The Shadows Of Lucidum

How men turned into monsters

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It was one hell of a long night.

If only it was for the cold or the loud noises the animals made, and not for that odd feeling of being watched. It made shivers run down my spine and there were goosebumps all over my body. There was no way I could fall asleep while suffering under that feeling.

For me, it's always been the worst of all the ones I ever had. As chief there's just too many people looking up to you, idolizing you. Neither did I want to be a bad influence, nor did I want to be deemed unworthy of being the head of our village. Ferouna would probably have been able to do a better job than me. She was more of a leader than me, I just happened to be older when my parents died and I didn't want my precious little sister to break under a burden, that'd been meant for me all along. If I didn't become the chief at the age of 7, I would have had to become it at a different point in time. That's what I always used to tell myself. Although I was wondering, what would have happened if I had had more time to mature. If my parents wouldn't have left me with such a suffocating burden and a sister to care for.

At least I wasn't left alone. Lupea has always been my best friend and I owed her more than she even knew. If it hadn't been for her... I don't know what would have become of me. There also was my sister. She didn't quite protect me, rather than making my life even harder, but she was my anchor. I had to take care of her, make sure she could live the life I couldn't. A life worth living, so she would, one day, be able to reign wisely... unlike me. I've always been a child, stuck in the position of an adult and forced to mature as fast as possible. They made me make decisions, whose consequences no child should be forced to bear. I sent people straight into death's grim fingers, ruined their families' lives and completely forgot my own policies.

But there was something else keeping me endure this tightrope act, I had to perform. I just couldn't figure out what, although I was certain it might even have been a preponderant help in regards to my mental stableness.

I began getting cold and the rain outside the cave didn't really help me get any warmer. I wanted nothing but to go back to the village, yet I couldn't. Before I could do anything related to interacting with people, I had to sort things out. I could have simply told them I was suffering from amnesia, but that would have been too easy, now wouldn't it? There was no way I'd ever take the feasible way. My mother, Ibis, would probably have scolded me for it, but a dead owl can't scold anyone anymore. No matter how wise it once was. I sure did miss her and the stories she used to tell me... Stories of monsters and men. And how men turned into monsters. There was no space for things such as lullabies. No space for being a child. Not in the world we lived in, where the only way to stay alive was to be stronger than the others, if not even the strongest. I didn't want to be strong, for I knew what it meant, but I had to. Both for myself and the people relying on me.

If I wasn't, noone was and it would have been the death of us.

The other villages despised me for knowing that. They knew the chief of Lucidum was but a child, yet we were stronger than every single one of them. There have been wars because of us. Although we never menaced anyone, they felt endangered. If only they had been smarter... If only they had know what real strength is. Noone deserves to die. Especcially not for those kinds of reasons. They died in vain and it could have been prevented. Still, all those deaths kept adding up, kept weighing more on my exiguous shoulders, kept haunting me in my dreams.

I was tired of it.

I felt exhausted and began to fall asleep. All the thinking was too much. I could't keep it up any longer and tried to clear my mind. I just hoped I could properly sleep for at least once in a while, hoped the cries for help would stay out of my head.

Not dreaming at all was better than dreaming of all the sins I had commited in my rather short life.

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