Innocence Lost
#1 of Disciple
A cold winter wind pelted icy needles into the face of a lone young man, who was deep in thought, as he trudged along a snow-covered road. Another blast of cold wind took a quick jab across his face and violently whipped his onyx black hair, silently he cursed himself for his foolishness.
The winters of Rockridge were renown for their fierce and unpredictable tempers, and though he lived and worked in that weather, even he could be caught off guard by it's sudden shifts in disposition. When he'd ran from his home, no longer able to take his mother's wrath, he'd taken a pair of winter ware clothes and went off on his own. He hadn't gotten more than a day or two of a walk away before the wind and ice had drained the warmth of his body, and left him no option but to return.
He shielded his eyes as he slowly pushed through the endless snowstorm that had been assaulting the area. He knew he was close to the town, so close he could smell the burning fires. As that warm and comforting smell approached, the rage of the tempest seemed to lessen, leaving him to thank whatever god was watching over him as he stumbled out of the blinding storm. He pulled his hand away from his eyes... and gasped. Before him was indeed the city of Rockridge... but blackened by fires and ravaged by catapults. It's stone walls had crumbled and homes were now charred skeletons.
He sprinted through the front gate, which had been torn asunder by a battering ram, and was overwhelmed by the ravaged land before him. In the fresh snow laid the dead, twisted and broken. While in the sky, clouds of black smoke billowed upwards into the heavens. He could only look away, and pray his family was safe.
His family... he sprinted down a side alley. His lungs burned as he struggled to breathe the frigid air, and he continued to pump his legs as he raced from alley to alley. He had to know they were safe! The snow crunched beneath his feet as he raced towards the last turn in the road before his home. He slipped on the ice as he turned and plowed his face into the ground, crawling to his knees he cried out in shock.
It wasn't his home, which was a smoldering black skeleton, that made him cry out in anguish, but the three bodies lying before the stone stoop. "MOM! DAD!" His chest tightened as he stumbled up to them, halting in his footsteps as he caught one pair of glazed blue eyes staring at him... Mom..... A bitter memory flashed before his eyes. Over the past week, his Mom and him had fought bitterly and often. However, it would be the shattering of a clay mug across the floor in the Kitchen to trigger the worse fight they'd ever had... and ever would.
"I didn't want to come to this fucking town!" He howled back at her.
"Don't you talk to me like that!"
"I'm nineteen years old, and I'll talk how I want. I don't even know why I still live in this damn house."
"Then go live on your own if it's so damn horrible here, you ungrateful fucking brat!" She shrieked as she threw the front door open, and a cool burst of wind raced through the warm house causing the fire in the fireplace to flutter. Filled with the heat of anger, he grabbed his sack of winter ware clothes and fled his home, vowing to never return.
His glistening blue eyes held their gaze upon the three bodies, each fatally stabbed, and he collapsed to his knees as a single tear rolled down his pale white face. Though there would thousands of things he wished he could say, he could only whisper a solitary "No...", into the air.
The pain in his chest tightened like a noose, "NO!" He snarled as he slammed his numb hands into the cold snow, inviting their icy bite to bury the emotional pain. This was his family... his mother, his father, and his little sister...
"Stay were you are!"
The voice startled him and he pulled his hands from the icy depths of the snow. His numb right-hand fingers clutched the hilt of a blade. His pale face glanced over his shoulder to the tall soldier that approached with his hand hidden behind his back, and he knew that he would not let himself be killed like this.. He glanced down into the red-tinted metal of the longsword that was still obscured by the snow and knew what needed to be done.
"Alright, just-- Please don't hurt me." His voice was mimiced that of terror, but the soldier couldn't see his eyes. Those gentle blue eyes now burned with the fires of revenge, and as he stood, he cleverly hid the sword behind his leg. He listened to each crunch of every step, and tightened his grip on the blade.
The last footstep fell into the snow, "Maybe I should rape your--" The blade flashed as he jammed it upwards towards the man's throat.
Warm blood splattered across the fresh powder of snow and across the ashen face of the young man as the blade bit and crunched bone in a fatal strike. He withdrew the blade and stalked along side a burnt out building. From the shadows the buildings provided, he could see a crossbowmen standing idly across the street gazing into one of the shop windows. With the sword at his side still dripping warm blood into the white snow, he quietly shifted between shadows making his way closer to the unaware soldier.