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	Chapter 3 - Truce
	He looked up. The sky seemed different somehow, it wasn’t the blue he was used to, it was much darker, even for night time. This wasn’t right. Something was changing, he could feel it. He walked forwards and felt a sharp pain in his foot. Every step hurt him more than the last, but he kept walking, he had to. This place was dragging him along, against his will. No. It wasn’t against his will. He wanted to walk, he wanted to cause himself pain, it was worth it, just for the knowledge of walking here. No, that wasn’t true either. He didn’t want to walk. But he wasn’t walking against his own will either. He looked at his feet to see why it was hurting him. He saw no socks on his feet, nor any shoes. He looked further up himself to see no trousers, no shirt, no jacket, he was completely naked, but he wasn’t embarrassed. He just kept walking. He looked at the grass he was walking on, it was not green, it was black. Not only was it black, but it seemed to be made of glass. Black glass. It was all strange to him, but he understood it perfectly. He was at peace here. Perfect harmony. Everything was different, but it felt like it was exactly how it was supposed to be. Then it happened, a screech cut through the air, across the dark sky. It tore into him, tore through him like claws. He felt the pain resounding through him, and all from a simple sound. He couldn’t take it anymore; he threw himself forward onto the glassy grass, and his naked body hit the floor below him. A thunderous crash echoed through the strange world as the glass shattered and cut into him. The pain from the glass was even greater than the pain the screech produced. Why had he done that? What made him throw himself onto the floor, knowing that his body would be cut to shreds? He screamed, not from pain, but from confusion. Even compared to the screeching in the skies and the glass ripping into his flesh, not knowing why he was suffering was the real torture. He turned to Kaman to ask her the questions and it became apparent why he was confused. She wasn’t there. The pain stopped. The screeching stopped. This was more important than them. He had to find her. He had to find Kaman. He gathered all the strength he could gather and stood up. The grass was still digging into him, but it didn’t matter, he didn’t feel it. For that second, he didn’t feel anything. Nothing but Kaman. He looked around for some sign of her, where she might be, where she might have been, where she may go, and saw nothing but a tree. A single tree in the middle of this madness. Madness. That is all it was, just madness. Simple madness. He walked towards the tree, and each step filled him with strength, then rapidly took it away with the pain. He had to convince himself not to feel the pain. Don’t feel the pain. Don’t feel the pain. Don’t feel the pain. But it was impossible. Not feeling the pain was like not existing in this world. Moments ago, he didn’t feel it, but now it flooded back into him. This world was pain. Pain and agony. Agony and Torture. Torture and Pain. The pain of the grass, the screech which still dug into his ears, and into his body to meet the grass at the floor and carry it through him. The agony of having no awareness of your surroundings, or of yourself. The torture of being away from Kaman, his dear. dear anismastis. He fell to the floor again, this time not of his own will, but because he wanted to reach the tree. The world was holding him back, it wanted him to suffer. The worst pain was yet to come. He rolled onto his back and just lay there, as if he was waiting for something. An animal came up to him, seemingly from nowhere. It was a wolf, but it wasn’t a wolf from the world he knew as home. It was a black wolf. His fur was of the deepest black Matt had seen in his life. His claws matched the shade, and his eyes exceeded it. Matt looked into the eyes and felt as if he would never leave them. The wolf stepped onto him, and he kept staring at the wolf, straight into his eyes. He moved. He wasn’t there anymore; he was inside the eyes of the wolf. All he saw was a round circle below him and nothing more. He held his hand out and a sword formed in it. It came from nowhere; it just assembled itself there in his hand from the air. He held the sword in front of him; it was built for him, made for him, to be used by him, or against him, or both. He knew that he had to use it, but he resisted the temptation, he had to, he had to resist the temptation to deluge it into his flesh there and then. A ferret appeared at the corner of his vision and for a second he though it may be Kaman, but as he turned to face it fully he saw that this ferret had a cut across his right ear, it dug into it, nearly splitting his ear in two. Matt felt sorry for the ferret and he walked over to it, but the second he took the first step, the ferret disappeared. Matt panicked, and as he did, he swung the sword about wildly. It caught him on the leg, but not enough to pierce the skin, enough to hurt, the world ensured that, but still not enough to injure him. The ferret appeared again, this time on his shoulder , right where Kaman would sit. It reached over to his ear, and whispered into it. “Do it. It will help her.” Matt brought the sword down slowly to his body, past his head, past his neck, past his chest, stopping finally on his leg, where he sank it in as deep as he could. The second it touched his flesh, he moved, he wasn’t in the eyes of the wolf anymore, he was back on the grass, with the wolf standing on top of him. He sat up, and the wolf repositioned himself to sit in his lap. They sat there together for what seemed like hours in silence. After the long silence, Matt spoke. Matt spoke, but even he couldn’t make out what he was saying. He didn’t care, it shattered the silence, so he continued to utter the nonsense. The wolf jumped off him and stood at his side. Next to the wolf, appeared the ferret. On the ferret’s back was the sword, and Matt reached for it longingly, but the ferret moved out of the way, with the sword still beautifully balanced on his back. Matt spoke to the wolf, the same nonsense as he’d spoke before. Then the wolf spoke to the ferret. The ferret walked over to him and bowed, as if presenting Matt with the sword. Matt took it and stood up fully. Matt felt a surge of pain in his leg, and looking down, he saw that the sword was not in his hand anymore, it was embedded in his thigh. * * * * * Matt awoke in a shock with sweat pouring down his face. He looked frantically for Kaman and found that she was pressing herself up against him, attempting to comfort not only him, but her as well. Matt knew that she felt the same pain that he had, but she did not know how or more importantly, what Matt had dreamt of to cause him so much pain. As he started to catch his breath, he looked at his bed sheets in horror to find them stained with fresh blood. He stared at what had caused this, a deep gash in his right leg, about 3 inches long. Instantly, Kaman was there, licking the wound, but to no avail, she was incorporeal after all and couldn’t actually stop the bleeding, but Matt felt comfort knowing that his anismastis was there and each lick made him psychologically feel better as it would have done physically if any real ferret would have tended to his leg. He tried to step out of bed, and felt a sharp sting as the gash caught itself on the metal bars. He reached for the section of his leg where the cut was, but it only stung more when he touched it, he remembered something he’d learnt in a biology lesson, it was because of the salt in his skin. He also tried to remember a first aid class he’d been in once, but unluckily, he hadn’t coped very well. Matt tore a section of his bed sheet off and tied it tightly around the top of his leg in a feeble attempt to stop the blood flow. It didn’t help much so he decided to go to the bathroom so he could properly wash the wound and hopefully find a towel to substitute for a bandage. He would worry about what caused it once it was properly cared for. He crept as quietly as he could past the door to his parent’s room, if they knew he was bleeding they would most likely just tell him to get back into bed and promise to take him to the hospital in the morning. Then as morning came and he reminded them, Belinda would say “oh it’s just a little scratch, go back to your room and study you little crybaby.” He walked into the bathroom and washed the wound with water from the tap and an old facecloth he found in the washing pile on the way there. When he’d finished he took a towel and folded it over into a strip long enough to wrap around his leg and pulled it tight around the area of the wound. He then tightened the sheet, which was still at the top of his leg, and together they were enough to stop it bleeding temporarily. He returned to his room to find out what exactly had caused the gash in his leg, starting with the crimson bed sheets. He found nothing sharp on his bed that he could have cut his leg on and slowly proceeding around the room, he found nothing even slightly sharp anywhere in his room, nothing sharp enough to cut that deeply into his leg anyway. He came to the conclusion that this was no accident, as he’d suspected from the start. He checked his clock, 2:00 AM. He instantly suspected one person. He knew that Belinda was the only person in the house who truly hated him so he decided to go up and inspect her room. Arriving outside the door, he opened it a creak to check she wasn’t in there and discovering that she wasn’t, he went inside. The room was in a state, he had never been in here before and he took this chance to take in the surroundings. There was junk all over the floor, mainly boxes from the countless ‘beauty machines’ around the room. Underneath the boxes, Matt could just about make out a green carpet. The walls were yellow, but they weren’t wallpaper, they were painted. You could see the patches of wallpaper that remained on the walls, too stubborn to leave, and they had just been painted over. He saw her tanning bed up against the far corner, with boxes and other useless ‘beauty products’ piled up on top of it. Against the right wall was her make-up desk, the only thing in the room which it seemed she used. There was a slight gap in the boxes on the floor, which acted as a pathway to the desk. On the desk was a jewellery box, which was weighted down with a paperweight, because it didn’t seem to shut. Matt could see the jewellery brimming out from the sides, and the little boxes for some of them lay on the desk and on the surrounding floor. The thing that made him go over there was a red liquid on her makeup desk. He darted up to it but found in dismay that it was only red wine. It was typical of Belinda to drink red wine while applying make up. He inspected the rest of the room and didn’t find any obvious clues here either so he went to the room where his Father and Belinda slept. As he approached the door he heard his Father and Belinda talking so he crept low outside the door and sat quietly to listen. The voices inside were hushed, and Matt found it difficult to make them out, but he strained his ears and managed to make out the most of the conversation. “Bell, you can’t do this, I won’t let you” It was his fathers voice. “I know darling but he can’t stay here any longer” “But do you have to do it so harshly?” Matt didn’t know what they were talking about, but he knew it concerned him. “You know it’s the only way” “Yes, but I also know he’s our son, our only son” Matt was shocked. Did his father just show some sign that he cared about Matt? “He’s your son, that brute is no child of mine” At least Belinda was still the same, Matt thought. If she suddenly started caring about him, he didn’t know if he would be able to show her the same. “He’s your son whether you like it or not!” Said his father in a raised voice. Matt had no problems making the conversation out now. He even had to take his ear from the door. “Don’t raise your voice to me; I’m only carrying out orders” “I will not let that child be harmed” His father was on his side. For one of the first times in his life, Matt was happy about his father. “Our master wants him dead and you say you don’t want him harmed” “He’s my son Belinda; it hurts me enough to not look at him for days on end. I carry out our master’s orders only on the grounds that he is not harmed and I will not let you leave this room if you intend to kill him” So Matt’s father never hated him? It was an act? “I will happily kill him, and you know we’ll be taken in his place if he’s not dead” It was Belinda, even without hearing her voice; he would know Belinda said that. “It’s happening Belinda, his scars are forming and he’s slowly picking up the talents of the true Hope” “That’s why we have to kill him tonight” “No, Belinda, don’t you see, he will soon join them and we could help him, we could be on the winning side” “We’ll be on the winning side if we kill him! He won’t survive and they won’t stand a chance against us.” “I’m helping him Belinda. If you chose to stay with your master, then I regret to say…” “We’re enemies now” Belinda finished the sentence for him, in a harsher voice than she normally had. Matt heard something smash against a wall and knew that he’d hear no more, so he started to run towards the stairs. As he ran, he digested what he’d just heard. His father didn’t hate him. His father never hated him. He was ‘picking up the talents of the true Hope’ but then, this all raised as many, if not more questions. What is ‘the true Hope’? Why did his father conceal his love for Matt? Who was their Master, and why did he want Matt dead? He didn’t have time to answer these new questions though, he was going to be killed if he stayed here, so he had to get out. He darted into his room, grabbed anything he could find and thrust it into his old rucksack; Clothes, sheets, Food that he’d hidden up here, A Bottle of water, and any other essentials he could find. He left the room and shut the door as quietly as he could, then he made for the door. He ran down the stairs two at a time and stopped in terror as he saw the figure standing in front of the door. Belinda was there, in torn clothes, and she was holding a kitchen knife. Luckily for Matt, he’d heard her talking so he knew what she was going to do with it. He had to move before she could do anything, but he quickly found that she was surprisingly fast. He ran back towards the stairs, but instead of climbing them, he went along the corridor towards the back door. It was a long way away now, but the front door was obviously out of access. All this time Belinda was quickly gaining on him and Matt knew that she would soon catch him. He had to think fast. He reached for a bookcase, pulling it down behind him. It slowed Belinda down and now he was near the door. He reached for the handle and pulled hard. Half of him was expecting the door to be locked, but fortunately for him, luck was on his side and he burst through into the backyard. He ran for the fence and managed to scramble up to the top of it, putting his feet in the gaps. He felt a hand around his leg, pulling him down. It was all over. Everything he’d fought for, everything he’d believed in was lost just like that. He heard a sickening crack and turned to Kaman who was sitting on his shoulder. He said one word. “Goodbye” “It’s not over yet.” She replied. The strength of her voice was phenomenal, but even more significantly than this, she was right. Matt got up from the ground and found that he was unharmed. Other than the gouge in his leg, he was perfect. He got up and looked around for Belinda. She lay there sprawled on the floor, blood pouring from her arm, still half alive. “Matt” She spoke the single word with a harsh, shattered voice. “They’ll get you, I failed but there are more.” She spoke her last words. Matt picked up the fallen knife and plunged it into her chest, half out of anger, and half out of instinct. He felt as if it was his role to kill her, to end her pathetic life. As she lay on the floor, he took what was possibly the first close look at his mother in over 15 years. Her hair was greying, although it had used to be blonde, and her eyes, although shut, were brown underneath. The clothes she wore (a hideous green top, and dark blue tracksuit trousers which looked black in the nightlight) were covered in mud from where she’d hit the ground, and squirmed on the grass. Matt had never seen her in any clothes like this before. The main thing that he noticed though, was two cuts on each of her arms. The cuts were identical. They started from halfway down her forearm, travelled to the centre of the back of her hands, and curved round, stretching back to the wrist. The cuts weren’t new; in fact they looked as if they may be older than he was. His head was swimming, but he managed to separate his thoughts. As with quite a lot of things that he’d get aside to worry about later, he decided not to think about the cuts running up his mother’s arms and how he’d never noticed them before, instead he looked around, this time for the source of the crack. He saw his Father standing at the door, gun still outstretched in his hand. He looked like Matt had never seen him before, rugged, worried, but more importantly, for the first time in his life Matt saw love in his Fathers eyes. “Why?” asked Matt His Father knew exactly what Matt meant and took a long pause before trying to answer. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Instead he saw a twisted pain in his father’s face. He fell to the floor, clutching his arm and writhing around. Matt looked at the arm he was clutching so tightly to himself, and as he did so, even with everything he’d found out this night, he was surprised at what he saw. His Fathers arm was glowing. He managed to clamber to his feet with the help of Matt, but he was still clutching the glowing arm, and his face was still contorted with pain. Matt rolled his fathers sleeve up to look at what exactly was causing the ominous glow. He saw the same cut as Matt had seen on his mothers arm, but instead of stopping at the wrist, it stretched all the way up to his shoulder. It was the cut that was glowing. A deep red was pouring out of the cut, enveloping the arm in the red glow. Matt couldn’t think of anything to do to help his father, and just as he considered running to get help, the glowing stopped. The pain had weakened, but it was still there, Matt could tell from the way his father spoke to him that he was still in pain. “Don’t worry about that Matt” said his father, clutching his arm. “Just a little precaution Rahn took. Anyone who betrays him will have to go through that. It looks like that was the worst of it though, I should be alright” But Matt could see that his father made it sound a lot less painful than it actually was. “I need to get straight to the important points here Matt, There is a prophecy, it speaks of an elite band of warriors and how they will eventually right the mistake they made a long time ago in the past. Belinda was a servant of Rahn, and when I married her, I became one too. I didn’t know then that I would father a warrior, if I did I’d never have served Rahn, I’d have died before he made me serve him.” “Rahn?” Matt questioned, but his father simply quickened his voice, obviously troubled by something. “Pay attention Matt, this is important and if it’s discovered that I’m telling you this, I’ll be hunted and I’ll be killed. You are prophesized to join these warriors in their fight against Rahn and we were ordered to kill you on the night you get your scar, before you join with them. Each of the Warriors develops a scar to represent their former role on the day before they are destined to meet the others.” “So that’s what that gash in my leg is, some sort of mystical marker? But how did it happen? What causes it?” “I don’t know what causes it exactly but I can tell you this. We have an instrument, an ancient instrument that can identify who the warriors are. Rahn suspected that at least one of them would be born to a servant, so each newborn was inspected with it. It told us that you were one. That’s why we were ordered to kill you” He stopped, as if expecting questions from Matt, but Matt didn’t give any. He was burning inside, all the questions he wanted answering boiled up inside him, but he knew that this was not the time to ask them. They had to move, his father understood this simply from the look in his son’s eyes. “We have to leave now Matt, there will be a team coming here soon to take your body and we don’t want to be here when that happens” He turned around to the house to gather supplies. Even with all the urgency of the situation, one question burned inside Matt, one that he couldn’t suppress. “Dad?” as he said the word, his father stopped and turned to face him “What do I have to do?” “You have to stop Rahn.” The single, simple sentence was all he needed; he followed his father into the house for the last time.
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