King Killer

Chapter 5

I woke completely alone with a migraine and pain in my neck. It was dark. My eyes took a second to adjust. By my best guess, I was in an alley somewhere. I struggled to stand. My brain was spinning as I stood; it forced me to collapse once more and threw up anything left in my stomach. "Fuck you Master." I muttered through the heaves. Collapsing, I sat on the ground a bit longer. Shivering from the illness that had taken my stomach.

Once I had gotten my head on straight, I decided it was time to go home. However when I left the alley, I found I hadn't the slightest clue where I was. The street was empty and stars sparkled in the sky. I took another wobbly step forward. Trees were sporadically growing along the road. Trees. Large beautiful green trees that I had only seen in books. They looked like something you's only see in a fairytale the trees towered and shaded the buildings. They were huge oaks. We lived along the beach back home, where there were no trees like these. The ones at home were thin and sparse with feathery greenery on top, they were palm trees and some sparsely leading to the forest behind Culpa, but nothing this tall wide or old. A chill swept over me. I sat back on the ground.

Step one, find people.

Step two, go home.

At the time, I thought it would be a breeze. I was wrong.

After fully gathering myself, I stood and wandered. Street signs were written in Elvish. The buildings had a unique look of woods painted white. The place was clean looking and very high end. That would suggest not in a human settlement, which was concerning. According to geography lessons, the Red Ladies Tavern was located on the poor side of a port town in Culpa. The closest elvish settlement was a three night ride. That still wouldn't have this many trees and would still have human writings. I was deep in elvish territory. I was a half human, half demon, in the conservative elvish territory. I knew when I was in a bad position and this was it.

As the sun came up I slid into the shadows. People began stirring with the light. No, Elves began slipping into the light. They went along their day, ignoring me as I pulled myself deeper into the shadows. Soon my stomach growled. I felt an ache of pure starvation, something I had never felt before that moment. The next thing to hit me was the sweet smell of cooking bread. Bread. I was just short of drooling. I crawled my way through the darkness, making sure no Elf would catch more than a glimpse of me. When I finally got to the bakery, I searched my pockets for a coin. Nothing. My pockets were completely empty.

"Great," I muttered. I turned into an alley next to the bread shop. All I could think about was bread.

"I love bread too," a girl mentioned in elvish. I looked up to see a young half Elf, my first love. She looked like a goddess with her shiny black hair covering her bright blue eyes. Her small pointed ears barely pointing out of her hair as she sat on the edge above me.

"I..."

"Am starving?" She finished my sentence. "People don't take kindly to non-elves here, trust me. Wait."

I waited. Not that I really had a better option. I was exhausted and hungry.

It felt like a lifetime went by before she slid back into my ally of shadows. "Here." She cracked a loaf of bread in half, giving me half.

"Thank you," I muttered, shoving the bread in my mouth. We sat on the ground and scarfed down the stale bread.

"I know it's stale but better than nothing." I paused looking her over. She was in rags that barely were held together.

"I did mention they don't like non-elves right?"

I nodded.

"Well the orphanage abandoned me and most others too. However, the owner here lets me have bread every now and again."