A week later I was inside a wooden crib, it was damaged but still stable enough to hold me.
Watching the members of my "new" family walk around and work almost all day I started to observe some characteristics of each of them.
My dad, I still had difficulty thinking of him as such, was a farmer, he would go out of home at the first hours of the day and come back home late at night, his tired face remembered me of myself and my extra shifts.
He worked for a wealthy farmer that gave him endless work to do, just him and other two men were commanded to work on a field as big as thirty football fields, they didn't get any equipment and a guard looked at them every second to make sure none of them slacked off, even for a moment.
He was a man in his thirties, his body tanned from the light of the sun that hit him while he worked in the camps, even though he worked hard he lacked muscles because of the lack of food, his hands were big and calloused, sign of the hard work he did every day with the hoe, his eyes and hair were a plain brown and often two dark circles could be found under his eyes, they were probably caused from tiredness.
My mother was a seamstress, she worked from home making new dresses or accessories under the request of other people that often came into the house to take the finished product, many of them stopped to see me and, I think, to congratulate her on her new son, all of them talked that strange tongue and I still didn't understand a single word.
She was also around thirty years old just a little younger than my father, she had long dark brown hair and light green eyes, she was always smiling and helping in the house, she was frail, too frail for someone her age, that was likely because she often ate less so that my two brothers and one sister could eat, food was really scarce.
About my siblings, the two brothers were twins each of them had brown hair and green eyes, they were around seven years old, they spent most of their day playing or fighting each other, my sister was a little older around nine years she had dark brown hair and brown eyes, she helped mother and often took care of the twins.
They were already in a bad situation, but with my birth it was going to be even harder survive, but hey it's their fault, not mine, now all that was left was to wait, I wasn't really in a position where I could be of help to them and my body was still falling asleep every time I started thinking too deep for more than 10 minutes.
...
Meanwhile in a grim cave near the capital of the Artemis Empire, two men covered by dark red robes were talking, the shorter one asked the other "Valentine, shall we begin the experiments now? The empire is occupied fighting the republic, this gives us more than enough freedom to start the plan".
The black eyes of the other man closed for a moment, his expression unreadable as his face was covered by a strange mask made of bones, after a moment that seemed to last for an eternity, he told his accomplice without letting any emotion come out "Go and gather any young kid you can find from the villages near the western border, try to not get caught, I won't save you as I will be occupied keeping 'their' attention on the capital".
Hearing that the short man began laughing in a disturbing manner, a smile similar to that of a mad scientist soon appeared on his face, he bowed jokingly at his ally and quickly left the place, when he got out from the cave a young woman greeted him before shortly after following him, she was carrying a big and rugged luggage, her skin was fair and her hair blonde, she had two incredibly fair blue eyes that looked like ice, only a cold, calculating mind could be seen in those eyes.
As she followed the man she spoke softly asking "what are we going to do now Master? " hearing that question made him start to laugh again "We, my dear, are going to create the perfect magic weapon, a creature that will make the entire empire tremble in fear, I hope you took everything I asked you, we will need those things".
The two of them departed, their destination, the western border and the many poor villages that were there, something was breeding under the surface of the Empire and while it stayed occupied fighting a senseless war new enemies prepared to attack it from within.