The Undying Being(temp ) My first try at writing (Original)

I am new to writing and wanted to make a book not sure how far I'm going to go with it yet but I will try to at least finish the first part I have planed. If you have any critiques I would love to hear them. Also, this isn't the full first chapter or anything just the part I've written so far and I put off writing more for awhile came back to it, and wanted to publish it somewhere so maybe I would have more drive to work on it.

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This was the end, as my nurse, Marcy, who has been my caretaker for the past few years of my life, rushed to my side. As my chest feels like it's full of glass, not catching my breath, it seems as if my life is at the end. I hear Marcy calling 911 as I lose consciousness. The last thing I see is her talking on the phone.


As I awoke to the darkness I thought, is this it. Is this the afterlife just a void or perhaps this is some sort of limbo? As I tried to move slowly I realized that I couldn’t move or breathe. Then as I looked down I saw nothing, nobody, no outlined form such as a ghost, just nothing. I tried to call out for help but nothing happened. As fear started to set in I felt a tug and suddenly I was somewhere else.


It felt like a damp, cramped cave. I was never claustrophobic, but this was making me rethink that assumption. As I tried to move I started to feel the cave push me downward. I tried to cling to the walls around me but was too weak to hold on. That was when I realized I had arms again unfortunately I had no time to process that, as I was forced out of the cave and into the world. I cried out and heard the cry of a baby. I heard weird sounds around me and felt being wrapped up in something soft. Trying to struggle out I started hearing a cooing sound as someone hugged me. Seeing was very difficult but as the person hugging me raised me closer to their face I saw two blue eyes as they started to rock me back and forth eventually putting me to sleep.


As the days went forward I started trying to come to terms with what has happened to me. I am a baby, that is not a joke or a way to say I am a coward. I only wish it was but not only that but it appears that I am also back in the neolithic era, that is to say, the stone age. I figured that out from the fact that my family was wearing animal skins and lived in a house made of straw and mud. Well, that or my new family were even more against technology as the Amish are. I haven't been let out of the house yet so I couldn’t tell you what the outside looks like, not that I could tell you anyway my vision is absolute crap, being a baby sucks!


All I have been able to do all day is study my family, or at least I assume they are. My mother, who has been my main caretaker, has midnight black hair which would be pretty if it wasn’t covered in dirt. Her eyes are a very clear blue color which almost glows, creeps me out a bit actually. Her dark skin has a lot of scars and dirt covering up the lean muscle and she is almost 6ft tall. Right now she is humming me a song while holding me sitting by the fire. The house, well more of a hut, is not very big just the size of one room. There is a fire pit in the center with dirt built up around it as a mound, I guess to stop people from rolling into it while they sleep. On the roof, there is a hole for the smoke to leave through, with a flap to close if it rains. Around the fire pit, there are animal skins laid on top of grass beds. Near the door, there are two spears and a bow with a quiver.


As my mother kept humming the song to me the door to the hut opened and in came my father and uncle. My father looked more than 6ft tall, had a body made of muscle. Other than that he looked much the same as his mother except with brown hair and green eyes. My uncle, at least that's what I think he is not really sure, looks almost exactly like my mother with the same hair and eyes but far more muscle, as well as being quite a bit taller at around 6 and a half feet tall. Behind them came in who I believe is my aunt and nephew. My aunt looked far older than my mother with graying hair and wrinkles all over her face. My cousin looked to be around 13 years old or so with dark brown hair and dark red eyes weirdly enough, never seen that before.


Father was carrying a pot of stew and my uncle a pot of water. My cousin brought in some bowls, cups, and spoons. He started to hand them out to my mother, aunt and set down the rest on a small table in the corner of the room while grabbing his own. As they sat down to eat, father started speaking in a gruff voice to mother in a language I couldn’t understand, but from the tone of his voice and the fact, mother started to frown it was not good. She looked down at me and said something that I couldn’t understand but one word she said she had said to me multiple times before which was Urok. I think this is my name, well new name not sure how much I like it kinda sounds stupid, but I’ll just have to make the best of it for now.


As they were eating my cousin finished and came over to look at me. In an attempt to seem more like a baby, which I had been failing at, I reached my hands out to him. He looked to my mother and asked a question, in return my mother nodded her head and held me out to him and he picked me up. Once he had me secured in his arms he started to rock me back and forth. Slowly my eyes started to close as the rocking motion put me to sleep.​

 

“Pull it back further, you won't be able to kill your prey if the arrow never reaches it” my cousin Vron said, as I felt my muscles burn trying to pull the bowstring back while keeping the bow trained on the knot in the tree 30 yards away. I adjusted my aim, breathed in to steady my arm, then loosened the arrow missing the knot going into a lower part of the trunk. “Getting better but still need more work on your aim before you go out hunting with the rest of us,” Vron said. Out of breath I just look over at him with an evil look while pulling back his bow and shooting an arrow directly in the middle of the knot, with my 10 arrows that I have shot around it with only one of them on the edge of the knot.”You need to learn not to be so tense it throws off your aim, now go get your arrows, and let's go back home, Vron said. “Ok,” I pant out while walking over to get my arrows, looking up at the sun it looks like we have been out here for a few hours practicing archery. Well, I have been practicing archery Vron has been giving me tips while probably being amused by watching me miss.

Hanging my bow on my shoulder I started to pull out the arrows and put them in the hide quiver on my back, glad that the arrows I'm practicing with don’t have arrowheads and are just pointed sticks so they come out fairly easy from the wood. Unfortunately, Vron's arrow does have an arrowhead and it went deep into the wood which is just great, trying to pull it out it doesn't even move it. I try to wiggle it while pulling but it doesn’t even budge. Just as I start to get fed up with it I feel a hand on my shoulder, “Need some help Urok,” asked Vron. “Yeah thanks,” I huff, backing up and let him grab the arrow and pull it out as I lean against the tree and close my eyes. “Don’t worry about not landing your arrows, you'll get better with time, you're only ten, no one expects you to be a master archer yet,” said Vron. “I think my father would disagree with you, ever since I showed that I have some talent by helping the village leader keep track of the number of supplies we have and need, he’s started to become more expecting of me to be better at other things such as archery,” I say while my breathing becomes more manageable thinking about how I saw that the village didn’t yet have a good way of keeping track of things. Though that is mostly because they don't have a written language quite yet, I mostly just proposed the idea to the village leader of keeping a ledger of sorts to keep track of the food, weapons, and etc. It was hard to make him accept the idea from an eight-year-old. After I convinced him of the idea, he had me find a way for it to work, eventually, I just made a template with a piece of wood and some charcoal. It was mostly just a list with what it's listing on top of the wood and tallies under it. I thought that he would make me some sort of log keeper or something afterward, but nope just gave that to someone else.

“Your father just wants you to grow up to become a good provider for the village,” Vron said while putting his arm on my back and starting to lead me across the oasis to the village across the lake, the great sand dunes behind it. “Once you grow up I think you’ll appreciate the lessons that I and the others teach you with them and your smarts you will become a great hunter and warrior for the village,” Vron keeps telling me that but, I don't really want to be a hunter or a warrior its just so much risk when I think my talents and knowledge would be better put to use as a researcher, wise man, or whatever else they would call someone who invents things for the village. This is a new chance at life and I don’t really want to go out and just die to some animal, dehydration, or fighting some war because one of our village leaders had a problem with another. “What if I don't want to do that Vron,” I say looking over to him. “Urok,” he replies, “as much as you think your ideas would benefit the village we currently just don’t have enough active fighters, after a bad hunt 10 years ago we’ve been down on manpower though it wouldn’t be as bad if there wasn’t a rival village that has set up along the river that runs from our lake.” A rival village, this is the first I’ve heard about it. “What rival village,” I ask. “A new village popped up or at least that's what the hunters have told us after coming back from the last hunt, from what they have to tell about it seems like they're not too friendly, plus they don’t speak the same language as we do,” he says while scratching the back of his head “they attacked our hunters when they tried to communicate with them, thankfully it seemed as though they didn’t have many fighters and our hunters got away with only minor wounds mostly though bek did get cut up pretty bad the healers say he will live but not well,” I’m about to ask another question when I notice we are almost at the sandy mud walls that surround the small village.

Entering the village Vron and I start going to my house which is in the back of the village just to the right of the village chiefs, I hear a high pitch voice yell my name turning around I see it's my little sister Ada running up to us covered in dirt and mud from helping in the berry patches that we have spread around the oasis “Ur look we just picked the berries don't they look good,” she says while looking at me pushing up a basket full of red berries. “Shouldn’t you be taking that to the cooks so they can preserve it and use it in cooking Ada,” I say while looking down at her. “I know..” she says while looking down as Vron hits me in the back of the head, as I rub the back of my head and look at Vron I tell her “alright also Ada you did a good job helping pick the berries but you should still take them straight to the cooks ok”. “Ok, oh also father said he wanted to talk with you,” she said and pointed to the chief's hut, “he said he would be at Ged’s all day.” “Thanks Ada, see you at home,” I say and turn to Vron, “well looks like I have to go over to Ged’s.” “Give me your bow and arrows, I'll put them away for you,” I hand him my bow and quiver and start going towards Ged’s house waving at him as I walk away.

 

Walking up to Ged’s along the dirt path I see Murc and Drax standing off to the side of the leader's hut. Looking at them they are a weird pair, Murc being fairly short compared to most men in the village being only about 5’10” where as most men are over six feet though he is also the fastest person in the village usually he either is running back and forth from Ged’s house telling him important news that he got from the various people in the village such as the cooks and the watchmen or participating in a hunt. All that running back and forth he has a lithe runners build, black hair and a very dark tan. Then there is Drax also known as old giant Drax being the tallest person in the village as well as one of the oldest sporting a large white beard and a scar across his face from what he told me he got when our village fought another that tried to push us out of the oasis so they could have it. That also makes him one of only 3 in the village that has real combat experience which is why he is the head warrior and trains most of the boys and some of the girls in the village once they reach a certain age so they may fight for the village if needed.

As I go to knock on the door Murc looks over at me and says “Oh! hey there Urok how’s the archery goin kid” he says as he comes over and lowers himself down to my height something I’ve gotten used to being in a child's body. “Better still got a lot of practice to do to get as good as you.” “Heh yeah I remember practicing every day when I was your age, anyways you goin to see Ged and your dad they've been in there all morning arguing.” Arguing that's strange, my father in this life, while not one to let others be the one to decide what he does he respects Ged quite a bit and most of the time will follow his decisions so for him to be arguing with him is quite rare. “What are they arguing about does it have something to do with the new village the hunters found,” I say and while Murc just shrugs and starts to stand up Drax looks at me from where he was looking off to the side, spooking me a little because I forgot he was there in the first place, and says, “There arguing over whether or not to abandon the oasis and move elsewhere.” “What do you mean, abandon the oasis? Why would we do that,” I say while giving him my full attention, tuning my head so quickly I heard my neck crack a bit. “With all the new tribes and villages coming and settling near the river recently it seems like its driving a lot of the animals down river, that plus the fact that we only get good number of fish during the spring we are starting to run lower on meat in general which leaves us with few options give up the oasis and move downstream, live off just the fruits, berries, and vegetables of the oasis until the summer, or try and force the other clans down-river in hopes that the animals come back.”

As he finished the door to the hut opened up and out came my father looking none too happy as he stared daggers at drax. Drax meets his gaze without flinching as father says “Drax it was agreed to keep that a secret for now.” Drax simply stares back at him, not saying anything for a second before grunting and moving past father to go into the hut and see Ged about whatever he was waiting to speak with him about ducking his head under the door frame to go in. Father watched him go in before turning to look at me saying, “Don't worry about that Urok you too Murc, Drax isn’t thinking straight wanting us to leave the oasis is just foolish we will just send hunting parties downriver which is why I wanted you to come speak with me. See you around murc.” See ya,” he replies and looks after us as father puts his hand on my back and starts leading me back towards home. He wants to talk about the hunting parties with me why? I might be learning about how to use a bow and was going to start learning about atlatls tomorrow but why would he want to talk about that to me? “Son,” he starts, “I'm sending you out with the next hunting party.” What! “Why! I-I mean I’m FAR from ready father, I’ve just barely gotten the basics of archery down and I don’t even know how to use an atlatl. I’m not re-.” Father moves in front of me and puts his hands on my shoulders kneeling down to my level staring at me directly in the eye making me want to look away from his gaze. “Listen son, while I think that Drax is worrying a little too much, I can't deny that the village isn’t at its best right now and while you are a very clever and bright kid we currently need strong young men so I can't let you learn at your own pace anymore. You are going to go with the next hunting party to better train and learn the things you need to know. Do you understand what I’m telling you Urok.” This is a bad idea. “Dad I really don’t think tha-” Suddenly he grips my shoulders harder making me wince “You are going with the next hunting party, so is Vron now come let's go home.” He lets go of me and starts walking towards our hut, stopping looking back at me waiting for me to catch up. With very little choice I just start walking towards him, resigning myself for the days ahead.