Touched

Thirteen, Before

'you're uninvited'

'...I can hear the sounds of horses hooves clicking loudly around me, my surroundings dark, muddy and old. The buildings on this busy street made of wood and men and women dressed in poufy dresses, not this again. Looking down I see that I am once again without shoes, but I can't feel the dirt beneath my feet.

"Kyle, you need this job and I don't care if they beat you to death! You will continue to attend it do you understand me?" A loud dominant voice yells around me, I locate an old man and an odd-looking Kyle amongst the crowd.

They are stood arguing in front of a blacksmith, rundown and busy as it may be. It is pretty obvious that it isn't the most wonderful of places to be employed, even in whatever time frame this is and I immediately feel badly for Kyle who is clearly be forced to work there.

I dart through the bustling city towards the two men, slipping easily through people as if a ghost, my bare feet not damaged by the dirt and stones beneath me. "You want them to beat me father?" Kyle asks but he doesn't look shocked, seems Kyle hasn't come from the greatest family either, he barely even looks like the same person.

"It's 1634, you get what you fucking get" His father shouts pushing him to the door "Don't come back without the money"

1634, what the hell am I doing in 1634?

A disheartened Kyle trudges through the wonky door and I am forced to watch as he is beaten and hit every time he so much as breathes wrong. His face is hard and so different to what I am used to seeing, he seems so alive now, a huge contrast to what I see in front of me.

The town is dark and empty by the time I follow him out, my mind is racing with this new information, but I am unsure of how I am acquiring it. He turns down a dark alleyway and I finally understand what I'm seeing. I see the too gorgeous to be human man approach him before he does, I see the cutthroat way he grabs him with a hand clamped over his mouth as his body fights against the man's strong hold. What plan does Rhydian have this time?

"I've been watching you for weeks, have you not had enough yet?" Rhydian growls, standing a couple steps back from him in the dark alleyway, I suppose he wouldn't want anyone thinking they are homosexuals back then. "You are really going to fight for life?"

"What are you doing man?" Kyle shouts, pushing back against his shoulders.

"You'll fight back against me but not those men in there, they're sick and you deal with that?"

"I'd be out of a job if I did and I am a failure to my family enough, I will not continue to taint the family name. So why don't you just mind your own fucking business!"

"I need a fighter and I thought that could be you"

"I have no interest in fighting in any war"

"Not a war that will not benefit you, I am not so deluded to believe you are in a position to better the world that hurts you, man and privileged as you may be I don't see a life worth living for you here" he contemplates, before lunging at Kyle until he is pressed against the wooden building.

Ripping into his neck with an anger that he didn't posses with Selena, this is filled with rage and a sense of determination that I have never seen in him before. Kyle's body slumps and my hand covers my own mouth at the sight.

Kyle just, let himself be killed, Rhydian was met with no resistance or noise, Kyle accepted his fate, as if in hopes of dying. Rhydian removes his fangs abruptly and throws the man over this shoulder, retreating back into the darkness of this murderous night.