The Lampwatcher

The Lampwatcher Chapter 1

By Aersnow96

Hello there and thank you for taking the time. I'm just an amateur writer and just writing as a hobby. This story will have sex scenes but also have its fair share of character development. So if you're looking for a quick fix, I'm afraid this chapter won't have it.

The story takes place in a Fantasy setting.

This story definitely has plenty of rough edges. Thing is, I have been writing for some time and I haven't been able to finish any story I have written. I always get stuck on the little details until I get bogged down and don't have any energy to continue. So I did this little exercise in which I'll try to write a chapter a day and post it here.

Constructive feedback is welcome and again, thank you.

Characters engaging in any sexual activity are above 18 years of age.

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Everybody else in the village was asleep, save for John. At any other night he should be among the dozing citizens of the humble little village of Swindlincote.

He should be asleep with the rest. He had done so for his entirety on this earth of nineteen years.

But here he was.

For this was not just any other night for him.

A new experience, right here and right now, every moment of this night ingrained into his memory. The cold bite of the quiet dark and the serene melody of a sleeping village.

The first night of his new duty.

The night he takes the mantle of Lampwatcher.

With a deep sigh, John pushed himself from his seat and out he walked into the night.

Houses made of dry stone wall, piled on top of the other with domed thatch roofing dominated the side of the path. All of which were squat, single floor abodes that can house an entire family. The path was dry rough road that crunched with each step echoing into the night and into his own ears.

There was a certain calmness in the quiet slumber of the town that John found he relished.

His grandmother is lampwatcher.

Or rather, was.

Just a brief mention of her and already the melancholic aftertaste of the funeral was still fresh in his chest.

After all it had only been yesterday.

He walked out into the night, each crunch of his footstep his sole companion into the tranquil darkness.

He had hoped that things would be well. That it would be quiet as they were. But if her grandmother's scars were anything to go by in her fifty years of duty, well it is anything but.

Many times he was told to go to the city. Find good quiet work there. Ever since he was a child, he was skittish and shy. Not a people person. He was good with books and letters. Perhaps he'd have made for fine clerk at any tradeshops.

That ticked him the wrong way however. His family had this duty for countless generations. Although it was not unheard off to switch trades. His grandmother never pressured him into this life. She probably got the measure of him that he was ill-suited to the task.

She was a woman respected and loved. A pillar of the community. A warrior and defender.

All he was not. People were difficult for him to understand. John did not hate people. He just preferred to be on his own.

There is a path that leads out into the west of the village. It was nestled right in between steep ravines. It wasn't much of any different from the surrounding area of the village but if one were to take it further and travel along its direction, you might as well find the end of the known world.

The very edges of the map and beyond.

And sometimes, just sometimes, there are things that make its way along that path.

Generations before had erected a watch tower on that edge of town. It was haphazardly old. Dry stone wall that seemed to lean on one corner. It is here that John made his watch. The seat of office for the Lampwatcher.

One by one, He lit the lanterns. Thirteen in all, spanning the great length of the path into the unknown.

And just watched.

Out there in the shadows. What awaited him, he wondered?

A rather ironic thought came to him. That it was almost the very same that troubled his mind. What was he supposed to do now? On his is own. A man of his own.

The possibilities of the unknown scared him.

What was he supposed to do at this point of his life?

It was this question that drew his mind out of fear, which was as blessing. Because admittedly he was a piss poor fighter. He was a watchman at best. Not a stalwart guardian nor a trained swordsman.

Lost in thought, which was often people found him in, eyes cast down unbeknownst to them that he was lost in his little own world inside his head. He failed to notice a shadow that was not truly a shadow.

It skittled around the cast iron lampposts, from thirteen to five. Then it stopped.

Watching.

It was then and there that John felt a prickle that brought him out of his reverie. He shook himself back into the cold reality of the night and face forward.

And then he squinted. What was that he saw, a figure near lamppost number five? A shrubbery swaying in the wind?

But shrubbery, or any small tree for that matter, did not stood so frozen in the faint shadows of the night and the way the faint light of the flickering flame of the lamppost gave it such vague impression to deny the fact that this was mere flora.

Then the faint silhouette of it sparked a memory in his mind. A story, as told by his grandmother. Of a creature from beyond the boundaries of humanity's understanding.

He gulped.

He reassured himself that was he saw was a trick of the eye.

It had to be.

Every passing tic of the second, he clung and forced himself to reality of his situation. He shook himself awake. And then he realized he could not deny it. That resounding fact as real as gravity itself.

This was real. This was very real.

He could only get a vague form of the creature. It was big. Probably as big as a cow. A faint impression of something behind it, that his mind had trouble reconciling the fact and trying to get hold of anything that could make sense of the thing. John could only surmise that it had to be a tail that was about as large its body. And just the mere suggestions of the shadows, told him he did not want to meet it in full daylight.

They just stood there, watching one another.

He could not see its eye but he could feel it upon his very soul.

Palpable.

Staring into one another. Waiting for either to make the first move.

He waited.

And waited.

It was the creature to make the first move.

With a focus that stilled time itself, he watched and embedded these moments well into his mind; like a predator of sorts, he could see it slowly ebb back out into the shadows, passing one lamppost and then two in a backwards retreat that still kept all its attention on John. It did so up until it went back, beyond Lamppost Thirteen.

Until it was gone.

John went back to the safety of the watchtower. Locked the doors and sealed the shutters on the window. He was possessed with an illogical fear of peering out of the windows of the tower. Afraid of what might look back from the darkness of the night.

Much to his relief, the night went on without further incident.

And thus marked the end of John's first of many nights as Lampwatcher.

Surely, John reassured himself that was but an isolated incident? Could it?