1 The Ninja

A lone figure is standing tall on top of a ruined building as the sun is kislowly fading behind him. He is covered in cuts and bruises but, is still standing tall. He slowly unsheaths his sword which glints with a dangerous light, while looking down at the endless horde of monsters below him.

He looks into the distance and sees a dark silhouette surround by bolts of ominous green energy and strange black orbs whirling around him. The silhouette slowly raises its boney hand and points at figure.

The monsters start to charge tearing through everything in their way. The lone hero takes a deep breath knowing that this will be his final battle and jumps off the skyscraper to meet his enemies below.

Beep Beep Beep

"Ahh!" I was startled awake and fell out of be!

I sat up and started rubbing the bruise that I could already feel forming on my head.

Sighing I looked up the ceiling fan slowly spinning above and lost myself in thought.

"It was that strange dream again, that's the sixth time this month."

I just sat there in silence for a moment before turning to look at the strange ornimental wooden box sitting on my dresser. After getting up I made my way to the dresser before carefully opening the box. As it opened an erie red light filled my room for a moment before quickly dying down.

"You're the reason for these strange dreams aren't" I spoke while looking down at the black and red mask laying lifelessly in the box.

While looking at it I couldn't help but, think back to that fateful day three months ago when my life changed forever.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It was the final day day of school before summer break and I was already on the bus ride home. Everyone on the bus were cheering and loudy discussing their summer plans with each other. While all of my classmates were celebrating I on the other hand was in a terrible mood.

My best friend Howard had just told me that his father had won a contest at work and that he and his entire family were going on a three month cruise along the asian coast. The reason this bummed me out so much was that while Howard was my best friend he was also my only friend.

Thinking about though the reason I don't have any oother friends is probably Howard's fault himself. Not to knock the guy but, he is the laziest, most gluttonus, slobbiest, most annoying person I know. But, that being said he is also the most loyal person I ever met.

We met when we were three, our parents had both just moved to Norrisville and set up a play date for us and since the moment we met we were nearly inseperable. We spent every summer just chilling out and playing games and now with him going away for the summer I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

The bus dropped everone off and I headed home to continue my pity party. After unlocking the front door and heading inside I went to the kitchen for some comfort food when I stopped.

I could hear footsteps from coming from above and knew something was wrong my parents were workaholics and wouldn't be home for hours. More than that though the room above was MY room.

I ran as quickly and quietly as I could to our garage and grabbed my old aluminum baseball bat from when I was in little league. My heart was beating out of my chest and I could already feel the sweat forming on my brow as I climbed the stairs cursing the squeaky floorboards.

When I got to the top of the stares and looked at the door to my room down the hall I saw a shadow moving under the door and it was like everything stopped.

What the hell was I doing? Why didn't I call the Police or at the very least get out of the house?

"Damn my hero complex" I cursed! Ever since I was a child I would always run towards trouble with out even thinking first. Whether it was someone who simply tripped or a purse snatcher.

While I was busy rethinking all of my horrible decisions the shadow under the door moved and I could tell whoever cast it was right in front of the door. THey had probably heard all of the noise I was making and were getting ready to confront me.

Swallowing hard I decided that my best chance of surviving was to take the initiative and I charged the door. The shadow swiftly disappeared and a moment later I slammed through the door waving my bat around like it was a lightsaber.

When I was flailing around like an idiot I saw the shadow jump out of my open window. I ran after and looked out trying to get a glimpse of them so I could give a description to the police later but, there was no one there. Who ever was in my room vanished like a ghost.

I collapsed on my bed from the emotional rollercoaster I just went through thinging about how bad this day was. I couldn't relax for long though I needed to go make sure all the doors and windows were locked so that the intruder couldn't get back in and then call my parents and the police.

I jumped back up to my feet and mentally prepaired myself for the long night I was about to have. But, a strange sound caught my attention it was a slight ringing that I could just barely catch with my ear.

I frowned looking around for it's source and saw a small wooden box on the dresser next to the window.

"Did the home invader leave this" I observed the box it had a strange red rectangular spyral on it's lid and seemed to be very old. I strained my ears and comfirmed that the ringing sound was definitely coming from the box.

I reached to open the box but, hesitated slightly before touching it. This thing was left here by the strange person who broke into my house and literally anything could be inside and knew that I definitely should not open the box under any circumstance.

I opened the box "I really hate myself sometimes."

I flinch slightly half expecting it to explode but, the seconds passed and nothing happed except for the ringing sound getting sightly louder. I opened my eyes to see a small black mask with red trim around the eyeholes and, a piece of torn notebook paper on top of it.

"What is this" I questioned while picking up the piece of paper?

"You are the Ninja" it read.

Confused I crumpled the paper and tossed it to the side and turned my attention to the mask. When I picked it up it felt warm in my hands like it was just worn.

I stared into the mask and my body moved on its own like it was driven by instinct and slowly slid the mask over my head. I felt my body lift off of the ground and my vision somehow shifted to a stange third person view. Where I could see my body engulfed in black ribbons that extended out from the mask.

My feet landed softly back on the ground and I felt like I had just found something I had been missing my entire life. I looked down and examined myself. My old clothes were gone and I was covered in a skin tight black suit with a bright red scraft wrapped around my neck.

A sense of power flooded my body and I felt like there wasn't anything I couldn't do. I jumped preforming a triple back flip while throwing the scarf out and having it wrap around my lamp before pulling back to me.

"This is awesome" I squealed to myself like a teenage girl! "I AM The Ninja!"

The NInja was an absolute legend in Norrisville. The city has been constantly been attacked monsters for the passed 800 years and it was the Ninja who kept them from destroying everything.

Even though the Ninja has been around for over 800 year every one knew he wasn't some immortal monster and that the title was passed to a different person every couple of years, it was pretty easy to tell because his body type was always changing.

People always wondered how the new ninja was chose. Whether it was a family thing or if there were trials along with all kinds of other crazy theories. I had no idea why I was chosen but, I knew that the next few years of my life were going to be absolutely amazing.

I completely lost myself in excitment and started jumping around my room doing all sorts of acrobatic tricks. Oblivious to me while I was doing this the strange ringing sound was getting progressively louder.

I was in my own little world and didn't even hear the sound any more and as if it didn't like being ignore the sounds went from a plesant ringing to a horrible screaching like nails ona chalkboard.

I was in the middle of another back flip at the time and fell to the ground in pain while covering my ears. The sounds soon died down and my attention was drawn back to the wooden box that the sound came from.

If the sound wasn't coming from the Ninja mask where was it coming from? I took another glance inside the box and saw a thick book with the same rectangular spiral as the box that had the same color scheme as the mask.

"How did I not notice that before" I asked myself while picking up the book. Once I touched the book the ringing sound stopped and the same erie red light from earlier flooded out from the books pages as if begging me to open it.

Cautiously I opened up the cover wondering what was inside. Much to my disappointment though the first page was completely blank. Unsatisfied I began flipping through all of the pages and realised that they were all the same.

"What the juice book! getting me all hyped up like that and then not delivering!"

Upset by the lack of content in the book I prepaired to throw it aside and focus on the mask and the awesome ninja powers I just got. But, at that exact moment the blank pages flashed red and the world spun around me.

A second later when I regained my sense I was falling from the sky and could see the ground quickly coming up below me. I shielded my face and cried out while hoping that it wouldn't hurt too much.

". . ." The after a good while I realized that something was wrong I should have long since gone splat. I squinted open one of my eye to see what was happening and realised that I was hanging suspended just above the ground.

"What the" I flailed around trying to right my self and failing miserably.

Just when I was about to give up something seemed to snap and I fell flat on my face getting a mouth full of dirt.

"Putta pu pu" I spat before standing up and wiping myself off.

I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath to calm myself down before trying to figure out what the heck just happened.

Now that I was calm and firmly on the ground I noticed something that I didn't see while I was falling to my "death". Everything looked like it was made of paper the ground, the sky, even the small blades of grass around my feet.

I walked over to a small tree that was nearby and reached for a leave and to my shock it really felt exactly like paper and I even managed to tear off an entire tree branch like it was nothing.

"What is going on" I whispered?