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// 1: Awakening 
// Story: The Night's Shining Armour 
// by Appleody 
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Chapter 1

Well today something interesting finally happened. It’s been I don’t know weeks, months, maybe even years of black nothing, but finally no more. Now it’s just slightly dim and I’m clearly within a room of some sort, on a floor rather than floating in an endless void, how wonderful. Never thought I’d actually leave that place, being probably dead an all that.

Anyways, this room is pretty huge. The ceiling is a good 2 or 3 stories and there’s a whole load of pillars holding it up. Well supposed to be holding it up. Many of them appear to have collapsed leaving large holes in the roof allowing the moon to shine in upon me.

Enough lying on the floor gaping at the mess and beauty that is existence, better get moving. As I attempted to stand it felt incredibly difficult to balance like I was top heavy, so I just sat down to examine my predicament. I mean I haven’t moved myself in God knows how long, I’m probably a walking skeleton or summit. Well, this is odd. I don’t appear to have any arms or legs really. Just these floating metal disks in front of me. They definitely move when I try to move my limbs. Well, that’s odd to say the least, not to mention the ominous black gassy stuff that’s connecting them to my main body. “Right, I need a mirror,” wow my voice is creepy now.

After once again attempting to stand on my not legs, I found it much easier to balance on all fours, which is really weird seeing as my main body just floats above those disks, but that doesn’t matter at the moment. Now come on, is there a mirror? Ah perfect, there’s a broken one by the large entrance doors. Some people may think that walking on all fours would be difficult without legs, nonetheless I nailed it. Didn’t even stumble once, “ah dammit,” or twice, “stupid invisi legs,” or even 3 times, “hello again floor,” no siree.

Anyhow, the mirror showed a very peculiar sight to my non-existent eyes. There stood before me, was what appeared to be a mostly empty suit of horse armour. Empty aside from the black smoke that filled it out in the shape of well, a horse duh. The armour itself only consisted of a helmet (my head), a chest piece (my torso) which just floated in the air and 4 hoof shoes (my whole legs). It was also coloured a nice shade of navy blue. 

I mean I look kind a cool, but having no limbs is just a little irritating. Wonder if I find more armour If I can apply it to myself? As I thought that the metal from my feet, hooves, shoes dammit whatever, extended upwards to create full leg guards and my torso expanded to cover my invisible behind. Oh, cool now I just need a face. Concentrating real hard and ah here we go, a face plate formed. It had no features what so ever apart from 2 eye holes but that’s better than nothing.

Well, no sense remaining here staring into my beautiful eye sockets. Better get going. At that I began making my way out of what appears to be a dilapidated throne room. Hopefully there’ll be some people around who can guide me. Yeah right, this place has clearly been deserted for at least a few years, just look at the walls. All the paints coming off and cracks are forming on every surface. Wouldn’t be surprised if this place’s structure was completely unsound. If the collapsed pillars weren’t my first clue. That’s beside the fact that what self-respecting person is gonna help a demonic looking smoke monster.

After walking through a good 3 or 4 long hallways of broken furniture and destroyed pictures, I finally found the exit and what a sight to behold I tell ya. A massive, I can only say crevasse surrounds basically the entire castle with just a flimsy rope bridge to traverse it. Not to mention on the other side, there was nothing but the thickest, darkest most uninviting forest I have ever seen. I haven’t seen that many forests, but I’m pretty certain this one is the least friendly. 

Well certain death followed by probable death and I was having such a great day of just existing. I need to come up with some sort of plan here. If I go in that forest, I could be lost for a very long time and whatever beastie I meet may just decide to make me a snack. First priority, find a direction. The easiest way for that is to get some height, so to the top of the castle. Climbing the damaged tower was pretty easy and despite the tower being half its original height I could see all the way across the forest. Arg it goes for miles, but what’s that in the distance. Clearly a light from an unnatural source is coming from that direction. Maybe it’s a town I can’t quite tell. Well, that way it is. It’s nice to have goals in life.

Now to climb back down the tower… ah damn. As I took the first step, I lost my balance for the first(hundredth) time and fell right down the stairs hitting my helmet every other step. At least I reached the bottom fast. As I checked myself other for injuries or I suppose dents it was surprising to find none whatsoever. Wow I’m pretty resilient. More resilient than the stone tiles I turned to dust anyways. So, with a happy hop to my shoes, I began traversing the safest bridge with my impressive quadrupedal motion. 

After the inevitable breaking of old rotten boards and my plummet of about let me see, a million feet. I hit the bottom with quite a clang, that force was enough to cause me some slight issues in the staying alive area. The crash had scattered my limbs a good few meters apart. Ah I hate this, form can’t I have some flesh and blood please? At the complaining my body just sort of magnetised and all my limbs flew back to me. Wow flesh and blood bodies suck, they’d surely be paste right now.

Right so after the hour climb up the ravine, I finally reached the other side. Huh not even tired after that climb go weird smoke stamina. Now to head to the light of hope. All I need to do is traverse the darkest forest, no big deal. If I possessed the ability to, I probably would have gulped. No time like the present, lets press on. After standing there for a good 10 minutes listening to many animal sounds. “I said let’s press on”.

Upon entering the forest, I found the welcoming bright light of the moon severely diminished by the trees. That was creepy enough, but with the thickness of the foliage it was very difficult to maintain a straight course to my hopefully safe haven. Got to be optimistic about that. They're probably people who are really friendly, who’ll fully understand my situation. Yep totally. They’ll even meet me half way and give me directions. My attempts at distracting myself from this situation didn’t really calm my nerves. Especially when the animal sounds started getting louder and clearly closer.

*Snap!* 

Oh, that’s probably just a squirrel or something nearby, I thought while increasing my pace. What in its right mind would want to eat metal anyway? Okay, that's more crinkling coming from both sides of me and, can I see a green glow? Oh, those look like eyes, at least 3 pairs. Time to run I should think. 

With the prey running, these eyes started to give very rapid chase easily keeping pace with me. Once they gave up on a stealthy approach, I could clearly see them for what they are. Wooden wolves, man this world is full of weird stuff. At least my existence is more the norm now I suppose. Are wooden creatures weirder than metal ones? Anyway, got some running to do.

The wolves were chasing me for a good few hours. You’d think they’d catch me immediately but with my armoured form I could charge straight through most obstacles like bushes and even the occasional small tree, while they had to go around. The slight distance and my lack of any fatigue made me believe I could outrun them forever, but being wolves that work as a team and know the forest like the back of their paw, they had the advantage. I never realized one had broken off. This wolf managed to get around and pounce on me from the front knocking me off balance and causing me to trip.

That fall basically spelt my doom, as I felt to pairs of serrated wooden teeth start trying to tear into my limbs. That feeling alone caused me to cry out in fear. I like to think I’m not a complete coward, but I feel like believing your about to die allows you to cry out for your life. Anyway, while rolling about on the floor with 2 wolves franticly mauling every part of me that they could get their mouths to fit, I noticed the third wolf was nowhere to be seen. Not only that, but there didn't seem to be any pain from these many bites. If anything, the wolves appeared to be losing many teeth from my assault upon the inside of their mouths. 

Ha, looks like metal beats wood I suppose. At this I attempted to stand while one wolf was trying to pin me by my helmet. When I put the effort in, this wolfs endeavour appeared frivolous. It also made it all too easy for me to grip its head with my hooves and squeeze. This resulted in a very loud crunching of poor wolfys skull. Ah well that caused him to let go. The second wolf continued biting at my back legs, to which I responded by doing what all horses want to do and bucking it with both shoes. This then destroyed the second and while spinning around looking for the third I realized it had already been crushed by my earlier fall.

Oh well, me three wolves nil. That green light from the eyes still seems to be present which can’t be good. Yep, just as I thought that the wolves began reforming and attacking. Every time things start to look up it just gets worse, story of my life it would seem. Maybe aiming straight for the green light might put them down for good? Otherwise this is going to be a long unstoppable force vs immovable object situation.

After what felt like an hour of me trying to grab a wolf again, I managed to get one by the neck and pin it to the ground. Well, nothing left now but to stamp it out of existence. The resulting woodchips spread over the surrounding area but the green light remained. What more do you want from me wolf? Come on just go away, leave this plane of existence. Its easy trust me. 

Right, new plan, it’s been like 2 hours. Maybe if I grab the lights and keep them away from the wood they’ll dissipate. Sound strategy probably. After catching the fortieth reformed wolf I pulled it's eyes inside of my armour, which the moment they touched the smoke dissipated immediately. I also felt kinda full like I’d just had a full meal. It’s two friends also had a reaction to this. They immediately began whimpering and just ran as fast as their legs could carry them. “You better run!” If I need to eat something I suppose it’s those wolves.

With that sorted I better find my way back to the light. After doing a quick 360 turn, ah that ways got all the destroyed trees from my run so, by my deductive reasoning, I should head in the opposite direction. Onwards to safety.

After way to long, you could say a few hours, a path opened up in the trees and a path means people, so I decided to follow it. Come on town I’m almost safe. The trail wound around a bit between the trees led over a river and finally reached a break in the treeline. “Civilization please,” I couldn’t help but shout with joy. I couldn’t help but run towards it.