The cold

Aftermath

Four years and eighteen rebellions since the bloodmoon, the cloaked boy stood behind the ruins of a building waiting, yet again. A small smile crept to the boy's face when he remembered the last time he was forced to wait, he had met the one person that would steal his heart, the one person that would throw him into the world  of  feys and dragons,the day it all started.

He waited  there patiently for them, passively watching one of the demon's from Ement tugging a leash muttering something like "dumb mutt's making me late " under his breath. Attached to the leash was a human , face down in shame and scars running down his body like crowded doodles on a page, desperately trying to crawl behind the demon at a faster pace, trying to avoid another beating. The boy sighed, he no longer felt a heavy ache when he saw such things, his heart had grown passive over time, seeing the same thing happening far too many times desensitized him, he knew he couldn't help them , at least not now, no matter how bad he felt for them.

There were a few feys that did rebel against it but they weren't ready. The rebellions were but a feint, executed by masses so weak they couldn't even make a dent in Quo's defenses. Had the demons of Ement shared a similar social system to theirs, he supposed Quo would be their king. That demon seemed to hold all the power, he seemed to call all the shots. He had made a grand castle in croissure, surrounded by a place he called the 'fields of punishment' where Quo himself punished those he deemed a threat. 

They bid their time, living their life in the shadows,in basements and cellars, sometimes hospitals if they were lucky, salvaging what little they could find , living with the barest of necessities. It was a very minor price for their freedom and they didn't have to do it long , if the voices in his head were right , which they were, hopefully.

It was time for the nineteenth rebellion , their final attempt at freedom, their first move against the beings of Ement. A small smile appeared on his face when he saw them approaching. Both of them had vanished before the bloodmoon, seemingly wiped off the face of the earth, remaining under the radar for the last four torturous years. He knew not why they hid, if they indeed did, nor why they chose to come out now and neither did he care. What mattered to him was the fact that they were here now and that would make a world of difference, perhaps even give them a bit of an edge. 

They were accompanied by another man though, a man he had never seen in his life, if the man could indeed be called a man, he wasn't human or any type of fey he had seen before at least. He was a large man, at least touching eight foot with hands so long they fell below his knees , reminding Neil of a chimp. Perhaps it only looked that way, the man did hunch a lot. He looked away, not wanting to make the stranger uncomfortable, it wasn't in any way nice to stare after all. The stranger smiled a toothy grin at him, looking at him expectantly, a surprisingly warm expression on the guy's face.  The boy returned the smile , he couldn't help it, the man looked like he was actually waiting for it.

There were no greetings or heartfelt reunions, no words exchanged. The boy simply turned back ,walking with purpose , expecting them to follow him to their current hideout, which they did. He lead them to 'The Home', a place that had once been one of the best hospitals there was, a place that had once offered hope to many a sick person, a place that was now useless. There was no place for a hospital when they weren't any sick people. No, the opening of the gates didn't miraculously make people healthy, all the sick were just thrown to a pit , where they would then be processed and then fed to the 'pets'. It was one of the few things those  sick demons took a lot of sadistic pleasure in doing, forcing humans to eat what they knew were remains of their loved ones , laughing at the tortured expression on their faces.

The humans would eat it nonetheless , it was heartbreaking, the level of desperation they were driven to, by depriving them of every single thing they took for granted, even if it was something as basic as a square meal a day.They knew better than to hesitate when they were told to do something, even if said something involved sawing their own limbs off one by one or throwing their new born into a fire, they did after all know that the punishment for refusal would always be worse than the order , always. 

The boy knocked thrice upon reaching 'the home' patiently waiting for those inside to open the door. Almost immediately he was engulfed in a bone crushing hug, the man inside kissing him on his forehead. The only reason they let the boy out  in the first place was because of how much he insisted, he didn't want the voices in his head to get them into any sort of trouble, mother hens!, the lot of them.They always were a tad bit protective of him, something that was understandable in the beginning , when he was all weak, but that really wasn't the case now. The boy took in all the people in the room,people who would soon wage a war against those of Ement. Most of them had been with him since the very beginning , since the day he was unwillingly thrown into a world he couldn't fathom, helping him quite a lot when he needed it. He took a deep breath , promising himself that they would make it, that they could still turn back the needle of the clock, could still close the ugly wound in the sky.