As the bright sunlight began to filter through the thin curtains of his bedroom window Samuel Holdridge woke up. Tiredly rising from his pillow, he looked over at the window. Morning already he thought wiping the bed from his eyes. While he had gone to bed at a reasonable time, he still felt tired as he had struggled to fall asleep. This was becoming more and more of an issue the closer he got to his 13th birthday as the excitement for what awaited him kept him awake wondering what blood skill he would soon receive.

  Sam pulled off the thin sheet laying atop of him and rolled out of his small single bed and wobbled over to his wooden closet to pick out some clothes for the day ahead. As he inspected the closet, he eyed a simple tan shirt and a worn-out pair of brown trousers. He grabbed them out of the closet and hobbled back over to his bed and placed them down in a heap. He unbuttoned his pajama shirt and neatly folded it and put it back down on his bed. Sam turned around facing toward his bedroom door, he walked over to it and pulled it open passing through into the hallway. He made a turn left down the hallway and began walking. He walked about 3 and half metres before he came upon the wooden door leading to the washroom.

  Sam opened the door and walked into the room looking for the tub of water in the far corner. He walked over to it, bent down and cupped the water in his hands and splashed his face. He then proceeded to dip a cloth that was hanging on the rack on the wall to the left and dipped it into the water. He began to wipe down his chest, back and armpits before dunking his head into the tub. He held his head under the water for 5 seconds before he lifted it out again allowing the water to drip off before drying off with a towel that had also been hanging on the rack to the left. He dried himself off with the rough towel before he wrung the water out of the cloth he used to wipe down his body and putting them both back on the rack. As had become part of his morning routine recently with the peak of summer heat leaving him sweating through the night, he proceeded to walk back to his bedroom to get changed.

  As he was approaching his bedroom door, he heard the voices of his mother and father in the living area, he sniffed the air as the scent of eggs wafted through the halls of the old wooden house. He proceeded into his bedroom and pulled on the clean clothes sitting on his bed. Once dressed he opened the drawer of the little table next to his bed and pulled out a clean pair of socks which he quickly slipped onto his feet before reaching under his bed and pulled out the worn leather boots which he wore when working in the fields with his father.

  Sam slipped his feet into the boots and tied up the laces with double knots. He stood up and took a tentative step forward. His toes pressed up against the end of the boot as he put his full body weight onto his left leg. Sam had been going through a growth spurt following his final year of junior school and had begun to outgrow his clothes. As his birthday was coming up, he thought that maybe he should ask for some new work boots but decided against it in case it cost him a better present. While his family wasn’t wealthy, they also weren’t poor either. Both his parents worked well-paid jobs that afforded them many luxuries the rest of the village couldn’t. While those that lived in the town closest to the village would have considered them everyday necessities, those who lived in the border villages saw them as luxurious items that only the wealthy could afford. While the cost of a new pair of boots wouldn’t hamper the finances of his family any other family from the village would have had to save for months to afford them. As Sam continued to think about the state of the small border village, he heard a call coming from the living room. “Sam, hurry up and get in here, your breakfast is getting cold” his mother shouted out down the hall. Sam snapped out of his thoughts and walked out of his bedroom, closing the door behind him and headed down the hall to the living room.

  Just as Sam reached the end of the hall a door to his right opened nearly smacking him in the face. Sam looked over at the opened door to see his little sister Charlotte standing there yawning. “Get out of the way Sam” his sister whined as he blocked her exit with a frown on his face “yeah yeah” he said as he continued into the living room. As he walked in, he saw his mother and father sitting at the dining table waiting for him and his sister to come and sit down. Sam walked over to the table and pulled out the chair to the left of his mum and sat down. In front of him sat a plate of steaming eggs, sausage and a couple slices of bread. One of the eggs yokes had broken and was leaking out onto the brown bread. Sam didn’t mind this as he liked soaking his bread in the egg yolks anyway and this saved him having to do it himself. As he reached for his fork he felt a slap on his wrist. “You wait for your sister to sit down before eating mister” his mother scolded. He puy his fork back down and waited as his sister began to pull her chair out. From under the table a loud screeching sound began shrieking out as the chair’s legs dragged across the tiled floor. Sam winced at the sound as he waited for his sister to sit down. Normally his father would have helped her pull the chair out but recently she had begun to become more independent and wouldn’t let him do it for her without putting her in a bad mood.

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  As his little sister finally sat down, he quickly grabbed up his knife and fork and began cutting into his food. He felt extra hungry this morning no doubt due to the summer heat sucking the life out of his growing body. It was the third week of summer; it had just started getting uncomfortably hot and sticky as the humid night air made sleeping all the harder. Adding on the excitement of his upcoming birthday sleeping had become a difficult task. It was only 3 days until his 13th birthday in which he like all other children on their 13th birthday would receive his blood skill. A skill unique to him that would determine whether his life would be like that of his father and mother or whether he would get a skill that would allow him to become more than a farmer. Thinking back on his time at the academy he remembered what his teachers had taught him about blood skills. “A blood skill” said Mr. Michael Trench his 6th year teacher at the Rimour Junior academy “is a unique skill that each person gets when they turn 13. A blood skill is made up of skill fragments also referred to as abilities which you unlock through the use of your skill. Depending on the rank of your skills you can have anywhere from a single skill fragment or single ability to eight of them. These as far as we can tell unlock at random or as some scholars say when a certain amount of proficiency is gained with your other unlocked skill fragments. The ranks of skills go as follows: Common which only have 1-2 skills fragments, uncommon which have 3-4, Rare which have 4-6 skill fragments or Legendary which have 6-8. There is also a Mythic rank, but this only ever occurs when a very powerful legendary blood skill develops into a true skill”. Mr. Trench went on to explain that your blood skills will transform into a true skill once you have unlocked all the skill fragments and have levelled up all the fragments to their max level, which is level 10. He said that a small number of blood skills will rank up when they become true skills. This was something Sam already knew as his mother’s common rank skill had upgraded to a uncommon ranked skill when Her’s became a true skill.

  Sam was suddenly pulled out from his thoughts as a hand pressed down on his shoulder. “Come on Sammy, time to stop daydreaming and get to work” his dad said as he headed toward the front door. Sam quickly got up and took his plate over to the bench in the kitchen and poured some water from the small bucket sitting upon the kitchen windowsill onto it to prevent the leftover egg yolk from becoming hard. After he had done this he headed to the front door. Just as he was about to go through the door, he remembered that he needed to bring his work knife with him. He looked over to the tool rack hanging next to the door and pulled his sheathed knife from one of the hooks and tied the sheath to one of the belt loops on his trousers. As he was about to walk through the door his mother called to him “Don’t spend too much time in the sun and make sure you drink plenty of water. Remember that you need to come by and help me at the clinic this afternoon and I want you there as an assistant and not as a patient”. “I will mum” Sam called back as he walked out and closed the front door behind him. He turned back around and ran to catch up to his father who had begun walking down the hill toward the fields.