Tales of the Spirit: the Legend of Maras

This is going to be a long story so be prepared to wait for anything really good to happen. I'm just warning you in advance because I don't want anybody sending me any emails saying that it's boring. Well anyway enjoy the first part of my story...

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And so it begins...

Terra sat impatiently waiting for the school bell to ring. She kept looking at the clock waiting for it to ring her freedom. It was soon to be the summer holidays and Terra and a few of her friends were going to a nice campsite in the mountains for a relaxing and fun weekend. She glanced out of the window, having lost interest in what the teacher was trying to teach them, and watched as the sun rose steadily higher over the earth. She snapped out of the daydream she was having as the bell rang to signal the end of school and the beginning of the summer holidays. The class stood up and raced out the door all shouting and making plans for what they are going to do for the holidays. Terra waited at the back of the classroom as her friend, Kerry, packed up all her books that she had been using. Kerry was one of those study maniacs though she wasn't always like that. She used to be the most popular person in the school, and had basically every boy after her, but then she realized that she was going nowhere in life so she changed. Now she is less popular, has fewer boys after her, has a higher chance of getting a career, and has shorter hair making her a fairly tall girl with stunning blue eyes and short blonde hair. She was wearing some simple clothes because she never really got dressed up for school anymore.

Terra on the other hand was different but not so different in a way though there is one thing that makes her stand out among the crowd. She is a fairly short girl with brown eyes and long brown hair with just a tinge of green in it. When she started to grow hair it wasn't really apparent that she had that green but over the years it grew out which caused her parents quite a lot of distress because they knew for a fact that she didn't have any highlights in her hair so it could only mean that it was natural. Terra didn't mind this at all, the fact that she had green hair that is or rather greenish hair, for to her it seemed right though she couldn't explain why it did but to her it did.

When Terra was 6 and a half years old her parents died in an accident and with no other relatives that would take her in, since her parents had stayed as far away from their families as possible, she was sent to an orphanage.

It was a nice sunny day 11 years ago, when Terra was a mere 7 years old, when Kerry and her parents came into the orphanage. Kerry's parents had been looking to adopt a child because Kerry's mother was adamant that she wasn't going to go through another pregnancy. After looking at all the children in the place Kerry's parents just couldn't find the child that they had been searching for or that is until Kerry found Terra sitting alone under a tree.

"Why are you sitting all alone under that tree?" asked Kerry.

"Because it's nice and relaxing here." answered Terra.

"Sounds nice, can I sit there too?" replied Kerry.

"Sure go ahead."

They sat there for a while in silence while they relaxed.

"You were right, this is quite nice."

"I told you."

"Why don't the other children come here?" replied Kerry.

"Cause they are too busy trying to blow the orphanage up."

Kerry giggled. "I had a feeling that was what they were trying to do when I walked in here."

"Have your parents come to adopt or are you an orphan here too?" asked Terra

"Me an orphan? Never. My parents came to adopt. What about you?"

Terra looked away towards the sun before answering. "I'm an orphan."

"I had a feeling you were since I didn't see any other parent looking people here."

They talked for a long time, while Kerry's parents searched frantically for her after concluding that their house would be in danger if they adopted one of these children, and eventually they counted each other as friends.

"Hey I have an idea. When my parents get here I'll ask them to adopt you. We could be sisters then!" said Kerry.

"Are you sure they will want me?"

"Of course they will."

"It would be nice to have a family again."

This is how Kerry's parents found them and after about 5 seconds of trying to persuade them to adopt Terra they said yes. This is how Terra became Terra Andos.

"Terra? Terra? Terra!" Terra shook her head and looked around until she realized where she was. "You were just standing there looking out the window" said Kerry. "You all right?"

"Yeah I'm fine" replied Terra. "I was just thinking."

"About what?"

"The day we met."

"Come on Terra stop living in the past."

"Yeah I know. Come on we better leave or else we might be late. Matt will kill us if we are late."

Matt looked at his watch. "How long are they gonna take?" he said to nobody in particular.

Matt was a tall medium built man with the messiest brown hair that anybody in the district had seen. He was also very athletic and practiced martial arts with his father who owned his own fighting school. At the moment he was standing in the front of his house by his car in blue t-shirt and khaki army pants.

"They are girls Matt, they take forever."

Matt looked over at his car in front of the house and saw his friend Daniel leaning against it looking as if he was about to fall asleep, like he usually did. Daniel was a tall skinny man with jet black wavy hair and always looked tired. He was also wearing a white t-shirt and jeans.

"Yeah but still man, I told them to be here at 3 o clock and it's now nearly half past," replied Matt.

"Uh your guys' school only ends at 3 o clock Matt," said Daniel.

"You Sure?"

"Pretty much ya," replied Daniel. "If you hadn't skipped school today you would only have gotten here about now as well."

Just then the door to Matt's house behind them opened and a big muscular man walked out yawning onto the grass.

"Hey Taven. You just wake up?" asked Daniel

Taven was Matt's older brother and one of the teachers at their dads fighting school. Taven was the splitting image of their father with his big muscular arms and legs and also being a 6 foot giant. He also dressed the same as his dad, a blue shirt and baggy black pants.

"Yeah. They not here yet?"

"Nope," replied Matt.

"Terra you finished getting packed yet?" shouted her mother from the living room. "Matt just phoned and he sounds really impatient!"

"Dammit! Didn't Matt realize that school ends at 3?" asked Terra.

"Obviously not," replied Kerry.

"I'm gonna kill that man," said Terra as she closed her suitcase with her clothing in it.

"Finally we are finished. Let's get going before Matt decides to leave without us."

"Right."

Terra and Kerry quickly got out of the car when it stopped in front of Matt's house.

"Finally! What took you so long?" asked Matt in a frantic voice. "I doubt we will make it there before night now."

"Oh boo hoo. It's not our fault that you don't know what time school ends," replied Kerry.

"Whatever. Let's just get everything in the trailer," answered Matt.

They quickly packed Terra and Kerry's bags into the trailer and Matt went to call Daniel and Taven, who had gotten bored standing outside so they decided to go play some games on Tavens' ancient playstation one, who quickly finished off their game and got up. Matt locked the door behind them and sent his dad a message on his cell to tell him that they were leaving. He got into the car, started it up and started driving towards the campsite.

"So girls, how was good old school?" asked Taven as he turned around to look at them from the front seat.

"Dreadful," replied Terra.

"I thought it was okay," answered Kerry.

"Why was it dreadful?" asked Taven.

"It just took so long!" replied Terra as she looked at Daniel who it seemed had fallen asleep. "Is he asleep?"

"Knowing him, most probably not," replied Taven.

Terra poked him a few times to check but it seemed that he had in actual fact fallen asleep.

4 hours later...

Kerrys head was lying on Terras shoulder whose head was on Daniels shoulder whose head was lying against the window and they were all breathing deeply. Taven looked at the map they had brought with. "I think that we are close."

"We had better be. I have been driving for ages. I'm not looking forward to having to drive back," replied Matt.

"Well we have a whole week before we have to think about that and the scenery is quite nice. Oh look there is the road to the camp."

They had been driving on a valley road with rolling mountains on either side of them a few miles away. There was also a nice small ravine next to the road. The camp road was a dirt path leading towards the mountains on their right hand side.

"Thank goodness. Why don't you wake those three up back there?"

"Gladly. Hey wake up!" shouted Taven as he poked each of them hard.

Daniel looked up and felt something on his shoulder. He looked down and saw a greenish brown ball of hair which gave him quite a big fright and he pushed it away, little did he know that that ball of hair was in actual fact Terras head. Her head flew off his shoulder causing Kerrys head to hit the opposite window, waking her up, and Terras head to hit Kerrys shoulder which woke her up. They looked around and Kerry started rubbing the side of her head. "Ow! What happened to my head?"

Taven and Daniel looked at each other. "Um we took a sharp corner and you fell onto the

window," said Taven. "But that doesn't matter because we are just about to get to the camp."

"Oh good. How long were we asleep for?" asked Kerry.

"About 3 hours," replied Matt.

"That long?!"

"Yep."

"Wow look at the mountains. Don't they look stunning?" said Kerry as she stared out the window.

"Yeah and the sun is starting to set as well," replied Daniel.

They all stared at the sun as it sank towards the mountains, except Matt who was too busy driving and looking where to go next to care.

"Hey Matt there is the pay gate," said Taven as he looked forward again. "Everyone give me your money that you were supposed to bring with so that I can pay."

Everyone handed Taven their money who, as they pulled up by the pay gate, gave the man waiting there their money before he could even ask them for it. He opened the gates to allow them to go through and soon they were driving through a nice wooded area with great camping areas in demarcated spots and evidently all those great spots were taken. After a long time of driving with only a little bit of the suns rays glaring through the trees they found a site, though it was secluded and not the greatest of places, and they started to set up camp. The guys started to set up the tents while Terra and Kerry made a fire, well mostly Terra as she had been on numerous camps before being the more outgoing type of person, while Kerry got their food together so that they could have some warm food to eat. The guys were having a bit of a problem in setting up the tents because it was getting too dark for them to see and they kept tripping over things and Taven managed to walk full on into a tree. They tried using a flashlight but the problem was that they couldn't find a flashlight because it was too dark for them to see into the trailer. They eventually gave up on the tent and decided that everyone was going to sleep in the car instead.

After a long day they all sat around the fire eating the stew, which the girls had made while the boys tried in vain to get the tent up, and overall relaxing with the soft sound of the forest and its inhabitants.

"Hey everyone look up at the sky," said Kerry as she lay on her back.

Everyone looked up at the stars and the full moon.

"Isn't it beautiful," said Kerry.

"Yeah it is and this place is so peaceful. Much better than where we live," answered Daniel.

"Hey look a shooting star!" said Terra as she pointed at the sky. "And there goes another one, and another. Wait what's going on?"

Soon the sky was full of shooting stars. Everyone got to their feet staring at the sky in awe. The sky looked as if it was burning as the comets flew threw space over the planet earth. Matt turned around and saw something high up in the sky falling. "That doesn't look good," he said as everyone turned around to see what he was looking at.

"Is that a meteor?" asked Daniel.

"I think it is and I think it's heading straight for us," replied Taven.

"I think we should get out of here," said Matt. "Everyone to the car."

As they turned around and raced towards the car they heard shouting in the distance, no doubt the other campers had looked up at the sky and knew what was coming their way, which caused them to run even faster. They could feel heat on their bodies, more than what there should have been, and knew that the meteor was close. As they got to the car they all turned and looked in the direction the meteor was coming from and witnessed it hitting the earth. It felt like an earthquake as it hit throwing everyone of their feet and then came a scorching hot wind which pummeled them to the ground. Terra opened and saw flames rushing towards her. She tried to get up but was too sore and then the flames hit and it felt as if her skin was melting from her body. She couldn't scream because when she opened her mouth the flames raced down her throat burning her from the inside. She felt, in the midst of all this, her head hit the ground and then she knew no more.