The World of The Winged

Zero's past

Chapter 14:

I woke up early in the morning, before anyone else was awake, which surprised me since I was the last one to fall asleep. I looked around me, feeling a bit disorientated. I saw Zero making painful faces and sweating in his sleeping bag. I walked over to him and put my hand on his shoulder, shout/whispering his name.

He woke up and looked at me with panicking eyes. "Wow, hey, are you okay? you seemed like you were having a nightmare." I said, he quickly crawled out of his sleeping bag, without saying anything, and walked over to his backpack where he had some food and clothes. He took off his shirt and I blushed but I couldn't look away due to the huge scars he had on his back.

I walked over to him and couldn't help but touch them, I tracked them with my fingers. He froze under my touch and quickly turned around. "What happened to you?" I asked him, my voice hinted the sadness I felt when I looked at the scars. He put on the shirt he was holding in his hands and looked at me with cold eyes. "It's none of your concern." he said, his voice was laced with repulsion.

I frowned at him as he looked away from me, I may not have known him for long but this wasn't like the usual him. "Zero, does this have something to do with your nightmare?" I asked him, he turned around with an angry face. "I SAID IT'S NONE OF CONCERN!!!" he shouted at me, repeating himself. I took a step back, feeling a weird force push me.

"It is, I want to know my friends. If something keeps them up at night, I want to know." I told him with a serious look on my face. He laughed at me, "You're such a hypocrite! So you want other to tell them their stories and secrets but we can't know about that guy from last night? Who was that anyway, is that the person who told you the road to Zakirn was 'dangerous'?" He said to me and I walked back over to him.

"I don't even know who he is, all I know is that he'll kill me and probably everyone else here if I tell the rest of the group about him!" I said as I pushed him although it didn't have any effect on him. "Fine! You want to know how I got the scars? I'll tell you, I used to have wings but they got cut off!" He told me, exasperated. My eyes widened and my mouth fell open. "Wha- ... How? Why?" I asked him with my eyebrows scrunched together.

He sighed and gave me a tired look, "Let's take a walk." he said, turned around and started walking. I ran after him until I was next to him and started walking. I eyed him curiously, "So?" I ask him.

"I was just a kid when it happened. I had loving parents and I had a close bond with them. My childhood was perfect until I turned twelve. I knew all along that I had some kind of power although I couldn't control it nor did I know how strong it was. One day, some men ran into our house and killed my parents after raping my mom. They were about to kill me until I just felt something coming out from within me. I saw this strange wave of some kind of energy and the men flew against the walls. I saw red and raised my hand and the men followed. I threw them practically against anything, the walls, the ground, the ceiling, the furniture."

"I killed them, but they weren't alone. They were raiding the whole village and murdering everyone in it. Loads of them came at me but merely a couple of them came from behind. They surprised me and tied me up with some kind of magical rope so I couldn't stop them or hurt them. They cut off my wings and tortured me for weeks, but one day, some weird guy saved me." He laughed softly at the thought of the man but I saw the sadness in his eyes.

"He took out all of them, the whole group. He saved me and he taught me how to use my power. It took me years to get control over my power, but I finally mastered it. I stayed with him for a long time, even after I learned to control it. But one night, I was asleep, and someone sneaked into our house and killed him. I was too late to save him and the culprit had already escaped. I've been on a mission to find his killer since then." he finishes his story and looks at the ground with a sad expression.