Short stories from my creative writing class

#019 - Focused freewrite

Prompt - Make your character want something

The ever-turning pedestal of time winds away while the life of this land diminishes. Crowns are being thrown to the ground one by one and the swinging blade slices the heads of anyone who crosses its path.

Broken chambers of the dead are shattered and bleak corpses are looted for coin.  Holy land is burned to the ground with the pastor and bishops locked inside. 

Weary eyes gaze around at the destruction caused by their sword before being tugged along like a puppet. 
Harsh movements aggravate the infected wounds sliced across the abdomen. Eyes slowly close as the light of life slowly evaporates from his crumbling body.

Freedom. I want the liberty to keep myself where I want, to live on a plot of land unbothered by everybody. For no more lives to be taken by my hand.

Dirt.

It was cold.

The thin wires around his body are cut short and the dewy grass is barely crushed underneath his feather-light weight. 

Unconscious, the boy is hauled up onto sturdy shoulders and carried off into the now-silent village. 

Whispers float around in the air like fog, and when the two enter an untouched house with three rooms they fade into stale silence. 

The fire crackles to life as the farmer tends to the boy. 

Days pass, and like clockwork the farmer tends to the boys wounds, feeds him, gets him water, and cleans him.
Within a week the boy wakes up, the crown-like tatoo around his neck long faded into a scar and the strings that once held him up to murder are now long-gone. 

Blue hunger sounds from his stomach and the farmer laughs. 

Here son, the farmer comments with calmness in his tone as he takes soup from the pot in the middle of the room. You're hungry, yeah? Have some soup. 

With caution the boy takes the cool soup and gulps it down in one go. 

You don't need to eat that so fast y'know.

The boy doesn't reply.

What's your name?

Still the farmer is only greeted with silence.

I'm going to call you Spear for now. I'm Veri, nice to meet ya kiddo. 

The boy nods. 

And all that crosses the boys mind is wandering thoughts of how he is going to function without a puppeteer.

 1. The Enclosed Chain Of Freedom

    The warm air of the house suffocates me, and the crowned scar around my neck throbs like an old burn. Soft chatter from the locals is outside the wooded building, swirling with a mix of anxiety, sorrow, joy, and livelyness. 
But even with the reassuring words of Veri I cannot think that I would be welcomed so easily when just a couple weeks ago I was under the control of those who are slowly killing the world and its inhabitants. And so, because of that I cannot bring myself to get up.
    But even if it wasn't the anxiety keeping me in the house it would be my lack of body mass. I am too thin to have many muscles, and the years of being led along with strings has taken its toll on my body, shown by the small circles of red around my wrists, neck, ankles, and hips. 

    According to the farmer, it's a miriacle that I have survived so long. And as the time pases I try to remember my home life, but whenever that happens I get a blaring headache and all that is there is static. 

    The cool water beside me refreshes my rapidly-drying throat. The soft smells of the food storage are nice and the drying herbs above me shed their leaves on my lap. When I look into the small copper cup my reflection stares back at me. Short blonde hair with pale gold eyes. A falling leaf from the herbs above me ripples the vision in the water.   

    With the quilted blanket on top of me everything that has happened to me seems so much more heavy than it should be. 
It isn't your fault kiddo
    He keeps telling me that and yet I still feel as if it's my fault for not resisting. Just, succumbing to the strings and letting whatever happens, happen. Maybe at some point I had fought against it, I had struggled and refused to let any die by my hand. But now that didn't matter. People were dead by my sword and my hand. 

    I look at my hands - now neatly folded on my lap. There are small scars from where the people I slaughtered that had fought back, I'm sure there are more everywhere else on my body. The tip of my left pointer finger is chopped off. 

    Now that I am free all I want to do is sleep, sleep and be left alone, not to fight anymore. Maybe just stay in this small village. 
That's probably not going to happen. The war will continue and reach here. They will find me and kill me. They will fight. And they will win. Just like they always have. Our only choice is to lay down and accept the fate given to us, no matter how hard we want to live- how much we want to survive-how much we want anything.
We must die.

The thread holds the quilt together, shimmers a chrome of colors beside the firelight and the patches of blue glimmer brightly with their stitched designs of copper and gold. 

Imaginary voices of those who I killed run through my head, and panic shoots through me. I fling out a hand as if to protect myself from a looming shadow and send the other hand to the floor to support myself, and send the cup of water swirling all over the floor. 

"Easy kiddo, it's just me." The farmer's voice sounds foreign, but yet the accent feels familiar. 

Safe

I'm safe.

I'm not murdering anyone.

There's no blood.

They're safe. 

I'm safe. 

"It's surprising how fast you can move, seeing as how you're so severely underweight."

Yeah. 

It's safe. 

The farmer goes into one of the cabinets and pulls out a towel, white and blue with silver thread. It looks soft. Like a dog, or a cat, maybe a fox or a racoon. 

I reach out to grab it but he shakes his head.

"Nah kiddo, it's my fault for scarin ya, I'll clean it up."

Oh. 

    He has brown hair and blue eyes from what I can see. His eyes look like they're glowing, and he is tall. He is not as tall as to touch the ceiling, so I guess in that way he is short. His hair is long and he has a beard, but that one is for sure long. Halfway down his chest long. It looks like he tried to braid it but failed. Miserably. So his beard is brown and curly. 

    He looks pretty safe.

    His shirt is pale orange. It's a nice color. His pants are grey-ish, so it matches a bit. I'm still in the clothes I was wearing when I was rescued, all black, a bit loose, probably covered in blood. 

    I want some new clothes. But that means I have to go outside and face the people who I nearly killed. I don't want to do that, I don't want to face the reality of what I have done. 
Does that make me a coward?
I don't want to be a coward! But I don't want to fight.
I'm scared.
I can't be scared, I killed all those people, so I can't be scared!
I can't.