Gilbert

The Soliloquy of Van

The dew of the morning has started to accumulate on the grassy fields of the developing town of Craime. It was an old town, older than the now bustling capital city, which primarily because of its topography, having ridges and hills that are hard to come to for a ton of merchants, the place remained to be a rural part of the rising state. As such, the population remained at it stagnant lowest, and thus allowed the nature to continue its growth upon the inhabitable earth.

It was a morning like any other; the air was damp and cold with the clouds hovering the land and blessing it with coolness against the coming summer heat. The sun was nearing its daybreak and, as rural as it is, the townsfolk are already awake and ready to perform their duties. Within a small span of time, the town was bustling with noise and clatter with the sound of their feet for the usual business of the day.

However, beside a small house perched above one of the hills that covered a town, a closed shed was situated. There was no sound from the inside of it, only a prevailing darkness that seem to contrast to the kind and enthusiastic awakening of the day. No one had ever thought that anybody could live inside it, and perhaps there isn't, except for the man from the small house who was on his way to the shed.

He stood upon the wooden door of the shed, carrying an ax that rests on his shoulder. He was a tall man, with rough features and strong build that defines his old job as a woodcutter. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen, until he opened his mouth and spoke in a rough and coarse voice, which is devoid of either affection or concern.

"How long are you planning to remain in that place?" He said.

Realizing there was no response, he moved his hand and opened the door, creaking it open until the light run through the inside. It revealed the darkness of the shed, the old wooden floors that are near its wreck due to the passing of age, and a pair of legs that belonged to the young man shrouding himself in the dark.

The light gave way for the man to see him clearly. The child, in human perspective, was nothing more than an attractive young man from a noble heritage, with his black hair that seems to imitate the color of the pitch-black void, a pair of green-pupiled, round eyes, a well-defined facial structure, and pale white skin which never drenched itself in the radiance of the sun. Certainly, the eyes were from his mother and the dominant black hair and facial features were from his father, but any more than that, there was nothing distinctive that would give away to his descent, which would have placed him and the man to a perilous disadvantage.

It was not his features that were of concern at the time, however, but rather, the expression that played within them.

The young man had a bitter, disturbing look in his eyes although his expression gave the look of indifference. The cause of his expression might have been due to the hate and grief accumulated from their disappearance but nevertheless, in his eyes, there was a feeling so strong and fierce that the man knew exactly how dangerous the child could be. But like the powerful roar of a lion, the threat remained cloaked within his pale and numb expression. The man was not sure what to do with the young man's underlying despise of the world but knew too well that the child was not meant to remain in this rundown place any longer.

"What do you intend to do by staying at this place? He asked. "It has been two years since I took you in, and three long months since you woke up from that slumber. No one's alive to remember who you are, and no one to receive your company except for the townsfolk you hear working, and the remaining humans that survived the war. The death of a strong lineage provoked the decline of the other races, and thus, you only see and will see us, and nobody else. In a world where the only stench of despicable humans is apparent, do you even intend to survive?"