

The boy looked at me and laughed.

"You silly mister, this is the seashore!" He said and pointed at the ocean.

'I knew that...'

"But a seashore WHERE?" I asked again. The boy looked like he didn't understand.

I sighed and stood up again.

"I guess there's no helping it... Can you show me where you live?" I asked in hopes of the boy leading me to more grown up people.

"Yea! I live right trough that forest there! In a small town. I can show it to you if you want mister." The boy exclaimed and ran towards the forest ahead.

"Thank you." I said and ran after the boy.

The forest wasn't as thick as I tought it was and we made it trough out to the open in a couple of minutes. There were miles and miles of hills and grass everywhere as far as the eye could see. But like the boy had said, there was indeed a village there. It wasn't too far from the edge of the forest. The buildings looked really old fashioned, kinda like in medieval movies. Had I really gone back in time...? I sure hoped not.

The boy leaded me into the village. The people were looking at me curiously and they whispered to eachother.

"Here we are!" The boy called out and stopped when we came to his house.

"You can come in if you want, mama is probably making some tasty food right now."

"... Alright.. Thanks." I said and stepped in after the boy.

"Mama! I brought a new friend! See! His clothes look funny but he's a nice mister!" The boy said and ran to a lady near the stove in the corner of the house.

The lady turned around smiling. His smile suddenly vanished as she saw me.

"Oh! You poor dear!" The lady shouted and ran to me.

"You're all wet! Tell me, who are you? And what on EARTH happened?"

The lady took my hand and led me to another room.

"I- I- Uh.." I studdered as the woman pulled me to a closet.

"Here are some dry clothes for you, take them and change." The lady went out of the room and closed the door.

I just stood there holding the pile of clothes watching the door...

"Well.. I guess it's best to change to something comfy..." I tought and took off my clothes.

I looked at the shirt. It was brown and had lines on the necline. The pants were also brown, but darker and they looked a little worn out, it had a heavy belt with a silver colored buckle on it. I quikly dressed up and walked trough the door the lady went.

She was wating me outside and she quikly ran to me and grabbed my hand again.

"Now you just sit down and tell me everything..." She said and showed me a chair.

"Thank you." I said and sat down.

"Would you like some tea dear?" She said brought a teapot to the table.

"No, that's ok thanks." I said and shook my head.

"Now... Tell me what happened..." The woman said and sat opposite of me to the table.

I hesitated a bit and bit my lip... Would she even believe me if I told her.

"You 'ain't from around here I presume?" She said and tilted her head.

"No.. I'm not.." I said and sighed.

I explained her everything about the book and the sparkle, and everything that happened after that. She looked at me curiously and narrowed her eyes.

She placed her hand on her mouth and looked like she was thinking.

"That's quite a story..." She said finally and rubbed her chin.

I nodded slightly.

"I've never heared of this place called 'London' though..." She said and I sighed.

'What WAS this place...'

"What is this world called?" I asked and raised my head.

The woman looked at me and blinked.

"Why, this is Esperia, dear." She said and smiled.

"Looks like you've come from far away." She continued and stood up from the bench.

"Tell you what, you get some sleep and tomorrow I'll take you to see Rildel, he knows everything there is to know about magic and other worlds." she said and smiled to me.

I smiled back. Finally, someone who might know something...

"Here's the bedroom." The lady said and showed a small, but a comfortable looking room to me. "You can sleep here for the night, and tomorrow you can ask everything you want from Rildel..."

I walked to the bed and sat down.

"Thank you. Tank you so much." I said and smiled to the lady.

"You're welcome dear.." She anwsered and nodded.

"Now, get some sleep. It's allready getting dark..." She said and closed the door quietly.

I layed down on the bed after placing my flute and the book on the table. I looked at the roof and sighed.

'Esperia... That doesn't sound familiar...' I tought and tryed closing my eyes, thinking I couldn't sleep. I was wrong though, that "magical trip" had utterly tired me out and I fell asleep almost as soon as I closed my eyes...