The night went by as the cold winds were the only whispers of sound, the adults that understood the harsh reality were the quietest, Jason's father seemed to be as worry as they are, even more taking a necklace of wood out of his hair and staring at it for long periods,
As the day passed, Jason noticed his father and a couple others were trading glances from behind the light, the guards did not notice anything special.
One day, one of the slaves collapsed from hunger, after him another, hunger and exhaustion had their fangs pouring poison slowly into the slaves veins, but everybody was too nervous to care about it
the stable was quite, calm, cold aired
One guard came to the stable shouting at everybody to go to sleep, r tomorrow they were going to another camp, the men walked out one after another to go to sleep , it wasn't long before night fell and the guards scattered across the dark grounds, only a very few stayed at the camp, one guard from the two beside the men's door heard a loud braking sound, as he opened the door other stayed behind for any unexpected incidents
Suddenly inside the house a rope from above hanged the guard that dared entry, while a wooden homemade spear came from inside striking down the other, it was one made from the leftover planks of the reconstruction, the two guards had rusty swords but the slaves did not take much care of it, they drugged the bodies inside and took whatever they could
One was held by Jason's father and the other by one of his trusted friends, the bodies were hidden inside the chamber, the slaves went inside the forest seeing that there is no guard lights around, but that did not last for long
Through the forest some lights were moving around, Jason's father holding his daughter and son while guiding the group avoided every flame he saw as they walked across the forest, some were moving, others were still, step by step, quietly until they reached an open field
As Jason's father was about to give order to go back another way, a voice to shouted, "Fire", arrows struck from every side, not caring if it is a man, women or a child, the group scattered like flies,
Jason's father held his boy's hand, and picked up his daughter and run towards the dark followed by some of his men, one of them spoke, "How? We have seen enough lights in the forest for them to not have this many men ready to strike, and how did they know we were planning to escape"
Jason's father said "the question is, how did they know where we were heading"
they rushed more through the dark
"They led us here on purpose to scatter us around and make us weak, they reduced our food portions and made us work harder for the same purpose as well" said Jason's father
"So, the lights were fake? Used to get us into the spider's nest?" said another one from the group
Some silence went by as they were running before it was Brocken "Yes, we are fighting a losing battle, wish they already planned ahead of time"
As they ran more This time there was no light, Jason's father asked
" How did they turn them off if they were all in that field" just to see one from a far not moving an inch
"Then going along what you said that light must be a decoy, said one holding a sword"
As they got closer, they saw a young boy with black hair holding the torch and an axe, on his cheek there was an eye symbol with many rings surrounding it, a Strang tattoo indeed, one of the slaves holding a sword sprinted faster saying
"We need to strike him down before he alerts of our location" just to be shot by an arrow in the head
Another one of the slaves spoke and said, "we need to go back we are not sure of the numbers"
But behind them they saw that the guards have already caught up to them, while they were distracted the boy holding the torch threw an axe striking down another one of them, from the side a boy and a girl jumped onto them, they had bland of hair, cutting down some of them with their blades, Jason's father did not know what to do, the only option was to run alongside hi children
This path seemed empty "If the others are to be bait, we can still survive" said the father, just to be met by the masked man in front of him
"Moving inside the spider's web only leads to your location young man," said the masked man
The father stopped in his place before putting down his daughter and whispering to Jason "If you walk by the river, you will reach the mountains, there you will be able to survive" as he pushed his son away with his daughter, Jason was hesitant, his father yelled "Go!"
The father said "You are defenceless,"
The masked man was silent for a moment, then he said "And you are..."
The father seemed shocked, confused, whatever the masked man said scared him out of his wits, he forced himself to calm down "You are not going to leave out of here alive"
"These are some brave last words" said the masked man
On the other side Jason running with fatigue and fear covering both thought and body, by a small cliff both of them fell, they were covered in mud, he tried his hardest to get up, he heard the sounds of the guards saying they heard some noise, he did not have time to pick up his sister so he covered her with whatever was around and went towards a nearby bush
Keeping eye contact with his sister, it was obvious that in her situation breathing without leaking sounds was no option, the guards came, searched for some time, when they found no tracks they decided to leave, just for his sister to cough out the mud that entered her mouth, she couldn't hold her breath any longer, their eyes shined like wild beast, and with brutality they picked her up and set her on fire.
The screams, the smell of flesh, the look on her face, hunted Jason as he couldn't possibly do anything in that situation, they left her burnt body there, as what was left of her head fell of her body, Jason stood there above the corpses, silent, string it down
he left the scene searching for a way out, or a living person he knew of, passing by the corpses, until he reached the headless body of his father, it was backed by a tree, the head fell to the knees, it was cut clean
He covered the head with his shirt, before leaving the scene. he walked slowly , until he reached the light, beside him the singing flow of the river was his only condolement, as he left the forest, his head wasn't filled with anger, sadness or revenge thoughts, he was just, traumatized