Lost Ones

“There weren't always dragons in the Valley.”

Is what he heard The Fates’ wisdom hum in his soul. What they say is destiny unless there is divine intervention. Something that will prove to be an early taught lesson.

Ah, The Fates. You three must be exhausted from weaving bloody red strings from dusk till dawn. Until you’ve been stretched just as thin as the inevitable morality you so demand of the world.

Nonetheless, you are a storyteller who knows not of the next chapter up to the final hour. Their final imagery.

And what of your story? It can’t possibly be flowing the way your hearts once dreamt them, Morpheus willing. But here you are, blessing this boy with a destiny to write your wrongs… I’m sorry, I mean to say, ‘right your wrongs.’

So here I am, involuntarily admitting myself into three of the most selfish, bitter, exhausted, gods’ story. But even then, I wonder what will truly become of it.

To everyone else? Forgive the boy if you can, everyone who’s fate intertwines with his.

For the child’s rose-colored string is an omen of endings.

I’m so sorry… Tamara

***

And then, I was born.

“Ha! A healthy baby boy! I told you there was nothing to worry about, Darling.”

The man snickered while holding me high using two large, bear-like mitts. A chocolatey complexion to his skin with two fiery red eyes, a large, brown mouth, and he smelled of earthy minerals with a hint of maple.

I watch him send a smile brightly up to the sky, up to me. A glimmer to his eye, this was my first time seeing such a radiance of warmth.

And had I heard the sun’s existence in that moment, I would’ve thought the tales of such to be of me.

“I suppose you’re right,” the woman spoke softly with no further desire for pessimism. A weak smile playing the corner of her tulip-colored lips. Her eyes a pair of emerald green gems that sparkle at the sight of me.

For a moment, I noticed her lips separate slightly, inaudibly. Almost like a spell being whispered. Or a charm.

That was the day I was born, the day the voices began. The day an angel in the void of my mind shed an everlasting light to my soul. A melodic tone calling out to me.

“It’s time to go, Isaac.”

And so I did…

***

“Peanut?”

The shriveled voice of a woman calls out to me.

So with a gentle sigh, I get up from the foot of my bed, making my way to the living room.

One glance to the fur-covered rocking chair, she resembles a Druid. Her brown hair narrowly touching her ankles. An old staff carved into a strange slab of wood. An Ivy green cloak.

“Yes?”

And two emerald green irises… like the ones she bestowed upon me.

“Why don’t you take a trip to the graveyard? I hear from a nearby village that Cursed Bones have been spread throughout the tombs and now, Skeletons have been sighted, lurking about.”

I give my thin, metallic chest plate I’m equipped with a slight adjustment while still listen to the woman’s Quest offer.

“I think it’ll be good for you.”

She continues, initiating an honest attempt at getting me out of the house. Her index finger sliding across Ancient Runes carved at the top of her staff.

“Maybe some time helping other commoners will spark a bit of interest within you for new people.”

The intense stare the woman sends after with a raised eyebrow, scolds me like a heat-ray of motherly expectations. And it’s more than enough to pierce the worn out knightly helmet I’ve kept on my head for as long as I could remember.

A helmet to mask the face the world never should’ve seen in the first place.

Turning my head away from her death-stare, I give her an assuring nod.

“Thank you, Isaac.” A smile creeps upon her face. “You’re very obedient these days. The women will love you for it.”

I was seventeen when she told me that.

Ignoring the delusional teases, my eyes flicker as I catch glimpse of a blade peaking under the couch at her right. A blade as dark as night itself.

“No.”

“Mother-“

“You will not be taking ‘Excalibur’ for something so trivial a task as such.”

She gives her staff a sharp flick to the side and the weapon slides completely behind the couch. Out of sight. Out of mind.

As much as I didn’t like the existence of rules, especially the ones my mother created for me, she had such a way with words. And I admired her for it.

“Now make haste, while you have morning light. Your journey will last until sunset splits the sky. Walk down the broken row of stones and when they end, make a right. It’ll be a long walk ahead from there. So you’ll have only a few clouds’ passings before the Undead begin to rise within the graveyard.”

Even if it was just to hear her give my directionally-challenged self a custom made path to new regions. It was always… intellectually pleasing.

My armor clanks together like two iron pots when I turn to the door. One step after another, an uneasy thought crept into my head. Though regardless, I make my way out the door to finally begin my Quest to Skeleton Graveyard. But on the last step, I hear a sigh escape my mother’s lips.

She must’ve recognized my annoyance. Even with the helmet, the armor, the expressionless face I gave behind it all, I could only shield my heart from her by so much. And I admired her for that as well. But the All-Seeing-Eye every mother possesses would not be enough this time to reveal everything.

My name is Isaac. What my mother doesn’t know is that my friends call me Ike. When I was younger, I began to have dreams of Earth. Not the one we live in where castles rise over the human regions and gods spat curses from beyond the Ancient Divide. One of cities decorated in colors you’d never imagine and humans who saw limitless potential within another. Eight children to be exact. Although the faces and names escape me. I can’t remember who they are…

But to this day, I still feel their souls calling out to me. Searching. Waiting.

And so am I.

The way to the graveyard proves minimal in difficulty from our hut sitting at the edge of The Outskirts of Troy. Small, indistinguishable critters of reptilian nature being the only threats to litter the path. But their two protruding claws on each hand complimented by a row of teeth resembling a shark hold no effect against my armored calves.

Hours pass by like sand in the wind when I lose myself in thought. Given the warning that I’d have surplus time upon arrival, I take it upon myself to lessen my pace so that I’d get here when the bones arise. That’s when I feel the sun’s heat wane and it’s light fall. I’d like to say it worked fairly well, seeing all the Cursed Bones taking effect under the soil. Black, ink-like markings linking the dead to their pitiful fate.

Before I know it, the monsters begin to desperately claw their way to the surface in front of various tombstones. Their numbers scattered about with no noticeable patterns to it.

Due to my mother coming to me with this Quest. I imagine that Skeletons will prove to be no worthy foe.

So in a few minutes there’s no surprise. They don’t amount to anything. Their teeth chatter when they’re close; as they prepare a lunging attack towards my limbs, hoping to crack my suit of armor like a turtle’s shell, they hiss, awfully. Without eyes, you can’t tell where they’re going, where they’re looking. You can only sense it. This takes instinct.

I crush one skull after another. Punching through bare rib cages and shattering limbs by using them as weapons against another.

Over the next few hours, evening turns to night. Only my keen eyesight and the moon’s reflection allow me to slide between graves and around shrubbery. Despite this, Skeletons are fairly easy to hunt.

Until I stumbled across you.

With all the Skeletons cleared from the graveyard, I stop at one tombstone in particular that feels out of place. There’s no title on this grave. I wonder why.

That’s when I heard her angelic voice in my head for the second time in my life.

“Here, Isaac.”

I can’t explain the fire that engulfed my chest in that moment. Just know it’s warm, fuzzy, and reminds me of home.

So, after cocking my hand back, I thrust the entirety of my arm into the ground. Then, something shifts from underneath and like a fish with bait, I grab hold and pull. Up and out of the grave, an Undead is what I imagined to emerge in my clutches.

“Ow! Ah! Gah!”

Came the whaling, crying, and screaming of the one in my hand. Bleeding from her scalp, under the full head of hair I refuse to let go of, she winces and squirms. Coughing up a mix of blood, vomit and dirt to add to her already vomit passed face.

She takes heavy breaths, flailing about, dragging her fingertips against my armor. H er body is frail and underweight. Pale, creamy skin, mud, bugs crawling over her. She looks half dead.

But when her eyes met mine, it hit me. A flood of memories I’m not sure who’s to call. Who are you? I wonder, keeping her up against the moon’s light.

Because undoubtedly, her eyes are as silver as the moon. And when she’s this close… so I asked.

“Do I know you?”