Bloodgore

Content warning!: (18+)

•This text contains contents of detailed violence, religious themes and references, as well as insulting and dirty speech, followed by heavy, emotional topics you should be aware of, in case of any mental disorder, trauma or other emotional sickness. 

•The accessibility or fabrication to minors or any other individuum, who´s under the age of 18, is not recommended and is strictly prohibited. If this is ignored, it could lead to heavy consequences.

Chapter 1. The Uppers tailwinds

Ten years have now gone by, since the death of my mother. I will now use this reason, to express my current feelings a little bit, I think. Let’s see if this will do good for my soul.

When the farmers freed me from my hiding hole, on that fateful day, I couldn’t understand the world around me anymore.             

Not only was my mother taken from me, from one moment to the other, but with that also the intolerable pain in my spine, that diapered without a trace, never to returned.                                             

They lifted me from the hole and I could move my legs, even though I didn’t previously take my pain medications. This would have normally been a pure blessing for me, but after all that happened in the last hours, I simply couldn’t feel any happiness for this wonder.                                                       

Generally, since the happenings of that day, I felt my joy in life was gradually fading away, like it was being brutally squeezed out of me like a sponge.                                                                                                             

Every moment felt as if a grey haze was coursing through my body and soul, which was dragging me lower and lower with each day that passed.

Many months passed and I was thereby »raised«, by the country man of this neighbouring commune, whereby an even more miserable time began for me.

My new domicile was now a multi-story country house, where many other members lived alongside me.                                                     

I was assigned the room, on the upper right site of the house, which I shared with a girl named Sill.       

Our beds where each placed at the both ends of the room, where in between only lied a small wooden drawer, whose presence was the only thing that was blocking our sights from each other when we slept. 

Sill used to be a fanatic insect collector and possessed a wicker basket filled with bluedance locusts, which she always placed on top of the drawer and enthusiastically observed them through the small gaps that lied within the basket.  I honestly admit, that these insects possessed, trough they´re blue coloured circles, which grew on their forebody, a kind of hypnotic manner to them. But these crickets also abruptly jumped around, when even the slightest movement was detected by them, which would bring my already bad sleeping schedule into more disarray and made me more awake then then drowsy.                                           

They also stuffed me into the village school, who’s number of strange faces certainly made me feel jittery.                                                   

Whereby, who am I kidding here, I had a panic-like anxiety towards these new kids.                                 

I tried the best I could, to isolate myself from them, which I successfully managed to do, because I was gladly seated alone, at left back of the classroom.                                                                                       

The taught subjects were relatively easy. My mother always attempted to teach me basic knowledge, like reading, writing, basic math and other everyday things, which actually threw me way ahead, in terms of basic knowledge, from the currently educated topics. Through this, I could use the given opportunity to continually doze away unnoticed, without having to face any kind gaps in the required knowledge.

This habit however, did not make me very likable to the present teachers.                                                               

Our school possessed three teachers; the math-, spelling- and household teacher Mrs. Brachtel, an abysmal saddlecloth who made child hate their hobby, something the others said about her. The nature- and agriculture teacher Mr. Globe, a man with a constantly torrid and scratchy voice. Even though he always tried to come off as a strict and intimidating, was his actual reputation more amusing than frighting. And the last of them was Mrs. Baldrian, the literature- and regional education teacher.           

I would designate her as the only nice and honest adult in this entire commune. She also was the woman, who granted me nearly unlimited access towards the library, as long as I would logically return them after the past week.                                         

 This woman seemed to like me, (at least it always felt like it), which I always perceived as rather odd. After all, I paid as much of my limited attention in her class, as in all the other ones and wasn’t a genius in any other desirable talent.                                 

She asked me nearly every day, on how my current day was going and what I was currently happening in my life.                                   

This woman seemingly worried herself about me, which I always tough was strange, but still, she remained my only trusted grownup, alongside the bearded leader of this commune, I could actually trust.

A fact I cherished deeply, even though I never openly admitted it.

 On every Wednesday and Saturday, there was this special educational lesson, in which the politics and deeds of the Baron were narrated to the other kids.                                                                                           

I was, gods be praised, exempt from these lessons, on the personal orders of the leader, and was supposed to never get any more information on him, whereby the even the access towards the book material about him was forbidden for me.

Why did the murderer of my mother have his own school subject, and why was further information towards him prohibited to me? I had so many questions, to many I still haven’t gained answers to.

On my tenth birthday, I decided to move away from this stuffy and odoring household, which I called home for about three years, and return to my original domicile, where I wanted to set up my own campsite. (I had gotten this idea form a book I read back then.)                                                                                 

After many discussions with the leader and helpful tips from Mrs. Baldrian, I was finally granted the allowance to life on my own and set up a camp, whereby they even offered me the basic equipment, that I needed to survive, and a small collection of rations. 

I thus lived back at my original roots, here I felt an almost positive aura, which could satisfy me for a certain period of time. I simply felt myself…, welcomed here.                                                                                           

But I still had to stem school, this meant that I had to walk down the steep mountain trail, every morning, except Sundays, and subsequently had to, after the school day ended, walk it back upwards again.                                                                                                                 

In my now sole freedom, I raised my tent and build myself a campfire hearth, who I build on the overgrown lawn that lied in front of the ruins of my old home. (PS: This took more attempts than I originally hoped for.) 

The outhouse from my childhood was luckily still where it used to be. It was weathered, but still functional.

Out of the still present rubble, that gushed out from the old cabin’s carcass, I build myself a small bookshelf, made from weathered blanks that previously held the interior of the house together, which, despite some »artistic« features, could hold itself against the forces of nature.

This isolation however, it made me sensibly disliked by the others. I could just read it form they´re faces alone, on how much they disapproved of me and stamped me as a desolate.                                             

“But this shouldn’t worry me anymore”, I tried to convince myself.                                                                                       

The opinions of other should, from now on, not influence or confuse me no longer.                                           

I am just not like them, this I had to accept, and with clear consistency.                                                                       

Nevertheless, I still questioned myself sometimes, how and what the other classmates thought of me. I tried to supress these thoughts, with all my available might, yet would it be a pleasant sentiment, to know that someone would actually, voluntarily tolerate me.                                                                                               

I don’t want to be hated by the-<the rest of the page was made illegible, with scrawled stains of ink.> 

Some time went by and I arrived at the conclusion of my school-time, whose chapter I finally completed.                                                   

I was about sixteen and my part-time mission now consisted of assisting by the harvest and other mundane things, that required assistance in the commune. Every day, for five hours, and this from 7 o´clock in the morning.                                                          The work was tolerable, only the constant watchwords, that the overseer gave off, were humiliating.                   

I am well aware, that my morning self was not really approachable and often seemed like it would fall asleep on the spot, but these ear-piercing screams, if you just breathed a second to long, I was…, I wouldn’t say disturbing, but I would lie, if my lacrimal gland wasn’t sometimes scratched because of them.

This was my current life, condemned to a dismal living on the fields, without sympathy, empathy and without any happiness.

Now in the present-day, I am currently eighteen years old and the hopes for improvement have long since faded from my blank mind. I still have to perform the same fieldwork as before and my free time is filled with my constant alone-time.                    Even though the tent would store up heat quite well, I still decided to sleep outside and thereby stared into the endlessly rotating night sky and listened in on the sounds of the nightly ambience.                 

Except for when I had to sense “him”, then I would crawl back into my safe and dense tent. 

I had Today After that.   Why am I disguising myself in my own writings, nobody will ever read these.               

My soul and spirit, have driven even further down into the abyss. The sleepless nights, the aching monologues with myself and the subsequent doubts. I don’t know, if I can stand this no longer. The others seem to be so pleased and happy, why can’t I feel like them?                 

They all have people that count on them and grant them courage, what do I have? Nothing.               

The only person that ever truly cared for and accepted me on this rotten planet, just the way I was, was taken by this despicable Baron, while I additionally have to tolerate, that this bastard and so-called hero, is supposed to be a saviour of the people? An honoured messiah? This man killed my mother, and is being hailed, every morning by many in the village.                                                 

Even though I am grateful that I didn’t have to attend these rituals and events, but the basic idea, that the person, who did such a gruesome thing to another human, was still able to roam around freely and unpunished…, this I can’t dissect from my head. To this came also, these apparitions of this old man, which I have started seeing for quite some time. Sometimes I only hear his noises, but on certain occasions he just lies near me or spreads himself in the distends, ominously.                                     

His body was dry and pale, similar to a dead body, he wore a ripped sackpant and was otherwise naked, with scares all over his body. Blood flowed from his cut open neck, while he disturbingly and painfully tried breath, which sounded even more gruesome trough the body juices that ran down his airways. On some nights, he would even moan down my back or appear in my nightmares. No one has ever seen this creature before, but why would the gods torment me in such a way?                     

Am I doing something wrong? I wish they would just answer me.

I want scream, this pressure in my head, whose weight is steadily increasing, and the feel, that is slowly leaving my body and riddles them with blue spots. I am scared, I don’t know what to do. I was always supposed to remain upright, but in these current times, I just can’t hold back these tears anymore. This was not supposed to happen, the red shadows amongst the trees, the taste of blood on my tongue, what is wrong with me? I can’t even stand my own reflexion anymore. What purpose those this life even hold anymore? Maybe I should… No. Not now. I will give these thoughts more time. Please-

Amoñ convulsingly threw his writing quill onto the wooden folding table, whose still present ink spilled itself over the entire table, and tiredly laid himself back.

He led himself fall back, up to his pelvic bone, and kept his restless legs on the wooden log, who he was currently abusing as his chair, whereby he was staring deeply into the endless thicket of the forest, while refusing himself to blink.

His hair, which was just so long, that it barely touched his shoulders, blew in the mild, late-night drafts and freely spread itself over the grassy moos floor, whilst starred paralysed, without changing his expression, into the neighbouring distance, as his eyelids darkened themselves even more. 

After an unknown time, Amoñ laid both of his hands on his bleached face and gradually pulled them down his skull. He breathed heavily and mumbled to himself, “Am I really not made for this world? This here again proves to me, just how worthless I truly am.”

Amoñ steadily raised himself and formatted the pieces of paper into a wildly sorted stack of uselessness, who he would hide away between the books in his shelf.

After blowing out the oil lantern, which was acting as his sole source of lighting and kept the ever-consuming darkness at bay, he strolled, visibly shaken over to his open sleeping spot and tucked himself into his thick wool blanket.

It was around two in the morning now, presumed Amoñ, as he hopelessly gazed into the bleak stary sky, whose clouds where enlightened by the shine of the moon and a lilac glimmer, whilst reflecting on the lastly written.

He didn’t know, why he was so stirred up. His heart pounded with strong punches to his chest, meanwhile his body felt a freezing coldness, whose origin was not from the sunless night. The outside temperatures where low, but stood no chance against the warmth of his absorbing blanket.

It rather came from Amoñ´s insides. His body was downright spitting out the freezing cold, as his skin irritatingly shivered together, like the leaves of a mimosa.

Amoñ tried, with every fibre of his mind, to calm himself down and to somehow fall asleep, after all, he still needed to arrive on the fields tomorrow, with expected punctuality.

However, his skull thumbed strongly and his body skidded from hot to cold, which made his deceleration impossible.

“Why am I now also plagued by this insomnia?”, spoke Amoñ futilely inside his head, “I am truly a piece of rotten soul. I need to sleep now. I can’t falter again tomorrow. Not also that.”

“Bewept be his reality’s shadderment. Meanwhile reflects the swinging threat of a goddess however, an image of a divide, in the lifenorm of the vessel.” 

Shortly after Amoñ´s body could finally relax itself and properly shut down, was he awakened by a sudden and loud crow, that came from a white raven that landed on a nearby branch and gave off its harmonic, yet also irritating, melody.

Amoñ provocatively opened his eyes and dug around in dug around, with his hands, in the mossy ground and thereupon violently threw a bundle of moos, with the belonging dirt, after it.

His vison unhurriedly awoke over the passing seconds and he could now clearly see his surroundings. There he realised that everything around him seemed to be bright and smooth, a usual colour scheme for late midnight. Everything used to be radiating pitch black darkness.

To Amoñ´s surprise, was the night already long gone and the bright morning gloss was obtrusively shining into his, with deep circles embellished, face. 

Amoñ looked around overasked and pinched his skin, to figure out if this here was reality or just a bad dream.

However, to his astonishment, was this here true reality. The sun already shinnied for quite some time, while breaking through the gloomy clouds that littered the grey sky. 

But before he could ask more questions, leaped the white raven from its branch, with a hearable jolt, and flew elegantly into the complexity of the forest, wherein it disappeared between the accumulation of murky green- glimmering tree trunks.

Although Amoñ had never seen this kind of bird before in his entire life, and was even shortly blinded by its beauty, couldn’t he waste any more time now, because he needed to prepare and dress himself for the upcoming fieldwork.

He panicked and repeatedly looked into the colourless sky, whose clouds where aggressively sucking out all of its beauty away and only led trough remnants of their regenerating beams, and thereby put on his cloths.

His pants were coloured black and made out of rough and thick cotton, that was tightly fasten by two firm bonds.

The following top was a beige cloth shirt, with thin sleeves, over which he put on a dark, dirt-coloured leather jacket, whose inside was however not padded with any fur, but possessing such a considerable density, that could effortlessly withstand and isolate colder temperatures or other nature exposures.

He finally drove into his dark-brown leather boots, that gracefully went over his colourless socks, that had green-red knitted patterns on them.

Even though these cloths were in a very good condition and only possessed minor signs of abrasion, were they the only pieces of clothing Amoñ personally owned, besides his underwear. 

But despite these grievances, did the young adult not give off a supposedly corrosive smell. His jacket undeniably smelled like freshly cut grass and rummaged dirt, that he caught while working on the fields, but he could banish these odours trough frequent washing, inside a not so far mountain pond, that even had a small waterfall, and keep them clean and scentless. 

He also used this wet spot as a place of swimming and cleaning. The cold spring water, which shot itself with enormous power from underneath the surface, did not bother Amoñ. Rather, he really enjoyed this time, where he could drown his worry’s and just motionlessly float across the water´s surface.

Lastly, Amoñ took out a hairband, that was hidden inside of a dark-green nature lexicon, from the shelf and tied back his hair, unprofessionally, until it shaped a sort of bun, whereby some parts of his hair still sprouted down the both sides of his head.

He could not lose any more time now and walked away from his rest area, with a dissatisfied feeling rumbling in his head, towards the location of the agriculture-commune.

The bumpy and miry path slithered through the forest with long stretched curves, to its finishing tail bellow. 

Even tough Amoñ knew of a few shortcuts, who greatly cut his determined runtime, remained this road an exhausting and time-consuming ordeal, which he had to master nearly daily.

He of course could have ran down the mountain, to arrive even quicker and timelier at his destination, but this would not be worth his effort.

He appreciated the commune, but not to this extend, where he would feel guilty over not being on time. 

And so, he walked, step by step down the wet and dull woodland path, while occasionally kicking lose rocks into the air, who appeared before him.

As Amoñ was sending the defenceless rubble downhill, he watched the agriculture-commune from above, who slowly appeared behind the protecting dress of the woods. 

Although it was still far away, could he recognise some humane outlines around the commune. He saw hectic beings, that strolled over the house bridges, who connected multiple houses with each other, and concentrated workers, who were already numerously working on the fields and fulfilled their obligations, since the mornings begin.

“A life, characterized by stress and duty. A life, which is purely straightened towards satisfying the other’s needs, and leaving your own needs excluded. To lock oneself, voluntarily inside their own basement, a stab inside you own breast…

If you see it this way, why should you willingly choose to live your life this way?”, asked Amoñ, while distracting himself with a little philosophy.  

“Hey, I am slowly getting better at this philosophic stuff.”, said Amoñ to himself, whereat he was evidently amused by his purely tough up question. 

But the thoughts, of the incoming working day, brought him back into his sad reality and he quickly lost his slight grin again, while pointing his view towards the ground.

After yet another long-lasting walk, that overall took about 25 minutes, he finally reached the foot of the mountain.

Amoñ left the tight and harsh woods and set foot onto the flat and soothing plain of the valley, where a light, mellow breeze was brushing trough the far-reaching fields of grass, where in doing so created beautiful, almost wave-like patterns.

Amoñ then finally reached the settlements gate, whose proud wooden planks were almost fully entangled within red-green ivy and lower parts were occupied by my many different mushrooms. 

Although the agriculture-commune did not possess any kinds of walls or other fence structures, that would indicate their claimed land, but this standalone gate, which was also present on two other ends of the commune, marked the official entrance into this settlement.

Amoñ traversed trough the settlements gate and turned right after few meters, because even though he had now officially entered the commune, was the nearest house still a near entire kilometre apart from him.

His today’s task was the harvest of vigorhop, which traditionally happened by hand.     

They´re abnormally large nutlets shall only be harvested, if they reached a middleprismatic- yellow glint, which meant their full ripeness. He knew these facts all too well.

And so, he walked across the damp-green country road towards the direction if the hop plantation, whose erect adjusted beams could even be spotted from this very distance.

But on Amoñ´s journey, where he internally battle within himself to not doze off on the spot, there suddenly called him a raspy voice from far away.

Amoñ was confused, why would someone call him? He hectically turned himself and tried to figure out who was the despatcher of these lutes.

The shouts became louder with each yell, until Amoñ could finally spot the person, that wanted to draw they´re attention towards them.     

This person was standing on the side of the plantation and was widely waving both of their arms against him.

Amoñ tried figure out, as he was nearing himself towards the hop plantation, who this person could be. Who would wait for him or even want to ask a favour of him?

But as he came even closer, there it hit him like a stone against his face.

“Wait, isn’t that Sill?”, noticed Amoñ with astonishment and slight overwhelmed.

Amoñ thereafter reached the plantation and encountered Sill, who was waylaying him this entire time.

“Nearly thought you went deaf.”, said Sill, while confidently throwing her right fist onto her pelvis.

“Moring Sill…”, he reacted, while shortly waving his hand and giving her a confused glare, “What is the urgency?”

“You´re owning me money, ten scars to be exact.”, answered Sill as she amusingly snapped towards him.

“What, why… huh?”, replied Amoñ confused and clueless.

“I´ve bet with you last Saturday, on how you´ll be arriving an hour late again, you had even agreed to it with, for your terms at least, great enthusiasm. So…, where is my dough sleepy sheeple?”, smirked Sill and widely stretched her, slightly with dirt soiled hand demandingly towards Amoñ.

“Umm… ah, how could you now-“

“Pff… Im only japing with ya Amoñ.”, interrupted Sill while laughing and withdrew her hand, after which she crossed both of her arms and smilingly shook her head, “Don’t worry, I’ll let it slip this time, you’re owning me nothing. However, this is not the reason why I was waylaying you, Amoñ.

First of all, the fatso is ill and we are, for a certain amount of time, left to fend for ourselves. And secondly, you have been issued for an important mission, by upper ones themselves.”

“What, I?”, asked Amoñ warily, whilst still being relieved that he didn’t own Sill any money, “Why would the planers personally request me for a mission? I mean…, there are many around here, that would be about ten times more competent and efficient for such important tasks as me.”, argued Amoñ, with one hand, out of embarrassment, on his shoulder, while slowly gazing away from Sill´s eye contact. 

“Nonsense. They must have their reasons for picking you, out of all the other people, for this mission. Amoñ, you also possess the brains. This can’t be said of everyone in this commune.”, retorted Sill, whilst throwing her hands onto her waist and leaning towards Amoñ.”, You will certainly complete this task. But enough babbling. It’s time to fetch your mission.”

She walked past Amoñ and signalled him, with her hand, to follow him.

They both distanced themselves from the planation and walked towards a close by hut, that was adjoined to a horse stable.

This inconspicuous looking hut was however the mission-hut. In this building where all of the upcoming and recently completed missions marked and listed, and that with ministerial order.

“I was technically mistaken about your time of arrival. So I was, if were being exact here, also wrong with my bed prediction.”, spoke Sill, halfway to the hut.

“Told you. I wanted to exert myself after all, to not be late every day.”, replied Amoñ satisfied and even a little proud.

“I don’t want to be reluctant and undo your joy Amoñ, but you were about an hour and a half late today.”, reacted Sill with an ironic grin.

“Oh… hehe.”, harrumphed Amoñ silently and awkwardly touched.

“I never said it would be a lesser time, didn’t I.”, laughed Sill, “But, to get back to the topic of the mission. Amoñ…”, said Sill as she suddenly turned back to him and stood still in front of him, with a direct expression on her face, “Even though I don’t fully know the details of this chosen mission, and it honestly shouldn’t concern me, but I have heard from the fatso, that it is about merchants from relatively far away. Calm and educated people are a better reflexion of the commune than some loud and energetic, yet dumb and easily irritated comrades.”       

“I mean, if you say it like this, that would be true. But ehm…, you know how competed I am with social interactions.”, argued Amoñ with a nervous grin, while itching with his right hand on the back of his head.

“Only too well.”, countered Sill, “Not much talk, high shyness and distaste towards the conversations of others, yet still completing his task as expected.

You’re not an obstacle Amoñ. Only a person, that is just not build for certain objectives.”

Amoñ pondered, “Ok…, maybe I am just imagining it as being too difficult for me.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear!”, spoke Sill satisfied, “Now let’s move on, the day ain´t getting longer you know.

The both of them continued walking, in a slightly faster, but also harmonious stride, whilst Sill´s brown apron and her rummaged, long brown hair was blowing because of the fields breeze and her dusty glasses started fogging up through the colder wind, which made it so her eyes where nearly unnoticeable through her glasses and only gave of an empty reflexion.

Even her nature-experienced skin, that was signed by many freckles, especially towards the middle of her face, was pulling itself together because of these early autumn draughts.

They then finally reached the said hut and entered it through its unassuming back entrance door.

The hut was jammed to the maximum with cabins and letter documents. To add to this, lied also a big table, on the middle-left side of the room, who was completely engulfed with pieces of paper and envelopes.

On the wooden walls, that weren’t blocked off by other furniture and flashed the naked boards of the inner façade of, where many calendars or other notice boards mounted, whereby many of them where almost brimming over with remarks or colourful annotations.

But a few moments after Sill entered the hut, echoed a young and energetic voice towards Sill, “Hey, long time no see.”

“Moring Mendson. Nearly forgot that you were here today.”, answered Sill with a polite, yet also judging expression.

“What brings you here, in this come true form of hell? Tough you´ve had all hands filled with work, cause the fatso was making sick for today?”, acknowledged Mendson, whilst leaning against a big cupboard.

“Before I reveal that to you, do I want to point out something again. You are fully responsible for your current suffering, wherefore I will not allow myself for any kinds of pity, Mendson.”, reacted Sill, “And yes, we normally couldn’t allow ourselves any breaks today, but Amoñ here still needs his contemporary mission. Do you know if it’s still lying around here?"

As Sill and Mendson where talking, slunk Amoñ timidly through the back door. He previously paused for a short moment, as he perceived a different voice inside of the room and hesitated with entering.

“Oh, there you are Amoñ. Extremely punctual as usual.”, said Mendson cattishly.

“Hey, Mendson.”, exclaimed Amoñ silently towards Mendson. 

“And yes Sill, I still have Amoñ´s paper. It laid openly on the table this morning, you just couldn’t miss it. It even had this bright-red stamp.”, confirmed Mendson, “Man, would I like to trade with you Amoñ. Every task in this forsaken village is better than this shit-hut here.”

“Which you don’t have to attend for no reason, mind you. We both know, what happened the last time”, exhorted Sill with a negative undertone,” We all share our dislike towards the fatso, but openly insulting him as fat and dirty pig, on a festive activity, is borderlining on all sides of stupidity.”

“I might have had one or two beers in me and of course, what I said was dump. But I regret nothing!”, explained Mendson to Sill, while he was embarrassingly looking to the side, but was still confidently crossing both of his arms.

“You know my opinion of him well enough, that work morals can’t be increased trough useless discipline and humiliation, but to insult him around such a big onlooking crowd, in such a cold and pointless manner, this is why I have no sympathy for your current being. That action of yours was just preposterous and embarrassing, for all parties involved.”, clarified Sill earnestly.

“Easy of you to say, super brain.” What I did was righteous and I am proud of it!”

“You can be like that, continue sulking in this little hut here. Do you have the papers now or what?”, questioned Sill with annoyance.

“Right, nearly forgot. Here you go and don’t worry, everything is still inside the envelope, down to the smallest snippet of paper.”, uttered Mendson as he gave the envelope in Amoñ´s hands, whereby he thanked him with a short and simple, “Thank you.”

“No need to thank me. I am actually kind of glad, that you two showed up here, because this sorting and rearranging of letters in this tiny, tight and also horseshit smelling outhouse, nearly caused me to go insane. But like ya said Sill, it could have hit me worse.”, preached Mendson thankfully.

“At least you’re insightful.”, remarked Sill, “But we sadly can’t sit around for any longer, the hop doesn’t pick it self and the schedule threatens to shedder if we keep sitting around.”

“Then I will not stop you. I hope you weren’t the only one’s id see this week.”, said Mendson, who amusingly flicked his suspenders against his white tank top, while also playing around with the long, extended ends of his black dungarees, “And Sill, don’t fall of the ladder with that big head of yours.”

“Thank you, I will think about it. Try not to also screw this on up here. Otherwise, they´ll hang you up sideways on the field as a scarecrow.”, countered Sill jokingly and thus left the mission hut again. Sill went ahead and Amoñ closed the worn-down door behind him.

“Let’s see, your following mission states.”, spoke Sill and opened the brown, colour-faded envelop, within she dug around and carefully took out the first of the three included papers out.

Sill straightened her glasses and skimmed trough the written down information, whereby they walked back towards the hop plantation.

“I think, I got everything important. Your upcoming mission is, I quote <cough-cough>, »Supervision and submission of product-goods in the upper environment of the valley. «, elaborated Sill, while Amoñ was concentratedly, but also nervously listening in. “, the text below is relatively complex, but to summarise, it’s that you, Amoñ, who for whatever doesn’t have a surname, are supposed to approve of a delivery, that is being collected in the upper mountain grove. They thereby mean the cleaning in front of your home.

So, in short, you must wait until the merchants arrive, give them their OK and maybe help with the loading process, and that near you homeplace. Doesn’t sound that hard, doesn’t it?

“This actually sounds…, not that difficult. When these people arrive, do I need to talk with them or can I really just say »OK« and then let them be?”, questioned Amoñ, who was pleased by the supposed difficulty of this task, but was still torn over the upcoming interaction with these unknown merchants.

“No, you just have to agree over your transaction with them, then they’ll normally do everything themselves. It may occur, that you´ll have to sign something else, because these merchants are not from this part of the empire, otherwise this whole ordeal is after all design, so that even mute or blind people are able to negotiate a transaction. So, no fear, you´ll easily manage this.”

“Thanks Sill.”, answered Amoñ reassured, “On what time, would this negotiation then be?”

“By the Sacred One, excuse me.”, expressed Sill with embarrassment, because she didn’t tell him his time of arrival, “The planed arrival of the merchants is from 14:30 up to 16:30. Therefor should you be at your little dwelling at around 14:00 at best, so you can calmy plan everything ahead.”

“That is a relatively large time span. What happens, if these people arrive later than its stated here?”, Amoñ lastly asked.

“Then it’s not your problem. You may be lucky, that your delivery acceptance lies in front of your home, but if these merchants arrive even a second to late, then you´ll just write the current time down somewhere and keep it somewhere where it won’t disappear. Then will we at least be able to fine them for a tasty amount in return. The merchant’s-company will also thereafter compensate us, according to the majority of the situation.”, explained Sill thoroughly.

“Let’s hope that this scenario doesn’t apply today, but in advance, thank you for all of this Sill. I would probably fail miserably, without your textbook explanations.”, thanked Amoñ relieved, “But we should get going and finally show ourselves back at the plantation again.”

“Good that you pointed it that, where probably being sighted as missing already. Always remember, vigorhop on the big planks, and only harvest them if they´re truly ripe, and regular hop, that is still remains from the last harvest, is on the thine strings and should also be picked up.”, described Sill, while instructively pointing her index finger into the air.

“I know. It’s not like I already did this the last years prior.”, replied Amoñ with a slight grin.

“Let’s hope that´s the case. You can unlearn many things after 712 days.”, waned Sill self-assured.

And so returned the both of them back at the hop plantation and carried on with their duties, whereby they would then part ways for now.

The labour proceeded as usual. Sill argued with Amey Layne again, the daughter of the understudy of the leader, who was simply an arrogant and entitled woman, but that remained the only noteworthy event that happened this shift.

Hower could I not lose this sense of fear, over the upcoming mission.   This dread, that nailed itself to the back of my head and recedingly punched my brain with a pulsating pressure, who occasionally made me forget, in what time or world I was currently living in. In this moment, I taught of the here and now, but then I forgot the past now again. The time flew by in no time, and I possessed not even a spark of control over it. 

If Sill had not been caringly paid attention, to the south clock podium, would I still be working on the fields until midnight, in this mentally dead state, without even noticing it physically nor spiritually.

But why did everything pass this fast toady? In relation to this mission, seemed the fieldwork to be a time-lapse. It’s just a small interaction, a simple change of words with strangers, yet why does my body feel numb and shacky because of this.

The force to talk with strangers. With strangers, that might support him, is it that?

My body remains restless, but I don’t know why. I want to supress it, but every attempt to soothe it, seems to make this situation even worse than before.

What is this degrading pull of fright. I need to shut it, whatever it may take. 

Amoñ thereafter left the commune, after Sill´s “friendly” reminder, and returned to his campsite he called home.

A biting, grassy smell, rested inside his nose and his body felt heated up and pungent, whereby he was additionally overtired and low in energy. He could never confront the foreign merchants in this condition.

Even tough he rarely openly showed it or internally spoke of it, was Amoñ thankful for the and especially their leader.

He could not cast a bad light on those, who took him in after the death of his mother.

Amoñ punctually arrived at his home, or what was left of that, in front of which he found six big sacks and two crates, who were probably placed by someone else this noon.

Trough the fairly quick discovery of the listed goods and Amoñ´s excess time, did he use this present opportunity and leant against a fallen over tree stump, with direct vison of the goods in front of him, laid his arms onto his womb and instantly nodded away.

He awakened, after this therapeutic sleep, again and quickly looked for the current time, which he read from a small desk clock, that was located on the only empty gap on his bookshelf.

However, as he hectically, and still a little moony, stared onto the small, spruce-brown clock, did he shockingly realise that the clock said, that it was already »14:11«.

Frightened and shaken up, Amoñ looked around and tried to find any indications, that would have been left behind if the merchants had already shown up.

But to his luck, where all crates and sacks still at their original location and there were also no wheel tracks to be spotted on the ground.

Amoñ caught his breath and was also glad, that the merchants of the merchants-company hadn’t shown themselves yet.

He was however wide awake now and his heart was still madly pounding in his chest.     

Amoñ needed to find himself something else, that could relief his current tension before the awaited strangers arrived.

After a short consideration, he grabbed himself a piece of wood, from a neighbouring stack that lied near the fireplace, a knife that was attached to it and sat on top of one of the two crates and thereafter started to scratch the wood, off of his pathetic stump, into a shape.

Amoñ didn’t know what was currently carving or if he was even capable of this craft, but it calmed him in this situation to such a degree, that he just couldn’t stop himself.

The first form was a sword, although its size was way too long and possessed a thick blade, in strong contras to its hilt, thereto was it also uncleanly cut and had many cracks, yet Amoñ still found this activity relaxing and distracting, he even felt a certain prickle of proudness for it.

As he finished his first form, snatched Amoñ himself another piece of wood, with a sense of vigour, and continued his scratching.   

Time passed, yet the merchants didn’t want to show up.

Though after a perceived erntentiy, in which Amoñ created three more figures, from which one sadly failed, could he hear the presumed creaks of a carriage and galloping of horses.

They finally arrived!

And because Amoñ wasn’t sure, if the now really arrivals where late or not, he quickly ran back to his clock and checked the current time, where he read the numbers of »16:35«. “Did this count as a punishable delay?”, Amoñ wasn’t sure and hesitated to report this.

But to not make any mistakes and to follow suit of Sill´s instructions, scratched Amoñ quickly the read off number onto the failed axe figure and swiftly retuned to his post and stood ready near the good-crates, to greed the arriving merchants.

The carriage, that was pulled by tow, black-white horses, stopped near the location of the sacks filled with field-good and two strange looking, shorthaired men left the carriage and came, with their plucked boots, slamming onto the wet smelling dirt floor.

One of them had a short beard and was comparatively thick build, whereas the other one did not own one and however possessed a more healthier weight, but had multiple shaving cuts on his face and still spaces of present facial hair underneath his neck and ears.

Their clothing was also very messy. They possessed many repair patches and tears, there was also the absents of one of both of their button on their cream-brown top.

The grey-brown fleece jacket on them remained the only clean piece, that they carried on their body. It was fresh and did not have any cuts or stains, which was a strong contrary to their otherwise dirty and agitated demeanour.

The bearded merchant walked over to Amoñ and asked, “Hey squirt, are you the approver of these goods?”, which he clarified with a simple and nervous, “Yes.”

“Then show me your mission assignation. You do hopefully have it with you, right?”, demanded the bearded merchant.

“Yes, of course.”, Amoñ reacted tensely, as he took out the envelope, which he had gotten from Sill and was thereby keeping in his right waistband, and it handed over the to the merchant.

“Let me take look at this.”, said the bearded merchant and impatiently snatched the envelope form Amoñ´s hand. 

Although Amoñ was overwhelmed by the violent radiance the merchants gave of, but he remained in his position and awaited a good signal from them, towards the mission assignation.

“Mhh, that’s seems about right. We need this paperwork, so I’ll already throw it into the wagon. We´ll soon start loading the carriage with your stuff. The only thing we need of you later, is a final signature. But you´ll only get that after we finished loading, so be patient.”, explained the hairy merchant, whilst the second merchant already picked up the first sack, behind Amoñ´s back, with whose weight he shortly struggled with.

The bearded man walked past him and also participated in loading process of the agreed to wares.

Amoñ, who was pleased, because he hadn’t messed something up yet, stared perplex onto the carriage that stood in front of him, where he could refrain himself from peeking inside its inner workings.

It was like a tiny house on wheels. Rainproof, trough wooden walls nearly fully enclosed, possessed two window-frameworks and even a small metal roof.

The outer wooden stakes, that acted as the carriages base skeleton and keep her together, was made out of robust black spruce and thereby build to last, whereby its interior was however refined with crimson-red textile curtains and silver, flowerlike wall decorations.

In the inside of the carriage, Amoñ spotted many crates and other trading goods, that probably came from previous assignments.

But as he glanced trough the left carriage window, whose frame did not hold any glass and was just an elegant, curved wooden frame, could he previous a third person, that hid in the shadows of the inside interior. He also spotted a silhouette of a ginormous, dual headed axe, whose mere, razor-sharp presence, bestow Amoñ´s pale skin with a frightened shiver.

After some thoughts and assumptions, on who this person could be, he remembered about reading something about the existents of the merchant-loggers.

An important side fraction of the merchants-company, who would lend the merchants a helping hand and supported them through removing and cutting fallen trees or other kinds of debris, and that with the support of their trusty, dual-headed axe.

The atmosphere that lied within the carriage was still and eerie, but simultaneously calm and relaxing.  

But as he neared himself closer towards the carriage, was he suddenly startled by the two other merchants, who were currently involved in a loud conversation, and he returned to his previous idle point.

“You’re floundering a little too much Udo. At this paste, you´ll be licking woman’s feet dry in no time.”, asserted the bearded merchant.

“In your dreams, Tom. Only because I’m cautious with these goods, does this nowhere turn me into a faggot. This approach will someday rais me into a position, that even the Baron will value.”, proclaimed Udo overbearingly.

“That he soon will be!”, shouted Tom against Udo, “Give this shit just a few more month, then we´ll be supplying the Baron in person. Hailed shall he be!”

“Of course, behailed be the Baron.”, called Udo, whilst the other merchant retorted with another gesture, “Hailed shall he be.”, where both would put their left arms behind their backs and threw their clenched fists into the sky.

Amoñ was petrified by this occurring dialogue. Not only because of their unprofessional and idiotic language, but above all, could he not fathom fact, that these people were adoring the Baron their idol or even as their God, whereby they also tried to impress him with their bodacious achievements.

He found this kind of behaviour not only idiotic, but also just wrong.

Why would someone dedicate their entire life to a person, that would not even recollect thy self in their memory, no matter the breathtaking deeds you would achieve for them, what these negative- intelligence quotients could never deliver anyway, where the words that clouded Amoñ´s mind, but who were overshadowed by his smouldering hate.

Amoñ tried to hold his anger at bay, because no matter what they would continue to say, he did not want to disappoint Sill and the other of the commune or screw this mission over, just because of these spineless idiots.       

“The gathering of the Blurry-Vessel is being held this night, have you heard Tom?”, asked Udo.

“Sure thing! Tough it will probably not change much. Thanks to our Baron, can these golden retards, form the other border, only chatter with their teeth and thereby try to maintain their little front with all there might. Thanks to the war strategies of the Baron, we can just sit back and spit on this golden and rebel scum.”, bragged Tom loudly as a response.

“You say it, Tom. Do you think that Daińn and his little rebels, will someday show themselves again, after what the Baron taught them a few years ago?”, rumoured Udo mischievously.

“Daińn? Pah, now way. This dyed homeless guy and his misfit-troop, in their current size, can’t even compete against a general, let alone one of the twelfth divisions. This idiot is of the board, and I think for good.”, explained Tom self-assured.

“Oh well, who dares to stand against the Baron, is just an idiot. I mean, only morons who search attention, stand against a person, who simply doesn’t make any real mistakes and is just the image of a flawless Man. Hailed shall he be.”, spoke Udo proudly.

Whilst the both of them continuously bragged about their personal hero, tried Amoñ to cool of his heating mind. But he however felt such hate and grudge in this current situation, on a scale he had never sensed before in his entire life.

His hands became sweaty and his head felt like it would start boiling from all this stress, but he had to contain it, for the people in the commune.

Both merchants thereafter loaded the goods, crate by crate, sack by sack, slowly onto the carriage, whilst continuing with their over-drafted story’s.

The freshly placed goods where thereby sorted and space-savingly placed into the inners of the carriage, by the third merchant. Something, Amoñ could only guess trough the soundscape, that the insides carriage gave off.

But as the bearded merchant walked past Amoñ, with the last crate in his hand and the still ongoing ode to the Baron, slipped a silent and frantic, “Just shut up, you bastards.”, out of his mouth.

He didn’t realis it at first, that these words actually crawled out of his tempering body and its fibrillating bronchi, who shot forth from his otherwise calm mouthwork.

Even though the cursing was as silent as can be, the bearded merchant seemed to have heard his rude mumbling and walked, after placing the last crate down, over to Amoñ and questioned distrustfully, “What did you just say? I hope that I just misheard that, squirt.”

After a short silence, whereby Amoñ did not even realise, that he was the one that was being acknowledge, he answered surprised and innocent, “What. What did I supposedly say?

“I could have sworn, that you just said the words, »Shut up, bastards«.”, he inquired, as he walked closer to him, while accusingly pointing onto him with his finger.

“What, no. Why would I say something against you? I have known you for about a few minutes. I would have no reason to insult you or develop some kind of hatred against you.”, reasoned Amoñ logically, with a small tear of fear in his eyes.

Amoñ, as an isolated and unsocial human, hated the exposure to such kinds of pressure and his Soul wanted surrender itself, because of the sheer volume the merchant spoke in.

“Let’s hope that. Because as a loyal servant of the Baron, would I plant my fist into the faces of those, who would call such things against him or their faithful followers. To we understand each other?”, lectured Tom to Amoñ in a loud tone, whilst coming uncomfortably close to his face and aggressively tipping him onto his chest, whereupon Amoñ was slightly pushed back.

Amoñ wanted to say something against this, but, out of sheer fear, was unable to open his mouth or even utter a single sentence or an understandable noise.

“I’m hearing nothing!?”, spoke the merchant into his face, evidently awaiting some sort of understanding declaration from

Amoñ´s part, “Hello! I am wating for a, yes.”

Amoñ tried to pull himself together, but the pressure of this situation was simply too impactful for him and he instinctively turned away from the merchant, whereby also stepping a short distance back from him.

But as the merchant realised this, did he threw his arms onto Amoñ´s shoulder and pulled him back towards him and questioned even louder this time, “Are you deaf or something? Answer me. Over the honour of the Baron, answer me!”, he shouted, while he started to shake him rougher and rougher, with his dirty and scabby hands.

“Just leave me alone, Baron filth.”, Amoñ loudly screamed against the merchants blemished face, whilst also freeing himself from the merchants grasp and pushing him away.

“How can you bastards idolise a monster, who did, without reason, brutally butcher a woman, whilst not even showing a signal sign of remorse, and then carried on with his life, as if nothing happened.

Tell me! Or are you pigs even to dumb for that!”, yelled Amoñ, as loud as he could and with tears in his eyes, against the merchants, that where shortly paralysed and speechless from his sudden loudness.   

Even though he manged to distance himself from the merchants, through his loud scream, reached his mental health its breaking point and was completely worn out.

An ocean of tears flowed out of his sleepless eyes and his entire body was shacking uncontrollably. He did not want this. This situation however, forced something deep out of him, which even Amoñ did not understand.

The two merchants where however less pleased by his outburst and slowly made their way towards him.   

Although Amoñ could grasp a hold of himself again and thereafter tried to defend himself, however, “You dirty miscarriage worm”, shouted the bearded merchant and punched Amoñ, with great force, on the upper-right side of his head, which instanly thew him onto the ground. Through the pain, he also dropped his amateurish attempt of a guard and thwackingly weaselled around the wet dirt floor.

The second merchant, who previously held himself back, wanted, trough the energising scream the bearded merchant previously gave off, to involve himself and spiritedly walked over to the knocked down Amoñ, while heavily cursing and mocking the helpless pre-man beforehand.

“Hey you little shitpaw, eat this!”, called the second merchant, as he kicked the defenceless Amoñ in his stomach, with a huge swing, where trough he uproaringly retched and spat out a mix of saliva and fine red blooddrops.

“Haha, you deserved that, you filthy knave. This is what happens to scum, who insult our Baron.”, boasted Tom arrogantly, after which he also kicked into his stomach.

“Serves you well, you whore.”, “Ohh, are you starting to cry?”, taunted both merchants, while continuously hitting Amoñ´s belly.

After many more hateful beatings, directed at Amoñ´s abdominal wall, there suddenly echoed a direct and loud voice throughout the entire clearing.

“Hey, I think that’s its now! You guys can’t be ticking correctly, are you crazy?”, abruptly shouted the third person, that still reside inside of the carriage, against the two other merchants, “Instead of satisfying your worthless egos, should you guys fulfill your duty at the merchants-company and now finally get the heck out of here with me. We were already late today, so get going and that pronto!”

“<annoyed growling>, all right.”, reacted the beardless merchant.

“We´re finished here anyways. Let’s get going.”, agreed the beard-having merchant, while turning around for one last time and spiting in front of Amoñ´s whining body.

“Hey, leave him alone already. Besides, nobody wants to see your snot around here, so get your act together.”, demanded the third merchant with annoyance.   

“Don’t be so pissy Hudson, or should I show you, who the true leader of this merchant-voyage is?”, Tom challenged self-assured, while widely stretching his arms.

“Say this, in this tone, to me ever again and I’ll hack you with my axe into such tiny pieces, that we would need an expert with a magnifier, to identify your disgusting mush.”, reacted Hudson with hate filled eyes.   

Tom thereafter tried to overbid this answer, but was the actual respect, over his thread, so major, that he simply did not answer it and silently sat on the front seat of the carriage, where he continued sulking in quietness. 

Hudson took a last look at Amoñ, who was shakingly lying in a puddle full of stomach fluids.

“Should look after him? But this would turn these morons into they´re boiling state again. Furthermore, I can’t show myself in front of him with my axe, my wide posture would probably not help either. Every attempt, would probably frighten him even more, then what he is currently going through. 

He will somehow handle this and get back on his feet, I hope… Please, let this be the right decision.

I could not withstand another childish fuss from them, without having to giving them a hefty lesson.

Otherwise, I’ll lose this job, and the company two merchants.”

And so, with the slapping sound of a whip, rode the merchants away, while Amoñ continued to fibrillate on the floor like a fetus and cried over himself.

His already weak and damaged psyche, was completely broken by these past events.

He could not come to terms with anything anymore and mumbled incomprehensible things, in his personal pond of sadness, who was rapidly filled with freshly cried out tears, to himself. 

“Why me…., Why Me, WHY ON THE GODS ME?”, shrieked Amoñ, who quickly tried to raise himself, yet failed by every attempt he made and returned onto the ground, like invisible chains were pulling him back.

After several, hopeless attempts, seemed it like, if as the whole forest floor was exhaustingly laughing at him. Ever blade of grass, every naturel structure, every tree. Their bawling laughter supressed every one of Amoñ´s attempts to scream for help. Or were they?

“Be quiet. Please, STOP THIS.”, yelled Amoñ desperately against them, whilst repeatingly pushing against the laughing forest floor, who´s laughter exhibited a slight panting.

Amoñ threw his upper body backwards and start focussed into nothing.

“It is all pointless. What difference would it make?”, asked Amoñ, who tried to cry, but whose glands where already used up, whose eyes also started turning red.

“I don’t belong in this world. I am the filth, whose mere existents is a hurdle for everyone, this is who I always will be.

I am such a coward, a knave. To think, that I could be something different than this here, my fate was always this, from beginning to end.

I am cold, everything hurst. Mommy, can you hear me?

Please, help me.

…

It is beyond hope, maybe I should finally end this and feel, for only a short duration, no fear and sorrow. To silence the voices, to finally let go off the pressure.

He stood, after countless attempts, up again and limped, with his right hand on his belly, towards the carved figures, who he, after a short reflexion on what all happened in the last hours, thew in a fit of rage onto the floor and breaking the sword shaped figurine in half.

After breaking the figure, he picked up the still besides the lying carving knife and went, with his remaining energy, on the mossy lawn, that would normally be his sleeping spot.

He kneeled onto the grass, closed his eyes, while tremblingly putting the knife on his throat.

He overthought this situation for the last time and came to the conclusion, that this here should be his end. There was nothing, that incident him to continue and he neared the knife closer to his neck, so that it even slightly cut through his skin already.   

But before he could really slit his throat, Amoñ suddenly felt a soothing, warm hand on his shoulder.   

His body stopped instantly, whereby he also stopped further movement of the knife.

Amoñ was wafted through, by a supernatural, liberating feeling, which made everything feel warm and soft.

Even the wind was delicate and comfortable, thereto also disappeared the annoying laughter of the surroundings and the sky let, after a perceived eternity, trough the shining sunbeams, and these directly onto Amoñ´s forehead.

What was this feeling and where did it originate from? Amoñ opened his eyes perplexedly and was greeted by a strange, presumed female entity, that carefully stalked over his shoulder.

This entity did however not possess a face and its body seemed to be a woven fabric, which consisted out of a singular gold-white gown, which was swung around its entire body and was also decorated with an orange-gold branch pattern.

“His time may not be in the now. Breathed out, because the cradle of mine, shall from now lead you with clarity, as it occurred in the norm afore.”

Even though Amoñ was left stunned from it, was his initial fright towards this inhuman being, transformed into calming melody, which he happily indulged in, even tough he could not move a single muscle.   

“Layeth thy pate onto mine, and may thee sins shortly linger on.

Letth thee be guided by the fresh winds, and in the interim discover, thy trues grave.”, whispered the soothing entity into his ears.

“And now, letth me embark.”, she said, as the figure laid her hand, which resembled a silhouette of an arm that was being forced trough a soft blanket, onto his shoulder slowly fumbled down his jacket, top and onto his spin.   

Amoñ did not know what was currently happening, but he felt his past becoming silent and his normally heavy body becoming light like a feather, whilst the rare sunrays provided him an internal smile.

This here couldn’t have been real, but he wished from the bottom of his heart, that it would be.

The hand of the soothing entity however, suddenly paused on the nineth spinal column and remained silent for a single second, until it buried its hand, lightning fast into his cartilage and just as quickly pulled it back out his marrow, whereafter she let Amoñ fall onto the mossy-soft forest floor, while gliding in front of his point of sight.

A sudden and extreme pain flowed through Amoñ´s body. An agonizing, yet also familiar harm. 

Painful cracks awaken the glade and left Amoñ, yet again painfully rolling back and forth on the floor.

The pain resembled that of his past, which forced him in his early years onto his knees and denied him the ability to walk. The restricted, yet uncomplicated days.

Even though the pain was intolerable, seemed its intensity to slowly mitigate over the passing time and even appeared to fade away.

Amoñ closed his eyes, clenched his fists shut and rolled his teeth, to somehow distract from the excruciating pain.

An undefined time past and the pain almost became bearable, until it even fully disappeared for a few seconds.

But Amoñ had no time to unwind, because his spine, out of nowhere, felt like it was being stretched like a rubber band, form both sides and thereto also being forcefully kicked in the middle, to soon break it in half. 

He could not help himself and groaned out a loud scream, that echoed through the entire forest, and thereafter fell unconscious.

As Amoñ slowly came to his senses again and opened his eyes, was he greeted by the still shining sun, the whistling of the wind, that was resonating trough the treetops, and the chant of the birds.

To his surprise, could he stand up straight without any kinds of pain, which was previously shooting through his body like lightning bolts.

He walked around for a while, aimlessly and confused.

How much time had passed and where had this apparition gone to?

Everything felt so vivid and colourful, whereby even the darkest grey of the forest seemed inviting and the sky exhibited long missed bright-blue spots, which he had been awaiting since a felt like decade.

But that deceiving appearance did not hold long and Amoñ remembered that, which had happened before the meeting with the entity.

The memories suddenly returned, like a slap to the face, and reverted Amoñ´s eyes into their normal, depressive and moist standard.

However, before he could sheet tears over this, overwhelmed him a rapid feeling.

All of his thoughts gathered to one denominator. He could perceptibly feel, how his brain waved all of previous and currently processing idea, to one singular, hated objective.

Where did these thoughts come from, they were not his nature of acting.

Images of two merchants rotated around in his subconscious mind, followed by the thoughts of vengeance. These feelings inserted themselves, like a parasite, into his head, with tumultuous ideas, beyond Amoñ´s naturel comprehension.

But how would he accomplish these, the merchants where probably already long gone. How would he even execute this “retaliation”? He could not even stand up against one of them. Why would he then need to take his vengeance out on them?

However, as he questioned these suggestions, perceived Amoñ the vague sound of a heavy, grating object.

“That must be them.”, thought Amoñ, while his mind shifted again, but this time, it was like a switch had been switched in

Amoñ´s head, whereby his iris also seemingly adopted a golden sheen, as an intense draught wafted through his bound hair.

Amoñ thought and came to a final decision, that the merchants must still be traversing the snake-like path and were therefore still in his accomplishable proximity.

He swiftly returned to the damp grassland, to find his discarded knife, which he previously held very closely to him, but this time not to end his life, but to avenge it.

He ultimately found the dropped carving knife and wiped a small droplet of blood of it, whereupon he sprinted towards the northern edge of the clearing and thereby to the direction of the commune, whereby you could even, through an obtrusive accumulation of conifers, glance the curve of the upper path.

Amoñ did not know why, but his mind told him, that he could accomplish this, from which he would normally, instinctively stray away from, but what had he even to lose now?

After the last hesitational thought had faded away, he mildly stepped back and jumped, with full force into the forest, spread his legs towards the falling terrain and slid, with high velocity downwards the mountain, whereby reflexively evading the incoming tree trunks, that blocked his ideal path.

Only a few seconds had past and he already arrived at the topmost curve, whereby he sprinted straight towards the ahead lying decent and leaped himself downhill again, like this was imbedded into his blood, until he got a hold of those merchants.

Arriven at the second curve, he did not instantly jump down again, because he could hear how the sounds of the rattling wheels where more and more moving towards the right, which had to mean, that they had took the other, right trail, of which they most likely also arrived from.

This path did not lead to the commune, but was a fork in the road on the half hight of the mountain, that traversed an open clearing and lastly tug around the entire mountain, whereby it would release you on the other side of the mountain, at the groundworks of the valley.

To still catch the departing merchants, he had to steer more to the right while sliding, so he could arrive at the rightest curve before them and make up his delayed pursuit.

Amoñ instinctively slid forth again and try to figure out, with each curve he arrived at, what the current whereabouts of the merchants were.

As he arrived at the last curve before the road-fork, could he hear recognise a loud and distant babbling, as he shortly caught his breath.

Completely engulfed in his search for vengeance, Amoñ immediately jumped towards the origins of these noises, that were seemingly slowly galloping around right straight line, where the open clearing lied, and were distracted with each other by a loud argument they were having. 

Why he could slide down the hillside that easily, had Amoñ fully repressed and was placing his pure, unfitting focus onto the death of the merchants.

“Why shouldn’t you live out your opinion in this position? We are the ones, that are supplying these bunch of suckers, we are the reason they´re still alive, and that’s why we should be seen as more valuable than these collection of lower´s beneath us, that are always thinking so highly of themselves.”, argued the hairy merchant in a frustrated tone, while simultaneously scratching his beard and heavily lashed the left horse with his whip.

“Then you don’t understand the basic principles of the merchants-company.”, responded Hudson form the back of the carriage, “We are not doing any of this out of fun and giggles, and not because we simply can. We are doing here, to deliver fundamental needs, like food or other life-important goods to everyone in this empire, to allow everyone to live, whereby his place of origin should never matter. That is the motto of the merchants-company, nothing more, nothing less. Let these words circle around in your head, which will probably be hard because of your dense head, but-“

“Oho, Mister all-knowing is here and holding his sermon again.”, shouted the beardless merchant form the front, whilst the other merchant explained, “That is also the reason, why you have no real friends. I am going drinking with Udo and the others after work. And you? Only because you memorise your manual at home, doesn’t mean, that you´ll be ever accepted in this company.”

“This may be true, I am not really a big drinker or a fan of booze in general, and I may be more engaged than others on certain topics in this company, but I swore to my siblings, that I will only live out life to my own happiness and will thereby only do things, that align with my own consciousness. You can continue to taunt me, but you are the people, that have to drown themselves in booze every day, to somehow feel any joy in life.”, reasoned Hudson strictly, but with a wide and determinate grin on his face.     

Before the bearded merchant could curse back at him, tried Udo to ease the tension and snaped twice towards the other buddy, whereby he said, “Hey, ignore this idiot back there. We need to focus on the way ahea-“

But before Udo could bring this sentence to a close, dived Amoñ, out of the complete nowhere, out from the bushes and kicked, with great force, both merchants from their seats, whereby he startled the horses to such a degree, that they tore themselves from their ropes and ran away straight-ahead.

The entire carriage was shaken trough that and event threw the normally big build Hudson from his seat, while a couple of sacks toppled behind him, trough what a strange groan echoed forth.  

Thereby where both merchants and Amoñ hurled onto the flat clearing, outside the shadows of the forest, and firstly needed some time to erect themselves again, from which Amoñ was the first to raise himself and was hereby ready to pursue his vengeance, here and now.

“What is happening here? Why could I just kick two grown men from a loaded carriage, and for such a distance. To that comes also the fact, that my body was somehow acting on its own, I thereby was just the approver of its actions. Also, what is this itchy feel that my leg is giving of? This however should be the lest of my worry’s now.

Amoñ scratched at his leg, without looking and readied his knife in his right hand, while making himself ready for the upcoming confrontation.

By that he however realised, that his right hand, with which he just scratched his leg, was covered with lots of blood.

He bewilderedly looked down and viewed his right leg, which was still itching and also giving of a pounding pressure, that Amoñ had somehow previously ignored or simply did not pay any attention to.     

However, to his absolute horror, was this not a small rash, but there were several branches that sticked out of his bloody, dripping calf, who were launched deeply into his scraped skin and on some occasions even fully pierced through it.

As Amoñ then viewed this wound, he led out a big and painful scream and fell onto his knees.

The merchants, that slowly raised themselves from the ground, spotted the now kneeling Amoñ, that was clamping his leg out of sheer pain, and where not to pleased, that this boy dared to show himself in front of them again.

Amoñ blurrily glimpsed, how the bearded merchant neared himself towards him and felt his loud steps getting louder and louder, whereby filling themselves with more anger each time.

“Now you´ve fully done it, you puffed up miscarriage.”, yelled Tom against him, whilst raising him up with both of his hands around his neck, whereby Amoñ panickily thought about how he would defend himself against the merchants with only one useful leg.

He hesitated at first, but he could ultimately pull himself together at last and stabbed into the merchants left eye, who thereafter led go off Amoñ but also knocking the bloodied knife out of his frail hand.

“I managed to free myself, but how would I continue to fend myself against them?”, pondered Amoñ, who was now frightenedly touching his now red neck.

“You little wanker! If I get a hold If you again, I´ll fucking kill you!”, cursed the merchant painfully, whilst wildly flailing his body around.

“Hey Tom, everything all right?”, asked Udo worriedly.

“Does it look like it is? This guy just stabbed me into the eye!”, he answered provokingly

Udo firstly rushed towards his buddy, but as he ran, did he receive a diablicle idea, which he wanted tell his friend right away, “Wait Tom, I know, this might be sounding silly-“, “Get to the point!”, “nervous gulping>, yes. H- he just hurt your eye, didn’t he.

So, what would you think, if we would firstly tie him down over there and then slid his other eye open, out of pure »fairness«?”

“That sounds…, awesome! Let’s do that.”, agreed Tom, that was so enthused by this idea, that the pain and bleeding in his eye became secondary.

Despite this hunch, kicked Tom the scrambling Amoñ, while pressing his right hand on his bloodied eye, so strongly into his left, lateral ribcage, so that it made loud cracking noise.

Amoñ was once again laying on the floor, while experiencing a new terrible pain in his chest region, whilst the other merchant threw his rope, which was priorly dangling from his pant pocket, whereupon the bearded merchant violently forced Amoñ´s hands behind his back and firmly tied him up with it.

While Tom was busy shackling Amoñ, picked Udo his dropped knife, which he previously lost trough his ejection from the carriage and which was thereafter launched onto the wet grass floor, up again and carefully stroked over its blade and thereby maliciously grinned, whereby also watching Tom tying Amoñ.

But before he could make even one step towards Amoñ´s direction, leaped Hudson, with his axe in his right hand, out the carriage and noisily landed onto the pebbly trail floor, which instantly brought all the attention towards him.

Bewildered that Hudson wanted to get in on the act, asked Udo curiously and also delighted, “Hey, would you look at that, looks like we have another participant. I can’t blame you, who could say no to such an exclusive opportunity.

Hudson did not answer and his facial expression remained motionless, he just continued walking straight towards him.

A cold shiver went down Amoñ´s back, as he saw him. A man with such a big axe and posture probably wanted to tear him into pieces, limp from limb.

Regardless what it may be, he shacked himself around and tried to somehow loosen the rope, which however was so tightly bounded around his Arms, that he could feel how his hands were slowly their feel and became numb.

This was probably now his end. An executing, trough the disciples of the Baron, as it once happened to his mother. Even tough Amoñ was heavily dreadful, he accepted this fate and stopped trying to free himself from the grasp of the rope.

“Oh, now you´ve fucked up. This guy’s axe will cut you even through the bone. Get going, show it to him Hudson.”, shouted Udo tauntingly against Amoñ, while motivatingly cheering up Hudson.

Amoñ turned his head, as far as he could, towards the axe holding man and looked with horror, as he put his two hands around his axe and walked towards him, in a seemingly furious attitude.

“Tom, let’s give Hudson the first punch. We can still get that eye later.”, suggested the beardless Merchant to the other, whilst Hudson came closer and closer, “Do need something from me Hudson, or why are you coming closer towards me?”

Udo turned towards Amoñ´s direction and said, while pointing at him, “That sucker is lying over there. So don’t be shy and have fun, wh- <smack>.”

Int the moment that Udo faced Hudson again, smacked Hudson his axe into the middle of his head and cleaved his skull open, down to the brain.

Udo thereafter instantly became lifeless. His body was still slightly twitching, but where these only the last send orders of his brain, because his frontal lope had taken too much damage and, after the impact, instantly shut off.  

Hudson´s expression remained unchanged, he thereby raised his head straightly towards the now deceased merchant and heavily breathed as he stared into his colleges twitching face, whereby also some varicose veins emerged from behind his short, curly and pitch-black hair.

“Hudson, have you lost your fucking mind?!”, screamed Tom against Hudson, who thereafter left Amoñ´s vicinity and rushed towards his dead comrade, whilst picking up Amoñ´s knife and yelling things like, “You bastard”, and “I will kill you for that.”

Hudson however did still not move a single muscle and continuously starred, as if he was petrified, into the face of the dead merchant.

Amoñ couldn’t believe it, why did this person do such a thing and why did he seemingly help him out with this? But the uncertainty of his motive, still made Amoñ worrisome.

The still living merchant stomped towards Hudson’s direct proximity and thereby slashed with his acquired knife blindly trough the air, prepared to make him pay for that what he had done to his college.

Amoñ could only watch from a distance, because hands where literally tied in this situation, his knife had been taken away and his entire body just felt burned out, even though it was just previously feeling miraculous.

Whilst continuing his no-do strategy, he vaguely perceived a silent tone in his head, that slowly became louder and clearer with each past second.

It was a tender and relieving voice, similar to that, to which he priorly spoke to on his home-clearing.

But this time, he could hardly understand anything they said and he had to intensely concentrated himself, to make out any of its emitted words.

Despite all that, could he understand a few words like, “Apology”, “Thy meat, I have mistaken.”, and something about, “Reparatio”.

However, before Amoñ could merely think about these words, did he notice that his right leg suddenly started hurting and itching bothersomely. 

He looked towards his penetrated leg again and thereby had to disturbingly watch, how the branches, that previously drilled into his foot, where festering out his flesh and, along with a flowing yellow-red liquid, fell onto the now even wetter grass.

The pain of the injurie, that energetically rummaged through his body before, was now completely gone and turned into a tickling, bearable pinching, which was hundred times more tolerable than the former befallment.

Tom there while reached and widely swung towards Hudson, to hit his face practically hard, while giving loud balderdash from him.

Hudson could not bring himself to take yet another life and thereby griped the right arm of the merchant, in which also his knife lied, and forced it, with also his right arm, upwards and away from him and simultaneously pushed him with his other arm backwards onto the ground, whereat he also lost his knife in the process.

Hence, he had taken his arms of the axe, collapsed the lifeless cadaver of the other merchant to the floor, whereby squirting huge amounts of blood and flesh-waste, from which some spurts landed on Hudson’s black leather boots, who also possessed two straps.   

“Seriously, that does it!”, yelled the provoked Tom as he got up again and charged at Hudson again.

The merchant tried to give Hudson a uppercut, but this was also blocked of by him and he took a step backwards, while trying to evade the following, turbid attacks of the merchant and trying to prevent him from it, by continually shoving him away, but it seemed that he apparently did not want, in this moment , to take any violenter measures, because his moral compass seemed to be overwhelmed by his previous murder and left him in this situation, an emotional unstable and conflicted wreck.

But in this moment of carelessness, hit Hudson a frontal kick to his intestinal region, whose pain let Hudson to achily convulse, which brief defencelessness gave the merchant an opportunity to further strike om him, whereby landing a hard blow to the back of his head.

To somehow free himself from this situation, kicked the dazed Hudson reflexively towards Tom´s direction, trough what he involuntarily, with full force struck him in his genitalia and thrusted him away.

The merchant painfully rolled over the floor and gave Hudson time to recover and to find himself again.

“You little dipshit, ahhh…”, groaned the merchant in agony.

Hudson glanced his, still in the face of the deceased merchants residing, axe again, but he did not want to act so brutally again after all. He did not know why it felt so hard for him, to kill another, undeniably heinous human, who also threated him with brutal violence.   

“But who even gives me this right, can you justify such deeds?”, questioned Hudson overasked, as he looked towards the, on the ground howling merchant, “He threatened me, but I could also try to make him unconscious, without directly needing to kill him. But what use would that make, one of them is already dead, sparing the other one would only throw me into more trouble.

… I don’t know, what I am supposed to do. Every action I could make, would be wrong.

But who can mangle a person to such a degree and thereby even feel a sense of amusement. These people have not wanted it other ways.”

“Now! Now I´ll kill you. You rat.”, said Tom in a wet pronunciation, as he leant forward and picked up the knife of his dead partner, whereby hectically flailing back and forth.

He then started to approached Hudson again, which actually brought him a sense of fear, since he could not reach his axe in time, because the merchant was closely standing next to it, and the fact, that there was a knife swinging lunatic with a pocketknife sprinting his way.

But before he could come to close to Hudson, paused the merchant abruptly, because he supposedly perceived footsteps behind him. 

He swiftly turned around to investigate, whereafter he could not believe his eyes.

Amoñ was standing behind whilst leaning forwards and holding his knife in his hand again, he stood there while heavily breathing and seemingly challenging him again with full seriousness.

The merchant exploded with anger and slowly moved towards him, while shutting pure gibberish again.

Amoñ stepped back, whereby looking at the merchant without closing his eyes once, and lured him away from his dead comrade.

In the moment that the merchant wanted to slice his face open, Amoñ swiftly dogged the sharp swipe and slashed a small wound into Tom´s left rip height and quickly backing of from him again.

He managed to evade a few more chops, until Amoñ finally succeeded and cut the right hand of the merchant with his knife, whereby the merchant methodically loosened his palm and gave him the opportunity to smack the knife out of his hand and thereafter to throw it somewhere he couldn’t reach that quickly.

Although he disarmed the merchant, could he not avoid the subsequent attack, in which Tom, with a saliva-stained beard, would grip Amoñ, drag him into the air and thereafter slammed him forcefully onto the ground again, after which he began to choke Amoñ again.

But before Amoñ could be chocked unconscious, noticed the both of them, how Hudson, who was reunited with his axe, storming towards their location.

The merchant had only focused himself on Amoñ and thereby lost Hudson totally out of his eyesight, who thus had enough time to grab his axe, out of the rotting merchants head again.

Through this moment of shock and the slowly applying weakness from his blood lose, did he also slightly loosen his grip around Amoñ´s neck, which gave Amoñ enough space to clench his knife again and stab the distracted merchant in his stomach.

Tom did not know who to focus his attention to, Amoñ stabbed him into his belly and Hudson came, with a violent-ready drive, towards him.

He thereafter stepped on Amoñ arm, so that he could not swing his knife anymore and stretched his arm towards Hudson, to somehow fend himself against the incoming attack.

His proved to be too weak for Amoñ and in the moment where his eyes were focused on Hudson, freed himself and stabbed right into his throat, whereafter he frustratedly and overwhelmingly looked at Amoñ again. He thereafter suffered a swing from Hudson’s merchants-axe, which cleanly carved through his upper skullcap, after which the sliced head-half fell onto the priorly clean grass floor.   

The bearded merchant felt motionless, whilst being drenched in blood, to the ground and thereby created a small puddle out of blood beneath him, that streamed from the insides of his cleaved skull.

Exhausted and horrified, both of them spoke no words to each other after this, but after Hudson tried to interact with this mysterious boy, did he instead standup and walked tiredly, as if he were in a trance, to a nearby, alone standing cheery tree, who solely prospered at the edge of this airy clearing.

Amon ‘threw himself spiritlessly against this tree and simply closed his eyes, these entire incidents, that went down in these last hours, they were just too much to bear and he needed a strict moment of silence.

“… Is this a dream? No, a nightmare?”, questioned Amoñ himself, “What have I done? How could I do such a thing? What should the others think of me now?

The Intellectually challenged outsider, had now also murdered.

I did not want this, I didn’t want any of this. Why had I done it?

I have let everyone down, Sill counted on me, and I just stabbed her in the back.  

Please, just let this cruelty come to an end.”, prayed Amoñ, while placing his hand on top of his whiny eyes, as a tear swam down his cheek.

But as Amoñ tried to cope with this situation, sat Hudson himself quietly besides him.

“Hey, is everything alright with you?”, asked Hudson in a calm and worried voice.

Amoñ did not know how he was supposed to answer this, since he was still internally torn, was it difficult for him to find suitable words, which caused the two of them to once again remain silent, until he could pull himself together and answered,

“Y-yes... I am fine.”

“Ah, that’s a relief.”, said Hudson relieved and chucklingly, with a big grin on his face, which however quickly faded away, as Hudson glanced at Amoñ´s leg, “By the Local shine, your leg! Should I get you some bandages or medicine?”

Amoñ, who was completely dazzled by Hudson´s positive energy, then also looked at his leg, after he had been notified about it.

He knew its previous extend and had to astonishingly realis, that all of the deep wounds in his flesh were now healed.

Only the external skin regions, that would not bring life-threatening consequences with them, were still purulently scraped and bloody.

“Oh this.., don’t worry yourself about it. It has mostly healed already.”

“No worries? Half of your calf is off!” questioned Hudson shocked and confused, “Wait here, I´ll get you some bandages from the wagon.”

Shortly after he had uttered this, dashed Hudson already towards the carriage and ran past the rotting corpses of the merchants, which he tried suppress.

“Why was this person, and why did he worry about me? Did I not just help him kill his friends? But somehow, is he giving of a totally different aura, it’s like a fresh breeze on a summer morning.”, reflected Amoñ, stumped for answers, whereafter closing his eyes again, but this time not out of doubt, but out of alleviation, that everything seemed to be calm and soothing.

Yet could he not drive out the lurking feeling, what proportion these past actions would bring with them. I did not matter how he turned and flipped it, murder is murder and its following consequences are inevitable.

Why did it have to be this way? If he had just shut his mouth, would the entire escalation with the merchants been avoidable and no one had to die. But he just had to throw it all into disarray again, like he always would.

Before he could think to deeply about this, returned Hudson with a big bandage roll in his hand and sat himself down in front of Amoñ.  

“Sorry for the disturbance, but could I borrow your knife for a few seconds?”, asked Hudson politely.

“T-the knife is probably still lying on the grass somewhere, I apologies.”, reacted Amoñ low-spirited.

“No problem, I do still have my teeth for that.”, explained Hudson, who was thereby pointing at his wide-open grin.

He thereafter wrapped the bandage around Amoñ´s calf and lastly just bit of the end of the plaster.

Amoñ did not know why, but despite his negative condition, could this blacked-haired axe-swinger retune his temper like a wildfire and even brought him a slight, internal smile.

“So, that would be it. Now should your leg be all better…, sort of.”

“…Thank you.”, thanked Amoñ Hudson, whereby he angled his multiple times towards and away from himself, to test its sturdiness.

“No problem, I own you one after all. I know, that it would probably be pretty hard for you, but don’t mourn for these idiots.”, remarked Hudson, as he sat down beside him again, “I have known these people since over two years, I was offend assigned to them, which I of course could not simply decline, but what I want to say is, that these people were already rotten since the day I first spoke with them.

Their obnoxious type and horrible innuendos towards those, that especially did not fit into their ridiculous world view. As I saw them attack you today, I knew that this rope had to be finally cut, if you know what I mean.”

They thereupon paused their interaction again and rested, still and thoughtful against the tree, whereby staring into the wide-reaching and breathtaking landscape of this region.

“As beautiful as this spot may be, and this gorgeous chilly breeze <jolly sigh>, do I need to find a way to end this wordless silence.”, thought Hudson, who thereby crossed his legs and placed his arms behind his head, “Just what could I say to him?

Wait, I don’t even know his name. I´ll just ask him about his name and family, this will certainly lighten up this macabre mood here.”

Hudson asked the silent person besides him, “Hey, if I’m allowed to ask, what is your name?”

Hesitantly Amoñ answered, “My name is Amoñ”

“Oh, that’s an exotic name.”, reacted Hudson with astonishment, “I am Hudson, Hudson Lavendiné, proud member of the merchants-company.”, he announced proudly, while self-assuredly pointing at himself, “But to stay on topic, what is your family up to here? It must be dreamlike to live here. I mean, just look at this view.” 

But to Hudson’s unawareness, felt this answer way harder for Amoñ to answer, than Hudson could possibly imagin in his head.

“Life here is okay, but I…, I don’t have a family.”, replied Amoñ shy and with an internal pain in his chest.

“How come that? Are you living all by yourself in this commune here?”, reacted Hudson surprised, thinking that he could have possibly moved away from them.

“No. My mother is dead and my father died before I was even born.”, clarified Amoñ´, while staring into the sky with his gloomy eyes.

“Oh, that… I am awfully sorry.”, said Hudson, who was now internally, strongly regretting that he formulated that sentence so teasingly, “Shit, shit, why did have to have dead parents? This conversation was supposed to be light and happy. I hope, that I didn’t mortify him even more with this.

Taken over by grief, asked Hudson worried, “I need to apologies for this action, Amoñ. I didn’t want to insult or mock you with this. Did I hurt you with it? I accept every answer.”

“No, you did not. How could you have possibly known about this.”, reacted Amoñ quietly.

“That’s a relief.”, spoke Hudson grinningly again, “Nonetheless, it was rude of me, that’s why I am forced to tell you something about my family now.”

“Oh, ok.”, responded Amoñ timidly, but at the same time also intrigued.

“Then I’ll start now. As you have probably already heard, was I born into the Lavendiné family. A wealthy and egotistical couple, who were especially affined towards the Baron. Their tactic was always, to force themselves and their children into work position, which would thereby increase their reputation and someday carry them into the royal circle of the Baron.

I am the third out of four other siblings. Every single one of us was, since our day of birth, prepared for a »respectable« carrier, whereby our own will could do nothing against that.

I was supposed to be a chef or a servant, inside the main fortress of our sector. Additionally, was the vised of a public school forbidden for me and my siblings, we were instead taught by a private teacher.   

Trough which I never learned to have new friends and also our possibility’s crushed, to pursue a possible different life path. We only knew this life after all.

My sister was arranged to be an iron nun at our local monastery. My big brother is currently in the process of becoming a lieutenant and my younger brother is supposed to do something with architecture.     

Even tough me and my siblings got along great, even though we argued sometimes, but I believe that’s supposed to happen, had we all to live with the fact, that our life did not belong to us, but to our parents.

But I didn’t want accept this fate! So, I sneaked out of the estate at midnight, in front of which I was surprised by my two older siblings, who then bid me farewell, »Such nice siblings I can´t possibly deserve«, whereafter I walked to the only place, of which my parents were hassling about and where I saw my future self.

The merchants-company, the only labour union I knew something about.

Although they were also a high-ranking force in this society, were they independent from the orders of the Baron, which made this position worthless and inappropriate for our lives.                                                   

They always said, that this was a job for the worthless, that would work for few money and recognition, while serving the poor and cleaning their buttstock dry.

But this just tempted me to continue my life with them, whose mere presence would keep my parents away.

And that’s how I was, after many difficulties, accepted into the company and through my raw strength, that apparently came from all that stored up anger of my past, that’s what my instructor told me at least, was hired as a merchants-logger, whereafter I’ve spend about three years at their side and turned, I am now nineteen by the way, I didn’t know if you would be curious about that, but now you now.

And all this brought me to this very place, yippee.”, narrated Hudson harshly, after which he heavily exhaled and humorously looked over to Amoñ. 

Amoñ captivatingly listened to this spoken story, whereby occasionally astrayed himself in Hudson´s curly hair, that waved in the ever-soothing breeze and thereby looked like a small, black bird´s nest, and became lost in his friendly demeanour.

“Wow…, I would not have anticipated such a backstory from you. But don’t get that the wrong way. It’s just, your happy aura would assume something different, then such a sad childhood.”, remarked Amoñ, who thereby nervously tried to not insult Hudson with this.

He only laughed over this answer, “No need to correct yourself. My past life has passed and now I live like I want to. Also, I still do technically have my parents, my past is nothing compared to that what happened to you, Amoñ.”

“I guess, your right on that, ne- but I don’t want use to compare our past sufferings, because I heard that the Baron also played a huge role in your childhood.”, said Amoñ first stutteringly, but now feeling comfortable enough to open himself towards Hudson.

“Of course, did He play an important part in our life’s, this man has an entire school subject dedicated to him after all and is also the ruler of this entire empire. You can’t really get past him, can you.”, reacted Hudson confused.

“Well, I should I say this…

He is the person, who killed my mother.”

“Holy bacon, what?!”, awed Hudson, “I heard things, that something like this could happen, but holy.

Did soldiers really just arrive at your house and then killed you mother, that’s unbelievable.

“What, no. He killed my mother. The Baron in person.”, repeated Amoñ with a raised eyebrow.

“The Baron in person´! But why did he want to kill mother by himself? No matter what it was, I want to leave it here.”, spoke Hudson.

“To be precise, were there two others alongside Him. One was gigantic and deformed, the other had like two holes, that revealed his brain.”, added Amoñ by himself, “Even though so much time has passed, do I still remember these monsters like it were yesterday. The face of this filth was the only thing I never get to see.”

“Ur not seriously talking about the Migraine and Trench, or are you?”, questioned Hudson flabbergasted.

“It could be. I never caught their names back then. Why? Should one know these names?”, questioned Amoñ sceptically.

“This can’t be. Not only was the Baron present that day, but also the Migraine and Trench, two of the most infamous individuals out of the entire military-branch.”, concluded Hudson.  

“These bastards are well known?”, inquired Amoñ.

“Of course! The Migraine is one of the seven Blurry-Vessel, a group consisting out of the strongest bloodmages in the entire empire, and Trench is part of the twelfth division, whereby also acting as the personal bodyguard of the Baron.

Did you not have to learn that? Also…, how did you even make it out there alive?”, reacted Hudson speechless.

“Ok…, that is interesting. But to answer your question; when the others attended this lesson, I was always just sent home.

And how I survived that? My mother placed me under a trapdoor, beneath our old home, and therein hid me from these horrible creatures.”, retorted Amoñ, who was totally lost in his own thoughts, because he had just, after all these years, gained answers, to what exactly happened that faithful day.

“What a story. And after all that, you were raised by the comrades of this commune, is that right?”

“Thereafter yes, but I could never truly fit in. Was the stranger besides all those normal people, the one with no parents and no goals. I did not matter what I attempted, I simply could not find myself amongst all those always productive and hard-working humans. That’s why I moved away from them and onto the clearing, where the goods were placed today.”, explained Amoñ, as he turned his vision towards the ground.

“Don’t trouble yourself over such things Amoñ. Like my sister always said to me, »There are no abnormal people.

Only abnormals, that want to persuade others into thinking their abnormal«. 

This always gave me hope in times, where I was unsure or just didn’t know where this road would lead to.”, admitted Hudson to comfort Amoñ.

Amoñ led this quote rummage through his head, whereafter he developed a great favour towards it. He now saw himself in a completely different light, or so it seemed in this moment.   

“Thank you. I don’t know, why you are saying all these things to me, but thank you, Hudson.”, returned Amoñ with a small joyful grin on his cheeks.

“Wounderfull, he appears to be much more relaxed than before. Good job Hudson.”, thought Hudson, who in his thoughts, patted himself on his own shoulder, to himself, “But I still want to redirect him from all these murder thematics, to more pleasant stuff. However, I believe that I may already have something perfect prepared for this.”

“No problem, always happy to assist. But the get away from all this drama, have you ever seen a pail creature with deer antlers here before?”, Hudson curiously asked Amoñ.

“Ehh, pardon?”, questioned Amoñ irritated and unsure.

Hudson thereafter faced Amoñ directly and changed his sitting position into a crisscross, while elaborating, “What shame, I thought that you as a long-term-forest dweller would have maybe seen a Wolpafigura around here. Someday, I will find one of these cryptids, no matter would it may cost me.”

“What in all that is unholy, is a Wolafika supposed to be? And from where did you learn of such things?”, questioned Amoñ perplexity.

“A Wolpafigura is a pale creature, which supposedly roams the forest´s around Auryn, and posses to its big antlers, huge claws and a face similar to that of an owl.

I, as a self-proclaimed hobby-cryptision, who is trying to get to the bottom of all these mythical being sightings, that have been documented all around the entire empire, whereby this position provided the best passive opportunity for that.

In cases of sightings or any kinds of information, regarding the topic of creatures not from this supposed realm, I´m always ready and waiting for it.”, pronounced Hudson proudly.

“Alright~. Ehm, are there any more of these things around here, whilst your already at it.”, queried Amoñ suspicious, even tough he was also feeling a little unsettled by the fact, that these wild roaming things were supposedly sneaking around in his very close proximity.

“Not in this region, but there are lots more other sightings that I could list now.”, commented Hudson in an energetic manner, “There is still for example; the pail lady of Telkruta, the Wettimber Amphibman, the Holymountainer twins, from which many experts* assume, that these bowl cut wearing beings were in fact real extraterrestrial, similar to the teleporting Tinman from Magine and the flying Kobold from Sourkauder-“

Amoñ was entranced trough this enthusiastic and interesting narration, whereby Hudson´s polite aura wasn’t the only thing that inspired him, I was more also the deep analysis, that came from the inner depths of his heart, for him unknown knowledge, and could really feel his passion, as extensively explained these thematics, with a nearly childish fascination.

He found it fascination, but at the same time also a little cute.

Whilst Amon reflected on the past conversation, listed Hudson continuously more cryptids, “-and you shouldn’t forget the four-legged Night-kobolds and the festive Home-Duendes, you can easily mistake these two, which happened to me a lot when I was younger, but you just have to remember, that Night-kobolds eat dust and food scraps, while Home-Duendes just drink the blood of you and your pets at night. One is evil and one is nice, how simple is that.

You can however also distinguish them in a different way, for example by just paying attention to their size, because Kobolds are bigger and girthier than Duendes or other nightstalkers. But let’s not get stuck here, there’s also the torso-less knight of Glanceroot, the snake from the Jennicé and…”

“As soothing as he may is. How do I say, that he should briefly take a break, without sounding rude in the end?”, pondered Amoñ.

“-and the Human-fish from Dockershaven,-“, explained Hudson further.

“He is just so focused at the moment, but I want to discuss something else with him.”

“-thereafter also the Winecellar Bub and, one of my favourites, the Veronican Monkey-man-“

“hudson.”, spoke Amoñ quietly towards Hudson. 

“-look out for the Horse-man, because his big thing is-“

“Hudson.”, shouted Amoñ a little louder.

“-Woah, you can´t forget the Mightstädter Sea Gor-“

“Hudson”, called Amoñ loudly, which finally drew Hudson´s attention towards him.

“Oh, did I talk to much? When yes, I am sorry. I quickly lose track, when talking about things I really enjoy.”, expressed Hudson, whilst embarrassingly fanning around with his hand.

“It was not too much, rather…, I wanted to address your trip back home. Because, how are you getting home after all this? This carriage back there does not have any horses anymore and is also missing two of its passengers.”, Hudson answered this in a relaxed manner at first, “Don’t worry about the horses, there’re feeding on some kind of fern, at the end of the turn. I´ve noticed them while getting your bandages.”, yet as he wanted to talk about his way home, could he not conceal his planlessnes over it, “However, I can’t tell you what I’ll do, when I arrive back at the merchants-post. They will likely notice, that the both of them are missing, and then I´ll lose this job, or, if they find out what truly happened, worse.

“I..., I am sorry, that I dragged you into this. I know, you wanted to help me out of the goodness in your heart, but only because you helped out a stranger like me, have you now lost your dream job and we both have to live with the following consequences, for what we did to these people.”, apologised Amoñ, whereby having to suffer the burden, that he just took away a kind persons ideal life.

“Get that out of your head. They wanted to fatally injure you and technically what you did was self-defence. So, you´ll get out of this situation somehow.”, expressed Hudson, to give Amoñ a little courage for the upcoming reality, “And what will happen to me? Honestly said, I have, up to now, no clue, on how I can or should explain this situation to the company. But it was my decision to help you and kill these men. This however is my problem, don’t think about that so thoroughly.”, he said and thereby threw him a grinning smile against.

“I´ll start on getting the horses back. They may be relatively tame and obedient, yet does this not make these, 520 kg Muscle packets, easier to move. So, Amoñ, it was nice talking to you, but I gotta get going.”, Hudson meanwhile got up, grabbed his blood crusted axe and turned away from Amoñ, before however turning around again and raising his fist towards him, to strike fists one last time.

Amoñ did however not know this kind of gesture and did not understand, what he wanted from him now and asked confused, “Eh, what are you doing?”

“It’s a Fistbump?!” You don’t even know such essential gestures like this around here? It is a sad day, for the ever-approaching sake of world peace.

But don’t you worry, I´ll show it to you? Just stretch out your fist, squeeze it together and just hold it still in this position. Yes, like that.”, explained Hudson amusingly, whereafter he smacked his fist with Amoñ, which brought him one last chuckle.

“That’s how simple that is. Wasn’t difficult at all, or was it? And don’t think to much about his here, you did nothing wrong. I want, that you don’t forget this.

Bye, bye. Hudson out.”, he lastly shouted, whereby pointing his middle- and index finger upwards and leaving.  

Although Amoñ wanted to shout a few more words against him, could he tickle out no such sentences and just shortly waved after him instead.

Hudson returned to the carriage, whilst passing the now excremental smelling remanets of the merchants, and left Amoñ alone, at the slowly shedding cherry tree.

“…What should I do now?

These past hours were so surreal. Packed with sadness to happiness and the thereafter flowing, cold and grey realisation, closely followed by the wind, that played the warming solace.”, philosophised Amoñ clueless, “But what were to happen, had I gotten my act together? What would have happened, when these figures had never shown themselves? What would have happened to me?

I don’t want something like this, I never wanted to follow this path. It does not matter how many times I have fantasized or blankly thought about it, how it would be.

The fear that comes after death, it endures in all scenarios. I don’t want to die, yet overcame me this certain hazy feeling today, and that not only once. Woven out the doings of others and mine.

What do still have now? Even tough Hudson´s theory will probably prove itself as right, will the glances I will get from the other, form this day on, never be the same.

I don’t know, if I will endure this, under this pressure, to continue living in this locality. However, what alternatives remain for me…?”

Amoñ remained a long time, silently under the protecting crown of the tree, whereby he tried to loosen his soul, whilst Hudson connected the first horse with the carriage again.

“What will happen to me, what will follow? Why did it all have to come this way?

For who and why am I doing any of this, Hudson is following his goal ultimately, but what am I searching for? What would make me joyful? Even though I had no right to recite this question, did I had to run this question through my head, at my very own pace.

I should be thankful for what I have. My questioning here, was and will always be irrelevant.”, Amoñ reminded himself.

But as he previewed the neighing of the guided horses, leaped this idea through the insides of his saddening brain, which engraved itself deeply into his ideology and his present discrepancy, who it seemed to slowly break apart.

Amoñ shortly thereafter arose and swiftly ran back onto the grassland, whereby multiply plunging himself on the soft grass floor.

“This is it. My decision!”, repeatedly echoed trough his mind, while his heartbeat became increasingly louder and a squishing sensation dug trough him, what additionally bestowed Amoñ with a rather strange taste in his mouth.

“Hudson wait, Hudson!”, he more than once yelled towards him, who was currently affixing the last remaining horse to the wagon.

He thereupon dumbfoundedly turned around glanced at Amoñ with surprise, while he was directly sprinting to his current whereabouts.

“Did I leave something behind? When yes, how nice of him, that he tried to give it back to me before I depart. But where does he get all that energy from? Didn’t he previously seem pretty restrained and tired?”, queried Hudson, as he curiously looked towards him.

“Hudson. I…, I want to ask something.”, wheezed Amoñ in front of Hudson.

“Eh…, of course, hit me with it.”, he answered contemplative and confused, because Amoñ was gasping like a marathon runner and was talking in a, for him unfitting, energetic tone.

Amoñ coughed himself a piece of oxygen and finally asked Hudson, straight to the point, “I want to ask, if I could maybe accompany you?”

This request totally knocked Hudson´s out of his socks, wherefore his body flinched together and he dropped the rope in his hand, which he shortly before attached to the carriages coach box.

“Wa- what?”, he responded dubiously, “As gladly as I would want to accept this proposal, but I can’t just take you with me. Imagine how your relatives here would react to your sudden disappearance?”

“I will explain that to you later, <pant-pant>. But despite all these actualities, I simply wanted to ask you, If I could accompany you for a short while. I am begging you, please.”, Amoñ begged, whereby he directly looking into Hudson´s contemplate face.

“I ehh, why no~, ehm...”, Hudson thought toughly over this decision ultimately decided, “You know what. Yeah, why not.”

As he spoke these words, could he formally see the joy inside Amoñ´s eyes, that was starting to form itself from within.

“But before you actually want to follow me, I have to confess something towards you.”, said Hudson in a quieter voice frequency than usual, “Since, I don’t intend to return to the merchants-company.

I instead wanted go and try to find a new settlement for me. Because, in the moment I went through the actual consequences inside my head, I realised that even the mildest of them would lead to the withdrawal of my work permit.

That’s why I wanted to use this last cruise as a method to find myself a new living place.”

Amoñ overthought his decision for a short second, but thereafter objected his statement, despite the known risk, and answered, “I don’t mind that. I just want to get away from this place.

But if I may ask something little of you again. Who is then driving the carriage? The two others sat at the horse front, while you were in the back…”

“Well spotted, but don’t worry about that.”, reacted Hudson relaxed.

“So, you are the one driving the carriage. I just wanted to make sure of something. Excuse me for asking so rudely. This question was just tingling on the upside of my tongue.”, expressed Amoñ thereafter.

“I am glad, that you have such high trust in my skills, but my carriage handling is absolute dogshit.”, responded Hudson, whereby he started giggling over his own phrase.

“What…? Who is then driving the carriage?”, questioned Amoñ shockingly, with a wide-open mouth and sceptically pinched eyes.

“There is someone here, that could take care of that.”, mentioned Hudson, whereafter he climbed into the carriage and stomped inside the rear storage space, whereby Amoñ also slowly followed him inside.

But as he then opened this wooden seat flap, laid a strange man within this tight slit, who was seemingly in a very deep sleep.

Hudson thereafter knocked, with the dull side of his axe, against the seat, whereafter he sacredly awoke and hastily wiggled around until lastly hitting his shinbone against the wall of the gap, which abruptly retired his movements.

“Ow…, Hudson, wa-? Oh, hehe. I can explain all this.”, he responded in a nervous manner.

The man possessed a thine body, blond hair with a well-developed forehead, of which two frontal streaks fell directly in front of his face, pale-white skin and sunken in eye sockets with visible veins, to that he wore a wild green shirt with a lilac leaf pattern on it, over which he was supposed to wear his grey fleece jacket, which he however used as a cushion cover and pulled it over a sack of peas instead, on whom he previously slept on.

“Damian. I´ve know that you were napping here for quite some time. Although I should probably count this as a normal deep sleep, since you have slept through for near six straight hours.”, reacted Hudson ironic.

The freshly awakened man shortly caught his toughs and eventually answered with a restless laughter, “Yes~, you could say that.

The night simply doesn’t allow myself to sleep.

Where are Tom and Udo while we are at it? If they figure out, that I secretly snaked my way into they´re carriage to rest myself, they´ll probably threaten me again with, you know what. Unpleasant things.”

“Now, how should I explain this. They are, not with us anymore.”

“What! How could such a thing happen?”, questioned Damian surprised, “We both never had a fondness of them, but…, where we ambushed? You seem drained. I was awoken by a sudden forceful shake of the wagon. Did something occur in this moment?”

Hudson thereupon pondered, if he should tell him the cold truth behind all this or if he should remain quite and lie about the recent happenings.

They both did not get along with them, but was Damian a macabre, yet on the inside a genuinely very emotional person, whose reaction to this he could not foresee.

“Yes. We were attack.”, fibbed Hudson, in hopes, that the situation would not fall of the rails because of the distracted actuality, “Bandits attacked us and brutally killed the both of them. I could barely force them to flee with my axe.”

“Tha- that is depressing. Then who is this person that is standing behind you?”, inquired Damian confused, whereby he leaned his entire upper body to the side, to better observe the strange boy standing there.

“Oh, that is Amoñ. He is a local resident who helped me out when we were being ambushed by the bandits. Furthermore, he will also from now on follow us on our journey, so you should better get used to him.”, clarified Hudson, who became more believable with each word he uttered and was even able to rethink the story, in a realistic manner, to fit the presence of Amoñ, “But don’t be afraid of him, he is calm and relaxed. He also loves to listen to your stories and thoughts.”

Hudson laughed when he spoke these last words, trough what Amoñ became slightly embarrassed. He did not know why, but description of him made him feel happy and gave him enough courage to step before Hudson and greed the new person personally.

“Greetings. My name is Damian. Pleasant to make myself acquainted with you.”, he answered, while he shacked Amoñ´s hand with his freezing cold and bony-rigid hand.

“Hello”, Amoñ replied politely, yet a little put of by him, “You must probably be the person, that is capable of driving this carriage, am I right?”

“Indeed, indeed. So that’s what this is all about here.”, he said, whereby pointing his gaze back on Hudson, who was innocently looking away from Damian´s direct eyesight, “Then I won’t ask any further questions.

Hudson, where are we heading now? Where shall fate bring us?”

Hudson contemplated again, trough what he grasped the initiative and grabbed himself a nearby map of the landscape, where a handful of sectors were drawn upon, and blindly pointed on a northeastern located village, which thereby was also the furthest away destination on the map, whereafter stabbing a pin needle trough the pointed at destination.

“Here lies the last mission that we have to fulfil. The corpses of Tom and Udo have already been reported in this commune and will soon be secured.

This however also means that we now have to continue our work, since other people depend on our service. What I’m trying to say with this is, we need to get going now and can’t let any more seconds lay dormant on this glade.”, pronounced Hudson self-assured and filled with enthusiasm, while internally praising himself as a genius and giving himself a high five.

“Garma? Never heard of it.”, said Damian pensive, “I am surely hoping, that this mission is still due on the following day, because its impossible for us to reach this destination in the remaining time span of today’s shift. Which would not only be in our interests, but also of those, who would have to receive their delivery in the soonest depth of midnight.”

“I- it is not urgent, no worries. If everything would go downhill, we would even have enough time until the follow up day to our supposed delivery. We are also dealing with the absence of two of our coworkers after all, so we could always use this as a legitimate excuse.”, argued Hudson.

“Ok, then I will no longer run around the chalk hill and will get my act together, this following instant.”, answered Damian, who then walked past Amoñ and Hudson and set himself on the coach box and prepared everything, whereby taking out a wooden, tabaco filled smoking pipe and a metal box, that was located besides the left doorframe, which he laid besides him and opened it. He thereafter blew once into the box, what caused the within residing coal to heat up again and its mass to red-cordedly meddle. After which he broke multiple holes into the coal with a small steel spoon, took out a minuscule piece of coal and crumbled it into the pipe as a powder.

“Wait, hold up. Before you start smoking, at least close the door behind you. I don’t want to have to endure your penetrant quartzing over there.”, Hudson interrupted Damian, whereafter he gave him the map and positioned himself to close the well affixed door.

“Wait!”, shouted Amoñ against them, before the door fell shut, “Would it mind you, if we could shortly make a last halt at my campsite? There I want to at least write a farewell letter and take some of my belongings with me.”

“And where may this dwelling of yours lie?”, questioned Damian sceptically.

“It is located up this mountain. We just have to turned around on the grass field here and head up the path that is leading upwards. This should only take about ten or at most fifteen minutes, where Amoñ can do his thing, after what we finally can get away from this place. This should still fit in our timetable, am I right?”, explained Hudson, which flatteringly showed Amoñ, that he previously had actually listen to him and even remembered his home clearing.

“Let me conceptualize. Should be implementable. But then we can hopefully set forth our journey. I hate putting down my roots for an unnecessary cause.”, confirmed Damian, who at the same time gave the horses a strong jolt with their attached ropes, which gave them the signal to start and redirect, which was very simple to pull of on the wide field of grass.

“This should be the last thing stopping us from proceeding. Let us finally set out.”, agreed Hudson hopeful, as their carriage drove back into the forest again and rolled up the S-like curvature of the uphill path.

As they then arrived at Amoñ´s dwelling, did he instantly leap out the wagon and raced to his campground, whereby he lastly ensured himself by Hudson and Damian, that they would not drive off without him, while they steered the carriage around the clearing.

Amoñ took out an empty piece of paper from his stocked-up pile and a writing feather, which he then used to write one last message to his old home country.

On which was written:

“Greetings to all, that are currently reading this.

 I am thankful for all that you have done for me. However, I want to start a new chapter for myself. The two corpses, that are located downhill, are from those, who cold-bloodedly attacked me and attempted to injure me to fatal degree. I don’t want to link my disappearance with a cowardly escape however. Instead, I do confess, that I took part in murder of these people. I am thanking those from the bottom of my heart, that gave me courage in this current or past times and who helped me figure out my righteous path.

I will now leave this commune and thereafter start a new life. And, even tough you have taken care of it for all these past years, please continue to take good care of my mother´s sheep meadow. 

Goodbye and thank you.

Amoñ.”

He placed this note on top of the shelf and placed a, in his opinion, heavy stone onto it, to hinder it from getting blown away by the wind.

He thereafter also grabbed two books and took a last glance at the ruins of his old home and paid his final respect towards it, after which he ran towards the already waiting carriage again, whereby he could spot the inviting grin of Hudson, that was waiting for him at the side entrance.

He jumped onto the carriage, whereafter it instantly rode of again and ultimately distanced itself from Amoñ´s old home.

Hudson closed the door to Damian´s seat and sat besides Amoñ, who was sitting at the end of the carriage and observed his old home trough the small opening.

They again sat quietly besides each other, until Amoñ asked Hudson, “Hudson. Do you think, that the people in the commune will hate me now?”

“Why would they? What did you write on the note?”

“I have confessed my murder of the merchants and thanked those, who stood besides in my previous life.”

“That is…, more honest than I imagined. But you politely bid your farewell and thanked yourself on last time by your friends.

I don’t see a murderer in front of me, but instead a nice and genuine person, that only wants that, what’s best for all.

They will forgive you, sooner or later. Don’t worry yourself about that.”, reassured Hudson, while tapping Amoñ on his shoulder.

“Thank you, Hudson. I have to be thankful, for so many things you did today.”, said Amoñ, whilst resting his head at he backwall of the carriage, “Do you maybe have something more to say about yourself?”

“Oho. My stories have captivated you, haven’t they?”, answered Hudson whilst laughing, “I have things to talk about, that you beforehand didn’t even know existed.

By the way, do you also read books with pictures, and did you have any music groups in your commune?”

And so drove the three of them away and started their journey, whose destination they not have the foggiest idea about, whereby Hudson gave his full repertoire of useless information to Amoñ, who occasionally felt a bit odd about it, but was often left fascinated and entertained, in a for him unexplainable manner. 

How long this adventure last for was uncertain and what would eventually befall them, was also kept in the cold and heartless hands of fate.

The night fell over the bewildered land, and whilst the jumbled-up bunch, consisting of Amoñ, Hudson and Damian were still rolling over the rough and muddy streets of the overcoming darkness, gathered the Blurry-Vessel in the distant sector of Goodfield, that lied within the middle of the empire.

Out of the flat fields, protruded forth an imposing bastion, whose heart and towers raised themselves out from a deep moat and were thereby only connected to the main ground by four, vertical bridges. 

The moon shined through a gap in the clouds, onto the spikey embellished roofs of the barbican, who´s illuminating torches lit up every pass that dug itself underneath them.

Many soldiers and division collided here with each other and patrolled the ever-standing bastion.           

Some were clad in complete iron armour, whereby others preferred wilder equipment and noticeably set them apart from the more disciplined soldiers.

Inside the construct sat the seven members of the Blurry-Vessel on an octagonal, rounded stone table.

The room in where they were located possessed no windows and on their intended place hung down huge, red-silver flags, that had the emblem of the Baron on them and whose white heron was portrait in expressive and valuable white paint.

A giant, silver chandelier chained down from the endless high ceiling, on whose peak were multiple small openings located, that supplied the airtight room with oxygen and also let out the emitted fumes of the burning torches and candles.  

The Blurry-Vessel sat anticipated on their seats, that were engraved with their respective symbols, and awaited the immanent entering of the Baron.

Before their seats lied a high raised platform, on which a strange person, with many necklaces, stood besides a big and noble and took a view of the Blurry-Vessel, their accompanying representatives and the two generals, that guarded the lower main door, from which the Blurry-Vessel previously entered.

The hall became louder with the passing of time and filled itself with the echoing stench of the attendees, because many members used this undefined wait, to chat with their accompanists and to repeat today’s occasion.

But these noises faded away quickly, because the upper wooden door opened itself, creakingly and the Baron entered the room, followed by two vassals, from which the left one was dressed in emerald-coloured, dragon-like Armor and was known by the name, Lord of the Lindworm. The other guard was gigantic and disfigured, they were better known as Trench, the personal bodyguard of the Baron.

The Baron was invited to his place by the macabre person in red and sat onto his dark-wooden, whereafter he received a wineglass, whose stem was swung with an iron »B«, from the person in red and thereafter made himself comfortable in this throne.   

He raised his right arm, in which he also was holding the glass of wine, and announced into the reverbing room, “Welcomed, may be all of you. Let us hereby start this conference.”

The Baron nodded towards the mysterious person, which thereafter leant themselves over the dark-wooden railing and spoke with elevated and melodic voice into the room, “As well from mine flesh, a warm welcome to the 297´th conference of the Blurry-Vessel. His resonating name is Bel´lial, he will moderate today’s evening, of the most influential bloodmages, how may already be orally know amongst you.

Whose humble self wants to now commence with the naming of today’s presentys. I solicit an immediate quietness and presence of thous span of attention.

The first person of todays naming and also one of the most influential people in this very room, whereby we naturally cutting out the Baron´s presence. The high priest and voice of the folk, the Local.”

Every person, besides the armed guards, clapped, whereby the Local, who wore a long priest robe, on which a petrus-like cross was depicted, who´s end split of into star-splintery crosses and who´ middle line halfway connected itself with the upper one, to which he also possessed greyed-out, black haircut, that grew behind his back and wrinkled face, was plagued by nearly black eye circles, showed himself thankful, with a simple nod and the reshaping of his hand into a diamond.

Behind him stood an orange-haired man, that had a strange wooden box on his shoulder, which was partially made out of metal and screws.

“The subsequently following person is none less than the upper medical presence himself, the Migraine.”

A person with two holes in his head, that wore an asymmetrical, black doctor coat, on which rapid, white guises were drawn upon. They also emotionlessly accepted the applause of the room, whilst the female person behind him, that wore a grey doctors dress with bright-blue accents and a big, middle-positioned ribbon around her belly, applauded energetically and joyfully looked at him.

“The third person, who´s existence should be know to the all. The slowly blooming flower and the bottomless potential. The son of the Baron, the Ode.”

This young man, on whose forehead fell down a rose hair strand, that produced a stark contrast to his otherwise pure black hair, reacted with a bored gesture and crossed his arms and thereby threw a red jelly up and down in his hand.

His accompanying person, that wore dusty and torn of cloths and whose face was completely bandaged, besides his right eye, did the same thing and stood still and unamused besides him.

“The thereafter following individual, better know amongst thee by the aliases, the duality of the forest, the roots and mycelium that nourish the land, on which every comrade of the empire dwells their life on. Die Trees.”

This Blurry-Vessel, whose long hair was halfway orange and halfway brown, showed an unreactive face, but somehow also seemed to give of an innocent grin.

They also were the only one that didn’t posses any accompanist behind them and just sat alone in their chair.

“The fourth being in presence, the made of determination and principles, the Semi-Automatic-Killer.

“Much obliged, thank you.”, the man spoke, in a black uniform, on whose both collars were two white herons to be seen, delighted, while thankfully raising his hand towards Bel´lial, whereby some present in the circle of the Blurry-Vessel looked rather irritate at his elongated face with high cheekbones, sharp jaw and also heavily progressed forehead.

The person accompanying him, that was a relatively small and fat man, who wore the same cloths, clapped especially loud and smilingly looked proud over his chair.

“A special person follows this, whose blood magic progress, shall be noted very highly.

The shroud of agony, the Goner.”

 This person, who was seemingly held in a black-grey straightjacket and additionally wore a mask whose form had similarities to that of a bird, on which two tubes were fixed onto, who seemed to almost rejoice his naming in a nearly child like manner,

yet where his hand bound to his leathery jacked body and were therefore unable to express any emotion he wanted to evoke, so the only thing he could do was to vigorously wobble back and forth on his chair, whereby laughing in a high tone and making the by standing general, who possessed a sharp and elongated shield, very nervous and sweaty.     

“The last person of this passing day, may be written of as chaotic, but through their iron fisted interference on the borders of our empire, have they earnt their noteworthy reason of being.             

The cold blooded, the leader of the sixth division, the Message Man.”

They nodded, with their bare shorn head and cheek injury, which shockingly revealed his bone layer, annoyed after Bel´lial´s naming, while the person behind him, with a fine, brown leather jacket and a downwards falling moustache, slightly arched themselves forward, whilst holding his palm on his chest.

Now were all members of the Blurry-Vessel named and that in their respective sitting order, from which none however sat in the eight, seatless slot, whereby you would show your back towards the Baron. The local thereby sat on the rightest seat and die Trees enjoyed their position in the middle seat of the table.

“Good, good. Since we all survived the present days naming, willed Bel´lial the occasion back to our praised Baron.”, pronounced Bel´lial, whereafter bowingly leaning towards the Baron, while pointing his sharp nails against him and sneaking behind his throne again. 

“Bethanked may you be. Let us directly thereafter tackle the needs of today’s gathering. The Local will soon commence with his speech over the development of our people. The after topics are however free to unfold.

But don’t waste my time with unnecessary speculations or theses.

I will now spare you my omnipotent lament. Local, you received the permission, for the unfolding of thin spirit.”, proclaimed the Baron, while letting himself fall deep into his throne and cross-leggedly enjoying a sip of the wine.

“Thank you, let us commence.”, said the Local, as he put his glass onto to his outdated face and received a piece of paper from his college in the back, “My dear colleges and attending souls. As Local, is the importance of the satisfaction of our people and the deradicalisation of the masses, as important as my sacred morning prayer.

And I can delightedly pronounce, that our volk still oozes happiness and vigour, whereby the branches of music and play, continuously express the fineness and devotion of our people on a clean and straight daily basis.

It should be additionally stated, that there has been a massive decline in rebel activity, which at the same time shall also give our comrades the feelings of safety, that they should rightfully expect from their day-to-day live-routine.     

Even the Golden Kingdom, our corroded rival, continues to tremble on our empire´s borders, whereby they have not dared, to step even a single foot over our steady border lines.

To lastly quote the words of one of my dearest acquaintances, »The frightful hobgoblin, which had stalked these lands over the lasting years, currently adjourns his last corn.«

That´s all, that´s worth stating. Thank you, sanare.”

The Blurry-Vessel thereafter applauded and repeated the words »sanare«, whereby the expression of the Message Man, overtime became more and more tense.

“A great thing to hear. A safe volk, is a happy volk.”, spoke the Semi-Automatic-Killer radiantly, “The peoples future belongs to us! The news, of the decline of the rebelisch filth and golden piglets, hits directly into the good side of my heart. With Daińn´s absence, while we raise the people of this empire into a new epoch, whose presence will equal to nothing that came before.

But before the other Blurry-Vessel could even move a muscle, echoed a loud bang throughout the hall, whereby all attendance looked towards the origin of this loud noise.

“You did miss out one tiny detail, Local.”, remarked the Message Man annoyed, who previously slammed his fist on the table, on which he wore a sideways falling blade, that was connected to on his tiny- and ring finger, “You can talk all smooth about your »recline« in rebel rates, but few doesn’t mean none and a holy pigdog like you should best know, what happened to my troupe last week.”

After this statement, flooded the entire room with call outs and complaints, whereby the Baron however did not intervene and observed the action, out of his comfy set, for now.

“Say, is everything alright up there? Did you lose a screw or something?”, shouted the Migraine towards the Message Man, after what the Semi-Automatic-Killer followed with, “Hey, you little Sinta! Who gave you the right here to insult the Local?”

Whereby some Blurry-Vessel loudly discussed, looked some, like the Local, just startled and confused towards the Message Man, or did it like the Goner, who hid himself between his, now on the chair angled, legs, which brought the bystanding general even more sweat in his amour.

 “Lisen closely you idiots. You people can give a flying fuck over this rebel shit, but I am the one that’s losing my men on a weekly basis, all over the fucking empire, and I just can’t tolerate the fact, that we seemingly let Daińn do whatever the fuck he wants.

In other words, we should end this childsplay, that the Baron is playing here, and finally go out there and butcher that son of a bitch.”, argued the Message Man in a strict tone.

This last string, brought the mass to erupt and coded the Baron with a slight glimmer of irritation.

“By all the good spirits, you’re not the only one sitting here, that has lost acquaintances and relatives to the rebels. I am probably speaking for everyone in this room, but please just rethink your statement again, thoroughly and finally keep your flaps shut.”, reasoned the Local, in hopes to deescalate the current situation.

This however just heated the Message Man even more, trough which he slammed his foot on the table, threw his left hand on its knee and angerly shouted against the Local, “Oh, just shut your mouth. I am currently trying to achieve justice for every soldier in this empire and you all are just crying, probably just because you don’t possess the guts needed, to interfere with the Baron´s childish game.”

“Don´t raise your voice against me, kid.”, said the Local with a threatening undertone, “Just because your division befall something unpleasant, doesn’t that mean in the slightest manner, that you can behave yourself like a drunk monkey around here. And like I previously said, we all have lived through this at least once, so just sit yourself down and take does disgust smelling boots of the table. A table that has been cast out of such stone is not really renewable, you know.“

The Message Man thereupon slashed his hand, with a strike from his blade, open and pointed the now blood-stained blade towards the Local, with murderous intend, whereby something seemed to move under his skin.

This did not only worry the present Blurry-Vessel, but also the two guard standing generals that were positioned at the lower door, who directly drew out their weapons, whereby the female general spit her sword into two others, trough what she also started to faintly glow, and the in armour veiled general to pull out an engraved meat cleaver, whereby laying his remaining hand onto his scabbard, which also caused the atmosphere around him to become light and blurry.

Yet before this situation could escalate further, impacted a wooden bolt in front the Message Man´s position, whose impact muted the room again.

“Listen here, you little cartilage eater. I may not posses any of that god shit, but can this little child here certainly give you a painful dent. So, ya better think twice, before you really want to hurt my friend here.”, said the orange haired man behind the Local, self-assuredly and with a tuff accent, whose wooden box became a sort of third arm, which previously shot a bolt next to the Message Man, and with the stretching of his shoulder, reloaded a second blot into his crossbow-like apperature.  

“Wa-, Gear? You don’t have to involve yourself he-“, “I currently have to, Franz. Firstly, I am not a Blurry-Vessel and don’t have to play after ya rules. And secondly, a little sucker like that, sometimes just needs to be put in his right place.”, interrupted Gear the Local, whereafter he directed the Message Man, with a facial gesture, towards the Baron.”

The voices keep their selves at bay, whilst the tension in the room continued to climb upwards.

“My highly valued Message Man.”, fell down the elevated platform, in a menacing yet restful manner, “Although some people here may title your current behaviour as intolerable, do I see a contested observation, that grasp at your inner mind.”

“Baron! Because no one in this room is willing to take their balls into their hands, will I now say it nice and clear towards you. Give me the order to kill Daińn, then we´ll both have fewer problems.”, suggested the Message Man directly to the Baron in a loud voice, which would normally be unheard of, but the Baron let this shorn goat, for now, linger in the present and clarified relaxed, “Tempting, but without substance. But you have seemed to caught me in a good mood today, you little goat you. That’s why I will create an exception for you, and just for you.”, he offered towards him and thereby energetically pointing towards him.

“That’s for the best, but don’t call me that.”

“But I can´t just led you kill him, that would be too simple. But you will receive the permission to catch him, that is something, isn’t it?”, explained the Baron with a raised finger.

“<growl> ok yes, whatever.”, he answered half satisfied, “I´ll rally my troops tomorrow and will finally get* this piece of dogshit, then he´ll see what you´ll get, when you kill or hurt members of the border-division.”

“Ohh~, this will sadly not be possible tomorrow, because we have to prepare a special paperwork for you, whose earliest finish date will probably be in over a week.

You will hopefully understand, that we take our written down rules very precisely.

You may also only lead your search with about twenty men, and that only of course if they also possess the corresponding papers and permissions, if you for example want to enter another sector.”, explained the Baron in a sarcastic voice.

“You little piece of sh-“, “Well, rules are simply rules. Also, you are not as worthy as them mine. You are the little Message Man, whose mission also have to follow the personal interest of mine, no matter the severity.”, added the Baron interferingly.

The Message Man tried to argue with the Baron again, but before he could talk further, sat the accompany his hand on his shoulder and advised him, “I think we should leave it at that. I do want to find my like-minded relatives alive tomorrow.”

“Glace you…, if you insist.”, spoke the Message man with a quieter and reasonable voice, since he noticed, that the two generals, trench and the Lord of the Lindworm, from whose arm guard came forth a long, jagged blade, readied themselves, to prevent further escalations if necessary.

Without uttering a single other word, bowed his companion Glace politely before everyone and then left the echoing hall with the Message Man.

The Baron thereafter stood up and pronounced, with a joyous amusement on his, trough the light obscured and eclipsed, face. “I would think, that we shall rest the manner here. I apologies for the incommodities, but despite this incident, was this quite an intellectual siting.

If you may still want to mention, then then do it in the current now. No? Thought so. I thank you all for gathering here today, you may raise yourselves.”

All remaining members stood up, whereupon they shouted, with their hands on their chests, “behailed be the Baron”, and thereafter also left the room, which the Baron followed suit, whereby Bel´lial still whispered a few incomprehensible words at him.

Outside of the closed halls, now chatted the Migraine, the Local and Gear with each other, where they reflected over the past sitting.

“That was something you don’t hear all day, wasn’t it?”, asked the Local.

“You can definitely say that Franz.”, answered the Migraine while chuckling, “But I still can’t fathom, for who this guy actually thinks he is. By the way, good shot Gear. You seem to have gotten used to this new model.”

“Naturally, although I´ve already worn this little guy here for nearly over year. My old model was only capable of shooting out nails, but this hybrid here, who can be adjusted to all kinds of objects, is pretty sweet, I gotta say. And once again, thank ya for that friends.”, explained Gear in a good mood.

“Oh, no biggie. You rather have to thank Damo for that, without him, would this thing have probably eaten trough your entire body by now, and not in the intended way.”, answered the Local, while side-eyeing the Migraine.

“You have known me for a few years Gear. I´ll gladly help out those, who really need it, to which u certainly, urgently counted to back then. Although I had taken a huge risk with u. It was my idea after all, to attach and insert the unorganic arm onto your thoracic spine and shoulder joint.”, described the Migraine, while leaning against the wall and gazing outside the window.

“All that pain was worth it! I can now do things, of which I merely dreamed of back then.”, he answered laughingly.

While the old acquaintances were continuing to chat with each other, exited the two generals, who were previously guarding the entrance gate, the Bastion.

“I am relieved, that the Message Man did not totally snap today. The spilling of blood laid not in the interests of mine today.”, expressed the in amour hooded general.

“I also expected the worst, but I worry because of the Baron´s decision.”, trusted the female general to the other general, whose blond hair was hanging out the backside of her helmet, while slowly walking the southwestern bridge alongside each other,

“He may anticipate, that Message Man will mentally collapse on his journey to kill Daińn.

Yet, his ruse is not error-free. Even if he would follow all of the guiltiness, the Baron set up for him, would there still be this one percent. The chance, that he could actually die. This is giving me the reason to worry.”

“Don’t let yourself be rummaged through this madam. He will possess a substitute plan, I am sure of that.”, spoke the general reassuringly towards her.

“Let’s hope that´s the case. But we can never be too certain, the Baron is playing a dangerous game, whose aftermath we´ll have to deal with. But I don’t want to break your zen. Let’s just stare at the moon, your lord, if you will.”, articulated the female general, that also took off her helmet and led here shining, blond hair swing around in the cold night breeze and also leaned over the parapet of the bridge.

“Lord would be exaggerated. A night owl like me, prioritises the title, »guide«. But you´re right, he is radiating in such pretty colours tonight.”, explained the general, who now also looked, with the hands behind his back, towards the night sky. 

Even tough they were covered with all sorts of black clouds, but penetrated the moonshine through the spared hollows and showed itself over the bastion, in its full, lunary glory.

The midnight also hit the now stationary carriage, which now stood still on a calm forest opening and whose occupants were already entranced within a deep sleep, whereby only the distant lights of the nearby village could still be seen at this late hour. 

But despite his exhaustion, awoke Amoñ all of the sudden, because his bladder tormented him out of his finally restful sleep. 

He thereby noticed, that there now rested a blanket on top of him, on which dull flower-patterns could be found, whose fabric was already starting to peel of and whose shreds started to establish themselves into his cloths and pockets.

He straightened himself and looked around in the near pitch-black interior of the carriage, whereby he spotted Hudson, who was resting his head on a sack of potatoes, who doze off on the opposite side of the wagon with no blanket, but in his full clothing.

Amoñ quietly climbed out the wagon, whereby he noticed Damian, who was sleeping on the coach box, but beforehand loosened to horse’s leashes to such a degree, so that they could sit down and were able to rest without discomfort, and sneaked to a nearby bush, where he then unburdened his stinging bladder.     

The murky night made the woods seem like a black box, whereby the carriages still burning lantern spend the only bit of brightness around the close by vicinity.

The tough of flight, clouded his overslept mind.

He had never been so far from his home before. On tracks, whose existence was remained hidden on traditional maps or were not even documented yet. But he felt like, this path was right.

The air was fresh and the quietness of the forest came of more calming than frightening.

A satisfied feeling overcame his past sense of doubt, his life shall now pass at his own after all.

Amoñ thereupon walked back to the carriage and covered himself in his blanket, which made his heart feel strangely warm, and thereafter fell asleep again.

“You have played well, but thine kings honour ends now.”, uttered the Baron, who was currently playing a game of sovereign conquest with the Lord of the Lindworm and shot his king, with an arrow card and the dice number eight, therefor ending the game.

“Omnipresent as accustomed.”, reacted the old Lord of the Lindworm, who was sitting with the Baron at a huge window, within a finely decorated room, “It never ceases to astonish me, how you can use such tiny opening to your own success. Truthfully impressive, like expected from thine.”

“My forthcoming, fleshy abomination, can’t leave room for such unexpected mistakes.”, spoke the Baron, whose hands rested folded on his lap.

“Does thine show any interest, to show thineselves in the upcoming celebration of the sun, my lord?”, asked the Lord of the Lindworm out of blind interest.

“No, that won’t be necessary. I lay my trust fully into the hands of the Local and his apostles, like I did the previous hundred years. My concentration is more focused on the visit of the lower continent, that is planned to happen next month, and the imminent arrival of the Flesh-Inhibitor.”, clarified the Baron, whose gaze focused itself onto the horizon, “My day is coming ever closer, I can assure you of that. Had I only struck sooner, than that wench would have been able to pull her ruse off. The only mistake, that I openly have to admit to myself. But that only did delay the unavoidable, “pronounced the Baron, whose noises struck through the open window and then ploughed across the depths of the rough lands, “My fate will soon be within grasps reach, and I, the Baron, will soon reach this zenith. Whose reflecting, fleshy glory, will soon bring me towards that, which I looked towards since the beginnings of my existents. 

The Baron looked, of his future assured, out the window, while clenching his naked fist and starring into the depth of his conquered empire.

To what goal he was working towards, remained unclear even to the Lord of the Lindworm and the highest individuum’s of his regime. Yet could this not bring any pleasant consequences with it, or could it?

Will the vengeful soul be pleased, or does it reside only in the human’s mind? May their death be forgettable? What the answer to that may be, remains to be found in your unclear soul, Amoñ.

-Spread a parasite, fulfill me within its sauce. No! Drown me in it. Drown me dead.–

- Genocidium saltans, cuius radii sunt somnium sacerdotis. Amen carni, non huius mundi.-

-Bloodgore Chapter 1. End.-

Its continuation shall proceed in a considerable time ->

Thank you for reading and enduring

Jollynicecorn/ Constantin W. Zimmel