Riven Isles

1 | A Piece of Mind

I am grateful for the silence of the forest tonight.

I am grateful for the solemnity and the stillness that it provides. As if the woodpeckers and the whip-poor-wills respect my grievances as much as any man might, had I any man to turn to. They hold their tongues, as I hold mine, and we sustain courteous silence for my mother's passing, for the destruction of my home.

I can't help but wonder how it was that I got here. I can't help but wonder how to move forward, or which direction to take. I can't help but wonder why it all happened in the first place, and what's more, why it is that in the aftermath I sit here on this rock with nothing. Nothing but my dry eyes, guilty for their lack of tears, my ash-stained shirt reeking of the fire as though it still burned, and, to my befuddlement, a dented, rusting safe from the concealed basement that had saved my miserable life.

I've considered it all so thoroughly now, many times over. I have a theory as to where it began, though for now I can only hope that the why will become clear with time.

I think it was a week ago that the peculiar behavior of my mother first appeared to me, and it was at my fault.

There I had been, chopping wood in the forest that surrounded my mother and I's secluded cottage, half a day's ride from Amity town. Over the years, I had grown accustomed to the tedium of my chores, and the day had seemed entirely ordinary. The weather was pleasant, and the woods had a fresh, calming charm. The jays and finches chirped, and the mockingbirds repeated the tune that I whistled, the tune that they knew as well as I.

I remember keenly the heat, for the gentle breeze was absorbed by the miles of thick trunks and underbrush that I had stuck myself amid. I could have filled a bucket with my sweat. Licking my lips, I could taste the salt. Just in breathing, it seasoned the air.

Still, I swung my axe at a young pine over and over, and bore it like a man. I knew very well that as soon as I escaped to the clearing beyond, the breeze would greet me like a lover, and I'd be soothed by its kiss. The heat of the now would be forgotten then, and it would be all the more satisfying after a hard day's work, with a chopped-up pine slung over my shoulder in a sack.

When the beads of sweat on my brow started to fall over my eyes, I had to relinquish my grip on my tool and give in to a break. I ran my sleeve over my brow, exhaled a long, winded breath, and turned to pick up my leather flask. I poured the water over my face to cool my skin, drinking only a portion. As the water fell away from my ears, leaving me refreshed, I came to be aware of the tapping behind me. Clunk, clunk, clunk. I didn't turn towards the sound right away, for it was so utterly bizarre. I swore it was the sound of my unbalanced old axe, hacking away in tuneless rhythm.

When I turned, after uncertain hesitation, my heart nearly shot out of my chest. The axe dropped from the air just as my eyes caught the glint of its blade, and it landed with a muffled thump in the untamed grass.

I left the cursed thing where it was, and made my cowardly dash for home; flask, tree, and I'll say dignity, too, forgotten. Not to mention all the wood.

When the breeze in the clearing hit me, I didn't even feel it. Not at all. The chills snaking up my spine had already chased the heat away, and the sweat streaming from my brow was no longer due to the climate.

Once inside the cottage, I babbled what I had witnessed to my mother so quickly that she had to sit me down, drown me with water, and request of me to repeat myself in a way that was comprehensible. I say, it took me a few tries. I still tremble to think of it, despite now knowing what the phenomenon was.

She had explained it to me, with reference to the war that I knew so little of, and yet I lived in. In our world, we presently have three types of people, the 'werewolves' being the most recent mutation of humanity, and the most controversial. Being segregated against, they stand on one side of the war. I always believed that I stood on the other, with the uncursed men and women.