Kenos awoke to the sound of screams and to the light of burning fires.
“What the-“
Suddenly he was shaken by roars that cut through the night like thunder. A cacophony of the screams of the injured and the dying soon followed, as did some guttural and animalistic sounds that he couldn’t immediately place.
“What in God’s name is going on?!”, Kenos cursed.
He sprang to his feet and hoisted himself up using the iron bars on his street-height window to get a better view of what was going on.
In the town, fires raged and tongues of flame rose high into the night and the chocking black smoke could be seen with clarity even when it came from the other side of town. People ran in the streets, trying to get to safety. Women ran with their children in hand and men either ran along with them or stood back with sword in hand and charged the armoured assailants that has charred their homes, only to fall to the ground, hoozing blood from their chests or heads once the armoured attackers pointed some strange long barrelled contraption at them, or they were just cut down by swords, as one has been made accustomed to. However, from the corner of his eye, Kenos witnessed something very unexpected. A creature, something larger than a bull yet lean as a man jumped from one rooftop to the other, carrying with it the upper half of a dead woman, her clothes splattered with blood and viscera, before it moved out of his line of sight.
It was a sight out of a nightmare.
Kenos looked at the blaze. The tall, overpowering yet flickering lights were slowly inching ever closer to where he was and he was starting to feel the heat starting to slowly rise. It was something that one wouldn’t notice at first, but the still cool air in the basement floor of the cells combined with the pure white and heat reflecting properties of his cloak let him feel the shock in temperatures more strongly than someone out there could have.
He needed to think of a way to get out of this cell and start running to safety.
Otherwise, he would meet his end in this unremarkable hole, both cooked alive by the flames and chocking to death on the incoming black smoke.
“…Aaaaahhhh!!! They have come! The demons have come! How can this be?! How can this be?!”
Great, Kenos thought, now the noisy creep is spewing nonsense again.
“Damnit! Damnit! Damnit! I had finally figured it out! I had finally understood! How bad can my luck be?!”
“Hey!”, Kenos yelled out, as he grabbed the bars in his cell’s door and tried to squeeze as much of his face through them as he could, to try to look at his neighbour’s cell, “Do you know who these guys are?”
“Hush, child! Don’t distract your elders!”, the rambling man admonished.
“Oh, you have to be absolutely -!”, Kenos retorted.
“Answer his question, you ship hopping rat!”, a man in a cell in front of Kenos’ said. “You were just mumbling all that good stuff about “oh, how could they have found me?” just a second ago. Are you responsible for this, you spy?!”
“I did no such thing and I am no spy! I was just bemoaning my bad luck, regretting the loss of my chance in God knows how long in finding an end to my suffering! This accursed town just had to change its bureaucracies right as I was coming in, didn’t it? My letter had finally reached the local lord and even the king’s court and I was close to regaining my freedom!”
“Talk is cheap and I piss on your excuses! Everyone here is a regular. You are the only new face here and you have been suspicious from the start-“
“Hey! Shut up, both of you old-timers! Hey, outsider, you said something about a letter. Do you have a quill on hand?”, Kenos cut in.
“Yeah he does.”, the other man in the cell responded.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“Ok, great, then give it to me”, urged Kenos.
“Do you want to use to stab yourself in the neck or something, child?”, the rambling man asked.
“What? No! I want to use it to see if I can pick the damn lock. The end of it is made of metal, right?”
“You can do that, child? Fine, you can have it.”, the man said, as he handed Kenos the quill.
Kenos instantly noticed, thanks to the bright flickering lights flooding the cell from outside, that the feather wasn’t in the best of conditions. It had started to show noticeable wear and tear and could actually risk snapping in half if too much force was applied to it.
“What the…hey old man, you haven’t been performing any maintenance on this thing? It is barely holding itself together.”, Kenos shot at him.
“Hey! This was the best quill that I was given and all I got alongside it was ink and paper. Blame your town’s guards and temple for the state that something as simple as a quill is in.”
Kenos looked at the feather in his hands. In order to ask for good luck, he closed his eyes for a moment and said a quick prayer, paying no mind to the screams outside of his cell walls.
He pleaded God for his Providence, for just a meagre scrap of luck and the sharpening of his skills under pressure in this very moment. He asked not for much, yet promised worship, prayer and penance in abundance once he saw himself free from this crisis.
For a few minutes, sweat upon his brow from the rising heat, he diligently poured himself over the lock, trying to hit just the right angle and motion to remove the obstacle to his freedom.
“Click”, he heard.
“Hmph!”, with a snort of ego and relief, the boy smiled in triumph as he heard the sweet sound of skill overcoming trial and pushed forward.
Yet all that happened is that he banged his forehead against the bars in front of him.
“Huh?”, Kenos said, surprised.
He gazed downwards and saw that the door was still in the same position as when he heard the clicking sound.
Oh no, he thought.
Kenos slowly pulled out the feather in his hands from inside the lock and he observed that the stem had snapped.
“Bones and Rot!”, Kenos snapped, throwing the quill to the side and kicking the walls of his cell in anger.
“Damn it kid, you got no skills! Now the three of us are going to die here like bulls in pens!”, the man in the cell in front of him cursed.
You have no skills.
Those words snapped him back to reality, only for his mind to instantly plunge him into a bone chilling shock and feeling of boundless emptiness.
He wanted to laugh.
It was all so comical.
He guessed that the other kids were right after all. He overestimated his talents, despite knowing full well that he had very few to none of those.
“You were cursed, child”
Maybe the voice in his dream had been right. Maybe all of his shameful results up to now had indeed been more than just poor luck. God would not respond to a cursed being. His constant pleas for help, luck and providence had never been answered before, so why would he believe that they would have been answered now of all times?
He wanted to laugh and crumble to his knees. The flames and the smoke would rob him of life soon if only he was patient for a while longer. Those would put an end to his silly life of thrashing around, hoping to find something that would fill the nagging feeling of loss and emptiness inside of himself.
He wanted to.
But he didn’t.
From the back of his mind, anger, pure and distilled, both cold and blazing hot, flood his brain.
He lost track of everything around him. The sounds, the smells, the heat, even the sweat upon his skin.
Everything faded away and he was just left with the same questions as always.
Why don’t I have it?
Why am I the only one that doesn’t get one?
Why couldn’t it have been given to me as well?
The sheer strength of the roiling emotions and emptiness inside of him increased the feeling of isolation and detachment inside his mind, until he felt himself experiencing tunnel vision, as everything but the cell window above him seemed to fade away into blinding white.
He jumped.
He overcommitted and as he stretched out his right arm out of the bars, he hit his head against the cold iron objects that stood between him and the rest of the burning town.
Grabbing on to the bars with his left hand, he glared at the people in the streets and clawed at their sight, hoping against hope that he could touch one of them if he just stretched just a bit further.
That one?, he thought, gazing at a little girl running away from the fires.
That one maybe?, he again asked of himself, while looking at a middle aged man rushing towards a soldier with already a nasty wound covering his face with blood.
“You are about to get your chance, child. Make your choice.”
Alright, shade. I choose to have what is mine. What was always meant to be mine!
If you are not just a nightmare of my making, then aid me now, in this hopeless hour. Free me from this cage and let me run amongst the flames, the smoke and the steel. Just once, for a single instance in my lifetime, grant me the chance to face life with the same fortunes as any other common man. I swear upon my life that I shall not stumble, I shall not falter until I reach the finish line that God has set for me.
“If you remember our vows and honour them once more, then our prayers…shall be within our reach once more.”
His hand stretched higher, not now towards the fiery streets and buildings, with the dead and the dying and the horrors that had clawed out of a nightmare, but to the last patch of the night sky that was still visible among the dark ashen clouds and the light of the fires.
The jade eyed boy’s features changed. Where a moment prior was a face of pure anger and fierce determination was now the smooth featured sight of a child, too dazzled and entranced by something that they couldn’t comprehend as nothing short of it being magical.
The moon that shone so lovingly.
The stars which burned so fiercely.
In the dead of night, among the screams and the anguish, a child swore an oath, born not of knowledge and wisdom, but out of desperation and unbridled desire. An oath, as much to the strange shade that had whispered to him, as to himself.
I will attain my dream!
And I shall attain all of theirs as well!
You can have my oath, you can have my promise, my word and my bond.
So grant me this one wish! This one simple craving!
And show me that there is something worth keeping a talentless fool like me alive for!
The boy’s sentiments once more shifted and he now glared at the visage of the streets, the fighting and the dying wearing his mask of faceless determination anew.
What I wish for more than I shall wish for breath upon my last moments.
Their freedom, their power to choose which turn to take and to live and die by the outcome of that choice.
I want it.
I want it!
I want it! I want it! I want it!
I WANT IT!
