Prologue
Roaring flames engulfed the corners of the room, dark flames, hot like Hell without any light or any way of escape, these flames were only a glimmer in the night, seen over a great distance through the heavy snow. A spire just across and above from the dark cell burned like a torch from its corners, and as the glass windows shattered, two people could be seen nearing the edge, pressed against the flames like bayonets upon their backs. Between the frigid iron bars barely touched by the Hellfire in the room, a boy was held back against the stone wall, but he climbed up to the barred window to see just as the two distant figures fell from the spire.
The burning flames and the vision bore itself into his dark green eyes only able to stare horrified as he watched his own mother and father, plummet to their deaths, holding each other in their arms if they had not already passed on before the struck the snow. The gothic structures loomed over the fateful sight stretching kilometers above the tragedy but from far below it, his eyes only at ground level, the boy watched his own parents' bodies set ablaze by those storming their home. Fire was the method by which their family was destroyed believing they would all burn, conclusively and eternally.
"Get down from there, Microux!" his handmaid ordered, grabbing him by his thin waist and setting his feet on the floor below the window. However feeling the woman's touched, the boy suddenly let out a cry, shrieking for fear of the imagery spinning about through his mind like the pictures making up all his memory. He kicked and screamed until he was left on the floor holding his own head as he laid against the dirty stone floor. His parents knew this was coming and to keep him save they had trusted his life to his handmaid and sent him beneath the manor to the dungeon which was the safest place to hide. Everything was stone and iron, and there was no wood to burn consequently, the cold air seeped in through the bars of the narrow window.
When he had calmed, his handmaid helped him sit up and hurriedly, seeing there was no way to move him at this time without triggering him to scream in a panicking frenzy, the woman pressed into his hand a thick iron key, "Hold onto this, Microux," she ordered, "don't let it go, when it's time to leave you'll need it!"
The young boy stared down at the key as tears flowed over his eyes but he shook his head, "Don't leave…" he whispered, "I can't leave!" he insisted, "I have to stay right here!" he demanded bringing his voice to a yell.
The handmaiden shushed him, "That's right, we'll stay right here until it's safe," she assured him quietly. Slowly she sat down on the cold floor near to him, holding him tight and keeping him safe as she had promised to. They could feel the heat from the flames outside but they could do nothing as the household crumbled around them. Microux was young, gaunt, and weak minded, but to his parents, he was the only thing of worth they truly had, it was their dying wish to protect him. still there was something odd about Microux that had just started to blossom before all this, a creative imagination, which blurred reality for him, bringing to life his startling fantasies.
The boy covered his ears at the screech of the steel door swinging open cursing his sensitive perceptiveness with pain. Within his handmaid's protection he slowly rocked his body back and forth, to comfort himself with steady motion unable to do much more from locked inside this cell. He paid little attention when four men from the village with rifles and torches in their hands stepped down into the dungeon. "Find the key!" Microux heard one of them say upon seeing the two of them inside the cell and he clutched tighter to cold iron in his hand.
Microux's handmaid stood up slowly, "Just leave the boy be, you done what you set out to accomplish, he's only a boy, what harm could he do you?!" she yelled to attempt and ward them off, staying in front of him as she did.
One man with a gun that bore a long bayonet on the end suddenly struck the sturdy iron bars with the butt stock of his gun terrifying the boy and making him cry out loudly as he held his ears. "Why would the late Le Marquise de Choixton promise his entire fortune to an invalid such as that!" he spat through the bars at Microux. The boy shuddered and pressed himself up against the wall whilst gripping the key over his heart.
The man set his gun to his shoulder, causing the maid's spine to stiffen and Microux lifted his eyes to see in the moment before his handmaid spoke, "What do you even want with the boy, you've destroyed the Choixton fortune!" she shouted.
At this the man sized her up closing one eye behind the fuse on his rifle, "I could care less if he died, I'm just here to ensure he does!" He then directed his rifle at the young boy and without giving it a second thought pulled the trigger letting the hammer fall upon his powder. In the smoke and the backfire no one saw except Microux how quickly his handmaid jumped in the line of fire to save his life in giving up her own. Microux's eyes grew wider than they could stretch as the woman fell, striking her head against the stone as blood trickled from the wound close to her heart.
Microux screamed much like the voice of a wraith, holding his ears as he stared down at the black pool slowly drifting out from the woman's body. All the strength he had left to him he screamed out as he was unable to move, only watching as the men who had killed her, pointed a torch into the cell. Microux stared into the flames horrified and unable to move, unable to look away, as the men set fire to the handmaiden's clothes and burned her body where she laid. His eyes dashed to one of them men pointing a gun at him, and his breathing accelerated for fear until the man who had shot Microux's handmaid stopped him, "Leave him, he has no way out, let him starve to death in his insanity!" he snapped and the four men left him in the cell with the burning body.
That night was not the source of Microux, Le Marquise de Choixton Duex's insanity, but it was the fuel, creating a great barrier in his mind, which was impenetrable, making it impossible for him to see through to reality. His memory immortalized everything he had seen that night, and he had little clue that any time passed after that, the only hint he had of being alive were the steady things, reoccurring, proof that things that faded away would return to him.
If I have successfully sucked you in, you have just witnessed the prologue of my new NaNoWriMo project! For all of you I will clarify right now, the main character Le Marquise Microux de Choiton Duex is autistic boy with PTSD, but this is the 19th century and no one knows that those are. Before I get any crap about how I refer to and describe this character because he's autistic, I have been volunteering with my church for years to care for and teach Bible-school lessons to those in our church is disabilities. I am very close friends with multiple people who have Autism or Aspergers. I mean no disrespect to them in writing this. Also keep something important in mind whenever you read this.
Having autism does not make an individual any less smart than a typical person, and often Autism heightens one's perception of noise, sight, and all senses, including memory, so an individual with autism is always smarter than you think!
That said, enjoy!