29 Day Writing Challenge - Day Three

Figment is having a 29 Day Writing Challenge for the month of February. I am a few days behind (okay, two weeks behind), but I am going to catch up. Here is Day Three.

You wake up with a key gripped tightly in your hand. How did you get this key? What does it lock or unlock?

Willow wakes up with a start. He sits up trying to figure out why he awoke so suddenly. The key is in his hand.

He is not ready for this. 

He never wanted to join The Order but it was expected of him, to be like his father and his father before him. The same old story. Being a Gate Keeper was dangerous, which is why everyone always ran. Which is why Willow is holding himself up in a shelter he made deep in the Perricu Forrest, because spending his days fighting off ursis and angui and spending his nights sleeping in spurts, staying on guard so no creature will eat him, is safer than being a Gate Keeper.

Every year, seven eight-year-old boys are inducted into The Order. They are hand chosen by The Order Elders; each child needs to process a certain set of traits, they very from year to year and child to child, so no one is sure what those traits are. 

After two years of training, the boys are placed in their sects. Willow was placed as a Gate Keeper.

Gate Keepers go through extensive training in a very short amount of time because no one knows when the next Keeper will be chosen or who it will be. As soon as Willow had the chance, he ran, just as most young boys do. The Elders don’t care because the next Keeper is always found, no matter where he is.

Willow has been running for two years, he thought for sure he had outran The Order. But you can never outrun The Order.

Once a Gate Keeper receives his key, he returns to The Elders to accept his orders; the new Keeper realizes it is time to accept his fate.

The twelve year old sat on the dirt floor, staring at the key in his hand when an idea struck him. 

Keep running.

No Gate Keeper has ever continued to run after receiving his key, The Elders will not know what to do. Maybe running is the key to defeating The Order.

Willow gets up, puts the key in his pocket, and runs.