Short and sad. I started writing and shit just happened. Grab some tissues (get your mind out of the gutter) just in case, and buckle up. Story only, there will be sex in the next one.
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The Last Son: Chapter 3
My sleep didn't remain peaceful like before. The safety that Kai gave me faded when my nightmares began.
Before me stood the charred, smoking remains of a residence. Most of its frame had collapsed. Small fires still burned, and embers glowed hot about the ruins. Stepping through the arched stone door frame, I walked among the ashes of the home I'd grown up in. I hadn't been back here for years, not since all hell broke loose.
Back then, the luxurious estate had stood tall. My younger sisters chased each other through the halls, screaming bloody murder over a ruined book. My mother shouted ineffectually for them to stop, concerned some crease in the carpet would leave her with only two children. That was the day my father, a commander in the king's royal army, cast me out into the world.
"Can you imagine my disappointment to have my only son be so uninterested in the life I built for him? The prowess and will to climb our ranks with ease, but too cowardly to enlist." He shoved a rucksack into my chest. "You've been a waste of my time and money. This is the last you'll get from me; be grateful to leave here with anything at all. Go waste space somewhere else. Don't come back."
Without much say in the matter, I hit the road. I felt blessed to never see my father again. That's what happens after a childhood full of forced training, demanding perfection, and never giving a compliment that wasn't backhanded. As for my mother and sisters, it took a long time to find peace after leaving them behind.
I wondered what happened to them. Did they die in the war? From the plague? Did they survive one tragedy after another only to be hunted down? The thought of all the painful deaths my mother and sisters might have suffered left me reeling. Sitting against one of the columns, I questioned whether or not my home had truly become this smoldering husk.
The scene around me shifted, and I was thrust into a memory. An emaciated woman lay on a cot inside a healer's tent. Her blonde hair was thin and brittle. Ghostly skin clung to her bones and did nothing to hide her veins. My first love, Lila, was moments away from succumbing to her illness.
Kneeling beside her cot, I held her frail hand in mine and looked into her blue eyes. She watched me as her labored breathing gradually weakened.
