Silence

Sitting in my garden, I enjoy the sweet, oh so rare moments of silence. But I feel this serene moment of bliss is about to end. I can hear it. I can feel it. Something's coming. I turn around. It jumped at me and before I can react, it grabs me by the neck.

“Got you, Daddy”, my sweet Ava nearly shouts in my ear. As I feel my eardrums practically bursting, I hold back the face of pain I was about to make, just to not worry my daughter.

“You sure did, do you feel proud of yourself scaring your old man like that? What if you gave me a heart attack?” I ask her, half-jokingly.

“Daddys not that old yet! And even if, then Daddy would become a powerful Scherzaaan!” My daughter holds her head above her head, As if launching some kind of powerful spell. Forgetting she’s supposed to hold onto me, she starts falling. I, of course, immediately catch her, and correct her “Its Schmerzan Sweety, and you focus on not turning into one yourself.”

Schmerzan’s, the mages of this world. Through extreme pain of any kind, the people of this world can start their journey towards strength. I was never much of a pain guy, even as a child I cried over every little scratch and bruise. My mother always indulged my behavior, which may or may not have made it worse. No matter, I have no need for strength.

In our little town, Vallendell, there are only a handful of people, my family included. Why go trough pain, when I can just live my little life, away from all trouble.

“Ashen! Ava! Dinners ready!” I hear my wife, Adira, call our names.

I grab my daughter and put her on my shoulders. “Yay, food!” My daughter laughs and nearly falls of, again.

We hurry back and sit down at the table in our backyard. Our property is big, considering my occupation as the town’s hunter. I hunt all kinds of wild beast, from fish to small forest critters, to the occasional big herbivore.

I even managed to kill a Ferther. It’s a large predator, at the apex of anything you’re going to find in this region. It has thick fur, paws as big as my head and more endurance than anything I’ve ever seen. Its at least 8 feet tall, has 4 legs and is way too silent for something its size. But I was lucky, way to lucky. Story for another time.

“Here, my famous Daar Soup” My wife places 3 bowls of delicious smelling soup infront of us. Little cubes of bites sized Daar meat (a Daar is a medium Herbivor with Antlers and hooves), suspended in heavenly broth, consisting of carrots, potatoes and porridge. Next to the soup is my wife's freshly made bread, still steaming. With the sun in my back making the food look even more divine I can’t wait to dig in.

“Thank you for the meal” we say in unison, as we start our dinner. I tasted the slight smokey aroma, the harmony of all the flavors as the meat and vegetables dance their way down my tummy. I can’t hide my pleased expression as my wife takes it as an invitation to feel proud of herself. I let her, because she deserves it.

I know this might sound wrong, but her cooking skills were one of the reasons I ended up marrying her. Not to say that she isn’t beautiful. Her long, blond hair, her dark gray, almost black eyes and her astonishing figure were also good reasons. I don’t mean to brag, but I’d say I was pretty good looking myself as well. My long black hair, tied in a knot at the back, my dark blue eyes and well-toned, but still slank figure for my occupation, were quite the looker. Sometimes I just look in the mirror and think “damn.”

Enjoying the meal, I take it all in. I’m a lucky guy. I have a beautiful wife, a wonderful daughter and I’m damn handsome. Dear god, if something like that exist, just let it be like this, forever.

After the meal, we clean the table and get ready to relax for the evening. Adira is cleaning the dishes, while I get some firewood for our oven. Ava picks up a piece of wood that’s nearly as big as herself and tries to help me. I laugh as she struggles to lift it, but she manages, she always does. she’s a strong girl, and I’m proud of her.

“See daddy, I’m strong enough to go hunting with you soon! Then you can show me how to hunt with the bow as well”

“We'll see about that, how about you try lifting the bow properly first?”

I set down the wood by the entrence and start looking for my bow, which I usually set down next to my reading chair. I enter our house. I’m greeted with the familiar site of our cozy little cottage. Our small living room with my chair, and a little couch, followed by our bed in the next room, and a smaller bed in another room. Our house is home to way too many plants, and I have my wife to thank for that. I walk to my chair and look for my bow.

“Honey, where is my bow?” I ask my wife, hoping she just moved it, and it was not me having forgotten it back at my hunting outpost, again.

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“I have not seen it Ashen. Don’t tell me you forgot it again. That’s the second time in the same day, how is that even possible?” She teases me.

“No, I left it there on purpose. Anyway, I will go get it now. I'll hurry.” I said as I opened the door and left the house.

I kiss Ava on the forehead. “Wait for me, I'll just quickly go get my bow. Try to stay awake.”

"I will! And take this, I made it so you won't get lost" She takes out something from behind her back, her face glowing with smug pride. It's my compass, that she decorated with some colour's and a small hand drawn picture of out family on the back. It was drawn with crayons, and saying those lines and dots look like us might be a bit of a stretch, but my sweet daughter made it. How could I not adore it?

"Oh my god, I love it sweetie, thank you so much!" I grab her under her arms and start throwing her up, before putting her back down.

"Yay, that was fuu- *yawn* -n. Now hurry up, i wanna hold the bowww!"

"Okay, okay. I'm leaving. Goodbye Honey, goodbye Ava"

“If you left it there on purpose, why did you ask- “

I close the door. I could have sworn I heard someone question my totally not made-up reason. Must have been the wind.

My outpost is pretty far into the forest east of my house. It takes about half an hour if I hurry, about an hour if I take it slow. Because its already getting dark, I try to hurry.

As I enter the forest, I follow the familar path i created over the years. All around me are huge trees, as thick as I am tall, and so tall I cant even see their crowns most of the time. The occasional rustle in the bushes keeps me on my toes, but most of the time its just a rabbit or some kind of bird. I arrive about half an hour later, as predicted.

My outpost is just a small wood hut in the middle of the forest, nothing special. As I open the old wodden door, I see my bow laying on the ground, the string broken. “Tsk, damn critters”. I inspect the string. It looks chewed, by some kind of small rodent. I vow to take my revenge, angrily shaking my fist at the sky. I turn around and leave my little hut, closing the door behind me.

As I start walking back I get blinded by a brilliant flash of light. I throw up my hands to try and block the light, but thats not really helping. I try to take a few steps forward, blinded, but trip over a rock of some kind and fall flat on my face. As my vision returns, I check myself for any injuries, but see none. I stand back up, still slighty dizzy.

"What the hell was that, did that come from-"

Then I hear something, followed by huge pressure pressing against me. I fall to the ground. No, I’m forced to the ground by a massive shockwave, slamming my body into the cold forest floor. I hear something crack inside my body. My brain gets smashed against the inside of my skull. Throbbing pain is coming from everywhere, especially my head. A tree crashes to the ground next to me, another one starts falling directly infront of me. I roll out of the way in the last second, as the enormous trunk smashes into the ground right next to my head.

I can’t hear anything. I look around. The forest is gone. All the trees around me have fallen, destroyed by the shockwave of that light. The air smells like freshly cut wood and wet moss, but the cold air bites my lungs.

I try to stand up, I fail. My head still dissoriented from the flash of light and the shockwave.

As I try to stand up again, I feel like I’m missing something. Suddenly my heartbeat quickens to a level I thought impossible. Panic, unimaginable panic spreading through my body, forcing me to my feet at a nearly impossible speed.

I start running. I run I run I run I run. Back home.

I trip over the remnants of a tree. Before my face reaches the ground, I push myself up with my hands to keep up my momentum. I run and jump and run even further. I see dead animals everywhere I run, either crushed by the enourmous trees or killed by the shockwave. A rabbit, its lower body decimated by a tree is crawling on the ground. I notice it to late as I crush its head with my foot while running. I nearly slip, but am able to keep my balance. Further away a Daar is whining, a crushed corspe of a smaller Daar on the ground next to it.

My lungs are burning, my heart is screaming, and my legs are begging me to stop, but I won't. How could I stop over something as insignificant as pain? How could I stop if my family might be-

Bevor I can even finish that thought, I fell my stomach tightening, stomic acid and the dinner threatening to leave my body through my mouth and nose.

Im afraid. Afraid I just lost something very important. Fear in its most primitive and gut-wrenching form, the primal kind of fear one feels when they lose their very essence for living. The fear hammers against my skull, nearly splitting it open with its intensity.

My heart feels like its bursting out of my ribcage, pounding against my broken ribs. Keep pumping.

My lungs feel like they are tearing apart, the cold air burning like thousands of needles in my body, suppling barely enough oxygen to not die. Keep breathing.

My feet and legs are running at what I thought impossible speeds, as I feel my muscles tearing apart from the inhuman forces, I’m driving them to exert. Keep running.

I feel something. Something carving a passage inside me. It hurts, it hurts so much. But I don’t care, I can’t afford to care right now. Its chiseling my very being away, to make space for something else. I feel my body breaking, invaded by this foreign entity. I don’t care. I let it.

Suddenly, my body changes. My bones shift back into place. I feel them moving, pushing and grinding against each other. It hurts, but I keep moving.

They fuse back together, under unfathomable pain. My heart moves more blood, forcing my veins to expand, causing agony, making me feel like I am about to burst from the inside out. It hurts to much, but I keep moving.

My Lungs grow, keep growing seemingly endlessly. I let out a scream, as my lungs practically leave through my mouth, before they shrink back down. Stronger than before. I feel stronger. But it hurts, it hurts like hell. It hurts so much that I can’t even remember the world without pain.

I get faster. I get faster and faster as I feel my muscles growing back. Denser and stronger. I feel each cell forming, duplicating, like millions of ants biting and crawling under my skin, making me faster.

The forest, or what’s left of it, blurs behind me as I keep getting faster.

And then, I stop running.

Not because I can’t run anymore, but because I arrived. The trip that took me 30 minutes took me barley 4 minutes back. I don’t have time to think about why I was so fast, because I have arrived.

“W-What… It’s gone”