Beyond a Shadow

I. Memento Mori

The air filled my chest.
It was sweet and mellow, and it seemed to be at the just the right temperature.

Sitting by the edge of the Cerulean River, the sun had become exceedingly large, and the skies splashed colors of red and orange hues. They blended rapidly with the midnight tones of blue and violet that gave the sunset it's beauty.

The grass around me was a very light and a flowing kind. It filled with small but surely growing flowers. They peacefully danced in the afternoon's breeze. Like the waves of an ocean the breeze swept through carrying out nature's own way of cycling new life.

It was a very good day.

I laid my head back on the side of this flowing green hill and rested my eyes from the world. After everything I've been through, I could stand to live here, contently.

Whatever I was dreaming about had abruptly ended when I heard the screams of my parents.

My eyes quickly opened and my body had already begun pumping adrenaline through my veins at this point. My heart raced, and pounded, until I could hear almost nothing but the sound of my own pulse pounding like a drum.

My frantic body rushed up the hill to expose my house, that had appeared to be so comforting until now. As I ran as fast as my legs could carry me through the garden my mother had been making, I finally ran through my door with such force I thought I'd break my own body. 

The sight I had witnessed next will always haunt me till the day I stop breathing.

My mother was being killed by a Syn Guard, while my father pleaded with the guard to let her go. He had her in a choke hold as she was restlessly trying to escape his grasp. I could tell the guard had remorse in completing this action. He looked as every bit as scared as we did.

"I'm sorry, but these are my orders." He said to us.

My mind went racing with scenarios. What was I supposed to do? I had no idea how to stop this man from hurting mom. All I could think of was to cry. I sunk to the floor and stared while tears streamed down my pale face. I was in shock.

Still struggling my mother had tried to get away using our only way of defending ourselves.

Our aura.

She was a very strong being. Elegant with a fury that burned anyone who dared to stand in her way. I remember admiring the way she carried herself. I had aspired to be like her one day. Now I lay helplessly to the ground while this stranger attacked her.

Her aura had materialized around her body, and started to engulf the guard.

One thing that was prohibited by law, was the use of any aura to be used against the government of Syn. On doing so, would result in an immediate death sentencing. So, that being said, the guard had no other choice.

The snap of my mother's neck was the most gruesome thing I had ever heard before. Her body had become stiff, and the glimmer in her eyes faded away, as her soul was leaving her own physical body. The aura had still been there, but it was slowly decimating. This is the last time I'll see her, I thought to myself.

My eyes, so young and innocent, were now very much scarred and ruined. My heart had stopped and I was in shock beyond the shock I was already feeling. My mouth was wide open, heart ceasing to be there, my body so stiff I even felt dead myself. My eyes had never been so full of tears before. My body had become an entire earthquake. I could barely sit still as my legs felt like jelly and the fear took over my own body from moving.

My dad, in so much pain and fury from this cruel act, charged at the man.
My dad, on the other hand, had not been very useful at practicing his aura. Although he had come from a good bloodline, the children that are born do not always inherit the best traits. Simply a lottery, of the genes that are passed. I remember his glasses, and his slick but very flowing semi curls of his hair, a sort of chestnut color that I always wanted myself. He was very smart, in nature. Ignorance was something this man had never possessed. Therefore while I praised to have my mom's strength, I prayed for my dad's wisdom. He had always been a very rational man, but now I was seeing something that is very much a fact about humans.

Love makes someone do crazy things, and so even though my dad knew he was surely doomed to perish alongside my mother, he still tried defending me.

The guard was very well trained as all of them had been trained in combat. He pulled out a sort of thick blunt stick that had already been used. The tip had already been stained with foreign blood.
Next thing I can recall, my father was being as still as my mother. His head had a very big spot where blood seemed to be traveling about on the ground. His glasses had been knocked off his face and flung to somewhere nearby me. The blood reached my feet after a few moments and I struggled to back myself against the wall to avoid such a thing to touch me. I was both disgusted and in hysterics. I screamed in disbelief. The guard had tried to come at me, but soon after stopped himself to an immediate halt. He reached over to his right ear and listened carefully to whatever it was that was speaking to him. He glanced over regrettably to me and quickly ran out the door to my house.

My eyes were fixed on the doorway, seeing the outside neighborhood had only made me come to the realization that this had all been planned. I could see other guards going into houses and screams filled my ears. I saw people in white suits bringing out dead bodies of mothers, fathers, and even children. So lifeless they were. Where had they been taking them? What was to happen to me? Why didn't they kill me too? Why would they let me suffer?

My mind only filled with more and more thoughts that seemed to drown me, engulfing me into a deep, deep trance. The last thing I remember is sliding down against the wall and becoming just as still as parents had been. My eyes glazed over at the hardwood floors. I could feel my eyelids becoming increasingly heavier and heavier, till not even the sound of people inside my own house, carrying my parents away, could wake me from my sleep.