The Lost Voices (OLD VERSION - New Version to Come)

ACT 2 ~ CHAPTER 12 ~ PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 12... COMPLICATIONS 

Personal Record 4: We Are Blood 

8-24-1620 A.R. 

Location: Felltown, Ostium – Terrarin 

The looming, derelict clocktower groaned as a snowy breeze drifted through its cracks and mortar. It was surrounded by a hollow wasteland of gutted homes, rusted weapons, and broken buildings. 

No one came here. No one remembered this place.

Snow reflected the moonlight, painting the world as an icy desert. Slaver watched it as though it were a city reaching for the stars, even as it died. The clock face was missing a hand, the front doors were smashed in, and its metal parts freely hung in the chilly air. It was agape with shock, as if it still wasn't aware that it was dying.

To him, this was Terrarin's fate. This is what he sought to negate. 

Politics and hierarchy were just the necessary stepping stones for what came next. Rediscovering Antiquity would give him the answers he needed to save the country from what he'd seen. 

In that belief, he saw his daughter smiling again. 

He saw her coming home every now and then. He saw them dancing together in a homely, little diner. He saw them making a lantern for The Old Festival. He saw his reclusive mistakes being forgiven. He saw her finally understanding what he wanted for her and what she could truly be.

Yet, even as Slaver thought on his hopes, the terror of the visions he'd been given haunted him. 

Machines and fire scraped against his nerves. Sirens and wrath blared in his mind. Magic and blood twisted through his bones. He thought he could even taste the iron of death. It nearly brought him to his knees, but he gritted his teeth and tightened his fists.

Looking over the structure again, he took a deep breath, massaged the bridge of his nose, and recentered himself in reality. He glanced down at his black helm and lifted it to see himself in the glass visor. It reminded him of the many times he had stared into his OldSteel blade.

The way it forced someone to stare and think.

Stray lines of black broke from his slicked back mess of hair and hung over his violet eyes, one of which now had a fissuring scar that cut through his eyebrow and around the socket's bone. A reminder of his encounter with that nameless swordsman. The memory still made him wonder why he had retreated from the train. He was a worthy swordsman and powerful, yet inexperienced. All the combat he'd seen in past wars informed him that he could've slain the man. 

And yet he left it to the slivers of chance. 

Even then, something in their conversation aboard the train hung in his mind. It wasn't in the way he spoke. It wasn't even in the words themselves. It was in those nameless eyes. Something like a faith Slaver had long left behind.

An honest hope he no longer carried. 

Another tense breath left him and he closed his eyes. Whatever it was, it died with that man on the train. He needed tangible results, fewer questions, and no more weaknesses. Faith in people would not bring that to him. Only the actions of his cause could do that. He took another breath to focus and reminded himself of his mission. 

The key to a new world and a safe future would be his. He would do this for his country and her people who needed it. This would not only be a civil war for Terrarin. This would be a revolution for ultimate change. 

It had to be.  

Straightening his back, he donned the helm that pioneered his Regime and marched toward the clocktower. Snow crunched beneath his boots and Fall's whispering breaths filled his nose with a leafy bitterness.