Sands of the Past- Chapter 1

Chapter One

               "Gah~!" Kuro shouted as he was knocked down by Friz's strike on his sword. Sparks and loud slashing noises filled the air, the sparks lighting up the dark forest. He moved his sword above his head to protect himself. "Wow, you're better then before..." He murmured under his breath.
"I really appreciate you sparring with me, my fine sir." Friz said sarcastically, grinning. He brought his sword up into the air, ready to strike Kuro down.
Kuro rolled over as Friz brought his sword down. He got up from the ground and sat in a defensive position. "You're welcome, now start fighting. Show me what you got!" he said, seemingly playing with his nerves.
                "Don't be a showoff, Kuro." Friz said, still grinning. He brought his sword up to shoulder level and charged. A moment before he brought his sword down, he sidestepped to the side, knowing that if Kuro were to attack him, he would be ready.
However Kuro blocked his attack easily. He was, though, pushed backwards from its force. He got right back up and charged at his friend, swinging his sword in a right curve, aiming for Friz's leg.
             Friz sidestepped a moment before Kuro's sword could hit him… or at least it seemed he had. As Kuro passed him, he could see a small scratch on his leg. It had begun to bleed. Kuro had barely gotten his target. "He got me. Guess I need more practice." He charged at Kuro head-on, hoping that Kuro would have some kind of opening for him if he were as surprised as he knew he would be.
"Woha!" Kuro exclaimed, and by instinct, he bent over into a crab stand…one that was very similar to the stance in "The Matrix". "Damn man" He said as he got back up. "You could've cut my head off!" He started to breath heavily. He was getting exhausted… but he was not about to give up. He rushed towards Friz, Jumping high into the air and swinging his sword straight down at him.
Friz brought his sword up into the air to block the attack and the two swords clashed together noisily. Sparks flew into the air and Friz saw them. "Whoa!" He exclaimed and jumped backwards, panting just a little bit. "Talk for yourself, you lunatic! You almost killed me…" He paused. "Maybe we should call it quits. You know… before you kill me or something."
Even though Kuro was sweating and exhausted, he wanted to prove that he was no where near giving up. "Come on" He moved his hands and sword mockingly. "Show me what you've got!"
Friz sighed. "But boy am I hungry! I was planning on ordering some fast food on the way out of here because it was more convenient. If I'm not home soon, my aunt's going to kill me and I—" He stopped and then laughed. "Who cares about how hungry I am? I'll just finish you off here so we can both go home. Of course, I'm not sure if you'll be satisfied but that doesn't matter to me." He grinned and charged once again at Kuro. He made an abrupt turn to the left, meaning to slam Kuro from his right side.
              Kuro didn't look very surprised. He moved his own sword, blocking Friz's attack. He yawned, smirking. "That's all you've got?" He asked, looking for just a moment, like he didn't believe Friz was all that good. He crouched and swung his leg against Friz's, forcing his friend to the ground. He moved his sword so its edge was very close to Friz's throat. "You just got owned, haha." he laughed out.
Friz sighed, stretching out his arms behind his head. "I only got owned because you weren't playing fair. Tell me; does tripping me sound fair? Does it now? I will of course, accept defeat because you didn't play fair." He grinned and moved Kuro's sword away from his face as if it were some toy.
             He moved his sword and rested it on his shoulder. "Yeah right. You just got owned, but you won't admit it. You don't change do you?" He smirked and chuckled, lending his hand out to Friz, offering to help him up.
Friz slapped his hand away and quickly got to his feet. "I'll admit being defeated if you admit playing unfair. Is that a good enough deal?" Friz brought his sword down on his shoulder. He heard some of the wool on the shoulder part of his shirt rip. He tried not to think about what his aunt would say to him when she found out about this. Now I'll let you off easy by saying that if we shake hands and you agree that you were a cheating moron, I'll agree that I was defeated. Got it?" Friz held out his hand, expecting Kuro to shake it.
                Kuro rolled his eyes and sighed, then reached out to grab Fritz's hand in a handshake. As soon as Friz was about to grab his hand, he moved it back, grinning. "Gotcha! Haha, you actually thought I'd admit to something like that? pfft." He put an emphasis on the word "Actually". "Now come on, lets head back... its getting kinda late..." he said
               Friz stood with his hand held out for a few more seconds. Then he quickly shoved it into his pocket and thought about a way to get back at Kuro. A light bulb went on inside his head. "Are you scared, Kuro? Scared of the ghosts that appear out of nowhere at night? Are you worried that there might be vampires sneaking around when the sun's down?" He grinned, waiting to see what Kuro's reaction would be. He raised his eyebrow, feeling as though he had won a great battle. In friend's terms, he felt that he actually had.
"Ghosts? Ha, you know… I know… EVERYBODY knows that ghosts and demons don't exist..." he replied. "I can prove it... where do you wanna go?" he asked, smirking.
Friz suddenly froze in place. He felt his heart skip a beat. Something felt wrong. It wasn't just bad vibes he felt, it was some form of telepathy. He'd been able to understand the phases of the human mind ever since he was a kid… and the moon was very similar. The mood and the sky had its phases. The moon it seemed… had skipped one of those phases. A few seconds ago it had seemed it was just beginning to become night. Now it looked almost as if it had already been dark for an hour or so. He forced himself to look back at Kuro who was still waiting for his answer. "Go anywhere…" He said slowly. "You know. I'm glad that we brought along these swords good sir," he tried to add humor into his voice, failing at the attempt. "Because I think I may have been caught in the act of saying something wrong."
Kuro sighed for a brief moment. "Would you please stop calling me sir? We aren't in the middle ages you know..." he said, looking like his intention was to tease his best friend. It was his goal every day. He looked around, and as he turned to the right, he saw a sort of small shining circle of light. It should have made him feel afraid, at least a little bit… but he seemed not to think that it was not normal. He smirked a little and said "Let's go...... THAT way!" He pointed at the small, beautiful, white shining circle of light. "You aren't scared... are you?" He lifted his eyebrows a couple of times and smirked, teasing his friend.
Friz glanced at the circle and felt his blood turn cold. "I think that you may be feeling overly confident my good sire," He said, his voice on the verge of breaking. He slapped his forehead and sighed. "It's hard role playing like this, you know?" He looked back at Kuro, suddenly looking and sounding dead serious. "There's something weird about that light, Kuro. I really don't think that approaching that would be such a good idea." He looked at his friends with calm-yet-on-the-verge-of-panic eyes.
                "You lamo." Kuro said as he punched him on his shoulder, not hard, but enough to cause minor pain. "You really don't change. Come on, let's go. It will be fun!" Kuro said, still smirking. "Unless you are, like I thought, a WUSS" he added.
Friz sighed. "I have a feeling that you're going to regret doing this, Kuro. As for me, however—I cannot walk away from a challenge. So I guess I won't be giving up so easily." He started towards the light, his heart beating hard against his chest. As he approached it, he wondered what was behind the light in the first place. A strange thought occurred to him for no apparent reason: I don't think I was even HERE to have been able to see what's behind this all.
He pushed Friz even closer towards the light when he paused for a brief moment. "Alright! Come on, lets go." he said to him as he walked towards the light himself, his sword still on his shoulder. As the 2 walked towards the light, the light became more and more intense; it was getting a bit hard to see now. Kuro covered his eyes with his free hand, trying to see better. He still couldn't really see anything. "Hey, can you see anything, Friz?" He asked. No response. "Friz? Friz, where are you?" he asked. "Dude, this is so not funny! Come on! Where are you?!" He began to search around, panicking. He felt something grab him and screamed.
               Friz heard Kuro's scream all right. But it sounded almost as if it had come from a different dimension. It sounded strangely muffled and concealed. He reached out his hand towards where he felt the sound was coming from. He felt Kuro's hand close around his own and a small piece of his mind finally went at ease. He tried to look through the light, having to squint to be able to see through it without making himself blind. "This is ridiculous," He said and began laughing to his own great surprise.
Friz took Kuro's hand and began to pull him forward with him, saying more to himself than to his half conscience friend, "There's no turning back now, right Kuro? This was sort of a dare, wasn't it? Let's find out what's behind that light… and maybe we'll get to see some real vampires, huh?" As he drew closer, he found that what they were about to go into was something they were familiar with yet something they had never been in themselves.

They were entering the light of the past itself.