The Minds of Monsters

Chapter I

Ecralyn; the most prominent realm west of the Division. The one with the Alliance capital, the one with all of the most prominent figures in the War, but it was known to me as home. We lived in a small house just outside of Ravenshollow, which is one of the largest towns in the Northern part of the realm, it's also where I went to school. The same school that I graduated from all those years ago. I remember that standing in front of the people who raised me, who were raised with me and those who we cannot see but we can feel, gave me a feeling of joy and satisfaction. I knew I would pass and go on to live a full life working as a guard or a farmer. Something around home. I knew I would grow up and have children and a loving husband. At least, I thought I knew that. I thought I knew my future.

                But I was wrong. So very wrong. But I didn't know that yet. No, because if I had known, I would have never graduated.

                But I did, and it happened. My future happened.

                I continued to smile at my family and be comforted by the feelings that my brother was with me. I knew he always was even though other people said he wasn't, I knew it, and that's all that mattered. I imagined he was up in front with me, my parents sitting, proud and beaming at the two of us, but instead it was only my name that they called, and I was the only one going on to become something that I never wanted to be.

                "Ambriel Xathanael," I walked up the newly-formed stairs that stemmed from the Oak to join the Queen as she put her hand on my shoulder and read off a piece of paper that my teachers over the ten years had complied, saying how wonderful I was on behalf of the adults that helped raise me and teach me.

                "Miss Xathanael, here, has made us all proud," she continued with a foreign part of the speech, "by being asked to join The Red Shield in order to assist our brave soldiers defend the Good left in the world from the hands of the Dark Ones."

                All of the smiles in the audience disappeared.

                I remember watching as a tear slid down my mother's cheek because she very well knew that I wouldn't be coming back. Another slid down as I faked a smile and walked down to join my parents in the seat that had been saved. At the age of fifteen, the course of my life had been decided and, from the face of my father, I could tell that he didn't like all that well. Which I couldn't blame him. I mean, not really. His baby girl was going to be shipped off to war and chances were, die there.

I can't deny that I was extremely jealous of my friends when they sat down, smiles on their faces and worry-free until they looked in my direction and remembered. The only reason they get to choose is because they were lucky, lucky not to be stepping into a future where war, pain and loneliness awaited.

Before I knew it, the speeches of all fourteen of my piers were done, and my family and I began to walk back home. The eight kilometer walk didn't seem like much on the way there, it was on the way back, with the uncomfortable silence brought upon us because of the thing that everyone was afraid to talk about because they didn't want it to be real, I didn't want it to be real. Oh how I wished that it wasn't.

That night, I stayed up, unable to sleep because I knew that in the next few days, life as I knew it would end. For once, I was right about what the future held, my life would be torn down and I'd have to start from scratch, attempting to build myself a future that didn't result in me dying a horrible death. "Aarin," I mumbled, sleep pulling at my eyelids, tears dripping onto my pillow. "Aarin I'm so afraid." That was the first time I saw my brother for real, he appeared when my fears will pulling me in all different directions. I had always known that he was real, I could constantly feel him there, but then he became something that the eyes could behold. It was my beautiful, wonderful, silver-haired brother who had never left my side. And with that feeling of comfort and safety brought on by my brother's presence, I let sleep take over. A silent, dreamless, blissful, sleep.