What do you think of this story?

[Alucard_The_Great]

The village people buried my father in a plot of land near our home.  Every night following his death, I prayed for rain.  I prayed that water from the heavens would soak the ground under which my father lay, so that his soul would not thirst as it had during his life.  I prayed the rain would cleanse my father's soul, and leave him to rest in peace.

Sometimes when I looked into the soil I could feel father calling back out to me.  "Never leave without your leather-bottom shoes on," he used to say to me.  "Never ever."

That sweltering afternoon day I opened the trunk my grandmother forbade me to open.  Inside were a pair of leather bottomed shoes, a cap, and an empty canvas bag. 

He grabbed the stone from my hand and began to inquire about its origin.

I told them my grandmother left them for me.

One man stumbled towards me as if under a drunken afternoon spell.  His mouth hung open, saliva pouring down.  When he came beside me he spat into both my eyes and I screamed, falling to the grass beneath my feet.  I saw black and smelled drool and could not open my eyes.

I gave him my satchel and shoes as he asked me, then I shed my clothes as he advised me to do. "Wear this," he said, and he shed his own skin.  It fell off in a pile on the soil floor looking like a tablecloth used in my home.  When I clothed myself in his skin I no longer smelled like my home or the valley.  Instead I became like the men on the mountain.  I smelled distinctly foreign.   I thanked the man and watched as he dressed himself in my own clothes.  He said he would wear them until new skin grew on his back.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the man from the mountain open his razored jaw and draw a poisoned needle from underneath his tongue.  I watched the needle fly from his finger through my father's ear and out the other, turning all his fluids into ones of pure jade and stone.  Then the foreigner strapped my jaded father to his back and continued to ride into forbidding wastelands.

My ring and shoes vanished under the guise of morning.

The animal's footsteps still laid deep in the soil after the morning's dew.  I thought of following them, and my shoes, and anything else the animal had taken with her.

"Let me go to find what I seek," I said. 

I left with these things, the only things left in a house barren.  I left wearing the leather-bottomed shoes grandmother blessed before she died. I left mother nibbling on her fingers in want of food.

The white bird in the sky asked me if I could pull out the needle that rendered its foot into a half-crescent shape.

After I took the needle from its place, I pryed my father's bones from the floor and put them in my satchel.

My father's bones and needle transformed into a suit of skin.  It smelled distinctly foreign like the mountain.  When I put it on I felt like the mountain was traveling along my shoulder blades.  It felt restless.

When the people of the soil touched my feet they fell back into the ground with shrieks and cries.  Now I could reach the top of the mountain without fear of falling down.

The man who killed my father stood on the open ground with an army of people waiting to rise from the earth.  He brandished a blade in his hand and struck it towards the sun.

The blade struck me against my face and left a blood spot in the shape of a star.

When he placed his hand upon me he let out a great cry and then vanished into the earth.

In the chest were more than enough gold, pearls, and sparkling jewels to feed my family for a lifetime.

After all this time away, it seemed a mirage in a desert of hopelessness.  My disbelief vanished when I saw my mother appear at the door of our small, cramped home of decaying wood.  Home, I was finally home.

My feet, wearing their newfound bottomed shoes, pressed gently across the soils as not to wake the men clamoring upwards.  But I still felt a shadow trail at my footsteps that did not feel like my own.  As I walked faster the shadow moved behind me as well, sometimes touching my bare skin with sodden ground.

As I struggled to break loose I remembered my father's ring and turned it twice.  I felt my body lose its corporeality and fade into particles of mist, evading my pursuer's grasp.

Before I entered my home my brothers came out, and, thinking I was a peddler, asked how much the jade I carried was worth.

"This man," he pointed at me, "this man killed our father.  See the blood on his shirt Mother?  See it?  The smell is like one of our own."

"As a child, my son could dance along the soil so quickly that the men who died and live in the ground could not catch him.  Prove this to me now,"

Without hesitance I lifted my pant legs began to dance in father's leather bottomed shoes.  The soles breezed across the floor, cutting the mist with rhythmic motions.  I then turned the ring on my finger and watched my father rise, soil shedding from his skin.  His shaved face and clean hands stood against the paling crowd. This impressed the people who stood before me, as did the fact that my tongue did not bleed from the needle it held.

The man in heavy robes looked at the man beside me and asked, "So now I ask that you take the same truth by needle test that this man took."

People began to move away from the other person, who now shook his head and his hands.  He kneeled to the floor and placed his head there in mercy.

The soil on my skin turned into sprinkles of gold dust.  The people proclaimed me some kind of god.

The needle from my tongue flung towards the lying man and struck him in the heart.  It gave him poison at the place where it would hurt the most, and soon the man became a limp purple figure of stone.

I was offered a place in the palace, but I could not accept.  I wanted to be with the mountain; I felt it move under my skin as I knew part of me was in the mountain too.



The mists cleared away and the soil grew cold and silent.  In place of the menace that blinded my sight was a small jade figure of my father, wearing his leather-bottomed shoes and ring.  So it was there that I put my father's bones to rest and took the jade figure in his place.

I pressed onwards to a safe haven where my father would be in good hands.

In my path stood a young pear tree, that, on first appearance looked wretched and covered with soil.  But the second time I looked at it the sapling had already blossomed into a maturity.  It grew pears the size of my mother's hands.  It waved to me with its branches, beckoning me towards the sweet fruit.  As I attempted to climb the three, the leaves enclosed me and stung my skin with nectar.

As I felt the creature take me into her jaws I saw my father come, from behind a tree.  From thirty feet away he shot the creature and the jaws fell lose, emptying me onto the floor.  The skin on my chest had impressions of teeth marks, but no blood appeared.

When I reached a house I knocked to ask for a cup of water to cool my senses. The lady, upon seeing my shoes, let me in.

My brother hit me on my head, and while I lay in a half-awake state I felt him dig through my pockets and saddle bag.  "Look mother, look what I have for you," he shouted.

"If you are my son then where are your father's leather bottomed shoes and ring?"

Without hesitance I lifted my pant legs began to dance in father's leather bottomed shoes.  The soles breezed across the floor, cutting the mist with rhythmic motions.  I then turned the ring on my finger and watched my father rise, soil shedding from his skin.  His shaved face and clean hands stood against the paling crowd. This impressed the people who stood before me, as did the fact that my tongue did not bleed from the needle it held.

My family pressed their hands on various swells of my body as they embraced me with joy.

Father began to tell my story (with added embellishments and nuances) of rescue and courage to the others.

Mother licked her fingers and placed them to my face, wiping the thick layer of dirt away.  Then I truly began to look like my father's son, in form, face, and color.

The earth rumbled and the trees shook, and before the old hag could spit another curse at me, the ground beneath her split in two, swallowing her rickety bones and hollow heart.

A girl with snow white hair came to the house later that day, looking for the man with the leather-bottomed shoes and coat of dragon scales.  She told me she was betrothed to that man who had taken her creature form and made her human.  She reminded me of the mountain.  She was beautiful.


                                 ~Alucard
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Don't worry I didn't steal this I wrote it.

What should be the title?

Im going to write more chapters too..

What do you think of it?

[Destina Faroda]

I understand what style you were aiming towards, but I got confused halfway thorugh and stopped reading.  I might try it again later, but right now after eating Thanksgiving dinner, I don't have the patience for it.  Also, this should go in the Tower of Art, since it is writing and not random balogna.

[Darkmoon]

Indeed. (moves)

[AlucardRose]

I'de like to hear more!  Its pretty good

[Xuzaf D]

There are some confusing grammer shifts. The subject seems to change every sentence. The chronology is odd to inexistent. It seems like all the writing was done at different times and has no true continuation.

[Alucard_The_Great]

True, I didn't really think it was good enough to be considerd "Art" and I know the storys a little chopy I should fix it soon..

and AlucardRose Im glad you liked it I have other storys too like three others some of them are kinda the same in ways.. Ill post 'em the grammer and stuff might be messed up in them too though.