Manslayer

Excerpt II - A Shiny Man

The chair breaks below me, and I fall into the wooden floor, it creaking heavily as I hit it, despite my age and weight. My father comes over to me and helps me up, wiping the dirt off of the brown tunic I wore. I thank him, then going outside and sitting on the bench out there. I look out to the outer wall of the city, noticing men in large sheets of metal. It was particularly strange at the time. They looked so shiny in the late sunlight, sky orange and blazing. My father sat beside me on a bench, telling me the shiny men were bad people, and not to be trusted. He said I should stay away from them as much as I can. Little did I know that that would be foreshadowing for that very night. But were not there yet. My father hands me a blade that was curved like the crescent moon, and it looked surprisingly expensive for our family. He told me to keep this close, just in case one of those bad men attacked you. Or if anyone attacked me. To this day I have it, but it would do nothing against these Mercenaries, as much as I wish it could. But I took the knife with me, and went to the tree I go to when I wish to cool down. I sat down, leaning against its strong trunk, and I took a deep breath. I wondered about why the shiny men were dangerous to us, and why we moved away from the city. We lived on its outskirts, in a small wooden shed that is barely enough room for three people. In reality it isn't comfortable, but it is better then sleeping in our torturous rainy nights. Much like the one I'm in now. But no matter. What matters is that the shiny men during the night ransacked our shed, with a creed to take my mother and father prisoner. They were thieves in the eyes of the king, and my mother and father were murdered violently that night... My father died fighting the shiny men, but he did fend himself well, killing two of the three knights that attacked us all. My mother died fending off the last knight from me, defending me from the shiny man. After making her unconscious with the butt of his blade, he attempted to rape my mother. That is when I killed him. I stabbed him in the spine with the knife father gave me when the knight was getting on his knees above my mother. After I killed the knight, I ripped him off of my mother into the rotting wooden floor, stabbing into his armor hard. Breaking through multiple times as blood began to spew. I blacked out, and in the morn I woke to the knight strewn about in pieces all over the shed. All of them were in parts. There was blood everywhere, and I tried my best to wake mother and father, but both were long gone. I remember far too strongly the moment where I was crying over mother, holding her face to my chest as my tears welled out, and I screamed, having no idea what to do. All I could say was that the shiny men weren't shiny any more. Over, and over, and over.