My story begins many years back from our current time when I was about six. I was very young when I defied my parents? wishes by going to the shallow waters of our enormous pond. I was always curious of what lied above the surface and could not help but want to explore. I looked around, bobbing on the surface before I became startled by a voice from nowhere. "What are you doing in there??" it said. "Mother told me we are not to venture in the waters of Blue Draik Pond. Do you need help?" I turned my head so quickly towards the source of the voice that I swear I could have gotten whiplash. The speaker had to be my age maybe even a little older. He looked almost exactly like my species of underwater dwellers only his golden color was like nothing I had ever seen before and he did not look like he was built for the waters like me and the others of my kind. My eyes followed the dark brown splotched pattern all down his body in amazement and his dark blue eyes reminded me so much of the ocean that I almost felt as though I could get lost in them. He gave me an awkward glance. "Um, here, let me help you out of there." He had extended his hand to me with the most courteous of smiles and I could not help but accept it. Upon helping me out he scanned my form and gave me a puzzled look. "I've never seen you around here." He said. "And your markings and such are pretty weird. Like your ears though, and the pink really suits you." I knew for a fact that I was blushing at this point and he just smiled and turned and started to walk away from me. He went some distance before calling back. "Hey! Come join me. You can help me eat the food I brought for my picnic!" I hesitated for a bit before running after him. I caught up with the male and he introduced himself as Koadda. He then told me that he likes to spell it with one "D" even though it has two and in return I told him my own name and that I just went by Kalu because its less time consuming when you have to write it down or something. I spent all day with this new friend of mine and his delicious Peanut Butter and bananas sandwiches, a food I had never tasted before and had instantly fallen in love with. From then we agreed to meet each other in this spot and he'd bring food from his town and I brought food from mine. It did not take long for him to figure out that I came from the forbidden underwater city of Dermada. But he never pestered me with questions that most people would have if they ever ran into someone of my kind, and this I appreciated very much for the many years we got together.

One day Koada came down to the pond with someone I had never seen before. I became furious with him because he had promise to never inform another soul about me and especially to never bring someone to Blue Draik pond; it would jeprodize my people in more ways than one. "Whoa! Cool it Kalu." He had said as I rambled on in an angered tone. "He's harmless, I swear. Vintiku here was found close to death floating down the river by my town. He may be a krawk but he's not so bad." Koada smiled and nudged Vintiku in the side. I gave him the once over and I could not help but feel uncomfortable by his very presence but I extended a hand of friendship out to him anyway. "My name is Kalulaki, it's, um, nice to meet you Vintiku." He shook my hand, his crimson eyes meeting mine, and said the pleasure was all his.
More time passed on and with each passing year my uncertainty of Vintiku never changed. While we played one of our usual games or sat down to eat one another's food I noticed him constantly glancing towards the pond, in which my city lied safely beneath the surface, and then drift silently into deep thought. I did not know much about his species or about him for that matter; he did not talk much and I dare not ask him.

Only after four years did Vintiku show his true colors. It was a dark and quiet night in Dermada when the ground started to shake so violently from the land above. It was on the eve of my 14th birthday and because of this the first thing that ran through my mind, as I lay in my bed, was that this was just part of some celebration. It was not till the second violent shake came by, knocking me out of my bed, did I realize that these sounds had nothing to do with the celebration of my birth. There came an assortment of noises from the streets below, outside my home. I saw that our armies had been called upon which could only mean one thing: A war. No one had ever attacked Dermada but several times the king of Koada's town (I realized I had never asked the name of it.) would reach out to Dermada's king for assistance if ever they needed it. This was our way of paying them back for keeping our city a secret. I did not know for a fact that this was what was happening but I had to find out; I had to know that Koada was ok. I opened my wind*w and swam out it to the surface of the pond. I prayed it was nothing to bad especially since I knew my father would have to get involved, but as soon I surfaced my worst nightmare stood before me. Fire towered over the many treetops that divided Dermada from Koada's peaceful little town. The town had clearly been set ablaze and the yells and crys from its residents could be heard above anything else. Tears fell from my eyes by this sight alone and I ran out of the water only making it as far as the shore before collapsing to my knees and covering my face with my hands. But before I could linger in my sorrow for too long I heard a rustling from the forest and rose to my feet. "Koada?" I looked in the direction of the rustling. "Nope. Someone better..." A familiar voice said. Vintiku's tall figure emerged from behind the trees, a smirk occupying his face. "Vintiku! What happened? Oh, I've never been so happy to see you!" I said as I ran over to him embracing him in a hug. "I'm so scared. I don't know what to do and I was so worried about you and Koada." He grabbed my right arm with his left hand and placed his other hand under my chin and brought my gaze to his. "We both know that you could have cared less about happened to me Kalulaki, and as for happy to see me, that's only because it gives you some hope that he's still alive. Am I right?" I stared into Vintiku piercing red eyes and my body started trembling with fear. There was something different about him, something unpleasant. "Let go of me, Vintiku." I said in a shaky tone, trying to back away from him and release his hold on me. But it was no use and he pulled me closer. "If you don't let me go now my father will punish you brutally for even lying a hand on me!" Anger over threw the fear in my voice as I said this, but Vintiku still looked down at me with a smirk that told me this did not phase him. I pushed as hard as I could against his chest and he released his grip causing me to fumble backwards barley catching myself from falling to the floor. "You have no idea who you are dealing with!!" I yelled at his shadowed figured. "I never told you or Koadda but-!" He held out a hand to silence me. " I know very well who you are princess but neither your father or his little army is nothing compared to me and my army of krawks who have already destroyed that ignorant little town who took me in as one of they're own." Here he could not halter a laugh. "People trust other to easy. You're a good example of that princess." He started to make his way towards me. "Stop right there...I command you!" I started to move back hoping I could make it to the water before he got to me. "You have no control over me Kalu." And he ran at me with raised claws. I let out a yell and thought for sure I was a goner but I heard a sound as if a river flowing over my head and I heard Vintiku grunt and looked up in time to see him fly backwards into a tree. I turned to see my father and the whole Dermada army emerging from out of the pond and a smile crossed my face. I ran over to my father and hugged his armor-covered body tightly. "Get back to the city now Kalulaki!!" He yelled at me not even sparing me a glance. "But father!?" I tried to argue. "Now!" I turned to see that Vintiku had already gotten to his feet and was licking the blood off his lower lip. "Is that all you've got, your majesty?" he said brushing himself off. My father yelled and held out his left hand and a jet stream of water shot towards Vintiku but this time it was almost like he disintegrated and he was not in the place where he had been standing or anywhere else for that matter. "Where are you coward!" My Father called out to the trees. "Everywhere..." Said Vintiku's voice in a calm tone. And before anyone knew what was going on, sections of the large Dermada army started to collapse and yells of pain seemed to be coming from every direction. They seemed to be getting attacked from every angle but the attacker was no where to be seen; and to make matters worse I turned to face the forest and saw hundreds of eyes looking out at the commotion and hundreds of krawks ran out and joined in on the one-sided fight. I ran behind a large rock for now the battle was to wide for me to even make it back into the water. I caught sight of Vintiku as he dashed amongst thousand of aquatic draiks taking them down with one slash of his ebony claws. I felt so helpless as I turned and leaned back against the rock, I had no significant powers yet to contribute in the fight so me going out there would have made me more of a problem than a help. Before I knew what had happened I herd a sound like a flame-thrower and looked over the top of the rock to see Vintiku and a pair of other krawks behaving just like that. Fire covered over everything in sight and disintegrated all it touched from enemy to accomplice they could care less as the flames spilled out of their mouths and onto anything and anyone. When they finally stopped nothing was left except ash; even the water in the extremely deep pond that hid our city had partially evaporated. "What now Vintiku?" One gray colored armored krawk that had been also breathing fire asked the smiling figure at the front of the wreckage. "Go find more troops and take them into the city. Destroy anything and everything. You don't have to leave me anything, I've had my fun for tonight and I have to have alittle conversation with the princess." He turned his gaze to me and flashed me a smile and I sunk back down onto the cold ground behind the rock. "Right." The gray krawk said and he ran back into the woods headed to the town. Vintiku came up to the rock and leaned over the top and looked down at me. "Hello, Kalu. I'm off the clock at the moment so let's talk, ok?" He climbed over the rock and sat down a foot or too in front of me. "You're a monster..." I said tears streaming from my eyes. "I know, but that's what makes me, me." He pulled his crimson framed goggles of his head and started to clean off the lenses mumbling something about how the blood stains would be a pain to take off. "If you're going to kill me Vintiku, just hurry up and do it." He laughed at this statement and took his attention away from his goggles to look at me. "Come on Kalu, do you really think I would hurt a girl? That's just heartless. Honestly." He looked back at the goggles with a smirk and continued to clean them. "But there is one bit of bad new." He said to his goggles. "See, my boss wanted me to bring you to him-" "I'd rather die than have anything to do with your boss!!" I yelled at him, now digging my hands into the earth due to my anger. "Let me finish before you bite my head off. Now, like I was saying, he wants me to deliver you to him but being as I'm going to kill the whole lot of them after I'm paid for all this fun I had there's really no point." I looked at him almost in pure shock. I had always had a feeling that Vintiku was not what he had first appeared to be but this was like nothing I had thought. "So this is what I'm going to do." He continued. "I'm going to knock you out and drop you in some ditch somewhere far away from here, say I killed you and all that good stuff and you'll be free to go where you please and you can't return here because when I say far away I'm mean far away." I stood up in protest. "Now wait a min-!" The last thing I remember was hearing him say "Goodnight." and then I fell to the floor.

I woke up sometime in the afternoon, lying in shallow water in some kind of hole. "A ditch..." I said to myself, getting up and rubbing my head where I only assumed is where Vintiku had hit me. I climbed out of the ditch and sure enough had no idea where I was. I leaned against a tree and tried desperately not to cry. I guess this is my new home, some forest in the middle of nowhere. Upon exploring my new surroundings I found a large body of water and decided to make camp here. My home, my parents, a kingdom I never even got to rule over, all gone.

I did nothing but survive for the first year but after that I decided I would go out and find my original home. I kept the place where Vintiku had left me as my place of current residence but I continued to look. 3yrs after the destruction of my home I stopped off in a little town city called Meridell and while shopping for some food, I had dropped some apples and before I could bend down and pick them up it had already been done. "Are these yours?" the guy who had picked up one of my apples said. Upon actually looking at the figure I dropped all my groceries and stared at him almost in shock. "It's been awhile, Kalu." Koadda said to me with a smile. Before I even knew what I was doing I had thrown my arms around him and almost made him fall over. "Oh My!! Koadda!" I placed my hands on his face. "Is it really you? Please tell me I am not dreaming again." He took my hands off his face and said calmly. "Yeah, it me and as far as I know I'm not a dream, although we could be in the same dream or something but I don't think that's possible." He smiled at me and I hugged him again.

Though saddened by all my loss, I think there is nothing I can do but move on. I see no purpose in going after Vintiku and wanting revenge on him. In all honesty what Koada and the others are doing makes no sence to me. I'd rather just live the rest of my life in peace. I want no more blood to be shed over such things. No amount of lives taken will bring my kingdom or my faimily back. I guess I am the only one who can accept this.