Sometimes I feel like my memory is fading as my age continues to grow but there are some things a man just never forgets. I'll never forget my first time with a woman- Harriet Foster was her name. I'll never forget the time I went with fishing with my pop before he passed on, rest his soul, boy we caught the biggest bass that side of the county line! I'll never forget when I first went to school and met my two best mates Paul Scottsworth and Jasper Dunning. Then there was the day it all started the day I got the call to fight for freedom in the war that raged the country. Of course I was more than ready to serve my country and to leave my life behind in favor of one on the front lines behind a blazing line of fire. It almost seemed my calling to explode, destroy, and shoot things. It felt natural and I was well versed in tactical maneuvering. Some people suggested that I should be the leader but I firmly believed that we had a strong one at the time. Then General Andrews was severally wounded and replaced by someone who was….let's say a little too big for his britches and arrogant too. Any advice given to him even if it was obvious and well known logic he would ignore but I had the highest of respect for him anyways because of what he did. Not a day goes by now a days where I don't live with regret and wish that he wasn't so thick and did listen to me. I wouldn't have lost so many of the people who I've come to call my friends.
It was a blood bath, I can recall that much, and the sound of screams mixed with the rattling noise of gunfire. Then the empty silence and loneliness. Just me and my fallen comrades in a ditch with my thoughts leading to cowardly things like how to kill myself so that I could join them. All I could do was hold Jasper in my arms and curse the heavenly father for all that had been dealt me. It felt like this was my fault…somehow yet all I could hear now was the broken record I told you I told you I told you I bloody told you. It wasn't meant to be this way…I wasn't meant to sit here in the boiling sun waiting for death to take me and the birds to pick out my eyes. If I was to die it would be the same as they did. Why did I live? I shouldn't live. I know for sure I cried. Hard. What would I do now? Just wait or…shoot my damned head off? Then he came. He was a tall son of a bitch dressed in all black even his hair was black and his eyes had this weird shine to them like the glisten off of a bullet. The way he smiled was unsettling as if he meant harm but was convincing me otherwise. He offered me a way out, he offered me happiness, he offered me a job. A job as a chef for his young master. At the time he could have offered me any fuckin' thing and I would have blindly taken it. I just wanted to get away from all this. Everything that followed was a blur. It became second nature putting a cigarette, a thing I never smoked in my life beforehand, to my lips.
Then I became a shell, a void, a piece of clay for this strange strict man to mold. The house he served in was the most massive house I've ever seen in my entire life and the master he served was the smallest I've seen too. Young master…yeah no shit. He was about twelve and a half at most with an eyepatch and sad blue eyes. He had no parents. I could relate. I had lived with my aunt and uncle for the longest time but eventually I moved to become a man who could provide for himself and for the most part I never talked to much of my family ever again. Of course I've never seen too many mansions or masters in America we don't really have too much of that sort of thing at least not in my parts. I was a country boy not a city boy but I had to adapt. There were other servants, few but they existed. A bald boy with a deadpan face unsure of himself and a pretty young maid with fiery red hair and eyes that could pierce steel. We had all been dragged through hell and back and damned did we look it too. The boy was experimented on which was sick as fuck to me and the girl was some sort of ex assassin who was forced to kill people she didn't want to. Then there was the elder butler who could be serious sometimes and other times seemed just off….however he was nice enough. That guy, that butler in black with his sly smile that made women swoon quickly, took us under his wing and poured his all into us even though we were imbeciles at what he planned for us to do.
He outshone us in every field tenfold. The man was a superhero I swear! He could fly or at least it seemed so and he could zoom across the floor at speeds that I didn't understand. He was magical and I was in awe of him. He never gave up on us and through him we became better people though we never became better at our jobs. Slowly we all opened up. The boy, Finni, his hair grew so much he had to clip it back. I had always thought he was a brunette but he was a blonde. He had quite the mop of hair and he was a plucky thin thing. As thin as he was he could lift just about anything including entire statues made of marble. He could high five your hand off and hug you so tight your lungs deflate but thankfully he's a little more careful with good people. I saw him go from a recluse to a cheerful pup who wanted to play outside and become something better. The pretty maids hair grew as well, red as fresh blood, and those glasses did something really funny to her voice. All the sudden she sounded strange and comical and she got very clumsy and shy. Her nasally voice and ability to trip over her own toes ended up resulting in me laughing for the first time since god knows when. I nearly went to tears over her falling and breaking the plates for the first time. How could one woman be such a klutz but at the same time when those specs came off she turned into a stealthy killer? From then on I learned to speak more instead of being so silent and to myself as we all were and I learned how to smile again. One day I just looked around and saw these people and realized….I had my comrades back again. We were a ragtag team of misfits bound to protect this young boy from people who wanted to kill him. I had new friends…new people to fight with….new people to protect and every night I awoke screaming remembering that day…that horrible day….there close next to me is the golden haired boy with his bright cheery smile who tells me it will all be alright and the maid often says real sweet comforting things too. We all comfort each other. We are all there for each other. They weren't just my makeshift soldiers with me as some sort of leader…no…they were much more. They were my family and I will make dammed sure I don't lose these ones too.