Cursed

The Past Always Comes Back

Leaf

The battle field was ruby red with the blood of the many people I had killed. Before I had known it the situation went from bad to worse. The downpour of the violent storm was making the cut above my eyes block my sight. All of my comrades were dying, and the only thing I could think about was her.

Where was she?

We were supposed to stay together, but somehow we had gotten separated. I called her name, but no sound could be overheard from the screams of the dying. Instead I ran around, desperate to locate her.

The world was a blur, and something was wrong with the world. I had never known such pain and hurt until that day. This isn't how this battle was supposed to happen. I turned a corner toward a close set of building.

There she was, and for a moment I was relieved.

She looked alright, but her face was contorted in an expression I didn't recognize. I tried to step closer to her, but the mud clung to my feet, and I didn't have the strength to pull my legs out of it.

Her hand was outstretched toward me, almost as if she was pleading for me to be by her side.Then several figures started toward her with swords in hand. I struggled harder and harder, but to no avail.

The mud held me firmly, and I watched as one of the figures removed a hood from around their face. It stabbed her, and all I could do was watch. Its face turned toward me as a twisted smile contorted its face.

Burning red eyes tore their way into my memory. I tried to scream as I watched the color fade from her face, her hand still outstretched toward me. No sound would come from my unwilling lungs as she died.

I awake in a cold sweat as a scream tears away at the silent night. For a few moments I let the ghost of the memory slip out of my thoughts. The moonlight colored silk sheets are now saturated with my sweat. I run my hand down my face, wiping the sweat off.

I look around my room, taking inventory of my setting. I have a buero by the door leading into the hallways. There's a mirror off the the right of the dresser, a window to the left of my bed, a chest at the foot of my bed, and a small rack of weapons under the window.

Clambering out of the big bed I walk over to the mirror. In the refection I meet my gleaming face. My pale golden hair falls down to my lower back, and my icy blue eyes stare back at me with the look of old terror. My arms, legs, abs, everything, is corded with lean muscles.

I'm not the same as I was back then. If only I had been a bit more careful in my training, if only..., I think to myself.

The night has grown stale, and my room just feels like a crypt for the memory, so I start for the door, intending to go to the kitchen to make a meal. Before I reach the door another scream tears through the night. What I have mistaken to be my scream is now that of a stranger. I don't recognize the scream, and that makes me terrified.

Without so much as a thought toward my safety, I grab a sheathed dagger from the rack of weapons and follow the direction of the scream.

It doesn't take me long to follow the scream outside the house, across the river, and to the last line of our houses defenses. As I arrive there I can't believe what I'm seeing.

In the short span of a few seconds I see Will, kneeling on the ground, holding a short sword that I recognize from the weapons room, and two strangers hanging by a net. Both of the strangers are struggling to get out, but to no avail. Behind them, a few paces back, are about five more people who are also ensnared by some more rope traps.