Prologue: Avalon's Soldier

It is a cruel place we live in. A place where life and death start where justice is served, at a time where life is at the mercy of those same people who judge the innocence and sins of people who became too strong for their own good. Save or sacrifice: two choices we have to make. Choices we use to judge beings whose existence strayed from the natural cycle of the same thing they hold dear, their life. We are people who serve the world; we are men who gave up our being for the better of many. We are the people who save lives by sacrificing our own. We are men who are either feared or exalted by many. We are sorcerers. I am a sorcerer. Avalon soldier, Raeia.

It has been years since I have wrote anything. Never did it occur to me that there will be a time when I shall jot down the experiences I had from days or hours that had passed but here I am reminiscing what had just unfolded. Who would have thought that I – a man, if I can still be called a man, who have been at death's door numerous times have the gall to dramatize today's event. Maybe it was the pain, maybe it was the trauma, maybe I am a romantic or maybe it was the insanity calling me to start writing. For some reason, I find that latter appealing. It tugs my heart and pains my brain. These maniacal memories that come and go remind me of something that is or was mine but not so. It is hard to know which is mine or not. Those synapses from years that passed by, as I came to know, are not as reliable as it seems. The images appear bright as day, as vivid as realism like how I see through my eyes personally but only to remember that these thoughts are not mine but of someone else's. Usually those things that look vague and insignificant which hid at the deepest recesses of my memory are those that are really mine. These indistinct memories are so bleak and dull more so than those pictures of monsters and people from sorcerer's books that they look so unrealistic and dreamy. The masters in Avalon have warned us of these thoughts and recollections but it seemed surreal a fact that it was hard to believe at first and until now, the idea still sound strange even the experience itself in truth that makes it even hard to accept and distinguish. No wonder not many sorcerers grow old sane, not that there are that many old sorcerers to count anyways. How I wish I had not been given this fate, how I wish I have not been a sorcerer but then again, if I am not how I am today how can I had the chance to taste this sweet taste of blood in my mouth?

Sweet, oh so sweet. The distinct tang of that red trickle of oozing blood is so ardent and irresistible that it had become the reason why I push myself to delve into these dangerous situations. Pungent and messy it is, but that same strong scent ushers my own blood rising giving me the thrill and adrenaline to fight and live and die then live again just to die and come again alive to keep moving forward to that shower of blood. Despite the dismay and disgust I feel with the decaying corpses I find lying around the battle ground, I still get the motivation to fight when I see my peers in combat restlessly battling it out despite the hopelessness, tiredness and the wounds they incurred but more so, it is the poor and bloody bodies of both friends and fiends alike especially the blood-soaked bodies of newly skewered victims loitering around that give me unparalleled motivation. It is the goal of a blood bath that I always look forward to. To decapitate the head and pierce the heart is my ultimate agenda. Then after that, to get that escaping and fast flowing red juice of life on my lips, in my mouth and down the hatch to quench that insatiable thirst and hunger for the sweet aftertaste of… death, as one may call it, is my ultimate price. Thinking about it, isn't it funny how such an exciting experience be deadened by not being able to extract all its blood? If only Avalon would let me enjoy more of it before sacrificing the poor thing.

Anyhow, one time I had been at the wrong to word out my feelings to a one-time partner that I had. He did not understand. He called me insane. Silly that one was. He was still green. An amateur and a youngling. A newbie to this vocation we chose. How can he understand? I am not insane. I merely stated a fact. How one feels after invoking that beast within. I do not fight these atrocious monsters because I want to. I am just doing my part as a soldier of Avalon. I am not looking for blood because I want to kill. I look for blood to live just like how everyone fights to live in this cruel world. Greedy people need shelter, clothes, money, air, food and water. But I need just one: my fill of blood. I never heard from that foolish sorcerer again. Not that I care anyways. He left me without saying a word but at least he was good enough to leave a glass of blood at my bedside table. Probably he understood me a little. Probably. I will never know but most likely he understood for I know that glass he left was filled with his own blood. I never saw him leaving, I never saw him placing the glass on top of the table but for some reason I knew the blood was his. In fact, he may have tried a taste of his own blood for when I went to his vacated room all that was there was his soiled and bloody change of clothes atop his red-stained bed. Foolish he really was. Left me alone to clean his rented room. Good thing he did not bring much valuables else it will take me a while to throw them out and possibly beget the wrath of the stupid-looking innkeeper.

Well that is all for today. I feel tired but restless at the same time. I think I'll go out for a hunt. 'Til later my dear diary.