I think the last time I remember being innocent enough to think things could still be okay in the world, I was little more than a small child sitting quietly on my mother's lap as she told tales of the wonders that had once filled the cities, my father steering a wagon back from the nearest town after scavenging for supplies to fix the pipes that brought water to us from the well after a dust storm had hit.

Luckily he'd also managed to find some new glass panels to replace the cracked ones in the greenhouse, the only way we managed to grow food anymore without having to worry about dust storms wiping out the crops all in one go. Of course, that required even more water from the well.

Every couple years, father would drill the well deeper as the underground water source slowly decreased as the world died a little more each year. Father would always try to ease my worries with tales about a place far in the distance where water was so abundant it sprang from the very ground and brought life to everything around it.

Sadly, the tales couldn't stop reality from setting in and when the well ran dry no matter how deep father drilled down, my 12 year old self had to face the reality I had been trying to hide from. Life didn't play fair just because you tried to be nice, it didn't ask for permission before taking something from you and it didn't say sorry when you ended up getting hurt. Because you would end up hurt. No matter how hard someone tried to protect you, no matter how carefully you lived your life, something would happen and you would be considered lucky if you didn't end up broken by it.

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It wasn't long after the well went dry that we had packed up everything we could into the wagon and prayed we would be able to find a new water source before the camel was no longer capable of pulling the wagon. Sadly our prayers hadn't been answered and we'd had little choice but to leave most of our belongings behind, bringing only what we needed to survive as we continued on towards the distant town ahead of us, windows barely visible on the horizon as the sun struck their surface.

It had broken my heart to hear my parents cry as they were forced to abandon the album containing portraits of family long gone. The only one my mother had refused to part with was an small one of our family from back when my older brother was still alive, when I was still learning to talk. Wearily, I'd followed behind them, glancing back every now and then at the mound of sand that buried what was left of our camel's remains.

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She'd died with that portrait clutched to her chest, my father's body laying a few feet away as I hid among the rubble of a decimated building. The scavengers had searched their bodies while I covered my mouth to muffle my sobs, my eyes aching as they tried to draw enough moisture to cry, a few tears managing to build up before the lack of water the past couple days took its toll on me and there were no more to fall.

After they were long gone, I'd crawled out of my hiding place and shuffled over to the bodies that had been rummaged through so carelessly. I'd spent the rest of the day digging their graves before beginning the search for food and shelter, the nearby building not offering much in the ruined state it was in.

I'd been lucky, finding a small group of wandering survivors to take me in. It had been more out of the idea of how I could squeeze into the smaller spaces for them and find supplies that would otherwise be unreachable, since their smallest member had grown too big for such use years ago, than anything else. Lucky me, even as the next few years past, I managed to remain flexible and agile enough to keep my usefulness with them until I was able to strike out on my own.

And so it was that at the not-so-tender age of 17 I stole away into the early morning, hours before they would be awake after the celebration they'd held the previous night upon finding a stash of still sealed wine bottles. Myself, I'd never been one for drinking anything that left me feeling like my head would explode if I moved. After all, I'd already learned that life would happily send death your way at any time and if you weren't ready and able to get out of it's way, you would end up just another unmarked grave with nobody left to mourn.

It would be a few years and a few cities later that I would find myself learning a new lesson, one I could only hope to live through. One of the most dangerous lessons of all.

You don't steal from the Bandit King, David.

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Too bright. It was too bright and I couldn't see clearly. Clouds were nonexistent as I darted from one building to the next, trying to stay in the few shadows that managed to appear in broken doorways or under the rare remaining overhang, the sun burning bright directly above the ruins of the city.

I called it a city but in reality, it was little more than a large cluster of buildings that were falling apart, plants struggling to grow out from the broken roadways as old vehicles slowly fell apart and rotted into little more than shells of their former selves. Life tried to exist in the remains but most creatures stuck to the edges of the city, near the small forest that had grown up around it and blocked the view of most of the desert that spanned the landscape on most sides.

Summer was a harsh mistress in this part of the world, although not nearly as harsh as a summer spent in the open desert, the sun beating down as it tried to take away what moisture you had left in your body. At least shelter from the sun could be found around here, although it was easier when you weren't trying to escape from the biggest bandit gang to have taken over these parts, claiming the city as it's own and ready to steal from anyone who tried to pass through the area. Their victims where often those who had come here in hopes of finding a place to take shelter from the predators that wandered about the forest or the scavengers that wandered about the wastelands, ending up finding themselves caught by a different form of predator.

If only the four footed predators had been the only thing I had to worry about right now. Better yet, if only I hadn't gotten caught trying to steal from the Bandit King. Still, I couldn't help it. After all, David's enemies would have paid heavily for any information on what he was up to these days, paranoid at how quiet he had gotten recently. I wouldn't have had to worry about food, water or shelter again for the rest of my life, no matter how long I lived. Now I was left hoping to just live through this.

I couldn't stop thinking about what little I had managed to find out, his level of internal security beyond anything I had seen in a bandit camp before. Nobody even knew the name of his new Tactician, his previous one having vanished after rumors of betrayal had surfaced, a raid having gone bad and resulting in multiple losses. Of course, a few other higher ups had been replaced at the same time, a few members of the Kou family taking over some of the empty positions. It was the Tactician that everyone in the other gangs wanted to know about, wondering who was leading his now perfect attacks.

But what was of interest to me right now was the one thing I had learned while I was searching for information. Something I'd heard completely by accident and I had no clue why it stuck in my head so much or if it was even important at all.

All thoughts of what I had found out stopped as I heard a thump from behind me, turning quickly to see a young man crouched down after having jumped down into the alleyway I had gone down. What froze me in place was the sight of the weapon loaded and aimed at my heart, a tiny but lethal version of a crossbow strapped to his wrist.