The warrior

I WOKE up and realised it wasn’t a dream. The land seemed barren, and I heard the anguished cries of fallen warriors. I passed out again.

When I regained consciousness, I found myself in the village’s medical hut with my friend Thomas next to me. “Hey, you lost a lot of blood, so we brought you here,” said Thomas.

I sat up and propped myself against the wall.

“I want to get out of here,” I said. “The nurse says you need rest,” Thomas said. But the look on his face told me that he made that up himself, out of concern. I stared at him calmly, and he finally surrendered with a sigh.

“We lost more warriors this time. We had to put some of them out of their misery. Carol, Kelvin, even Greg ...”

“Stop, I don’t want to hear about deaths,” I replied.

My father is the village chief, Dan the Destroyer. Like every other kid, I went to a campus where they taught us how to fight. Now, our skills were being put to the test. There was an alien invasion and we had to stop it.

We learnt that these aliens could evolve. They could study us, and predict our next moves. They could learn and improve themselves. How could we possibly fight against that?

I went forward to give my pre-war speech. It was a tradition followed by every leader.

“I myself do not like violence. But these aliens have shown no mercy in killing our people. So are we going to fight back, or let them tear us apart?”

The dead silence was followed by loud cheering. I knew I had the people’s backing.

The clank of metal swords and the war cries sounded all too familiar. We charged into the enemy base, knocking out every one of them. One of them appeared above me and tried to attack me, but Thomas jumped out from behind and slashed it.

Suddenly, a grey hand with sharp claws grabbed Thomas’ face from behind. I lifted my sword and slashed at it, and Thomas dropped to the ground.

“Are you all right?” I cried. “Avenge me. Swear you’ll destroy the one behind this,” whispered Thomas.

“I swear,” I mumbled.

I saw life draining out of Thomas. Then a shadow rose from behind me. “It was you?” I cried in disbelief. “I wanted to see how you would fare in the midst of battle,” said my father, Dan the Destroyer. – Max Ng Jie Ming, 12

Max Ng Jie Ming wins the Creative Writing prize for February. He walks away with

Usborne 10 More Ten-Minute Stories

Pax

worth RM54.90 and by Sara Pennypacker worth RM39.90, courtesy of MPH Distributors.

Write away!

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by Jean Ure (RM33.90), by Christian O’Connell (RM39.90) and

Dance Boy Born To Radio Elon Musk And The Quest For A Fantastic Future

(RM34.90) – for the writer who sends in the best contribution for March. Prizes are sponsored by MPH Distributors.