[The Z]

A dainty woman, beautiful if not for the oppressing burden of the world that seemed to be strapped to her slender frame, brushed her sweat-ridden dark hair back and gently nudged her child deeper into the foreboding forest. Together they skipped over jutting tree trunks and nimbly hurried along the trail, fleeing the inevitable capture at the hands of a bloodthirsty band of rogues who were kin to the three slain children that had fallen to the woman’s half-orcish child. As the pair was slowly corralled into a clearing like cattle she quickly weaved two spells upon her ward: hold person and invisibility. Weeping, she kissed her frozen (but conscious) child as a final goodbye and strode nobly towards her gruesome fate.

Like wolves, the rogues trapped their prey, the mother of an eagle that had no wings. No longer shedding tears, the courageous woman summoned all her strength and to her child’s horror, stated that she’d returned him to a tribe of orcs – a fatal offense committed by a lecherous traitor in the eyes of the blind. The pack advanced upon her, ravenous. The air crackled with pure energy and blindingly fast missiles shot from the mother’s hands that crashed into two of the rogues and penetrated their armor. Down they fell, joining their brothers in the torturous hells. But the buzz of an arrow silenced the mother, rupturing her side and drowning her gown in blood.

The predators would not leave without the fruits of their labour. Treating her as if she was inhuman, they violently tore off the gown and as the child had been conceived many years before, ravaged her in a bestial act of tainted lust and utter rage. Over and over again, the twisted joy abused the woman on the forest floor until she no longer had breath to breathe. Satisfied, the beasts left.

The child, invisible and held, could not even cry for his pillaged caretaker and could only stand by helplessly. He could only watch the cycle of destruction come full circle in the unceremonious death of his one beacon of hope and light in the dusk and fog that filled his heart; and, as the spells wore off he collapsed beside his mother and held her lifeless, but still angelic face to his chest.

He could not summon the tears to express the sheer brokenness of his spirit. There were none left. All that remained was the alluring flames of anguish that now stampeded about him. All that remained was a rampaging vessel of vengeance, fuelled by the fires of despair. The child inside was finally dead.