I awoke in pain. I could feel the sand shifting under my weight, the waves crashing against each other at the shore. How was I still alive? I should have died.. MY vision was blurry, but I could see my wing. It was.. metal? No, I could feel the flesh underneath, I could.. I could feel a chill on my entire body.. Something had sealed me in this.. metal. What happened to me?
It hurt to move. I couldn't stand, and there was no way walking or flying would be possible. The wounds underneath it all.. I felt like I was still dying. I could see the tree line. So close, yet so far.. I tried to crawl, dragging along in the sand with all the strength I could muster. Someone had to find me.. either that or one of the many predators in the forest could finish me off.
Everyone always assumes your life flashes before your eyes as you're dying. I always thought it wasn't true, that our memories couldn't be storing things we had long since forgotten just to be drug up during our final moments. I realized, as I agonizingly dragged myself along, inch by painful inch.. I was wrong. I remembered everything. As I shut my eyes to rest a moment, I remembered.
"####, wake up! We have a meeting with the High Tyto tonight, and You have to join the Pure Ones! I want my son to be a strong Tyto, after all~"
My mother. She was the one who started my life on a downward spiral.. her pathetic, obsessed, bigoted thoughts of "Tyto purity" got me inducted into that stupid cult when I was a kid. Funny though. Even with how perfect the flashback was, every detail being spot on.. I still couldn't remember my old name. Every mention of it.. Replaced with either nothing or some ungodly noise that made my mind ache..
I remembered that crumbing "castle" the Pure Ones resided in. Fitting, really. A lofty ideal of being better than other "inferior" owls crumbling under basic logic and thought.. Just like their castle's beauty being tarnished under the weight of time.
I remembered being lead along with other young owls my age to the center, where the "High Tyto" Metal Beak himself stared down at us, Looking at us like we were nothing more than prey, there only to be killed, and eaten, just for the sake of his own twisted survival. And Nyra at his side.. She always seemed empty. Never satisfied, only hatred and rage fueling her, pumping through her veins like twisted blood.
After a time we were told we would be given new names. "Better, more pure names" they said, trying to get the idiots who had fallen for their garbage ideals to go along with it. Everyone else did. I was smarter than that. I protested. I don't remember my old name, but I didn't want to give it up.. They tossed me in the lowest parts of the castle's crypt for my insolence.
I'm not sure exactly what happened to me down there. Apparently there's something called "stone-stunning" that happens to owls in the desert.. Whatever the case, come time to rise again next nightfall, I couldn't remember my name.. I could barely drag up a coherent thought for almost an hour. When I was escorted out, Nyra herself was there to greet me.. and give me a name again.
"Seamus"
I never liked it. I still don't. But I have no real choice but to use it. It's all I am now. So I've accepted it as my name.. One day I may try and change it.
Time passed, most of it spent in combat training. Despite my burning, bubbling hatred of everything we were being taught, I must admit to being quite good at the fighting styles they taught us. Brutality and pain over everything else. Finishing off the opponent, the instructors said, was secondary to causing as much damage and, of course, pain to them as possible. Any owl fighting a skilled Pure One in battle, they said, should be crippled for life if they manage to escape. I mastered it as best I could, if only to defend myself for my inevitable escape. I wanted out.
Before I got the chance though.. the time for the first part of my "Special Ceremony" came. I was dragged away from the rest of the class, and brought along on a flight with Commander Stryker and two of his underlings. They laid out what would happen. They had found a family of Great Grey owls, a lone mother and her three children. My hesitance was known, and it was said that if I cooperated with what they asked.. the rest of the family would be spared.
The struggle was short. One mother was no match for three grizzled warriors, and before I knew it I was given an ultimatum. Kill the oldest of the three children, or I would be slain along with the family. I couldn't do it. I had him pinned but.. I didn't know this owl. I didn't know any of them.. they were younger than me for Glaux's sake! How could they expect me to. I froze for the longest time before the owl I was being ordered to..murder spoke up.
"Do it. Forget about me, if my family lives.. I'm okay with dying."
Stronger man than I am, that's for certain. That pushed me over the edge.. I sliced his neck open and watched as his life ebbed and faded away in front of me.. the anguished screams of his brother and sister staying with me forever.
That was the turning point. On the flight back I struck down one of Stryker's underlings and flew as fast as I could in any other direction.. I wanted out. I couldn't stay. The deaths haunted me but I swore I'd never take part in this senseless slaughter again.
I hid away in some unknown part of Ambala for years. I stayed watchful, and fearful, haunted by a guilty conscience and terrified of anyone finding out the truth. I saw owls fly by day by day, I heard the rumors and mutterings of the world advancing.
And then, my life as I knew it was ended. I remembered what brought me here.. Why I was lying on the shore in agony. The surviving twins.. they remembered. They made it to the Great Tree, they survived and became students of one of the brightest minds there. But they never forgot their brother. Oh, and they never forgot me. Every minute detail of my appearance, they remembered.
And someone found me. Someone told them. They came for me. I didn't recognize them at first, oh no. They introduced themselves as Amos and Amelia, and I thought perhaps they were different. I was wrong. They.. attacked me. It wasn't a fight at all, I was outnumbered and out muscled. They shredded my chest open, more blood than feathers.. I lost my right eye, my beak was cracked.. they took more sadistic pleasure in ripping me to shreds than any Pure One ever would. They carried me away, and in what i'd thought were my final moments they dropped me into the ocean. No final ceremony, no respect for the dead. Did I deserve it? Who knows. The last thing I remember before waking up on the shore was seeing.. something, reaching for me from the unknown depths of the sea.
As I opened my eyes again, I heard something. A faint voice, so quiet I thought I might be imagining it, but I could understand it perfectly regardless.
ALL SYSTEMS OPERATIONAL
Suddenly I could move, I could breathe easier. What was taking all of my strength before was now effortless. I pushed myself upward on to my feet with this newfound ease of movement. I still felt like I was dying, but.. the metal. It was helping me move, helping me live. Sight in my ruined eye came back.. It was clearer than before, sharper.
I walked back to the edge of the water to try and see my own reflection.. What stared back at me was nothing short of terrifying. My ruined eye glowed an unnatural green, a solid color out of match with my normal, black eye. There wasn't a single inch of my face not covered in this strange, accursed metal.
The pain wouldn't subside. It was omnipresent, but I realized what I had to do. I tried to fly and felt something on my back shift. I was hovering without moving my wings, something keeping me aloft. I flew over the sea, not to run, but to head to the legendary Guardians of Ga'hoole themselves. I wanted help. I wanted an explanation. And most of all.. I wanted Amos and Amelia to pay.
Private system log:
Directive one: Classified
Directive two: Ensure user survival at all cost
