The Silver Seer

Chapter 14: Venture to Vengeance

A boy walks along a deserted road, holding a black hat with a red and white feather against his chest. Snowflakes continue to fall from the sky, and the gray clouds block out most of the moonlight that would flood the landscape and make the snow appear as though it is glowing.

Yet he keeps walking, his footsteps disappearing as soon as they are made- almost as if they never existed in the first place.

In his left hand, hanging loosely by his side, is a rapier, the silver blade giving off a faint white light. The light of a flame that melts only the top layer of snow as the tip drags through the powder.

His eyes are focused on the horizon, where a collection of lights can be seen. It is not the lights of a house though- rather the lights of multiple structures.

There are no stars in the sky, and no sound other than the boy's breath. Not even his feet making contact with the snow create a soft crunch.

He continues on because he is searching for someone in particular. A soldier, with red eyes and blond hair. Dressed in a vermillion uniform that makes the crimson blood of innocents hard to see. Innocents that were the boy's parents, twelve years ago. The boy was left with nothing but a slowly growing desire to kill the soldier who stole away the people who loved him.

So, he began training with a rapier, practicing day and night in order to grasp exactly how to shove his rapier straight through a soldier's head, and other methods to avoid detection from their advanced senses. They are nothing but machines made to kill- they are void of emotion; the soldier who killed the boy's parents probably killed them out of pure desire for blood to be spilled, nothing more.

His purpose to live is revenge. From the moment his parents took their last breath, he has traveled Europe, asking anyone for information on mechanical soldiers. Most of the people he came across would say travel to Finland, but to be careful, as it is occupied by the Russians who may have killed all the mechanical soldiers there. Finland was the only country creating the machines, or so that was what the boy was told.

Despite being told to travel towards Finland, he didn't. All that was left of the country was the aftermath of a long, drawn-out war; surely no soldier could have survived such an aggressive slaughter. Plus, rumors of a mechanical soldier in Switzerland were becoming more common among people the boy spoke with, so he switched course from aimless wandering to Switzerland.

He traveled through most of the western and southern part of the country and was soon found by a young man whilst honing his skills in a forest clearing. And now he had access to a military base and its soldiers- one of them who should be a mechanical soldier.

Yet he wanders again, heading to another military base. Because as he left Bern, sirens and alarms began going off. Soldiers, civilians, and officers scrambled to gather information on what was happening. And now, the boy can see what the commotion was about.

The lights of the structures glow brighter and more out of focus. As he approaches them, the air grows more humid, and a familiar crackling sound can be heard. Fire. Fire at one of the closer bases to Bern- Basel. In the chaos, maybe- just maybe- the teenager can find the soldier and kill them.

Gunfire meets his ears, and muffled shouts come from every direction, while dust is brought up by military vehicles designed to help extinguish fires passing by the boy. Avoiding the flames and looking at any people who pass him by, the boy hears a soldier bark an order at him from behind. "Hey, kid! If you've got your weapon out, start using it. Just kill anything with a black uniform on, got it?" The soldier disappears into a smoldering building, leaving the boy to watch him vanish and wield his rapier near his body.

"Fair enough." The boy mutters to himself, and he breaks into a jog, paying close attention to the uniforms he sees throughout the base.

Every soldier he sees dressed in black gets a rapier straight through the torso, or maybe to the neck if the boy feels as though it's deserved. All this slaughter brings him closer to his goal- he knows it. And as the ground around him grows a deeper red, light from the flames illuminating his reflection he glimpses in a puddle, the teenager sees what he's been looking for.