Story Starter Comp 01 entry

    "The air seemed to be thinning with every breath I took, and before I knew it I could hardly breathe. Everything I was seeing was beyond belief. This is what everyone had wanted, everyone had needed, and now that I was witnessing it, I knew that no one could ever find out. I had to keep this to myself..."


    The icy cold gives my breath substance. The white puff bursts through my mouth and disappears just as fast like a fleeing ghost. I curl my arms tighter under my coat, shielding my body against the subzero temperature. The peak of the mountain under my feet has been flattened out due to water erosion, I presume. After all, there does rest a small spring at the top of this mountain. The tiny ripples that travel to the edge of the pool in front of me licks the tips of my leather boots. Water erupts from the center of the spring. A constant flow always maintains itself here. Without even thinking, I kneel down to the edge of the pool, cup my hands, and scoop in some of the water like I’ve done so many times before. The cool water passes through my lips and down my throat, flowing through me like medicine. In a way, it is.


    After my drink, I stand up straight and face the rising mountains surrounding me. The mountain I am standing on is small compared to those around it. Not a single cool breeze even dares to venture here, even the smallest breath would get ripped to shreds by the spiking peaks. No, the spring, here, is peaceful and quiet. It is untouched by man, pure, and pristine. That is why none have found this place yet and why none ever shall.


    I begin the long trek back down from the mountaintop and the spring. Even though the path is riddled with unstable cliffs, wild twists and turns, and a carpet of slippery snow to top it all of, I could have gone through the path with my eyes closed. Such a daily activity teaches the body to act before the mind does. My own home is a bit further down the steep slope. It is a small cottage resting on a more stable cliff. It has endured the test of time, many times over.


    I throw open the door to welcome the warmth of the fire I left this morning onto my skin. Undressing is like peeling off layers of a cocoon, leaving the shell dropping to my sides as I fly over to the fire. A blanket lies right next to my wicker rocking chair, right where I left it the day before and the day before that and the day before that. The familiar routine just emphasises how much my life is like clockwork. Routines have been my life everyday. Climb up the mountain, drink from the spring, rest at home, then go out again to watch over the only entrance to this mountain: through a virtually impassable canyon between two mountains. It is the very same, every day. However, I don’t understand why I do it anymore. The route has been blocked off by an avalanche about a century ago. All has been quiet since then.


    I look up to the mantle of the fireplace. The wall above the stone pit is decorated to the point of extreme clutter. Swords of all kinds of breeds rest on hooks and on the mantle as well as many ornate spears, bows, even a few rifles. They are not mine, yet they rest in my home. I do not like them very much, but they have accumulated over the years. They are all that remains of those who brought them. All of them, every single one of them, were headed for the peak. Even if they didn’t think that was their goal, it was. Men hailing from nations across the sea, adorned in shining armor of old, were all after the prize. None had reached it. That was many many centuries ago, millenias even. I am the only one left who lived to know what became of them all. As protector of the spring, I had to kill them.


    It amuses me how much drive a prize can generate. It can either drive a person to success or drive a person mad trying to obtain. Whether the first is true in the beginning, it often leads to the latter in the end. My eyes are drawn to the basket beside the fireplace, filled with old and dusty books in leather binding. Many of the pages have rotted away, some have been preserved. I get up to grab one from the top of the pile and return to my seat. The cover is blank, but I know exactly what it is and the contents of it.


    I gingerly open the cover to a page I have bookmarked and have read hundreds of times. The page bears a date at the top, sometime in the seventeenth century which, as I recall, was the last time I had an explorer tread through. I hold his journal, held before I had to take his life. His last journal entry described the peak. It stops halfway through the page, the remainder of the parchment splattered with blood. His final words are the exact description of what happens to every explorer that falls upon the spring: selfishness takes hold.


    "The air seemed to be thinning with every breath I took, and before I knew it I could hardly breathe. Everything I was seeing was beyond belief. This is what everyone had wanted, everyone had needed, and now that I was witnessing it, I knew that no one could ever find out. I had to keep this to myself...

   "The Fountain of Youth"