Hunted

Dreams

Alys awoke but kept her eyes closed, she could feel the soft grass underneath her. She could hear birds chirping around her. She opened her eyes and what she saw terrified her. The trunks of the trees around her extended upward into the sky, the tops and leaves of the trees were nowhere to be seen and neither were any birds. She saw something move out of the corner of her eye but when she turned towards it there was nothing there. She backed up into a tree and began to look around frantically, she couldn't understand what was happening. The last thing she could remember was collapsing in that strange clearing, but she didn't recognize where she was now. She closed her eyes and wished she weren't here, she wished she were anywhere else.

Suddenly she stood outside of her house. The house she had grown up in, the house she had run away from. The only home she had ever known. It was being consumed by a towering flame, she heard a scream from within the inferno that she could only guess was her mother, Bianca. She cursed Alys with her last words and then went silent. Her father, Kieran, was suddenly in front of her. He grabbed her shoulders aggressively and stared intently down at her with hatred in her eyes.

"Father, please stop, you're hurting me." She said with tears blurring her vision and the smell of smoke filling her nostrils.

"You did this to us you selfish girl!" He yelled frantically in to her face, spit flew out of his mouth as he spoke and perpetrated her face. "All we ever did was care for you, we only wanted you to be the best version of yourself. You repaid us by abandoning us to that beast. You killed us, Alys."

"No! No! It can't be true, you can't be dead. I didn't mean for this to happen father I'm so sorry. Everything you said was true I am as worthless as you always knew I was." She sobbed as she spoke, and she couldn't bring herself to open her eyes and see the contempt in her father's face.

"Open your eyes stupid girl, look at what you have done." he spoke as the pressure on her shoulders disappeared.

She opened her eyes. Kieran lay on the ground, an arrow pierced his back, and blood spread on the grassy floor. The flames roared and Alys collapsed to her knees and screamed into the sky as everything went dark.

-----------

Lance awoke in a dark dank cell; the walls were stained grey brick. He was in a chair bolted to the floor, his hands tied behind him and his ankles strapped to the chair legs. He was groggy but he knew he had been in this room before. He heard footsteps outside the rotting wooden door and recognized the voices as he heard two people talking as they approached. Thay were the voices of his father and mother and then he realized where he was. It was his mother's "work room" where she tortured prisoners for information. He looked around stretching his neck around as much as possible, behind and to the right of him was a metal table with all of his mother's instruments laid out methodically on top.

Screams began to echo through the door from the hallway. There must have been hundreds of voices screaming out, but Lance didn't recognize anybody. Lance blinked and suddenly his parents appeared in front of him without the door opening. They looked at him as if he were a bug.

His father sneered and said, "You think you are so righteous don't you. Saving that girl as you did, oh what a valiant hero you are. Well let's ask all of them shall we."

Duke Cleoth moved to the side and behind him were 10 figures all of which Lance recognized. How could he not, he had killed them after all, two of them were the guards he had killed in his flight with Alys.

"Why did you kill us." All of them said in unison.

His first kill, Duke Florien, former duke of the 8th district. He was a small thin man, and his hair was short, brown and unkempt. Blood poured from his eyes and mouth.