Sanctuary

by Glass Clown

At age seventeen, Farid is severly beaten by cruel theives in his former home in Arabia. Coincidentally, Meggie reads him out, saving his life. How will Farid adapt to this new story, so much different than his old one?

Prologue

Farid fell into the hot sand, the grains sticking to his fresh wounds. He began crawling, weakly, desperately, trying to escape from the man with the whip. The thief brought the weapon down on the young man's back, the crack echoing through the night. Farid clenched his jaw and scrunched up his face in an attempt to keep his screams inside.

The boy stopped fleeing and allowed for his punishment to come. Trying to escape would do him no good now. He was too injured to accomplish much distance, never mind out run the thief. It would be best to conserve his energy for after the beating.

After the twentieth lash, the man roughly rolled Farid onto his back. The young man cringed as the sand hit the blood. The sting was nearly unbearable. Farid felt his eyes watering.

The man raised the whip and lowered it onto the tender flesh of Farid's abdomen. The boy could no longer conceal his sobs. It was always at this stage of the beatings that he lost it. The pain across his stomach and chest were just too much for his thin body to handle. At only lash five, Farid could feel himself blacking out. He felt that familiar sensation of dizziness combined with an odd feeling of rushing forward, as if through a tunnel. Farid whimpered, and then darkness closed in around him, the pain lulling him into a peaceful unconsciousness.

As always, Farid was out cold for the next few hours. It took quite awhile to wake up this time, more so than usual. Over the past week or so, the boy had been significantly weakened by a sickness, though probably just a bad cold. But his throat burned almost as much as the wounds, nor would his cough heal. The beating certainly didn't improve his condition.

When Farid finally came around, he was overcome with immediate panic. Where was he? He looked around, recognizing nothing. The place was unfamiliar to him. What were these weird structures? Where was that light coming from? It seemed to be bottled starlight. He whipped his head around the other direction.

He felt a bit of relief. Now he understood. The beating must have killed him this time, for Farid found himself staring face to face with a blonde haired angel.