I have lived in an orphanage since I could remember. It's all gone, burnt to a cinder, ransacked, not an ounce of clemency spared, those wretches defiled the women and enslaved the children, how does such an empire hold authority?
"Is etris bereft of light?" I asked one of the perpetrator's. The guard ignored me and stepped on one of my bloodied fingers, further breaking it.
The swaying of the ship waa nauseating and the sky roaring made it impossible to sleep, but what purpose did it have if I was going to wake up in hell either way. "Damnation..."
Looking around it seemed like I was the only one with this thought in mind, most were asleep, although I didnt know what time of the day it was, is there really no way out of this?
The sound of the old wooden door creaking startled me, a tall figure in gaunt armor covered with dry blood entered the hull of the ship, or atleast what I assumed it to be, the dimly lit lantern in one of the corners made it hard to see, although I was kidnapped it'd been nicer if the ship was slightly more accomodating, the damp wooden floor really didnt do any good for my already hurting body, it was gonna be a long day, or night?
The man dropped a bowl full of horribly fried mushrooms and pieces of bread that looked like it was half ashy and half rotten. "Isn't this too little for 30 starving children?" I mumbled to myself, but staring at what could barely be consider as food I was starting to realize that I was somewhat hungry, are they trying to take our dignity?
The man left the room and the door closed with a loud thud, dust fell from the old wooden beams and most of us jolted awake, confusion spread but most of our attention was focused at the bowl in the middle.
And many voices arose,
"Are they treating us like lifestock?" said Roan in a shaky tone
And some cried out
"Those cowardous weasel's, they killed a vigil!" Kirill was fairly indignated, we were ambushed in our sleep and he was the vigil's adoptive son, if not for unfortunate events he would have entered a temple soon enough
"We are done for aren't we? Etris wouldn't risk more casualties just for a few orphans..." Roan was beggining to tear up
Kirill seemed offended by Roan's statement, how could someone say something so vile about the venerable soldiers of Etris, of course they were going to be saved "You mongrel! Don't speak of Etris like that, they are a force of justice!" At the same time he got up and started walking towards Roan
Roan shrunk in fear and covered himself with his feeble limbs, meanwhile Roan's older sister covered him
"Fuck off Kirill, now is not the time for pointless bickering" Rhea was around the same age as Kirill, Roan being 3 years younger.
He was winding up to slap her but the ship started swaying more and more, and someone took the opportunity to take the food during the commotion and was eating in secret, when the others saw this they were indignated, what gave this bastard the privilege to eat our food?
Suddenly someone kicked the child, and lunged for the food, then another wrestled them for it, someone bit them, drawing blood and agitatimg them even more, it started escalating into an all out brawl, but the food was ruined, had they gone mad?
I stood watching because I was relatively feeble and had no chance against the stronger kids, deciding against, well, worsening my situation, although I picked up the bowl which no one seemed to care about, one man's treasure another man's trash, wait did I say it right?
As I was looking around Kirill had a kid in a chokehold, Rhea was protecting Roan and the kid who stole the food, Archer had a dismissive sneer. "What a weird guy..."
The swaying was getting worse, I was just hoping a wave wouldn't topple over the ship, I wasn't in the mood to drown today, nausea was getting to me, but suddenly the ship came to a stop, most of the kids who were fighting fell down, and one of us even died, now that I think about it some of the screams during the commotion seemed a little more distant, weren't the perpetrators gonna intervene in our fight? I mean livestock is supposed to be alive, Oh heavens, they aren't cannibals are they?
The door burst open and the body of the previous guard dropped down on the cold floor, the sound of splashing and gurgling was disgusting...
"Huh?"
The air was tense, very tense, If it wasn't for the freezing cold I'd say the air had gotten a little hotter.
After giving it a thought kirill jolted towards the body, but I was faster.
Or well thought faster, in reality he was going to reach the body faster than me, so I threw the bowl at him
And he deflected it.
"Damn"
He shoulder bumped me away making me crash against the wall and continued running towards it.
But he was beat to it by Rhea, she unsheated the sword, or well what was left of it, the sharp edge of the saber was now jagged and the tip of the sword had completely snapped off.
Still she remained confident
"Stand back."
Kirill remained unresponsive to the threat through confidence or just pure arrogance and lunged at her, sadly she didn't expect this and got taken down, he was trying to wrestle the sword out of her grip, meanwhile the few left concious deemed it pointless to intervene, except me and Roan, we both started moving towards them but suddenly there was a horrible screeching sound.
And then it went all white.
Roan had been impaled by a giant javelin through his shoulder tearing his arm not so cleanly off and it grazed rhea's cheek scarring the right side of her face.