The Finding Of Fhlynn
By a True Father
Chapter Two - A memory best kept silent
As the night pushed out of the sky, and the world saw light once again, the found-boy lay, shirtless, upon the floor, where they had put him, left him, but by now there had been some sort of glimmer in my eyes, I heard others say, no one my six 'brothers' could face me, though, perhaps I shown a deep anger? So they simply remained quiet, and avoided mentioning their thoughts aloud. Another oddity, silence. What is it? The lack of the presence of sound, perhaps? Perhaps I will never know, my next name day being my 37th. This would be an endless search for the philosophy of it all...
A silence broken.
I had stayed there, all night - It being my house, as did my brothers - Perhaps they thought I was sick? But stay, we all did, and wait, we all did, the silence was truly killing. It was a good 15 hours, that the boy had been unconscious, I thought, and there was a sense of death in the air, his face bruised, his topless back reddened, and his legs battered, the God's had abandoned me once before when this happened, I doubt the selfish things would come back to help the boy now. Help me now, for that matter - The body in front of me, looking dead, it brought back such vile memories... It all started, all these memories and the finding of remembrance in random objects of intrigue, the day on the latter of a certain incident that changed me, who I was, who I am - One day, it was truly the middle of day, I had arrived nigh three houses away from my own home, it was once home, yes, and to what did my petty, useless body come to? A burning shack, one on the deepest of fires, a grim clash of red and orange, and yellow - If you looked hard enough. I looked hard enough.
Screams, the screams were the worse, my own son, my nephew, of an uncle, and of my brothers - Blood-brothers, but not of my wife. Thinking was a fool's action now, the house had nearly burnt to the ground with all those inside, I had to act fast - So running to the door with all my strength, I kicked it in, it shattered - Weakened by the fire, there was smoke everywhere. Black smoke. Not the white smoke your mother tells you to avoid. Not the smoke that comes from a small campfire. This was black smoke. It blinded me, but I pushed on, my leather coat catching the flames, I ignored that, it didn’t matter if the coat burned, damn the coat. But then, suddenly, the world went as black as the smoke around me, and nothingness took it's grip, a near-death feeling. It was then, that I woke up, a beam across my numb-legs, my left arm clearly ravaged by shattered glass, and my head ached worse than a hundred-hundred ales would cause, I looked to my right, tilting my head with difficulty, and saw, to my sudden depression, a body.
Sitting up, and trying my best to remove the beam that had ruined my legs with a single arm, I failed - And shouted out curses at the gods, how could they be so cruel? Trap me here like some dog to see the body of someone I knew? I had heard a groan, it came from the direction of the body, several chokes occurred before the thing could speak. 'Ha-- Pff! Ahem! Ugh... Haran. Lo-Look-k for the boy... Haran, he's only four, leave me 'ere...', I knew instantly who it was - My uncle. He was at the age of 52, while I was 27 at this moment, he began, again with a vile choke - I saw blood and phlegm - It was a disgusting sight, to see your own uncle choke to death on his own blood, 'Haran. Get up, damn it!', he suddenly began coughing so vigorously, I thought he'd died, but he was still alive to continue to try and motivate some strength into me, 'The boy's got his whole life ahead of him, Haran! Ge---Argh! Ahem. Hmmph! Pff....fff... Haran! Hurry! You must get up!', and so I began trying to get rid of the beam, but nothing was working, 'I cant get rid of, pff! I-Cant-get-rid-of-it! It's a support beam, it wont move!', then was the grim part, the sacrifice of an uncle.
'Haran! I had planned to do with this m'self... But damn me! Damn the gods!', he busted into a series of deathly chokes, so painful they must have been - For the pain was inflicted upon myself, too, 'Just... Take it!', then he threw over a hatchet, it was quite small, but it was something - He shrieked out, in a deep voice, in pain, though. I grabbed it, after it had nearly hit my head, missing by inches and landing on the floor - Not head first, so it was simple enough to pick it up. When I began hacking at the wood, I could hear snaps and creaks. They were not the snaps and creaks of the wood I was hacking at. I finally found my voice, and spoke, 'Uncle! I'll get you out, then I'll look for Braig!', I shouted trying to reassure him, but it was then that my uncle said something that sent both grim pulses, and pulses of a deep family-like love, throughout me. 'Haran, I'm a dead one. Unless there's a doctor hiding behind this damned place, I'm dead. So just shut it about me, and get out. With Braig. Don't come back for me, the building will surely collapse and burn down by then, don't even come for my body - But damn it, pass me the a----PFFF!", he wheezed, as though he was breathing his last breath, but he still had strength in him, 'See how the gods treat us...! Just give me the axe and go! Go get Braig, damn it!', I had broken out by now, my legs ached - But I ignored that. Why did my uncle want the axe? I threw it for him to catch, why didn't I try to free him too? It was something that I couldn’t understand for the entirety of the last ten years, but I searched around, before my eyes set on my uncle. Instead of freeing himself from the wood. He freed himself from the gods. Roaring out, 'CURSE YOU, FALSE GODS!', and severely choking afterwards, he dropped his axe. It went straight into his chest, and I saw blood - Lots of it, at that, spurting out like a fountain - A pool forming beneath him... His eyes were grim, and open, he must have still been alive, because he whispered out something from his throat. A true whisper. What it was, I never heard - But I could not tarry, if my uncle told me to get my son, Braig, and killed himself in the process, then I would, I would follow his wishes and not waste two lives.
Only, it wasn’t me who wasted them.
My uncle killed himself, my brother nowhere to be seen, my wife disappeared, and I found my son, Braig on the floor - His head crushed in. As though a huge preasure had been placed upon it, he had no eyes, and blood was everywhere. both his legs were chopped, clearly not by any of the household - You could tell, even in the panic and sorrow of seeing your own son's body strewn across the floor, you could tell. They were hacked off, his body lay facing up, so he must have been attacked. By someone who would be able to face him, hack his legs off and then somehow batter, or crush his head in to the point where one would wonder if it could yet be called a 'head'. Suddenly the beams still standing fell, and the roofs fell, I stayed - In shock. But woke up later, on the ground outside, perhaps I had left? I don't know, but this was clearly the gods telling me to 'piss off', leaving my uncle, my son dead, and my brother and wife missing. It was that day, that I vowed I would one day find whomever done this. 'Arson!' I told myself, 'Murder!', I told myself. My uncle had to kill himself for my son. And my son was found, dead - I was sure this was murder.
'Damn the gods.', I told myself as I lay there on the dirt of the floor, weeping - Wondering why no one had come to help, surely the gods would not. But what of the other houses? What of those who simply passed by? 'This is the work of a noble', I thought - Why else would no one help.
'Damn the gods.'
