14

His parents had always warned him to stay away from the woods, being a little child as he was, he was just so insecure.



But he wouldn't listen, he was so fun of the woods, his favorite spot was at the little Brook where he could hear the birds chirping and the winds blowing calmly.



But he always had one problem, he was a big feeble and due to that, he was liable to fall prey to bullies, older wolves who took advantages of his feeble nature and his weakness.



Once he visited the Brook, his favorite spot where he wanted to enjoy the sweet melodic sounds of the chirping birds and the water gurgling it's way down.



He was caught on the way by some of these bullies.



"Hand over the pendant!", One of them ordered pointing towards the shiny pendant he had on his neck.



His mother gave him that shiny pendant earlier that day, as a mother to son gift.



The pendant was a shiny one, it caught everyone's attention and even those bullies who sought for it.



The pendant was a costly one, very expensive, but for one who wouldn't know the value or the worth of the pendant, they would take it from him and sell it for something far less than it's value, far less than it's original price.



"No!", Luke retorted holding on to the pendant like his life was fixed inside it.



"Don't make us hurt you kid!! Hand over the pendant!!!", Another from the gang of bullies uttered out with a serious frown on his face, clenching his fist and his jaw like he was about to kill him.



"No! I won't... Never", Luke said out again boldly but this time, he saw the reactions on the faces of each one of them.



They looked irate, ready to tear off his skin and feed om it raw at that very spot, and he was afraid of what they could do.



He quickly held on to the pendant which still laid on his neck and took to his heels, running away from their angry gaze and their grip



But he was a soft little boy, with no experience in tough situations like this.



The bullies outran him and surrounded him.



They were just three in number, but they blocked him on every side he wanted to use and escape.



They were huge, too huge compared to his small stature. He tried fighting his way through them, hitting them with his fist on their chest, but it felt like the winds blowing them.



His strength couldn't be compared with theirs. They were way older and if from their stature one would want to guess their ages, they would be at their sixteens or seventeen.



One of them, precisely he looked like the leader of the gang. His body was broad and his face was filled with terror and his aura alone instilled fear in Little Luke's heart.



He landed a heavy painful slap on Luke's face.



The force accompanied by the slap pushed him right into the ground, making his head bang against the rough ground.



His fingers were imprinted on Luke's face and the pain he felt, he never felt such in his life before



This was the first time he felt something stronger than his mother's beatings.



He was totally helpless on the ground, crying and using his little hands to crawl backwards while staring at the bullies who laughed at the way he looked and cried.



"Cry baby! Where's mommy now?", One of them mocked him as he walked closer to Luke and snatched the pendant off Luke's neck.



He watched as the bully took the pendant away from his neck, he couldn't lay there on the ground watching him take away the pendant away.



He sat there thinking of what form of excuse to tell his mother. If he never returned with the pendant, then his mother was going to kill him.



"No!", Luke screamed as he stood up from the ground and jumped on the bully who took the pendant from his neck.



He held onto his neck with all his strength, like his life depended on it, because it did



But the bully was too strong for him, and with one hand, he held Luke and threw him furiously to the ground, his back colliding roughly with the ground which had some pebbles on the ground.



Luke's single action had annoyed him so bad, he felt like killing him.



Enraged with the thought of beating the hell out of Luke, he pounced on Luke, slapping hi furiously and consistently on both cheeks without mercy, and holding his neck tightly like he was about to strangle Luke to death, until he couldn't fell anything again and fell to the ground lifelessly.



Luke could feel as the pressure on his neck get lighten and then the one who sat on him looking as if he would kill him, dropped lifelessly on the ground.



He looked up and there he saw Richard, with a very big wood, a debris from a tree in his hand.



Richard had struck the bully's head violently on his head, the force from it had made the bully either become unconscious or Dead.



"And who are you?", One of the other two asked as they both stood there and saw how Richard struck the other guy's head sending him into an unconscious land.



"Why don't you come and see?", Richard said boldly as he looked down on the ground.



They laughed seriously at the way Richard sounded.



"Why don't you come and see?", One of them said mockingly, imitating the way and manner Richard sounded.



Slowly, Richard lifted up his eyes and fixed his gaze on them, his burning eyes burned even more violently and the dark aura within him was felt from afar off.



The leader of the gang stood fearless, he was confident in himself, his stature and his fearsome looks, he compared himself inwardly to Richard who stood at the other end.



He boasted within himself, Richard wasn't as tall as he was, or as huge as he was, so he needed not to fear a little kid



"What are you going to do, huh?", He asked boastfully as he walked closer to Richard.



But before he could say Jack Robinson, Richard has smashed his left knee with the wood in his hand.



He fell to the ground, screaming in an agonizing pain, holding on to his knee and crawling away from Richard, looking very scared and terrified.



He didn't think that a boy who was half his height could make such an impact with the wood in his hand.



Of course, the wood was way bigger than him, looking very heavy to lift, but Richard swung it freely and easily and smashed his skull again.



The other bully who stood there watching all this things gasped for fear, his legs were shaky and the best thought and option he could choose was to flee for his safety and for his Life



Richard stood there and watched as the last bully standing ran away swiftly for his life, he had a smirk on his face and watched him leave.



Richard walked over to where the pendant laid, he picked it up and walked over to where Luke laid helplessly and then handed it over to him



"Here you go! Your pendant", Richard said as he stretched out his hand in a bid to making Luke stand.



"Thank you", that was all Luke could say as he collected the pendant but still rubbing his face which was already red in colour.



"My name's Richard. What's yours?", Richard asked politely.



"I'm Luke", Luke replied as he shook hands with Richard

"Come on! Let's go get some treatment for your face", Richard said as he led Luke out of the woods.



Two decades later, they never left each other's side. They kept on being friends till the present day.



Here was Luke, standing looking so fit and strong, obviously the few years which passed, he had learned every fighting skill from Richard.



But he still had something from those years behind, he still had on the pendant on his neck, looking more shiny than ever.