The Dawn of Eclipse

Chapter One

Laughter of children playing up and down the dirt covered streets filled the air. The call of merchants echoed up and down, from the darkest alleys to the sapphire-like sea ports. Gossip spread throughout the ears of the young and old. Womenfolk knew how to spread this information the best.

There was no need to whisper when everyone knew what you were talking about. A mother gossiped to her daughter in a low tone, "Did you hear about the neighboring kingdom? They found their child of prophecy." Fear always ruled these lands. Children of Prophecy are feared or loved the most.

A large brute, with mud-caked hair and a few missing teeth, cockily struts down the roads. He looks around, as if someone is about to attack him out of nowhere, looking for a proper challenge. Someone to put his muscle to the test.

Everyone slinks away, not wanting more trouble than they already have, barely scraping their way through life in the outskirts of the kingdom of Telshic. This particular boy has the makings of a future warrior. Perhaps he might have had a sliver of potential to be one of the four children of prophecy, for one was a grand fighter. However, that was not his destiny. His destiny is about to run into him.

A starving orphan boy sprints for his life, holding a single loaf of bread, with men chasing after the poor child. The men pounding their feet in attempts to catch up to him holler, "Thief! Catch him, catch him!"

The orphan snickers and speeds up, turning the corner. Before he can halt, his face smacks right into the solid chest of the brute, and the orphan sprawls backwards. The loaf of bread fell into a nearby puddle of dirt water and is no longer any good. All that effort, wasted. A sneer, one not even a mother could love, crosses the much larger boy's face. A mix of anger, surprise, and happiness. Torus bends over and picks up the small child with ease, only using one hand.

The men in pursuit stop as soon as they saw his wretched smirk. They know that the child was about to receive punishment worse than what they could offer. They turn around and headed back for the bakery. One or two of them created a sloshing noise that left boot prints into the bread that had been stolen from them only minutes ago.

The sound of screams, the smell of blood, both these lingered and diffused into the known air. These are the raw and primitive elements that create the battlefield. These are the elements creatures of war thrive upon.

Within a few moments, the boy's spirit and body is broken in many more ways than one. That homeless child is thrown to the side, into a pile of horse dung. His home. The brute chortles, as he dusts himself off, walking back down the road as if nothing had happened.

There the bullied child laid, in the warmth of the steeds' excrete. His stomach continued to pain him. The malnourished child had no choice. He inhaled sharply each time he moved. Ignoring the excruciating agony, he continued to reach. Water welled up in his eyes, but it took all his will to keep them from gushing out. He had enough liquids gushing out. The orphan's shaky fingers finally reached the mushed up starch and rested for a moment. He screamed in pain as he gripped as much of what was left the loaf and pulled it into the heap of waste with the rest of him. For a moment, the entire world was quiet.

The child was able to grab a little more than a handful of what was left of the meal that was to last him until the next day. Strip by strip, he force fed the dirt covered, soggy mush into his mouth. Still, it was more than he had eaten in the past days.

A woman's voice entered in his mind. A voice he was quite fond of, but one that was not thought of for a while. One he often missed. He couldn't hold his tears back any longer, as the sense of nostalgia flooded him. Her kind words and poetic lilt echoed in his head, "Be strong, my poor, young Aaron. Misfortune won't last us much longer." That was two years ago, when the pain of loss and disgrace wouldn't last him much longer. But back then he had hope. He had one person he could trust full-heartedly. He had his mother.