In front of me, a world of white smears across a breathtaking blue canvas. I feel weightless atop a sea of air and misguided choices. The rush of wind burns my ears and blurs all noise into one droning rumble. The breeze catches each memory that I've tried so desperately to drown and carry it away into the endless skies. The memories that stay the longest are the ones of my wife, Leila.

I watch as she picks up our daughter. In her arms, our child looks so small. How do you protect something so delicate? Leila snuggles her against her chest and with a voice that could calm a storm whispers to our little girl; you are loved. She tells her, mommy and daddy will always shield her with our strong arms. Then my wife glances at me and smiles. It told me she believed what she said, and she was counting on me to support her.

The scene fades and I’m standing back in the place I first met Leila. We were walking through a forest together, soldiers in a defense force sworn to protect a precious caravan. No one knew what was in it, honestly, it didn’t really matter. To us, the job was about the money. There was no reason for us to become friends or to know our contractor. This was something I did regularly back in those days.

I grew up in a large city. Most of the people there were too busy to give concern to a starving family that lived behind a carpenter’s shop. My father never worked a day in his life. I never understood why my mother had children with him. I guess that’s why she left a few weeks after my youngest brother and sister were born. She never talked to me, at least not that I can remember. We were reminders of her mistakes. My first memories were from when I was about seven years old.

My father was dragging my sister out of the house. She wasn’t crying or screaming but my brother and I knew something wasn’t right. I remember the way she looked at me as she rounded the doorway to the outside. Thinking back on it now, I didn’t know she was asking for help. That was the last time I saw my little sister. A few weeks later, after coming home from scavenging some food, my brother was gone too. I assumed he must have gone where my father took our sister. I waited for my turn.

It was the next day when my father grabbed my hand and walked me out of the house. I was excited because I missed my siblings. We went down the road not far from our home. My father stopped me outside a building and went in. I couldn’t read the sign on the outside but the people walking past kept giving me worried looks. For the first time in my life, I felt uncomfortable.

My father came back out and grabbed my arm too hard, it hurt. He pulled me into the building and handed me over to a man I did not recognize. They spoke to each other briefly. Then my father left with a small brown sack. A few moments passed and I asked the man, “where is my brother? Where is my sister?” He only laughed.

Later on, that night, the man came to get me from the dirty mat I was allowed to sleep on. We went into the alley and there was another man, again someone I did not recognize. He handed me over to him and then the man my father left me with walked into his little shop with a small brown sack. The man I was left with told me to get into the back of his wagon with another boy. He was holding a sword. I did so as I was told hoping maybe this is where my brother and sister had gone.

The next thing I knew it was morning, and I was lying on the ground. This was new to me, the sand, the dry air. In the city, it was damp and cold. I looked around for my siblings but did not see them, instead, I saw a dozen other young boys standing in a row beside me. I stood too. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Then the man with the wagon came out and said, “all of you are trash. None of you are deserving of life. Only one of you can come with me, the others will be left here buried deep down in this pit.” He motioned over to a shallow hole on his right. “If you don’t want to die in the sand, kill the boy standing next to you. Remember only one of you will come with me.”

Upon hearing this the boy to my right sprinted away from the line. Then a swoosh sound passed my head. I looked over; an arrow was sticking out of his back. His body slowly fell to the ground. The rest of the children started fighting each other. I jumped into the fray. I wanted to see my brother and sister; did they have to do this too? Did they win? Were they in the pit? I pushed the thoughts out of my head and swung my fists.

After a few hours, I was the last one standing. Another boy was still alive but was without a leg and could not fight. The others were all unmoving. I stood above him, panting. The boy’s eyes were looking into mine as if I betrayed him. I didn’t know whether or not to feel bad, so I decided to not feel anything at all. I guess maybe, that was the point.

The man wanted me to end his suffering. I wasn’t sure if I could do it. The boy couldn’t even fight back. “Finish what you’ve started,” the man commanded and as he said this, he threw a sword onto the ground in front of me. I grabbed it. Was I capable of this? I looked over at the alternative; the pit. Trying not to think I took the blade and plunged it into the boy’s heart, or so I thought.

I helped gather all the bodies and dump them into the pit, including the one I stabbed. The man told me to grab the oil and dump it in as well. I did what I was told. I needed to know if my brother and sister had gotten this far.

The boy without a leg screamed when the man tossed in a torch. I don’t think I’ll ever get that scream out of my head. I got into the back of the man’s wagon with the sword in hand and we started to travel. We did this ritual in every city we passed. Nearly a dozen young lives were taken at each stop. I never questioned the man, but as time went on, I forgot why I was with him. I started to anticipate the next fight. This went on until I was about eighteen.

It was around this age when the man started to show his age. I did the only thing he had ever taught me, rid the world of the weak. I didn’t consider the consequences. He was always the one that supplied food, water, and shelter. I took his wagon and went to the next city. I didn’t know whether or not to continue the tradition. I waited until the night and watched the city. A contractor came announcing he needed men to guard his caravan. Apparently, his old guards were all killed in a recent attempt at his caravan. I went over and accepted his offer. I needed the money. There were a few others there, but I hadn’t decided whether or not I was going to kill them all and take the goods, so I kept my distance.

It was dark the night we set out. I had on me only a sword and my ragged clothes. I couldn’t afford anything better. At that point, I'd never needed money. The others in the party were wearing suits of armor including helms and the like. I didn’t care for that kind of stuff. Those things would only slow me down. It was only a few hours into the journey when we were attacked.

It happened so quickly, none of us had much time to react. They honestly had no chance. We struck them down without taking a breath. The fight was over so soon that another soldier and I didn’t even notice. My sword went straight for the soldier’s head, to my surprise they were able to block it, but I still managed to knock their helmet off. A stream of golden rays of sunlight poured from the helmet.

The look in her amber eyes was that of a killer. Blood dripped down from her head and spread across her face. She was holding my sword up with her own. Her beauty distracted me. She swept my legs out from under me and drove her sword right for my neck. If it had not been for my own sword’s hilt resting on my neck, she would have killed me. The tip of the blade slipped past the handle and drove right into the ground. Through her hair, the moon radiated around her. It made the blood dripping from her face seem like shooting stars aimed directly at me.

That’s when she realized I was a member of the party guarding the caravan. She let go of her sword and backed away. The expression on her face was that of horror. She kept apologizing and I could tell she was sincere. She was so cute though I started laughing. After all, I’d been through, I almost died to this girl. She was impressive for sure but nothing close to the raw power I possessed.

When she realized I thought it was funny, she started to laugh too. The whole party laughed along. She put her hand out to me and I took it. Pulling me up was easy for her, I wasn’t very big, to begin with. I never really got a chance to get fat. She said to me, “You’re lucky your sword saved your life!”

I punched her in the shoulder and said, “No, you’re lucky you distracted me.” I quickly realized I admitted that she distracted me and tried to change the subject. “You’re pretty strong. Where did you learn to fight like that?”

She leaned close to me and with a seductive voice she said, “Did my blood-covered face distract you?”

I didn’t know how to respond, but I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to take her right there. She was waiting for me to respond, fluttering her eyes at me. She smelled of sweat and blood and I loved it. A primal part of me was beginning to rise to my throat, but before I could act, the caravan contractor told us to get a move on. He was worried someone was going to attack us again.

She winked at me. Blood fell down from her forehead and landed on her cheek. Taking a step past me she wiped her face of blood. Our shoulders hit, but I was stunned. I’d never been with a woman. There was no part of me, before this moment, that had ever taken notice of them either. I never had the time or motivation to worry about all that. I turned my head to look at her. This just so happened to be the same time she was turning to look back at me. That’s when I knew she wanted me to.

We gathered all the gear from the thieves and split them amongst ourselves. They all talked like they were best friends and were excited to get back home to tell the tale. I trailed watching the darkness behind us, but in reality, I couldn’t get her smile out of my head. I could hear her laughing just a few yards ahead of me. We seemed more like traveling minstrels than deadly soldiers. We’d been traveling a half hour or so when we came to the end of the forest.

What lay before us, was a sea of flowing grass about waist high. It went on all the way to the horizon. The man who hired us said we should make camp a few yards or so away from the tree line. I stayed behind and began chopping some wood for a fire. This is what I was used to; the countryside, traveling with no clear direction, and most of all; survival. I gathered enough wood to last us through the night and dropped the wood near the caravan.

One of the other soldiers grabbed the wood and dug out a small pit. In the dark, I could see the men standing around the fire pit waiting to get warm. It took the soldier a minute or two but eventually, he managed to get a spark. I decided to assemble a good bed. I took my sword and cut down a good bit of grass and piled it up into a small nest. I did this until I could step on the grass and not feel the cold ground beneath it. When I returned my attention to the fire my blood stopped pumping and the whole world seemed foggy.

The sound of the wind burned my ears…

Sitting beside the fire was the woman I’d accidentally fought earlier. She removed all of her armor and chain mail. I could see the outline of her body, the shape of her legs, long and strong. Her blonde hair danced between the flickers of the flame. There was dried blood still in her hair and on her face. I noticed I wasn’t breathing, but I couldn’t help it. She was nothing like I’d ever seen. She wasn’t even moving but the shape of her body and the way the light was being cast onto her made it seem like she was a raging sun.

Standing next to the caravan I noticed there were canteens of water. I grabbed one and walked over to the woman. “What is your name?” I asked. I gestured the container to her. “For your face and hair.” I wanted to take care of her, something in me needed to. It was like a dream of a promise, I couldn’t remember.

“Leila,” she said to me. “And about earlier, I really am sorry. But the way you fought those guys off. It seemed like a beast toying with insects. It was impressive, and I was just into it, especially because you hit me first!” She laughed after she finished talking. I could see her smile again, and in the light of the campfire, this was one image I would never forget. One memory I refuse to let the wind take from me…

“Leila,” I said softly. “I like that. And yeah, I’m sorry about that. I wasn’t expecting the fight to end so quickly. I was just moving from target to target. Most people aren’t even able to block my attacks. They usually buckle from the pressure and my sword just continues right through them. Where did you learn to fight?” Upon hearing me say this, she smiled. I could tell she was proud of herself.

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“My dad taught me how to fight!” she said excitedly. “He was a general during some old war… but he’s gone now. I have his sword and his skills, but not his sense of duty to the country. He died a year ago, but enough of that. Where did you learn to fight? You have a lot of raw power but that’s about all. You could use some work in your form. Have you ever used a sword before?”

“My father taught me how to fight as well. What do you mean I could use some work?” I almost said that the only reason I got overtaken was that she caught me off guard. “Let’s spar right now with sticks.” I walked over to the tree line and found two that seemed about the right length and weight. When I was walking back, I could see her standing near my makeshift bed.

I threw her a stick and waited for her to attack. She took a stance and approached me slowly. Without her armor, I could see the shape of her whole body. It was perfect, and the fire behind her cast a shadow onto my own. This was going to be a distracting fight.

I swung first at her side. She blocked it and deflected my sword. It left me open on my left. I side-stepped to the right. Her swing missed. She was open on her left now. I went in with my left hand for a punch. I tagged her in the stomach, soft, but hard enough that she definitely knew it was me.

“Oh, so you like to fight like that, huh?” she said to me. “I should have known from what I saw earlier.” While talking she took a few steps away from me. All I wanted to do was touch her again. I switched the stick to my left hand and stepped closer to her. At the same time, she was stepping to me. She had her stick extended for a plunging attack. I deflected it. She wasn’t expecting me to switch hands. I went again for a punch to her stomach. She was more prepared this time but I still hit her in the leg, a little harder than I meant to, but by the look on her face, you could tell she was enjoying this.

She had the biggest smile, and her eyes were staring directly into mine. We went on and on like this for a few more minutes. The whole time I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Between admiring her body and being impressed by her ability to keep up with me, she grabbed the stick I was holding and pulled herself right into my chest. Her stick was pressed directly against my throat. If this had been a real fight, I would have lost. I’d be dead.

“I got ya!” she said, out of breath. “I told you I was better!” I dropped my stick and laughed.

“Yeah, you won Leila!” I don’t know if it was the fire or something inside of her, but when I said her name her eyes lit up. “You are so beautiful…” the words just slipped out of my mouth. I can remember thinking at that moment that, this woman maybe was just looking for friendly interaction, and I ruined it. My stomach felt like a shallow pit in the sand. I stared into her eyes waiting for her to react. We were still standing right next to each other. Our chests were basically pressed up against each other and my arm was still around her. I could easily just put my hand around her waist.

She closed her eyes and backed away from me. I could feel my heart begin to shatter. I ruined it. I would have rather been a companion to this woman than to be some lustful stranger that she traveled once with on a job. She threw her stick off into the distance. In the cold of the night, I could see her breath. She began walking back over to the fire.

“Hey look, Leila—” I began but she interrupted me.

“Did you make this bed yourself?” she asked. Confused, I responded.

“Yeah, why?” She kicked a little bit off the side. Then knelt down and pressed her hand against it.

“You made it kind of small, didn’t you? How are we both supposed to fit on this thing?” When she said this, I lost all control. I ran over to her and wrapped my hands around her face. I pulled her lips to mine and we kissed. This was my first kiss, and it was perfect. I don’t know how she felt about it. She never really told me. All I know is when we pulled our heads away from each other she wore a face that I couldn’t resist. Her strong burning eyes were now soft and submissive. I could smell her sweat and her blood. She was perfect.

That night we conceived our first and only child. We didn’t know it at the time. After a few days of traveling, we finished delivering the caravan. I didn’t want to leave her side and she seemed to feel the same, so we decided to stick together. She reasoned that alone we could be overpowered, but together we were unstoppable.

We went on a number of other runs together. Most nights ended up playing out similar to the one I could remember the most. The first one. A few months passed by and Leila told me she knew she was pregnant. We were both happy because you see she always wanted to be a mother. And I, well, I felt like I had finally found a reason to be happy. I finally found a reason to live. A reason to forget. Forget what? Something in the wind.

The day our daughter was born a storm covered the sky. I remember I was nervous. We had been traveling for such a long time and only in the past month had we settled down. It was getting hard for Leila to keep walking. I feared all the traveling was going to be bad for the baby. I remember hearing her scream while giving birth. It reminded me of a dream I once had… Well, besides that all of my worries disappeared the moment we heard our girl start crying. Leila wanted to name her Audra after her mother. I was fine with it, for some reason I couldn’t seem to remember my own mother’s name.

Leila kept saying, “let me hold Audra.” I told her softly since she was crying everything was going to be okay. And it was. We were in a small hut on the outskirts of a city. It was just a single nurse helping Leila during the delivery. The nurse handed the baby over to me, and I saw her face for the first time. It changed something in my soul. I felt the gears shift. I knew that above all else, I needed to protect this small person, my daughter, my flesh, and my blood. She was perfect.

I moved over to Leila and handed her our daughter. I knew this was all she ever wanted and luckily, we loved each other so much. Nothing would be able to ruin this. I watched as she caressed her face. She kept repeating over and over, “Audra, it’s me, mommy.” I loved the sound of it. This was another perfect moment in my life. We had saved enough money in the previous months that we could afford a small cabin near the cliff-side of a city.

Leila was concerned about the cliff edge and asked me to put up a small fence through all of our property. I told her of course and began work on that. I could only work on it though during my free time. To support the family, I decided to start a farm on all the good soil I could find. We were fortunate because we managed to produce enough potatoes for us to eat and for me to sell in the local market. All day I worked in the fields, and for a few hours at night, I would work on the fence. This routine went on for years.

When Audra turned five, we owned a couple of acres and were able to employ a few people from the city to help. It was a good system, I paid them in potatoes and onions and enough money to get them by and they worked the fields. This gave me more time to spend with my family. Audra was learning how to fight from her mother. I would sit and watch them for hours. This was about the time I began to notice Leila becoming restless.

The nights were filled with shouts from both of us. Leila wanted something out of life, something I wasn't giving her. We were safe, we were fed, and we were together. To me, there was nothing that mattered more. My daughter was with me. One night out of a moment of anger my fist found its way to the side of your stomach. Leila didn't dodge it. She didn't even see it coming. The wind was knocked out of her. We both knew the truth.

The world only cares for the strong. We'd seen it happen again and again. My father spent a lot of time telling me this, the last one standing is the only one deserving of life. It was simple. Why then? Why did she look at me with eyes of regret and understanding? We never spoke of that night.

In the following days, she would come to me asking if there was any work to be done in the fields that she could do. I knew she just wanted to get her hands dirty, maybe get some dirt in her hair. I felt like I could remember seeing her with dirt in her hair, or was it something else?

Every time I told her she needn’t worry about the fields, I could manage them, especially since we had hired help. I thought at first that this answer would make her happy, knowing that I could take care of her, but it only frustrated her. I didn’t know what I was doing wrong. Her once brilliant amber eyes were glazed and dull. She had only aged a few years and still had plenty of life left in front of her.

Some nights I would catch her wearing her old armor and sparring against a tree in the backyard. It sometimes also kept Audra awake at night. I would lay with her and tell her mommy was just practicing in case someone ever tried to hurt our little girl. I know Audra liked hearing the comfort. In those moments I can remember being jealous because there was no one comforting me.

Then there was the morning when everything broke.

There was the morning when the sky was covered in white and gry clouds. It was beautiful. I awoke that morning to find Leila and Audra, not in the house. They were standing out in the fields talking about something. I only knew this because I could hear their muffled voices through the walls. I went outside and asked what they were doing because I knew the help was going to be showing up soon and I didn’t want them getting in the way. Leila knew this and she gave me a stern look. This look was one I could remember, but I think it was at night when I saw it or was it in the desert? I couldn’t remember. With this look in her eyes, she said to me, “We’re leaving, and you’re welcome to come with us.”

“Why would we leave?” I asked, confused. Wasn’t everything I built here worth it? Or was it all for nothing? I didn’t believe her at first. I thought maybe she just wanted to see if I cared. “Leila, look. Look around. I’ve built all this for you. We are living better than I could have ever dreamed. And I’m so lucky because I get to spend it with you.”

“Don’t you get it?” she yelled at me. I felt my heart break a little. She’d never been angry at me before, not like this. “If I wanted to live a life stuck in one place I would have stayed back home. My father, when he died, left me so much. But I didn’t want any of it. I wanted to explore the world. I wanted to have a family and go on adventures. And I thought you wanted to as well. That’s why I loved you. I thought all of this was temporary. I thought we were just settling for a few years until Audra could walk and travel with us. This is not what I wanted, and I know deep down, this is not what you wanted either. So please, come with us. It can be how it used to be, but now we can share those experiences with our daughter. We can teach her how to be strong like us. We can show her that the world is here for her to pillage and explore. Living as a farmer’s wife is not my dream. Being a farmer was never anything you mentioned to me. So, please, come with us. We can be happy again.”

All of her words confused me. This whole time I thought she was happy and I knew I was happy. So, where was this all coming from? Maybe if she had told me she felt this way and wanted these things then I wouldn’t have wasted so much time and energy on building this world for her. It made me angry because it was like she didn’t appreciate me or any of the hard work I’d done in the last few years. I was about to respond but one of the workers approached me. They said there was something I should see on the edge of the east field. I told them I’d look at it in a second. This made Leila angry.

“So, what? That’s it then Leila? After all, I did, I still couldn’t find them? Why did I even fight? Why did I kill?” On her face was a confused look. It made me angry. I walked into the house, breaking the door down in the process. I went into the bedroom and grabbed my old sword. I didn’t see her gear where she usually left it so I walked back outside. I walked up to her and grabbed her by the collar. I stabbed my sword into the ground and grabbed her sword from her waist. I pulled it out and threw it down at her feet. I grabbed my own sword back from the earth and took a few steps away from her.

“I bet I can beat you now.”

She hesitantly reached down and grabbed her sword. She took her bag from her back and pushed Audra to the side. She was scared. This was nothing like that dream I once had. Her eyes told me not to do this but I was angry and a feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time was coming back to me. I needed to win, I needed to know they were still out there, alive and happy. Who was I thinking of? I couldn’t remember.

I stepped toward her and swung my sword to the right. In my anger, I accidentally swung too wide and struck my daughter in the shoulder. I heard and felt it through the sword but something inside me wouldn’t stop. Leila blocked the attack but I felt that her once powerful stance had weakened with age. I punched her in the side. She stumbled back and coughed blood. I pulled my sword back and felt the blade clip something on the way up. I watched as Leila placed the palm of her hand against the flat side of the blade and raised her arms to guard herself. Somehow, she had gotten slow. I was easily able to stop mid-swing and kick her in the chest. She was wide open.

I watched as her body fell back onto the ground. Her breathing was heavy. I went and grabbed her sword from the ground. I raised it and plunged it down into her body, the way a phantom had once done in a foggy memory in the back of my mind. It stabbed through her shoulder. I put my whole body’s weight against the hilt and plunged it deeper into the earth.

Kneeling down and looking at her face I said, “No one is ever going to leave me again.” I turned to grab my daughter but she was no longer standing where I expected her to be. I listened for a second and heard her scream on the east side of the fields. I ran through until I emerged on the other side. I felt the world fall out from beneath me and I fell down an incline. I hadn’t ordered them to dig any ditch so I was confused. But I could smell blood. I looked around and saw my daughter. She had a cut on her shoulder and a cut on her forehead. Blood was running down her face. Was that from me?

I reached for her but she scrambled away. My hand hit the ground and I felt something hard. I grabbed it out of anger and was going to throw it but then I noticed what it was. It was the jawbone of a small child. I looked around, why did this seem familiar?

I was standing in a pit full of bones of small children. Was this a dream? I couldn’t remember. Why was this so familiar? A migraine crept through the back of my head and into my eyes. I couldn’t think. The inclines around me were scorched. I couldn’t walk straight but somehow, I managed to pull myself out of the hole. The sky looked so beautiful. I wanted to go back into the house. I wanted to see Leila again, I knew she would be able to help me. I tried walking back. I hit the fence. I lost my balance.