Courtesy
Chapter 1 – Dead or Alive
The ship was blown to shreads, a dead piece of cold metal in space, even though flames still tried to devour their fair share of the catch where there was still oxygen to fuel them.
There was fire all around him. Laying flat on the ground were the air was not heavy with smoke yet, he saw his life flash before his eyes while it became unbearable to breath. His lungs were burning. An explosion had thrown him out of his seat and smashed him against a wall. He could barely feel any pain. The monitor he had activated to call for help intentionally - but then only to turn to the one person his panicked heart could think of; his mother, was clouded by thick fog. No one sat at the other screen anymore. His poor mother must have fainted when the mask slipped from his face to reveal his damaged features to her, or maybe she thought he was already dead.
A part of him knew that all was lost, he had been sacrificed and used as the pawn he truly was and now he would die. How? Why? He was a Tytania! Nobody dared to betray him, a successor of the blood line!
Yet it happened.
He stopped denying it, his racing heart calmed slowly and tears ran down his cheeks. The salt hurt the frail skin where his "beloved" pets had scarred his temple and cheek. The doctors told him he was lucky to have kept his eye but he had not felt very lucky at all.
Right now it did not matter. He had stopped calling for his mother and closed his eyes.
He felt the ship burst and crumble around him in chaotic spasms. The board computer kept repeating something he could not quite understand.
It would end here and now.
Was there a voice calling for him? Did he already hear his ancestors summoning him from the netherworld?
Someone was there with him but he could not see nor move. Was he dead yet?
Strong arms lifted him up from the hard floor and pressed him against an even harder body. Cool metal against his cheek, a short tingle. Then he felt light and his line of thought was cut completely.
Blackness.
Laughter.
They were after him again. It always started out as a game and he trusted them again and again, being so naive. He was only 10, the other were 15. They had played together when they were smaller and they still did but it became different. Uncomfortable. The boys said they had fun and he began to think it was his fault for feeling differently. It was their secret.
So pretty, you are so pretty.
He opened his eyes and brightness overwhelmed his senses, it hurt even after he screwed them shut again. He could not sit up for he seemed to weigh a ton and his whole body ached. A whimper escaped his lips and he began to cough. It felt terrible and his throat sore. Why could he still feel all of this when he was dead?
Someone came, he could hear the person's boots on the soft ground.
A massive shadow eased the stinging of light in his eyes and he slowly opened them again. At first everything was blurry and he almost panicked again for he was defenseless.
"Lay still, you are safe here." A mans voice, deep, dark and somehow soothing spoke to him.
"Am I dead?." Alses asked weakly.
"No you are not dead and you will be fine again soon." The silhouette of the man was huge. He seemed like a giant to him. Strong hands demanded him to lay back down, gently but stern.
He fell into a slumber again as soon as his head touched the ground.
It seemed like a constant trance to him. Sometimes he thought he dreamt being on a horses back, resting on a giants lap, sometimes those arms he felt, when he thought he would die, carried him and the cool metal against his cheeks made him shiver. A chest plate, he was wearing a chest plate.
So a knight in shining armor saved him from death? What a silly dream he kept having.
It was dark when he woke again. He sat up in his makeshift bed and stared into the night sky, shivering from the chill when the wind touched his bare chest.
"Where am I?" he asked carefully into the darkness. Someone shifted beside him and Alses turned his head. A fireplace. Was he in the woods? Who was the man sitting beside him?
The dark one stood up and walked towards him. He really was a giant but wasn't that a dream? He must have measured 2 meters at least and he was muscled like a Gladiator
"Calm yourself, I will not hurt you." The man said with such a deep, smooth voice. It made him quiver.
The man halted his step and knelt down beside him.
"You were badly injured when I found you and needed a lot of rest so I let you sleep."
The darkness swallowed the mans features but Alses could see he was wearing a delicate armor and his scent was familiar, he remembered it from his dreams. So he really wasn't hallucinating at all.
"Where am I and who are you?" Alses wanted to sound calm but fear made his voice shake.
"You are in the Dryad Woods of Valoris, on Satrayus."
"Satrayus?" Alses gasped. "The demon planet?"
"Indeed." he could hear the man smirk.
"How did I get here?" then he froze and all color drained from his face. "Are you a demon then?"
The huge man's voice was only a whisper when he leaned over him.
"I am a demon, yes, and I saved you from the wreck of your ship before it was nothing but ashes."
He saved him? So it was no dream all along. The arms he felt, the voice he heard and his scent he seemed to remember subconsciously.
"Sleep now. Tomorrow we will talk."
Alses felt darkness claiming him again like a spell spun by this mysterious stranger.