Age of The Card- The King of Spades

It was midnight on the 13th, and Noel had just fallen into her bed ready for sleep until she remembered the mysterious card that had shown up in her room last week a couple of days away from her birthday. She had just turned 10 years old, but she was more mature than regular kids her age, while everyone else was playing around she would help her mother out around the house. Noel looked out of the window from her bed, the scenery was beautiful covered in soft silver moonlight like it was. As she stared outside, she kept on debating with herself if she should go to the Willowtrail Creek or not. After about ten minutes, her curiosity got the best of her so she stood up and dressed in some black clothes so that no one would see her. As Noel looked around her house to see if anyone was awake, she did not realize this would be her last time in the little cottage she called home. Noel sneaked around the house till she reached the door, she opened it from the brass handle and ventured out into the night. As she stepped into the illuminated grass that was swaying back and forth, she got the chills. There was a soft chilly breeze outside, blowing the leaves around like they were pieces of freshly fallen snow blowing in the wind. Noel had never been outside at night, to her it was like she just went to a whole new world, it was beautiful like nothing she had ever seen before. Noel scurried outside quickly, and started to make her way to the creek. The hike was rocky, and her soft black hair that seemed to glow under the shining moon kept on hitting her face like a fish out of water. About ten minutes had passed since she left her house, and she was about to reach the creek when, she started to hear talking. It sounded like there were hundreds of people there, except if they were kids, then there would only be about 50 kids. When Noel finally reached were the voices were coming from, she saw what she guessed was about 70 kids, they were all standing next to each other talking while waiting for something. There were several torches spaced out around the kids, Noel was surprised that those few torches could make so much light. The torches reflected on the trees, as if the were invisible mirrors returning all the light, so that it was like one big sphere of light. Noel looked around the unfamiliar faces, and tried to find someone that she could identify but there was no one, actually, there was almost no one, among all the new faces Noel saw the most familiar face of all. Noel saw her brother, standing with everyone else, their gaze only meeting when the others noticed there was a new arrival to whatever was happening here. "Noel!" Leon shouted as he ran over to where I was. "What are you doing here and what's happening?" I asked him trying to keep my cool, I had too many questions for my liking. "Apparently we are here to take some type of "Magical" test, and to answer your other question, I got a weird card telling me to come here." Leon replied. "Oh" Noel said as she looked around, trying to figure out who sent the cards. Just as she gave up trying to find whoever gathered all the kids there, she heard a bell ring, and everyone's attention shifted over to where the sound was coming from. "Welcome everyone, to the Age Of The Card! You will do a test to see if you have magic here, but beware, if you are a mere magicless human, you will forget all about this night." A voice said from somewhere in the shadows of the trees. As all the kids stared towards the voice, a thin white boot appeared, and out onto the clearing stepped a young boy that seemed to be about 16 years old. "Who wants to go first?" The boy said, combing his dirty blonde hair with his pale hand. It would be hard to describe his outfit, as it looked differently for every kid. As the boy continued to walk forward, the whole scenery changed, and all the kids that had separated into groups had teleported to what seemed like a white endless void, with only but a snap of the boy's fingers. The boy turned around, and out of nowhere a black wooden door appeared. "Well? Let the test begin!" He shouted looking back to everyone, and then, he disappeared in a mysterious violet mist.

Noel looked at her little group, it was her brother, and a couple of their friends from the village, Percy, Starly, Uri, and Robin. The 6 kids usually talked a lot, but after what they had seen they were dumbfounded. Noel was about to start talking, but Starly grabbed Noel and Robin's hands, and rushed towards the door, then she looked back and told the others to follow her. By this time, a lot of kids had already gone through the door, so Noel's group wouldn't be the first to take the "test". As soon as Noel stepped through the door her friends disappeared, the room was the exact opposite of where she was just a moment ago. This time, the room was pitch black, Noel paced around looking around for anything that would prove that all this was real, then a table and two chairs appeared in what Noel thought was the middle of the dark room. She walked to the table and sat down in one of the chairs, and she noticed for the first time a small glass cube on the table. Noel picked it up and....it glew an bright neon green. She started to wonder what that meant, but just as she was about to come to a conclusion, the words "Please take the purple door up ahead!" appeared on the cube Noel slowly stood up and walked over to the purple door, she turned the silver door knob and creaked open the door. She walked out, and was back in the white room. The room was crowded with the kids that were there before, and Noel quickly found her brother and friends. "My cube turned red!" she heard Starly say, "My cube also turned red!" Percy exclaimed. "The cube I had turned green, and so did Yuri's" Noel heard Robin say, "Mine turned green" Leon said and finally Noel told them the color she got too. Just as the last kids came back into the room, two ginormous metal doors appeared before them, in between the two doors was a glass cube just like before but this time bigger. "Come up and tell the cube your color, it will tell you which door to pass!" The boys voice rang through the room. The group of friends lined up with the other kids, and waited patiently for their turn. First it was Percy, "Red" he said to the cube and in black letters he read "Take the door to the left". Next it was Yuri's turn, "Green" she said and the cube told her to go to the right door. Robin and Leon also went right, when it was Starly's turn, she said that she got Green, probably to be with Leon, everyone in the whole village knew that she liked him, but nonetheless she got the left door, mad as she was she tried to open the right door, only to disappear in the violet mist like the boy earlier had. When it was my turn, I said that I had gotten green, and passed through the right door. Not as many people as Noel though passed through the right door, her group was either just lucky or unlucky. "Congratulations! You have magic!" The young boy appeared before the few kids again. While some kids cheered, Noel was not certain this was good news. "What will happen now?" Noel asked after the cries of happiness and the cheers had died down a bit. Everyone became dead silent and looked at the boy, "Why what a silly question!" the boy cried, "You will be sent to the Ranking Realm! but of course you can choose if you want to climb the ranks!" he said nonchalantly. "Do we have a choice about going to this, Ranking Realm?" A small boy asked breaking the silence. "No" that simple phrase shook everyone to the bone, such a small word for such a terrible thing to happen. "I'll tell you everything. First of all, you are being sent to the Ranking Realm whether you like it or not. Your family will forget you, and it will be like you never existed. Of course you can go back, if you get the top rank, but there has only been one winner for hundreds of years. You can try to win, or just give up and live in the Ranking Realm. The magic world can't be shown to humans, all the kids that took the test and did not have magic where sent to their homes with no memory of tonight. The age of the card has been around for millions of years, but no one knows about it because they don't remember it. Your lives with magic start now!" the boy said disappearing with only one thing left behind, a door just like the one before, only this time the kids knew what was lying behind it, The Ranking Realm.