"Helem! What are you saying!?"

As soon as I said something, Helem lunged at me with his staff. He jabbed me hard in the stomach while I instinctively moved afterward. The air was gone from my lungs as I crumple down to one knee. I noticed my surroundings and realized Helem had fought me into a dead end back alley. It was covered by the darkness of the night, we were on the outskirts of town and the only way out was through Helem.

I could say that he was blind but he wasn't stupid. I could climb the buildings but that would make me even a bigger target for Helem. He could use magic and sounds in this alley echoed as I hear my own breath. Magic is finite but all he needs is one good shot at me while I was climbing the walls. I couldn't help but smirk, Helem had thought this through to the end.

The air finally refilled my lungs and I stood up. I stare hard at Helem but he doesn't seem to notice me. He's waiting for me to make a move. I obliged, drawing out my short sword. Helem attacked me again as the sound and smell of metal waved in the air. I guess he wasn't going to let me make a move after all. His staff collides with my sword as I deflect his blows toward my head.

That staff of his was magically enchanted, it could easily handle the cheap sword I bought from the store. Helem was aiming for incapacitating blows and I couldn't move very well in this back alley. I was a big target for a man who couldn't see. I only had one good eye and couldn't see very well thanks to the cover of darkness. His attack with the staff was fast and furious, I couldn't block everything. My muscles and body felt like they were going to mush with the constant beating of his staff.

"Helem! Let's stop this!"

"Are you scared? You have always been a faithless heathen Demitri!"

Helem had the expression of a mad man on his face.

"What are you talking about?" I said.

"You have never taken the faith close to your heart! How you sneer at the followers of the faithful! How you insult the very GODS themselves!"

Helem's words echoed like explosions in the back alley.

"The Gods have a destiny for us all Demitri! You have been brought before me as a test before the faith! I may have let the Hero and the Veil down…but I WILL NOT BETRAY THE GODS!"

Helem kept pressing his attack as the sweat dripped down my forehead.

"I have taught you Demitri! How to read! How to write! How to understand the world! YOU A POOR STREET RAT! Why can't you understand my words!?"

I started turning angry at his comments.

Destiny? Fate? I spit at them with my very blood and tears. What are Gods which betray the innocent who did nothing wrong but desire the will to live? Was it my destiny to become a poor child abandoned by my parents? Was it my fate to watch all my friends and loved ones die for the most meaningless of things? Are destiny and fate the real difference between Nobles and the poor?

"Those GODS are nothing but a convoluted mechanism of religion to keep people oppress! They have done nothing but give empty promises while lining up their pockets!" I said.

This is what I truly believed and hated the Church. They demand money while assuring everyone and anyone that the Gods would surely help them. The Pope and his cardinals were a flock of devils in human skin. They would torture or purge those who seem faithless and I had seen it firsthand. Most of the people in their ranks were of noble families. The Religion of the Veil was one of the most disgusting things in this world.

Helem stopped when he heard my words.

"YOU UNGRATEFUL LITTLE BASTARD! HOW DARE YOU MOCK MY FAITH!? YOU SPAWN OF HELL! A HOLY WAR IS COMING AND I WILL BE THE ONE TO LEAD THE FAITHFUL THROUGH IT!"

Helem was crazy with fury.

"THE GODS HAVE NEVER STOPPED SHOWING ME WHAT YOU DID!"

Helem was swinging his staff erratically now.

"YOU HAVE TORMENTED ME DEMITRI! I CAN'T STOP THE BLOOD! HE WAS DYING! I COULDN'T STOP IT AND IT WAS ALL YOUR FAULT!"

I lunge a straight kick at Helem who topples over backward. I jump over him and run out the alley. I didn't need to really fight a blind man who had gone insane. I didn't think he looked at me in the same light as them in the upper class, he had a noble's pride. I had forgotten that he was one of them as well. Helem to me was always a great man with a well of love and unselfishness. How could I have been so blind to all this? Or maybe I had pushed him down this path?

As I exited the back alley I was greeted by the children who should have been sleeping at the church. There was something wrong with them, a light glowed in their eyes. Their bodies seemed pale as if the light of life had vanished from them. Blood seem to drool from their eyes and mouths. The children were carrying knives and sharp objects in hand.

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"Running Demitri!? Now I see you clearly, Lady Cassandra went far too easy on your wretched soul."

I look back to Helem confused in the horror of the children.

"What did you do to them?"

"Oh?...You mean my little flock of sheep? They had been chosen by the Veil to be my new eyes and ears."

Rage boiled up inside of me.

"Are they even alive?"

"These sheep? They are not human beings but pariahs to the world."

Helem had returned back to a calm demeanor but I was still seething.

"See what the power of holy magic has on them Demitri."

Helem held up his staff and an amber light was emitting from it.

"WHY CHILDREN!?" I screamed.

I was enraged and couldn't help see Helem in a different light now.

"We had been given a holy task of finding and killing you for the Veil."

Helem stepped closer to me.

"These children would do the faith a service and sacrifice their bodies."

My energy seemed sucked out of me as I almost slumped over. Did what happen to these children…my fault?

Helem seemed to relish and enjoy my despair. The children stared at me with an unnerving gaze.

"Who would have known that you would come to us? It is because the Gods willed it to be!"

A fanatic look had come over Helem.

"Kill him, my sheep."

The children pointed their weapons at me, moving almost sinister and unnatural. Each of them rushed to stab or slash at me. I defend with my arms and take many deep cuts. No matter how much killing I'm willing to do in defense, I will not harm children. I tried pushing and fending the children off but they had a supernatural strength to them.

Light and blood poured out of their orifices as they struggled with me. I break free from the children and try to fight Helem. I slash and stab at Helem in anger with my sword. The children had stopped moving in place as I was fighting Helem. He doesn't block any of my attacks but now dodges them all. His movements were more natural now as if he could see everything I did.

I noticed the children staring at me with that glowing light in their eyes. Their heads were moving in unison watching me and Helem. Is he controlling them with holy magic? He had said that they were his eyes now. I run towards the children this time who move again to attack me. Helem had stopped in place and he confirmed my suspicions.

The children surrounded me and stab me with their pointed weapons. I endure the pain while my blood splashes over the children. I maneuver myself so that my back would face Helem. In one swift movement, I throw off my cloak on top of the children while turning around with my sword. Helem hesitated for a bit but that was all I needed. I dash towards him and my sword tastes his flesh through his body.

Helem screamed in agony and gripped my blade with one hand trying to prevent his demise. With the staff in his other hand he raised it up high and it glowed again. I look behind me and see the children had taken off my cloak that had covered them. To my horror, they had their weapons pointed at their own necks.

"CHOOSE!! ME OR THEM!" Helem wailed.

I look back at Helem while gritting my teeth trying to bear with it but my grip on the sword was already loosening. My gaze returned to the children and to the glowing eyes of the tiny girl who had thanked me. Her hands were too small but they held a knife straight to her own throat. The light in her eyes were shining while they streamed tears of blood.

I already knew I was going to choose the children.

"You are a kindhearted man indeed Demitri," Helem said. "This is why we never told you of the plans."

"You knew!?" I twisted my mouth in anger.

Helem gave me a sinister grin and he waved his staff in the air. I look back and witness the children taking their own lives. They all dropped down, weightless, without the spark of life or light. My eyes were in shock but my arms moved and plunged my sword deeper into Helem.

"WHY!?!?" I yelled.

Helem dropped his staff and gargled on his own blood.

"I'll suffer, but as long as you suffer more, I'll be satisfied." He said.

Helem had the most deranged look on his face but it slowly faded.

"Demitri, may you live a long and full life…may your sins haunt you forever."

Helem had given me the most radiant smile on his face.

"I can't see it anymore...It's gone, all gone…finally…I can rest..."

He slumped over, dead.

There was a taste in my mouth, I couldn't quite get the flavor, all I knew was that it was bitter.