The Dregs of Demerr

As the sun rose on another ice cold steely day, Griffin sat underneath the cobblestone bridge leading to the capital.

He looked towards the edge of the bridge where a small path formed, and sighed. Griffin ran a hand through his hair and clasped the locket around his neck, a habit he had developed over the years as a way to busy his hands.

He was waiting for Castille, his contact who was meant to be updating him on the situation at the capital.

As he sat, worried about being seen, he noticed a dark figure forming underneath the shimmer of the morning sun. The figure slowly moved closer, and he became tenser until he realized who it was.

Castille had finally arrived at their designated location. As the form started to get closer, it began to move differently than normal. Castille was no longer slowly walking, but now quickly jogging towards him.

Griffin stood anxiously and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

Once Castille closed the distance to him, he looked over his shoulder to see if anyone had managed to follow him.

"What's wrong?" Griffin asked.

Castille tried to catch his breath. "It's, uh, not good. Worse than usual, I mean, which is saying something," he tried to chuckle, as if to lighten the mood, but it didn't work. "I didn't think things would escalate this much so fast."

Griffin's heartbeat quickened as he heard his words. "Oh, god," he muttered and ran a hand through his hair, waiting for Castille to give him more information.

“I can’t believe things have gotten this out of hand, I triple checked the security systems but they keep firing whenever I try to leave.” As these words left Castille’s mouth, Griffin’s hair started to stand on edge.

“How could this be happening?”

This final question escaped Griffin's lips and caused him to suddenly realize the situation he was in.

In this split second, everything froze, and he began to remember what choices led him to this exact moment in time, when the world was about to flip upside down.

Griffin was seven, and it was the day before his grandfather passed.

Looking back, Griffin could tell that he knew he was going to die.

That's the only reason he would do what he did.

His grandfather’s dying wish was to pass on the crimson colored heart shaped locket, the contents of which have been sealed away for as long as he had worn it around his neck.

The night grew longer, his grandfather weaker, and Griffin wanted to ask why this locket was so important.

The young boy laid on his stomach with his grandfather in a rocking chair nearby. His small fingers wrapped around the locket, and he asked, "Grandpa, what's it for?"

As he listened to his grandfather tell the stories of his lifetime and how he stumbled upon the necklace, Griffin's wonder grew.

But at the same time, his father's voice played in the back of his head, telling him that it was all just a story, just as he did with the children's books he used to read to Griffin before his bedtime.

"Now, kid," his grandfather finished, "That locket is a part of something bigger than yourself, you understand? I can't finish this, but you can."

His grandfather's dying request to him was one of nobility and responsibility, and that was to use the locket for good, use it to save their dying world.

And from that day forward, Griffin had vowed to never forget his grandfather's request.

But over the years, his father's voice became louder, and his own quieter, and he broke his own promise to himself.

After all, it had just all been a story. It had sounded insane, and the only mind who would have believed it was one of a child.

Griffin had believed that for years.

As the years went on and the idea of the locket became more of a faded fairy tale, he only wore it as a memento of his grandfather’s legacy, forgetting the true power held inside this key to salvation.

Until now.

Griffin's hand found the locket under his shirt, and he pulled it out to see the way it glimmered under the early day's light. "Oh," he whispered, and turned away from Castille.

"What is it?" his contact asked, walking around to face him again.

"I think that, um- I think that I know what to do," he managed. His fingers began to shake.

Castille's eyes followed Griffin's gaze, and they grew slightly wider at the sight of the locket. His eyebrows twitched upward an imperceptible amount.

"I do too," Castille responded in a steely tone, a tone that Griffin had never heard him use before.

In one swift motion, Castille grabbed the knife tucked into the back of his jeans and thrust it into Griffin's stomach before he even had a chance to react.

A quiet groan escaped his lips as he felt the blade go deeper into his flesh.

"I'm sorry it had to come to this," Castille said, but a smirk took up residence on his face, and there was a devilish glow in his eyes.

The man carefully sat Griffin down against the underside of the bridge, leaving the knife in his body. As he did this, a gunshot sounded out through the air.

Castille grabbed his arm where the bullet had grazed him, and went to reach for the locket before the shooter could get another shot off, but he didn't make it in time.

The pair heard a noise at the edge of the path, and saw a gun glint as the shooter reloaded. Castille listened to the faint click of the magazine being shoved back inside the gun and turned just as another bullet flew past him, burying itself in the stone Castille had just been standing in front of.

Choosing his own survival, as he had always done, he ducked and ran for cover.

Griffin groaned and tried to see who the shooter was, but his eyes fluttered shut as blood started to soak through his shirt.

His life began to flash before him, the memories from the moment his grandfather died until the present day playing on the back of his eye lids like a movie on a silver screen, but he kept coming back to one face.

A week after his grandfather’s passing, he found solace in a new friend that had also been struggling to get by in the slums of Demerr.

This new friend was a girl named Wren, she was slightly younger than Griffin and had been homeless since the removal of her family. This process of removal was a vicious cycle that went after the so called scum of the world but only ever targeted those on or below the poverty line.

Such a government was truly unforgivable, but what could two children do against an army of soulless people vying for the position of emperor?

Their only answer was to lie low and survive, because they knew this was a fight they couldn't win.

They had survived all these years with just each other, a feat that no two normal children could accomplish. Without their other half, there would be no way for them to move on, and this was Wren’s deepest fear.

As she rounded the corner, this fear came true. The brutal scene of Castille, the one other person she trusted, stabbing Griffin, the big brother that she had always wanted, was a living nightmare to her.

While Wren took aim with her gun as fast as she could, tears streamed down her face. When she reached for her second magazine, she saw Castille’s face turn to see who was aiming towards him.

She pointed the weapon back at Castille, missing her final shot before noticing that he was turning to run. After he was gone, she began to race to her big brother, who was lying underneath the cold, damp bridge that had once been their favorite place to hideout.

Her heavy footsteps pounded and echoed back against the underside of the small tunnel. The air was completely silent and her steps were the only sound reverberating through the air.

But before she could reach Griffin, his movements were already clearly weakened and severely lessened.

She knelt down next to her best friend, her hands hovering over the knife, afraid to move it for fear of making it worse. "What do I do?" she asked him, her voice frantic.

She asked him because that's what she had always done, but this was the one time he couldn't help.

"There's nothing to do," Griffin rasped.

And he was right. Going to a med station was the opposite of lying low, and it was unlikely they would even make it in time anyway.

Wren racked her brain for anything that she could do to save her childhood friend, but he asked her to stop and listen to him one last time. “Live on for me, and don’t forget all the fun we’ve had.”

With his dying strength, Griffin passed on the locket he had kept stowed away under his shirt for so long. His eyes slowly began to roll to the back of his head, but he managed, “Trust no one, and please finish for me what I never could.”

As Wren watched Griffin’s lifeless body slump over onto the ground, she vowed to get even with Castille.

If he only knew the hell that he had just awoken within Wren.