Louis speaks
"5 years ago. Give or take, I don't quite remember when it did happen but I am sure it was before Wain reached the kingship.
My family and I were living on the outskirts of a town. A huge one goes by the name Zenda.
On one normal day, I went to a tavern with a friend. Trying to kill time with some fun away from my strict military father.
It was morning. People filled the streets as usual. There were smiles and joy everywhere. Despite how my town can be depressing for new visitors because of how poor some parts may appear. But it was my home, and I accepted it as it is.
All was fine. Then suddenly during our chit-chat, a shouting man rushed through the doors of the Tavern, shouting that the town was under attack.
Fear struck the attendees in their cores and naturally, they dispersed out of the tavern, and I assumed they went to their homes to check on their families.
By instinct, I did the same. I rushed off my chair, accidentally smashing my drink to the floor, as I ran towards the Batwing doors.
I can't describe it to you. What was the sight that I saw out there. The Town was on fire, with flames that reached the clouds. People were running everywhere as the town center bells erupted in alarm. Helplessly shouting for people to endure a long catastrophic day.
It was chaos.
From the info, I managed to get from one of the protectors. I concluded that we were under attack by a large army of bandits who wanted our town's demise.
I didn't know what to do but follow the horde and return home and hope I didn't lose any of my family to those wretched invaders.
I ran into streets of blood. Corpses everywhere. It was a war that broke out turning my hometown into an open arena between the bandits and whoever was left of the protector's garrison.
I was about to lose my mind about how brutal humans can get, maybe way more than animals. It maybe because I was always shielded behind a life of aristocracy in my aunt's castle that I never saw the other grisly nature of human beings.
I could hear the screams of the people crystal clear as they tried purposely to escape their entrapped houses and burn alive in their own homes, where those poor people's flesh dissolved from above their bones, and the details of their bodies diminished within the yellow sparking flames.
I saw women crying in bitterness, hugging the corpses of their beloved slaughtered husbands. Stray children everywhere, those who might have been turned into orphans or just waiting for death while walking the bloody endless streets half naked with torn clothes and weeping cheeks.
The slamming of the melee weapons rang threatening. Telling me where the angel of death was lurking. Alarming me of where the battle was going on between the bandits and the garrison. But random as it is, It was every man and family for themselves where every house was like a castle under attack and the families were its defenders.
Witnessing and absorbing all of this, hammering down on me. I ran Like a little fox in his torched forest. I was paranoid, that I looked off my back multiple times to see if I was followed.
I wanted to close my eyes and wake up from this nightmare. I tend to imagine myself on the floor awakening from this mad dream as a result of overdosing myself with alcohol by mistake.
Despite my self-denial. My brain refused to collapse for a reason. I didn't know that my mind could endure such... fury...till I was forced to halt by the horrific sight of what I saw.
I tried to hold my tears while I was breathing fast as I saw most of my neighbors flat on the street, already turned into motionless dead bodies on the dirt. Bleeding in the open sight or already cooked alive inside their wooden homes.
I held my breath from the scent of the burned flesh and spilt blood. So to scan them for my parents.
And let me tell you, my love. How I had wished that I was wrong that time of all times, which luckily for me. I was. There wasn't any sight of my parents among the dead. That very fact filled me with some hope to resume my run.
After about 10 minutes, I finally reached my house, only to be greeted with 3 dead bodies of strange people just outside my house garden and to see my father, who was and still is a captain in the royal army with his armour wrestling a tall man, sword to a sword.
I spotted my mother, shielding my sweet innocent sister "Emilia" with her arms from the anarchy outside.
My father was too consumed in the battle to notice me. I couldn't blame him though. It was his life on the line so I thought it wasn't a good idea to distract him with my useless presence.
On the contrary, when my mom spotted me drawing near, her eyes jumped open. She ran out of the house and closed the door with my sister inside, in spite of her shouts to not leave her alone.
During her rush, she screamed, "Behind you!"
And I didn't even have the time to look behind and I instantly dodged to my right. Call it instinct, or third eye but I was sure I sensed someone's foul breath tickling the back of my neck. Maybe that's how the human body reacts to danger. Does it detect the slightest change in the environment when there is threat is so close? Perhaps...
I felt a cold air sweeping fast near my neck, later on, I realized that that was made by a fully forged sword which was this close to cleaving my head of my body.
I looked behind to see a man with strange clothes looking down at me with black eyes full of hatred. I was so frightened that my body turned deaf to every command of my brain to flee.
A kick to my belly did the trick and my body returned from the trauma. but I didn't feel myself till I was on the ground twisting over my stomach with a moan.
I looked up as he crept closer to me. I didn't have anything to defend myself with. I just tried to crawl away, feeling his dooming steps towards me, still staring at his scum face with horror.
He raised his death tool up high with a chicky smile and landed the blade...
I gasped knowing what awaited me.
But nothing happened, all I heard was a bang of iron parts slamming...
...I looked through my defending arms to see her, high up like a mountain.
My mother figure bloomed through my wide eyes, standing tall, with her salvaged sword.
She deflected the sword with a swing of her own. I had never seen a woman use a blade with this efficiency, lunging at a man twice her build and probably triple her aggression. Yet still managed to push him back somehow.
She screamed at me to get to the house and to lock myself with my sis inside.
I looked at her eyes and I saw how warm and glimmering her eyes were. I..I...It gave me a piece of warmth and safety, but it also gave me power.
A power that I do not possess. To be a man and to be responsible. She was talking to the son not the prince within me. I was supposed to obey her.
I jumped out of my place and forced my legs to dash towards the house with the fixed goal of reaching the door but the tip of my eyes got a fraction of my father's situation.
The bandit was on top of him, facing my father's chest. Two inches deeper with that pointy blade, and he would surely be the killer of my dad.
I was fully aware of my mother's orders to me. But I..I..I...couldn't just leave my dad to be stabbed in his thorax. You can say I was selfish or an idiot or both. But the truth is, that I just loved my parents. I couldn't let that thug kill the leader of this family, turning my mother into a widow.
That's when I took the folly judgment of breaking my mother's order.
I tend to imagine if I just went to the house without hesitation just like how my mother would expect me to do. To hug my little Emilia till the storm passes. Without trying to be a dumbass hero.
Maybe then, the future could have been less gloomy.
I stopped at my place, stunned by how the two men were wrestling. My father's chest was about to welcome the blade. I knew that his arm muscles wouldn't last long despite his powerful muscle mass body.
I looked around in a hurry, trying to find anything to help him with..."
"That's when you found the dagger..." Diana said
"It was lying there, hidden from all except for my eyes, resting beside one body of a dead bandit. It was small and It suited me. My fingers touched its soft silky brown hilt, and I imagined myself becoming the knight hero with shining armor that would make his parents proud. As if I held the secret of courage and fortitude within my hands. Never mind that I had never laid a hand on a chicken, let alone killing a bandit.
I turned around towards my father. Raising my blade with nothing but my good intentions and some pre-good feelings of what would father think of me, saving him at his last breath with just a blade as tall as a kitchen knife.
I charged.
"Did you save him?". Diana asked with an excited look.
"Saved him!? I tripped over and fell within the first steps of my charge!
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
I embarrassed myself in front of everyone. The only thing that was hurt was my pride and my face.
And to make it worse, the third bandit joined the scene.
He saw me on the ground, like a stray sheep waiting to be slaughtered. Helpless and clumsy. I looked around for my parents to seek help but they were both busy as they were.
I mentally cursed and swore. I was alone against a man holding a massive curved sword.
My breaths began to crack. I jumped off my feet, picking up my small weapon with restless hands.
I forced the expression of a roughened soldier on my face; to hide my true character. The true coward self who was that close to beg for his life. However, at the back of my head. I know there was no help coming and I was about to die. I only had the choice of how it will end. Die fighting or die while my back to the enemy...
I took another uncalculated manoeuvre and Instead of running to the safety of my house. I charged at the man with another humiliating battle cry.
He didn't use his sword on me tho. He toyed with me, and taunted me. I swung while he just kept laughing at my miserable embarrassing attempts. Like a spider playing with his wimpy prey.
He dodged all of my attacks with his slim body. He sadistically smiled as he enjoyed the tears in my eyes with every failing blow.
And when he got bored, he tossed me away, using my momentum against me. My face skidded on the flat road, sending pain and blood all over my mouth and skin. I felt the warm fluid exiting my swollen lips.
I thought that was it. I raised my eyes to his face. He was happy about what he was about to do. As I saw my life ready to be robbed from me. My biggest concern was not how my parents would feel losing me. I was more selfish, as seemingly. I was simply worried that my death would be as painful as my injury...
Slow and excruciating.
Then she came...
My true pride.
Her.
She threw a rock as big as a grown man's fist. It slammed the man's ear knocking his balance out for a second.
I gazed with full eyes, as my mother's sword came to life, charging with the power of a bear and swift as a guillotine.
She rammed her sword into his. While I was there, lying on the ground, stuned behind her protective body. I looked to where her past foe was. But all I saw was another fresh corpse. I...I couldn't understand it. How did she kill that man and now wrestle another one as same as hard, Just to protect a fool like me?! The skill that...that...". Louis halted.
"Louis..." Diana sighed.
He began to drip tears on his lap. Diana knew that those tears were not normal ones, those which can not be stopped so easily.
"Hey" she softened her voice as smoothly as she could, she wrapped her arms around his hair and back. Allowing his heavy weighted mourning face to dive into her chest. She didn't mind his loud cries banging between her lungs.
She felt a responsibility that wasn't given to her and she accepted it by her own will.
"Whatever were you about to say, just say it. Plain or Biased. I don't care. I will fully listen to it, to the very end. But let that memory consume you no more, my dear"
She rested her head over him just like how her father would do when she was young. She rubbed his back with her comforting hand, Her hug to Louis was all about ensuring to deliver one direct message.
Louis couldn't speak and went crying for a couple of minutes before he ran out of water. Flooding her dress with tears and silencing his heart content between her arms.
"Better?" She asked, seeing him back away from her crossed arms
"A...A bit, yeah. Sorry about your dress". his voice cracked a bit, feeling ashamed of himself.
"Nah, I didn't like the colour anyway" she chuckled in a playing tone.
They exchanged a faint smile for a moment while they held hands gently. Diving into the details of her angelic comforting chocolate-brown eyes and her small kissable lips, his mind began to conflict sensations of passion with sorrow.
"If I just met you earlier..." he sighed.
"And I am here now. We have time"
He nodded firmly. Gaining some untouchable support to continue...
"My mother told me. No, she scolded me for not obeying her directives. Normally, she would pinch my ear and shove me inside the house by force. But with the matter at hand. She ran over her saying again.
Get to the house
But I didn't listen. My stupidity reached its highest level.
Instead, I did the most reckless thing a child can do.
I tried to help.
Again.
I grabbed that dagger pretending to head to my house. But my true intentions were soon blown away. When I circled around and charged at the man from behind.
He barely dodged me. Despite how I was that close to actually helping for a change. All I succeeded in was putting the bandit under the pressure of fighting a kid and his mother as a team.
But I overlooked an important fact during my attack. I didn't comprehend that by my careless behavior I just compromised my mother's weakest spot to her enemy.
Me.
Realizing that crucial frailty, he immediately abused it. He pushed her exhausted body away with brute force knocking her flat under a tree.
Then he swung at me and guess what. The sword scratched a big scar over my left shoulder flesh..."
At that moment, Louis uncovered a part of his clothes, where the injury was still painted perfectly on his shoulder down to his left breast. Diana put her hands on her mouth, unable to express her shock at how the scar was immense and stretched across his body.
"The sword got to me, giving my mother the scream that declared the beginning of the end
As I fell to the ground crying like the spoiled brat I am. He noticed my weakness and tough situation and he took it upon himself to finish what he started.
At that time, I began to reap the results of my own failure and just accepted death rather than resisting it.
But death never touched me.
My mother intervened. For the last time in that battle.
She charged at the man and he sensed her coming. He turned around to deflect the deadly blow of her sword.
I noticed that the man had burned some sweat. But my mother reached beyond her limits far ago from where the original battle had started. After all, I forced a second opponent into her.
He overwhelmed her, pushing her back...
That's. . .
(Louis eyed Diana with red eyes and quivering lips, warning of what was coming next )
She tripped. My...My mom tripped over my fallen body on the floor and fell...
...and the...the...the sword...it followed her.
I...I swear I still picture the sword sinking between her ribs. I still remember that gasp that pierced my ear and heart. She turned her face to me, and a tear fell from her left eye. That drop of water silently condemned me.
Why didn't you just run away, as I said?
And he...HE WAS JUST... SMILING!
That sight. It broke something inside me. A chain. That bound me. The true resemblances of madness and insanity. A thing that my mother's presence and kindness kept it hibernating all these past years.
It goes by several meanings...A pressure. A Revenge. A Monstrosity. I don't know the title but on that day, I experienced the feelings.
I lost control over my body and my sanity
I screamed loudly. Very loud that the man's attention was drawn to me.
He was about to pull his blade, to try to shut me up with it. Yet, another two hands grabbed his own fingers over his sword's hilt, towards her body.
My mother...
She did one last favour for me. She immobilized him. I knew that the poor woman endured a gigantic pain in her chest. Yet, somehow she gave me something even in her presumed last moment, even when she was dying.
A window.
I looked at my dagger. It talked to me. Ravaging and corrupting me inside. Sweetly, turning me into a monster.
The bandit futilely resisted my mother's grip as he saw me raising with my dagger in my hands. I enjoyed the panicking look in his eyes while his hands were handicapped to his victim.
He saw it in my black eye cores.
His end. He saw his own twisted soul reflecting and unwinding over me.
He saw his own twisted soul reflecting and unwinding over me [https://img.wattpad.com/46d1efa5e227c7ced56b0d6a8c07b31ff0987da5/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f6f685571503250333447484362513d3d2d313236363135363936382e313731343535633966313266316266623835343838343333353032302e6a7067?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]
And I jabbed him...right in the middle of his neck...
I felt his thick blood pouring out of his throat like a fountain...
He wanted to scream but no words came out, only more blood was spit out...
It was a phenomenal sight. A sadistic need fulfilled joyfully!
I pulled and pierced it again in his chest...
His failed shouts became a melody to my ears. It just unleashed the devil within me...
I sensed his heart shriek under the tip of my blade...
I pulled then did it again...and again...and again...and again...
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,...
I lost count of the stabs... as long as he was in pain, I didn't give a shit.
I didn't stop...
I didn't want it to stop!
I enjoyed his suffering and I want to prolong it forever!
Even after he fell down by my blade, the hurricane of madness within me pushed me beyond the borders of common sense and logic. His body had already surrendered decades ago but I wasn't sated...I never intended to be...
My arms complained from exhaustion but even as it was. I DIDN'T STOP STABBING..."
"Louis!"
Diana shouted
While he was ignited with his thoughts of his revenge achieved, his attention was suddenly drawn towards Diana, who appeared to be frightened. He quickly regained his senses and looked at her with concern.
"S-Sorry, You told me to spill it out and so I did. I murdered that man. Diana. I kept stabbings over 50 times till my clothes color changed. The only one who managed to stop me was my father. He rushed and stopped me with his arms, hugging me back to my sanity.
And he survived the encounter on his own.
My mother was alright about what she said, he didn't need my help. And even if he did, I pushed even more anarchy to our family over the main problem and caused my mother to be stabbed"
He looked at Diana with strong eyes " Now. Can you still love me after knowing what I can unleash just to protect those whom I love?"
He confronted her. Testing her metal. Slightly shy of the way he was asking her and afraid of what the answer may uncover.
"Yes"
"Yes, what?"
"Yes, I would still love you my kind prince, the same person that I am sure he accepted me when he first saw me. I won't judge you based on an accident in the past, my dear. I accept you with all of your cons. It is one of the basic principles of love, right? If your mother was with us, wouldn't she agree?
He stared while she hugged him again. Resting her chin over his shoulder. Sticking her body to his. Warming his heart with her breaths that tickled his ears.
"Thank you for listening,". He smiled widely. Circling his arms around her, he felt himself succumbing back to peace, back to his normal self. The angered demon of the past that possessed him retreated slowly as it faded away in thin air.
"And Louis...
"Yea?"
"It wasn't your fault, just forgive the past, I am sure you didn't mean what happened to your ma"
"You mean my mother? Oh, don't worry. She survived"
"Wait, What!" She rejoiced. "But you said, she was stabbed between her ribs!"
"Correct, I share your amazement. My father had the same reaction. It was a miracle that I didn't deserve. After the battle, doctors predicted that she lost one of her lungs, but she outlived that day by several years"
"Then why all of this mourning?!"
"Simple, When my aunt wrote this letter, I read it before you did then I closed properly afterward. I realized she tried to be the mother that my father failed to replace. I miss her, Diana. Mother passed away a year ago in her bed. They said it was a sudden death at night. I didn't want her to leave me with my strict harsh father, I hadn't had the chance to kiss her goodbye at least"
A tear fell from his eye as she swept it quickly off his face
"The fact was, she was just happy that I was okay. She never talked about what I did nor she ever blamed me for anything that happened on that day. She just kept producing her own unconditional love as she normally did.
Nothing of which my father presented to me in real life actually. That's one of the many reasons why I take every opportunity to visit my aunt to escape my father's rough disciplined life. I know he wanted to make a man out of me but he totally forgot that I also need someone to give me what my mother would give, which is...."
"Pure Love". She ended his talk. "Is that why you shared that memory with me because I resembled her?"
"Quite right, darling". He nodded with a caring smile. "I shared my story with you. Because I saw part of her passed soul reflecting on you. When you took away that poison from the verge of my lips and when you killed that monster in the forest. I sensed my mother in you with her same energy and emotion. Don't get me wrong, I still adore your soul. but I just wanted to point out how you two are similar. Both of you love me"
She smiled. Shy as she was. She felt so precious to her young man, to trust her with that bulking secret.
"And Zenda?" she exclaimed about how the town's fate was sealed.
"Well, we may have passed this nightmare together without a single tragedy in our house. But the town took the full punch.
After the unimaginable fight that took place, half of the population was eradicated. Most of the town was destroyed. However, not a single bandit lived to tell the story. Only we. The survivors witnessed that struggle to the end.
Good thing we had a family member in high places. Because when my aunt knew about the attack. The former king sent a whole battalion to guard the town area, and ensure it was rebuilt stronger and powerfully than before. " he sighed finishing his past story
"May their soul rest in peace, my Louis" she ended with a sad smile.