Book of Kings

Chapter 01

 When I opened my eyes, it didn't turn out to be a nightmare. The bed in which I was lying in wasn't mine. I felt empty and pained at the same time like there was not only a hole in my stomach but a dagger through my heart. The elderly couple who have given me shelter is nice, but I won't stay here. I will not stay in a place where my parents' murderers rest after slaughtering a village. I wasn't there for their final moments--I wasn't even in the village. I had gone out fishing; our crops had been poor, and we needed more food.

I was only about an hour walking distance from home but when dusk came along, I saw an unusual amount of smoke coming from the direction of the village. There was way too much and the air smelled so much worse the closer I came home. Someone must have burned something unusual and a large amount of it. The smell reminded me of burning fat and leather, although no feast or festival was announced. I get sick even thinking about it. I knew right away that a fire so widespread couldn't be without victims.

"Who would have done this?" I thought.
It could have been anyone, bandits, raiders, outlaws of all kinds, or even pillagers. My mind was racing. Could we have given them what they wanted to leave us alone? What have they been trying to accomplish? I almost tripped over something, torches, that were lying next to the burned houses. I made up my mind; this couldn't have been accidental. Could it be that they had intended to burn the houses to send a message? Did things get out of control? They might have wanted to burn down one house as a symbol and the wildfire consumed more than they could handle.

As I wandered the streets towards my house, corpses were lying on the ground. There were too many of them just person be one mad person and they were bleeding heavily. Would you have bled this much from burn wounds? I couldn't have been sure. I assumed that there were terrible people here, but where were they?

What was their goal? "Just leave us alone," I thought.
We haven't done anything. We didn't have anything. What did they want? Fun? Was this for entertainment? Just for sport?

My home stood in flames. Most of it was already burned. I feared that my parents might be ash and my fears were realized when I entered the house. I found my mother under some rubble, her skin melted by the flames, she burned to death. Did she get stuck under a broken pillar? I didn't cry or scream. I was unable to make a sound. Something was stuck in my throat. Froze in shock I didn't know what to do, what should I have done?

I now realized that I was careless. I should have looked for my father the second I had seen my mother. The fire had already started to calm, so I had started digging through the rubble to find my father. I couldn't turn some of the debris because I was too weak, but everywhere I had searched he wasn't to be found.

I sat there for a while, kneeling next to my mother. I needed to protect myself somehow, and I knew how. "There should be a dagger here somewhere," I thought. I got up and started searching.

It had to be in shelve and cabinet, most were scorched and some already completely burned down. After rummaging through them for a bit, I found it. It was in a drawer in my parents' room. Good thing it wasn't damaged by the flames. I took it out of the sheath. The edges were blunt. It was a family heirloom. It wasn't meant to be used as a weapon, but I need something to protect myself with. It would have been given to me in a few years, anyway.

My father wasn't with my mother, "so where did he go?" I thought.
He would have known what to do. He was the bravest man I knew. He wouldn't have abandoned her alone, to die like this. Something must have happened to him too. I needed to find him, so I started to run around the village yelling. Where could he have gone? He couldn't have been under the rubble, could he? I would have found him. He wouldn't have died like that.

While I was running, I saw a group of men in armor. I had stopped yelling out for my father a while ago. They hadn't noticed me yet. Were they the attackers or were they there to help us? Either way, I couldn't approach them. That was much too dangerous. I didn't know much about the situation, so I hid behind a cart filled with straw. I had to think but there wasn't time. I had to find my father. He could fix everything.