Chapter one
The world was changing and no one can no longer ignore it any more while the hope of my people declined, struggling to survive the most heart breaking year that the Parthevia Empire has been through.
Sometimes I wonder if this war is worth all the pain, the suffering and loss that my village suffered from. I just saw my brother taken away by force so I already know that I will never see him again.
They have taken my other brothers, my friends and neighbors but they can't take my humanity away. In the end isn't that all we have left? What else can our King take?
"Please, don't! Please don't take my baby away!" I whipped my head towards my neighbor Anna's house. It looks like the soldiers finally came to pay a visit her. I'm not going to lie but I feel bad for her she only has one son. But I had three brothers and she always yelled at my mother for not 'supporting' the war and even insulted our family.
"Please...don't take him..!" the lady cried but they just smacked her away. I guess that's karma for you. When the soldiers came and took my brothers she told them where me and my mother were hiding them. I didn't get hurt I was only ten years old but they broke my mom's arm so bad it had to be amputated. I never liked that woman she is so bad to my family she even got half the village to turn against us. But I still can't help but feel sorry for her because I know what she's going through.
"Your son is already sixteen years old he should have been recruited along time ago what is your excuse for hiding him so long?" A boy maybe around my age asked the grieving woman looking at her with apathy and annoyance in his eyes. He has green hair spiked on the edges where his ear are and two long rows of hair falling down his shoulder blades to his mid chest, wearing the usual Parthevia armor. I hate the armor but I am liking the red cloak!
"As a citizen of the Parthevia Empire you must obey-" I had to say something because at this point it's just going nowhere so far.
"Why can't you just leave us be. There is nothing else here to take." I looked at him coldly and he turned to look at me.
"How dare you speak to me in that type of manner!" He barked at me but it didn't faze me at this point it's got so exaggerated. He came the last time after my mother hide Jacob...it didn't go so well.
"How dare I? Are you serious? Why don't you take a good look around you. You like what you see?" Out stretched my arms to show him everything around him.
"You see all this? This is the price of war! This village used to thrive and flourish but now that you came here and took every able bodied man or boy off to a war that we are losing 'BADLY' everything had to be done by the women. Look at our hands!" I showed him my hands roughed, scratched, burned with the of pain hard labor.
"Bandits would plunder and steal women with their children and we are defenseless against them." I lifted my shirt and showed him this long ridged scar down from my left rib cage and down to my right hip the scar was just above my belly button "When I was nine years old there was a raid that happened during the night time no one expected it so a lot of young girls got abducted and some women too. I almost got a abducted but I did my best to fight back only to have my stomach cut so deep into my torso!" My eyes widen from the memory. So much blood...so much fear.
He stared at my cut his eyes widen with shock and the soldiers looked terrified.
"We have to hide at night because they say that when they take the girls they sell them as prostitutes or personal sex slaves...or worse-whatever can be worst than that!"
"This is none of my concern. My priorities are with Parthavia's Military and fighting for our country! You could never understand the sacrifice we made-"
"What sacrifice? Did you sacrifice your brothers to a war we are losing? Did you sacrifice your father? Did you sacrifice the farmlands that my village worked hard to grow? The same farmlands that was taken away from us to go to the Army so we have to scavenge for food somewhere else? We live in a barren wasteland. Parthavia is mostly made up of deserts so fishing is our main source of food but we live too far from the damn sea so we have to walk in the hot sun moving one place to another just so we can eat!" I yelled the last part
"..." The green haired teen said nothing and his soldiers looked down. They know it was true.
"You aren't making any sacrifice. WE, the people, are making sacrifices to a war we didn't want to fight not started in the first place. We stayed in Parthavia to fight not just for our country but for our family, our friends, our neighbors, our homes. We fight to live! We fight for survival...but now we fight to hold on to whatever we can grasp."
The people around us started to mutter looking back to me and him wondering what would happen. He teen growled a bit at me scoffed and turned away.
"Leave the boy but we'll be back." He glared at me and walked away his soldiers followed him.
The woman ran up to her son and started sobbing hugging him tightly saying something like 'thank you' but I scoffed at him her.
"Keep your gratitude to yourself this doesn't mean I have forgotten what you have done to my family you wretched bitch." I didn't care if was happy or what people thought. They know what they did to me they just don't want to talk about it.
"But then why did you help?" she whimpered
"..because it was the right thing to do...and doing the right thing is sometimes doing something you don't like to do but you want or have too because your morals get in the way...sometimes doing the right thing will get the shit beaten out of you. Everything is...complicated." I look at the direction to my house there by the door was my mother staring at me she looks proud but so tired and worried about what I just did.
Everything I do or anything I say always comes back to bite me...but not far away was a the boy who lives on the other side of Tison Village, Sinbad. We never formally meet but I hear he is a nice guy we would always pass one another never even greeting each one another.
…
He just stares at me. That's when a white fluttering butterfly passed my view sparkling with a hint of a gold glow. It fluttered around me and some are around him too.
They're pretty!
"Benny! Come back inside we need to get dinner started!" my mother called out to me I looked back where Sinbad was at but he was gone. I scanned the area but he seemed to just vanish!
End Chapter 1