The Box

   "Come on Agii!" 

    The sound of children danced through the woodlands that surrounded them. 

   Chasing after one rough looking girl, was a 5'2 boy with messy brown hair. 

    "Hahaha, don't think you can escape me!" He'd shout before finding himself fumbling over tree roots. 

    Thud!

  Immediately he fell to the ground, having taken a hard fall from the root he ran over.  

     "Guhh."

   "You okay?" Another child leaned over his fallen body.

    "Mh mmh!" 

  "Huh?" The girl who was running would have approached. 

   "Mmh mmh!" 

    "What?" The two shared a look of confusion between each other. 

       "I said-" suddenly he rose from the ground grinning like a wild fox, "I got you!" 

    Grasp

  "Hey! That's not fair!" 

    She shouted, causing the others to come out of their hiding places, eyeing the trio. After sharing looks with one another they would all begin to let out a wild laughter seeing how he would have tricked Nina. 

     "As expected of Ageis, full of trick." A boy with a blonde set of hair chimed in. 

   "Anh?  Don't be upset because I used my head! Besides, it's ni ni's fault for falling for it." Ageis retorted, crossing his arms. 

    "Hah?   Only cowards use methods like that to win, you just couldn't catch up to me."  Megra, who watched the whole thing go down, said leaning into his face.

     "Besides, I'm sure Agii was just trying to cover up the fact that he fell pupupu!" Megra laughed, backing away from him. 

   "Geh! What was that?" Ageis started to chase her, scowling like an ogre. 

    This made the group burst into laughter once more. 

   "Why don't we start again, this time I'll be it!" Nina beamed with confidence. 

    "Uwah you're so smug, you really think you can catch us like that?" Ludolf reeled at what he witnessed.

    "Ni ni is gonna throw a fit again!" Ageis added with a cheeky grin. 

   As the two boys spoke, it caused Nina to turn red with anger. 

   "Grrr!  Go hide, I'm making sure I get you two first!" She stomped, turning to start counting.

    "Hey, make sure you count to 30 properly." Ageis teased.

    "Yeah, yeah I'm coming for you first!"

    Smirking with confidence Ageis made his run from the area. Rushing and jumping over the large tree roots of the Black forest.  Ageis had known the best places to hide, having always come to this part of the woods everyday of his life for the last 12 years. Ageis finished his chores early today allowing him and his friends, Nina, Ludolf and Megra to play hide n seek within the woods. 

   Although it wasn't allowed by the adults, the group had been playing in the woods whenever they got the chance to. Thanks to the subjugation group of their village, they could easily come into the woods only having to worry about low level monsters; who were all docile creatures. They had nothing to worry about- that's what Ageis had always thought anyways.  

    Dashing about the woodland, Ageis quickly ran about frantically looking for his first spot to hide in. Whenever they played hide 'n seek, Nina always proved the entire group to be easy catches. Her Quickness in catching everyone was something that terrified Ageis, however he was confident that this time would be different.

  "1,2,3.." She sang aloud in a tune. 

  Ageis came to one of his favorite hiding spots only to find Megra was huddled up in it. 

   "Oi! What are you doing in my spot!" He shouted in a hushed tone.

    "Bleghh! Go hide somewhere else loser." She retorted.

     Fuming with frustration, he desperately wanted to get her out of his spot. However, like the looming voice of death itself, Nina continued to count relentlessly. 

   "5,6,7.." She sang-songed louder. 

   With a long sigh, Ageis took off from that spot headed to another "good," spot, a bundle of bent trees. That grew in a circle-like cage, the trees acted like the best place to huddle oneself; however to his surprise , Ludolf ran right in before he could even get close!  

    "First come first served!" He said slapping Ageis' back making him yelp.

    Ludolf chuckled seeing Ageis cover his mouth still hearing the distant count of Nina. Ageis scowled at Ludolf running his thumb across his throat as a sign that he was gonna get him back for sure. Without any other choice, Ageis ran deeper into the woods. Searching for the perfect place to hide, his eyes went from the top of tree branches to the closely grown trees. They were too obvious, they all would expose him to the huntress Nina. He gulped as the sound of her counting continued to go on. Even though he had 30 seconds, time seemed to fly by faster than what he could keep up with. 

   "17, 18,19.." Nina sang happily, as she intended on winning.

   Crap, crap where can I hide?

   Ageis was terrified now, soon deciding to run down the side of a hill he spotted. Sliding down, turned into a full tumble. Crashing into what he managed to make out as a wrecked cart. 

  Thud!

   "Ouch…"

   Ageis rubbed his forehead slowly, opening his eyes to the chaos that surrounded him. To be exact, the first thing he noticed about the area wasn't the fact of the broken cart or scattered wooden barrels. But rather he noticed the various men who were strewn about the area. About 3 men laid on the ground with arrows, impaled into them. Pushing himself off of the cart, he took a closer look, noticing that that wasn't all. 

Splash!

  A red like liquid spread from under their bodies, making a puddle of sorts.  His leather shoe dipped into the pool of liquid that spread from them. 

   " Hey,are you okay?" He kneeled down shaking the men, however they didn't respond. 

     Pushing on them, only made the bodies seep more of this liquid out. After putting his hand on the backs of one of the men, it dawned on him as to what the liquid was. The distinctly strong smell of iron, and the foul stench of death reminded him of the time he watched his father put down one of their sheep. He was stunned, scattering backwards into the hill in shock. 

     "H-he's dead!" Ageis felt his heart pound, feeling his pulse at the ends of his fingers.

    Breathing erratically, Ageis world began to spin, turning his gaze from one of the men to the others that he started to notice. Now able to clearly see the thrashed bodies of the men and the cart. Horse tracks on the ground suggested that the horse that pulled the track was either stolen or was also- dead. 

   "Why? What happened?" Ageis questioned, wobbling like a drunkard.

    He wanted to know what happened,  feeling the shuddering fear of discovering a body for the first time of his life, he wanted to know why it happened. Just as he began to walk over the bodies, he could see the light chain mail and plated armor the men wore. Even more than that, the cart that they had been guarding was labeled with a symbol marking the Sun interlaced with dragon scales around it. He couldn't understand what it meant, who were these people?

     "KYAAAAH!!" a scream echoed from behind, making Ageis snap to the direction. 

    There Ludolf, Nina and Megra stood shuddering in fear. Nina, who covered her mouth after screaming, immediately hid behind Megra who could only but look over at Ageis in confusion and shock. 

    "O-oi Ageis what happened here, are those people..?" Megra bravely asked.

    Nodding his head, Ageis didn't do too well in being composed with the sight of death. Feeling like he could have wet himself at any moment. 

    "We should tell our parents!" Nina suggested having lost her previous bravado during their game of hide 'n seek. 

  "But if we do that we will get in trouble!" Ageis responded, watching Megra follow Ludolf down the hill. 

   Ageis shuddered, remembering the warnings of his father of how dangerous it was to be in the Black forest. Ageis was always adventurous and bright eyed for the sake of following his own curiosity. Having spent years playing in the forest without the knowledge of adults, getting caught made him feel like his whole world was coming down. He was so afraid of this happening that he always took the precaution to stay within the least monster populated areas of the forest. Having stolen the map of the subjugation group's route and knowing their routine.

   Wh-what do I do? Dad's gonna murder me!

    Ageis thought to himself, biting his lip at the idea of how his father would punish him. 

    Nina had no choice but to go down as well, giving the area a quick look hesitating to even follow however she did. Sliding down and ending up right next to Megra.

    "Do you think monsters killed them?" Ludolf asked Ageis, the rest looked to him in hopes he would know. 

    Ageis was the son of a retired imperial knight of the Vaitia empire, having served as part of the monster subjugation force and was the leader of the village subjugation force currently. It was a given that as his son, Ageis would know a thing or two about monsters. However, at this current moment Ageis couldn't tell. The attack on foreign to him, everything just felt so weird. Why were they here? What could have even attacked them? He looked for clues but his nerves couldn't hold him in a rational state of mind. 

    "I don't know." He muttered in response, making the others even more worried. 

     Ludolf decided to look around for clues, of course to the panic of everyone else.

   "What are you doing? We should leave, I don't wanna stay here!" She pleaded, hugging Megra who would try to comfort her. 

   "Lu, she's right, if we stay we will just get in even more trouble. Let's go." Megra would add onto the plea of Nina.

   "We can't just leave like this, if there's monsters here we have to tell the adults." Ludolf reasoned. 

    "N-no we can't tell anyone that we're here! We'd get in so much trouble." Ageis trembled at the idea of his dad finding out, knowing well that they weren't allowed into the woods. "We have to leave before they know we were even here!" 

    This didn't stop Ludolf's curious search as he soon came across something odd being protected by one of the corpses. 

   "What's this?" He mumbled pulling out a small case of some kind.

   An all red box of some kind that seemed to shine under the sunlight. The group shared curious looks between one another as Ludolf brought it back to them. Surrounding it, the group could clearly see how the box was designed. With a strange scaly engraving over the box surface, on the roof of it would be a single ruby like gem. The size of the box was about the size of a small ring box, however it held no signs of any hinges on it. Sealed shut, the box seemed like a mini chest.

    "What is it?" Nina asked as she peeked behind Megra, however no one could reply.

    Ageis stared in awe of the scaly box, his eyes widened finding himself drawn to it. Like a moth to a flame, Ageis couldn't help himself but try to reach over to the box. His hands shook as he brought his fingers over to the ruby, watching it glisten under the sunlight. It was beautiful,  the box was so beautiful. Suddenly Ageis found his fingers pressing against the ruby gem, it was so smooth. 

  No one spoke a word, as they watched Ageis touch the gem. Until-

Bzzzt

  A spark crackled from the gem and his fingers, immediately triggering a flash of red. 

   "Eh?" 

    Almost instantly that flash grew to a blindingly strong level, engulfing the entire group of children. The light grew so bright that all Ageis could see was red. That red soon turned to black. 

   [Wel...me..]