The larger than life sentinel trees seemed larger the night Sam told me the truth about the island we were trapped on.

"You need to calm down! This is why I didn't want to tell you yet. Put the cup down. It's not supposed to be used like a dagger," he'd tried to say as I slightly panicked.

The forest was so dark that I could barely see two feet in front of me and I constantly ran into low hanging tree branches that left me sticky with sap.

A prison? How can that be? I don't know of any prison that just drops inmates suffering from amnesia onto a dinosaur infested island, I thought before I darted out of the door, slid down the rope ladder, and fled into the pitch black darkness with the wooden cup as my only weapon.

My makeshift leaf shoes were starting tear in the middle, which left the bottom of my foot bare to the sharp splinters and rough ground that the woods had to offer. I would wince every other step from a pointed rock or a splinter the size of railroad spike making a rude entrance into the bottom of my foot.

"I hate this damned island!" I shouted after pulling a jagged rock out of my foot and saw that it was covered with a spot of blood.

The island did not like my review of it. The trees and bushes shook as a massive roar responded to my anger. It was far, too far to find me, but the roar was loud enough to bounce off the trees past me until it faded away into a quiet whisper.

"Rawr!" I roared back.

I didn't know why I did that. Perhaps an ounce of courage returned to me or the loss of hope for a rescue made me lose all conviction. Either way, I sat down in the darkness not knowing where I was, how far I'd ran, or what dangers surrounded me and cried myself to sleep.

The sun was beginning to rise with a blinding light when my eyes finally cracked open. I didn't mean to fall asleep. I wanted to return to Sam's treehouse and sleep in the bed made of feathers and love, not on the hard dirt made of death and fear.

Dirt covered my face in thin strips where the streams of tears had fallen down my cheeks. The air was cool and a gentle breeze sent goosebumps down my spine. Apart for the cloth wrapped around my waist and the wilting leaf shoes, I was naked. There was a pain in my back, side, and feet that made me wish I was just executed for whatever crime I committed. Instead, I was shipped off here robbed of my clothes, my memories, and the possibility of death.

Torture is what this place is meant for, I thought.

I rose to my feet and stretched out my body and then a hard thunk on the back of my head sent me back down to the dirt faster than I got up out of it. The object that hit me spun around in circles next to my head.

Please don't tell me I just got knocked off of my feet by an apple.

"You suck at running away from things!" Sam cackled from the balcony of his tree house.

I'd passed out a matter of thirty to fifty feet away from the base of the rope ladder.

"You spent the whole night doing circles around the base of that tree and didn't look my way once."

"You could've said something instead of watching me all night. In the freezing cold. Naked," I shouted back at him and picked up the bruised apple off the ground.

"I didn't want to feel the wrath of that mighty cup of yours," he laughed so hard that he coughed up half chewed apple over the deck.

I climbed up the ladder, feeling a pain in every bone that could say it was hurt. After another good gust of ice cold air, I decided to slap on the steel and leather armor we looted from my accidental butcher job. I had to combine different pieces from all three of them.

Most of Ike's and Ursila's stuff was too big for me to fit in comfortably, so I wore most of Hayle's gear. I had a combination of clothing that barely covered me, but still did a better job than my previous Tarzan cloth.

"Look who's dressed up all fancy," Sam snickered.

"I feel like an armor frankenstein."

Sam smiled and finished strapping a heavy metal breast plate to the shoulder pads with a leather strip and a button on it.

"So a prison?" I asked awkwardly.

"Mhm," he responded with a hum behind me.

"How do you know? I haven't seen any guards or cells."

He slid a mismatched pair of metal gauntlets tightly over my hands before he responded, "This isn't a place that needs guards or cells. This is a place of death and punishment. There's no escaping this island. You could try to swim away on that beach, but all you'd do is end up on the opposite end of the island."

"So this whole place is one big cell?"

Every step I made with the armor was heavy and loud enough to resemble every pot in the kitchen falling at once. Sam shrugged his shoulders with his lip slightly curled and cut into another apple that sat on the table.

"I know so much about this place because my son told me. You see, he's my defender when the wardens come to find me."

"Let me guess, the wardens are dinosaurs with guns and batons?"

"Don't be ridiculous. They're the victims of our crimes. There's millions of people on this island. That's a lot of victims who want revenge," he failed to make it sound normal.

My heart suddenly felt heavier than my clothing.

Our victims, seemed to be echoing on repeat in my head.

I didn't want to believe that I could be a criminal. The thought of being defended by a family member that I had forgotten, from my vengeful and alleged victims, nearly made me puke.

"What did you do, Sam? You know, right? What sealed your fate to this island?" I asked, barely able to hold back the apple.

He strapped the helmet down tight and tapped the top, making sure it was snug. While the sound of his hand on the top of my helm sounded like he banged two trash can lids together an inch away from my ear, the anxiety winding up my stomach distracted me from all other pain.

"Some here are serial killers, rapists, pedophiles, even terrorists," Sam talked slowly like he was falling asleep or fighting back tears.

"So which are you? I'll bet terrorist. That beard of yours has 'I build bombs in my garage' written all over it."

I tried to walk around in my mismatched armor. It was hot, heavy, and severely uncomfortable in the twig and berries region.

"You see, Leaf, I didn't have a normal childhood. I was the kid from all the stories where I was left on an orphanage doorstep in a wicker basket and a note saying 'love him, we don't,'"

"Please tell me this story turns into a sing along," I smiled and thought of Sam with his scraggly white beard on a child, singing the words to The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow while he cleaned.

Sam squinted his eyes with an unamused look on his face.

"I knew I shouldn't have told you my story," he said as he walked over to the miniature living room and reached behind a shelf that held dozens of books and scrolls.

"Oh come on, Sam! I was only joking. I want to hear how a conceited rich dude adopted you to improve his image and you turned his life around with your song and dance."

Sam returned with two wooden swords, double the length of his forearms, and two wooden diamond shaped shields under his arm.

"The way you swung that spear around, you looked more like a windshield wiper than an intimidating threat. When you learn to beat me, then and only then, will I tell you the rest of my story," Sam gambled as he tossed one of the swords in the air.

I snatched it and rolled on the ground and jabbed at his waist. Wood cracked and a sudden flash of pain sent my wooden sword sputtering across the floor. Even in his old age, Sam moved as quick as a flash of lightning.

"What kind of old people sorcery is this?" I stuttered, my throat rubbing against the end of Sam's wooden blade.

Sam moved his hand so fast that I never even saw him grab the hilt of his wooden sword, let alone swing it so swiftly that it disarmed me.

"It's called experience, kid."

We spent hours at the base of the tree house training; it was more of Sam making me well aware of how prehistoric dirt tasted and how red naked skin can get after it's slapped with hard wood.

"You're too slow. You're focusing too much on the power of your swing. I can hear what you're going to try and do before you do it. You're a leaf, remember? Be more graceful and silent," Sam commanded after he'd disarmed me with a swing of his sword and knocked me off of my feet and sent me reeling backwards,with a bash from his shield to the face.

"How can I move silently when I'm wearing a thousand pounds of clunky tin cans?" I shouted, weakly standing back to my feet with wobbly legs.

Blood leaked from a thousand tiny cuts and bruises that covered nearly every inch of my body. The heat of the day turned my mismatched armor into a frying pan and I was the egg. The metal would clink and clank with every step I took and made my landings, after being sent off my feet, faster and harder into the dirt.

He's right. I need to be a leaf.

I unstrapped the armor, piece by piece, until I was down to my leaf shoes and Hayle's leather pants while Sam watched with suspicious eyes. With the armor off, I felt colder, faster, and defenseless from Sam's attacks. Purple bruises ran up my chest and legs in a perfect imprint of Sam's wooden sword after he slapped me with the flat end of it.

Silent and graceful.

I dragged my sword in the dirt and walked in a circle. Sam began to walk as well.

Silent and graceful.

The words seemed to float in my mind. They meant something to me, not just from when he said them, but from the life that I lost, the one that was taken from me when I woke up on that beach. A flash of a million images clogged my eyes and my mind, memories of my forgotten past. Monks, drill sergeants, and a muscular woman dressed in black were all saying the same thing, "Silence. Grace. Truth."

I must've lost concentration for only a moment when Sam charged. He swung the flat end of his sword, intending to slap my face. Shock broke through his lips when I blocked his blade, inches away from my cheek, with my own wooden sword. The surprise took me as well, but I did my best not to show it. As if I'd done it a million times before, I smashed my shield into his extended arm, making him drop the sword, then dropped to one knee to dodge his attempt to smack me with his shield. I jabbed him in the stomach with the point of the sword, then swung at his legs with a ferocious blow that sent him to the ground.

Silence. Grace. Truth.

My past echoed.

"Where was that five hours ago?" Sam grunted as he rose to one knee.

"Hidden in my memories."

"What...?" Sam looked at me with confusion and opened his mouth to say something.

"You promised me a story. I believe that I did beat you."

I helped him to his feet and we rested on a fallen sentinel tree.

"Yes, I did promise you my story if you beat me, but I want to hear your's about how you just learned how to do that trick in a matter of seconds," Sam grimaced as he leaned up against the tree.

"I was adopted at four years old, by a wealthy family..."

"I knew there was a rich guy!"

I threw up my hands in excitement.

Sam cleared his throat and ignored me, "As I was saying, a wealthy family adopted me when I was four and raised me alongside their five year old son and three year old daughter. I didn't get the same treatment as their natural born children. I was their experiment."

"Sam, be honest. Show me on the angel doll where they touched you."

"Oh my god! You say you want a story, but you won't shut your stupid mouth for ten seconds to hear the rest of it."

I pantomimed zipping up my lips and throwing away the key.

Sam gave me a warning look before he continued, "The father, Carter, was apart of this cult made of wealthy people trying to rule the world. I was raised to become that cult's hitman. By the time I was seventeen, I knew forty-three different languages, how to shoot effectively with just about any weapon you can think of, and was a master in six different fighting styles."

"So that's how you move so fast with the sword?" I asked, breaking my silence, while slightly fearing what Sam could do to me if I annoyed him to his breaking point.

Sam nodded and continued his story, "By the time I was twenty, I'd killed over two hundred people. From presidents and political figures to bankers who looked at the cultists wrong, I killed whoever I was tasked to kill. One day, the cultists give me a contract to eliminate a traitor to their cause. I'd eliminated some before, so at first it was no big deal, but then I saw the names of the family they wanted me to kill: my family. The very family that called me son and brother, who raised me to who I am, who I was."

"Did you...kill them?" I asked, barely able to swallow.

"Worse, I warned them. I tried to protect them. I tried to save them. When I refused, they sent another to kill them and me. I'd made it to their house to warn them. I thought I still had time to get them all out. Claire was the first to go. She was the only mother that I ever had. She was shot in the head through the window.

Carter used himself as a human shield to defend his daughter while I took cover with the son from a spray of machine gun blasts that ripped the house to shreds. His last words were 'run'. I should've listened. I should've forced the two remaining members of my family into my car and drove off into the sunset. Instead, I helped the son hunt and kill every member of that cult until he had every penny of their wealth and the lives of their families."

"And every year the families that him and Atom missed come here to show him why you never meddle in affairs you know nothing about," a voice said.

Sam jumped to his feet and I did the same.

The voice belonged to a man who stood in sparkling, steel grey armor. He had a large helmet that had a flap that covered his face like the knights in the old paintings used to wear. His chest plate was painted white and had a silver wolf with his pack in front of trees and snow. He held a steel longsword, that was double his length, in one hand and pointed the tip at Sam.

"Lycannian, what brings you to these parts? This is Ava's territory."

Sam tried to act calm, but his voice would stagger as much as his courage.

Three others, all wearing steel armor in different colors and brands on their chest plates, broke through the shrubbery and stood next to Lycannian. One dressed in red and black had a one eyed red sparrow soaring in a black sky with grey clouds, branded on her chestplate. She had two swords sheathed on her sides.

"And hearing that the great King Sam was hiding in my trees, well I had to bring the gang back together again, you know, for old times sake," The Sparrow said.

One man was dressed in shining armor that looked like it was made of pure gold. It had a pair of black dragon heads wrapped around each other at the neck and breathing a golden colored fire branded on his chest. He held a double sided spear in one hand and a rope attached to a very dirty prisoner in the other. The prisoner was tied at the neck by a twine rope and she looked very familiar.

I should've recognized her sooner, I was wearing her pants after all.

"I see you recognize the girl. You killed her and two of my more senior soldiers yesterday. Unfortunately, it'll be another few years before I see Ike or Ursula again. I think their deaths were well worth killing you off for good."

Ava smiled and tugged on the rope that held Hayle captive, pulling her uncomfortably close to Ava's lips.

"You shouldn't have used the Arachnid silk. You're the only person on the island that possesses that type of weapon. We have a bet on who gets to keep it once you no longer have the hand's to wield it," Bruiser cackled through his helm.

He was much larger than the other four, with shoulders as large as the silver gorilla branded on his chest. He had black armor with two blood stained war axes in his hands.

The four kings.

"Go ahead then. I have no weapons, no armor, and my only ally is this loud mouthed idiot, who is wearing women's pants and leaves for shoes," Sam answered in defeat.

"Hey! They are good shoes," I protested effortlessly from the log as Sam walked slowly towards the group of kings and Hayle.

He held his hand on his back and showed me a open hand, meaning to stay put.

He has a plan, I thought as he stopped moving.

"Wyatt, you've been awfully quiet. You wouldnt happen to be the reason why there hasn't been any animals around today, would you?"

Wyatt grasped the hilt of his dual sided golden spear slightly tighter. The other kings noticed as well, but didn't seem to be threatened by it.

"I mean, I know how much you all hate me, but I also know how much you hate each other. You couldn't all possibly trust the others about this temporary truce; it's just too good of an opportunity. All four of you in the same place at the same time, undefended and miles away from home," Sam talked slowly and in a high pitched tone that made it very easy to catch his drift.

"You were always a smart one, Sam," Wyatt said as he turned and thrusted his double sided spear into the side of Bruiser's black armor.

He spilt a gallon of red blood all over the brown dirt. Bruiser wailed in pain then swung his axe at Wyatt, missing as his target rolled away. Ava unsheathed her swords too slowly before Lycannian's sword could reach her and cut off a good chunk of her arm.

"To arms!" they all shouted and the forest began to rumble in every direction.