ESKARINA

Once I was an ordinary seventeen year old living on a small farm. My family and I were stricken with poverty and with each passing day,we began to cherish every time food of any shape or form would satiate our appetites.

We lived on the outskirts of FireKeep,which was a bustling settlement and the central trading hub around the continent of Mordrid. Every day would begin the same for my family and I. We would wake at the crack of dawn and begin work on our harvest. I was alway's the first out of bed,followed by my younger brother Lukas and younger sister Bilquise,with Mother and Father waking after all of us younger one's had gotten out of bed. This gave me ample time to prepare breakfast,which was almost alway's a bowl of oatmeal for everyone. It contained little flavour,making it a rather bland and dull breakfast,but breakfast it was nonetheless.

Father was handsome,standing at five foot six,he had bright blonde hair which always seemed to glisten in the sunlight. His gorgeous sea-blue eye's calm little Lukas down whenever he would throw one of his many tantrum's.

Mother was beautiful as well,with her dark brown hair which I happilly inherited from her gene's,and freckles littered her cheek's. Her dazzling green eye's made many men in FireKeep ask for her hand in marriage. A shame,for mother refused all of them,leaving many men broken hearted.

Life was hard for us. As I said before,my family and I were severely impoverished. Worse still was the horrible lord of FireKeep,whose ridicoulous taxes weighed heavily on us,and left my family with little to no money.

Every Lunesday,mother and I would make our way toward the walls of FireKeep. The high,sturdy stone walls were guarded by archer's who were garrisoned at the walkway,and at the peak of the wall's. Not only archer's guarded FireKeep. At the foot of the wall's stood a dozen polemen,all outfitted with steel plate armour and razor sharp Halberd's,With sword's resting on their hips,ready to be drawn at a moment's notice if they lost their Halberd and were in need of a backup weapon.

Their eye's alway's spied me,teeming,brimming with Lust. It sickened me to my very soul as they watched,their eye's not once averting from my body. I felt trapped,locked in their gaze,unable to escape from their disgusting looks of perversion. Thankfully,I had mother,and the eye's of the guardsmen would quickly fall on her soon after. It may seem cruel,however whenever this occured,a great wave of relief would rush over my body.

One Lunesday,while Mother and I were making our way toward FireKeep,I had no clue that my normal life would begin to spiral out of control in the day's that followed. Mother and I crossed the draw bridge,our boots slapping against the wood beneath our feet with each step. It was not long until we arrived at the gates. The gates of FireKeep were large,standing as high as the wall's and were made of thick iron.

Such Fortification's were necessary for FireKeep in order for them to combat attack's from both human and horror alike.

The guards at the gates spied us and licked their lip's,exchanging vile looks with one another which made my skin crawl.

Both guard's,like many other's in FireKeep,were not even remotely handsome or good looking. Their eye's were baggy, displaying sign's of fatigue,their teeth were yellow and a horrendous odour emitted from their mouth's with each time they exhaled.

Both of them stank of sweat,excrement,and urine,making me cringe in disgust. Sure,I may have been impoverished,but even I had better hygiene than them. I turned my head slightly as I heard mother mutter something under her breath,however I couldn't make out what it was that she had said.

One of the guard's,who had a lice infested beard,had a wide smile stretching from ear to ear as he held his palm out in front of Mother and I,halting us and not allowing us access into the keep.

"Sorry ladies" he said,still smiling and showing his rotten teeth and pugent breath. "If you want to enter the city you gotta pay a fee"

Mother frowned upon hearing this. "That's absurd!" she said "Never before have we needed to pay some fee to enter the city. You simply want us to pay your bribery!"

Mother stood her ground and placed her hand's on her hips,assuming a more authorative posture.

"Well we shan't" Mother continued.

Before Mother or I could react,the back of the guard's gauntlet connected hard against Mother's cheek with the defeaning sound of steel meeting flesh ringing through my ear's.

"Mother!" I yelled,rushing to Mother's side and helping her back onto her feet.

"Watch your tongue whore" The bearded guard growled whilst his clean shaven companion cackled.

My concern for my mother was soon replaced by a boiling rage as I shifted my gaze from mother to the guard who struck her.

"Son of a bi-" I began.

Unable to finish,I felt Mother's hand against my hair as she yanked a handful of my hair,pulling me back to her while I gave a small yell of pain.

"Hold your tongue child! The last thing we need is to aggrevate them further and make them even more hostile than they already are!"

The guard knelt down and ran his dirty,ice cold gauntlet through my hair.

"Your daughter is such a pretty thing" he said,cackling maniacally with his fellow guard.

"Hey." The clean shaven guard began,grin stretching evilly from ear to ear as he continued. "If you let us have some time alone with your daughter,that'll be more than enough compensation to gain you access to the keep."

His suggestion made my skin crawl. My eye's fell to mother,who had now donned a look of pure dread. Shivering with fear,Mother stood and reached into her pocket's before pulling out a small coin sack.

"How much?" she asked.

The guard rose up into a standing position,running his finger's through his beard,causing lice to fall to the floor before he trampled them to death.

The guard stood for awhile,continously scatching his beard and trampling lice in a rhythmic fashion,as if he was thinking hard for a price. I knew he would ask mother for a ridicoulous price.

"Sixty Gold Pieces" The guard said finally.

Both mother's eye's along with my own widened. Yes, I expected an absurd price,but such a price was preposterous. My family and I would quite literally dream of the day where we would own a single gold piece,and here this guard was,asking for sixty gold pieces.

It takes one hundred bronze pieces to make a single silver piece,it takes one hundred silver pieces to make one gold coin,and so for mother to reach sixty gold,she'd need six thousand silver pieces to equate to sixty gold.

Mother's face went pale as she lowered her head. "I don't have that much coin on me"

The guard cupped his ear and leaned forward,as if he hadn't heard mom. "I'm sorry miss,I didn't hear that."

A part of me wanted to reach forward and rip the guards ear clean off his head. Nevertheless, Mother cleared her throat and spoke louder. "I'm sorry sir. I don't have nearly enough money to meet that price."

The guard stepped back and shrugged. "No fee,no entry,that's the way it works miss."

I watched as mother started to panic,her ee's widening with desperation. We hadn't eaten in days,and while I could survive,the constant crying and nagging of my younger sibling's was clearly eating at my mother's heart. They were barely surviving with such little food,and seeing them grow thinner with each passing day was enough to break even the strongest of my family,my father.

Mother began to cry as she spoke through a sequence of sobs. "Please sir,we must buy food. Our family will starve without it."

The guard spat "And? We could've let you into the city fair and square if you paid up the coin we asked for."

"But I can't." Mother said.

And then,mother did the unthinkable. She got down,onto the dirty earth beneath her,and begged.

"Please have mercy sir. I only have enough coin to feed my family for a week,I simply can't pay your price. Please,let us in,and we will pay another day I swear it."

Never before,in my entire seventeen years of existence,had I seen my mother so desperate that she'd resort to begging on her knee's. It shocked me to see mother on her knee's,her forehead against the mud,and one of the only dresses she owned,ruined by the cold earth beneath her.

With one swift movement,before Mother or I could react,the guard's steel boot connected hard against mother's skull with a thud. Mother didn't reel back,she didn't fall back,instead she stayed grounded,sobbing quietly in pain.

"If you can't pay the fee,then piss off peasant."

Enough was enough. With anger filling my mind,I stepped toward the guard and raised my fist at devestating speeds,pushing past the hair of his beard before it slammed against his chin,sending him reeling backwards. Almost an instant later,the guard's comrade proceeded to plant a firm kick against my stomach which knocked all the wind out of my body. Suddenly,a piercing scream rang through my ears,a scream I immiediatley recognised was mother's. My head spun round to find mother being pinned to the ground by five men.

I watched as onlookers simply walked by,not wanting to get involved. Soon,I too was pinned to the floor.

"Ungrateful whores!" the guard began,"We are the ones who look out for you peasants! We risk our lives to protect you from the horrors that reside outside these wall's while you sit comfortably within the safe confines of your homes! We deserve respect and compensation!"

Soon, a whole group of guard's were holding me down,pinning me to the earth beneath me as I wriggled and struggled to break free. My efforts were for naught,the steel armoured guards were too strong for me to push off.

"So boys? which one first?" The bearded guard asked with a quick snicker.

"I say the mother! Just look at that body!"

"But the girl's untouched,a virgin. I'm sure she'll be quite enjoyable" The other guards argued.

Over,and over again,the guards argued constantly over who they should rape first.

My mind raced with thoughts,my fear stricken body unable to move underneath the weight of the group of guards. I closed my eye's,unable to comprehend the sheer gravity of the situation I was in. I was about to be raped,have my virginity forcefully taken from me by someone whom I had no feelings for.

Dread filled my chest as I felt the guards steel gauntlet running up my thigh.

"The girl it is then." He said between mad cackling laughter.

In my mind I struggled. I forced my hands free to gouge out the guards eye's,tear them from his sockets,claw his skin to ribbon's with my fingernails. But that was only in my mind. I felt I could not move in the real world. I was afraid,in such a state 'of fear and terror that I simply could not move my body. Tears filled my eye's which soon began falling gently down my cheeks. I could hear mother screaming,cursing and shouting words,but I was unable to hear her.

Nevertheless I kept struggling,fighting to force the guard off of me. A part of me knew my struggles were in vain,for naught,but another part of me felt I had no other choice. I would not allow myself to be defiled by some whoreson guard!

"Come on!" One of the guards yelled impatiently,"Get 'er panties off already! We all want a go!"

"Quiet! The bitch is wrigglin like a worm! I need to concentrate!"

Even though,in that moment,I felt lost,alone,and beaten,I felt a strange sense of...peace. The sound of the yelling guards,the reek of his breath,The feel of his hands forcefully taking off my underwear,They all seemed to fade away. I felt so far off from reality that it was as if I were floating on a cloud. I wanted to stay there. In that state of ignorance to the cruel world around me,until It was all over. I wouldn't feel a thing,and it would be over before I knew it.

As I drifted in this peaceful limbo,my mind wandered to a time I really cherished. It was a summer day,and Mother and Father had saved up enough silver to take us on a two day trip to Elysium,The land of the elves. We stayed in a beach house,with the beautiful sea just outside of our door. It was the first vacation I'd been on in my life. The beach sand underneath my feet as I dug my toes into the warm sand. The cool ocean breeze against my skin and the feeling of nothing more than peace. Elysium was one of the few places which existed in this cruel world that was more beautiful than hideous and monstrous.

How naive I was. How silly and stupid. I was soon torn out of my space of harmony and forced to return to reality when I felt my underwear slide off my ankles. I heard the guard start to unlace his pants to loosen them. What should've been seconds to get his pants off seemed like hours.

I shut my eye's,taking deep breaths to try and calm myself. I prayed to the god's to let this all be over soon.

Then, just when I thought all hope was lost,I heard a voice. It was soft at first,sounding distant. But soon the voice rang louder and louder in my ear's until it felt as though my ear drums would burst from the earthshattering scream.

"ESKARINA! HEY!" The voice screamt. "OPEN YOUR EYE'S! ESKARINA?! CAN YOU HEAR ME?"

The voice had a strange familiarity to it. As if I'd heard it plenty of times before. With my eye's slowly opening,my sight was flooded by the light of day. A few seconds passed before my eye's adjusted,my sight falling on a young boy. His cheekbones were high,giving him a skeletal look matched only by his slender body. His short brown hair swayed gently in the morning breeze.

His emerald eye's stared daggers at the guard. "What are you doing?!" The boy demanded.

"We were just havin us some fun master! No harm in that is there?"

The boy grabbed the guard by the collar and pulled him towards him,staring him dead in the eye's.

The guard seemed afraid,almost as if he were fearing for his life for a boy who was as old as I was.

"From this second forward,this girl is under the protection of the guild. If you do anything to harm her or her family,or so much as look at her in an ill-manner, I can assure you that all of your possession's will vanish within the hour" He said,still staring menacingly at the now shivering guard. "Is that clear?"

The guard swallowed nervously,slowly nodding his head. The boy shoved the guard back,then proceeded to help my mother and I to our feet.I slid my underwear back on and found myself breathing easier. He demanded that the gate be opened and in mere minutes the guards all vanished back to their posts. Mother appeared beside me as the city gates slowly creaked open. The large iron gates grinded against the ground creating small sparks as it did so.

The boy guided us through the gates while the guards cursed behind us. When the gates finally closed,The boy let out a heavy sigh and shook his head.

"Must I always be pulling you out of trouble Eskarina?" He asked.

I gave him a friendly punch as I desperatley fought back tears of joy. "Not always, but I really appreciate it this time Mikael."

Mikael giggled and continued leading us through the winding city street's,past the countless wooden houses and stores. Mikael and I had been friends since we were children. Unlike myself he was an orphan,and since Firekeep has no orphanage,he grew up on the street's. As you may have already guessed,The people of FireKeep aren't exactly generous towards the poor. This led Mikael to stealing food in order to survive. At a very young age he joined the notorious FireKeep thieves guild.

The homes of FireKeep never failed to suprise me. The four story houses which housed those fortunate enough to afford a house within the safe confines of the city may not seem grand from their damp,wooden exterior,but their interiors were marvelous. Fit for nobles. Mikael slowly directed us to the Muggers Mead Inn,where Mother and I did not hesitate to sit and rest in. The scent of Ale filled my nostrils while the musical ballads of bards rang in my eardrums. Mikael ordered a private booth where he and I sat down while he sent an armed escort with mother who left to go and acquire the groceries.

When Mother had gone,and Mikael and I were alone,he ordered two tankards of honey ale. The large wooden mugs arrived shortly after in the hands of a beautiful red haired woman. Her voluptous body made her quite attractive,and I was unable to take my eye's off of her as she slowly walked away.

"Got eye's for the waitress eh Esk?" Mikael asked with a smirk.

"She is beautiful..." I admitted.

"And so are you. Two beautiful women going at it is such a turn on for me."

Mikael leaned in,resting upon his laced fingers as he smiled at me. "So? You going to ask her out or what?"

"Mikael,just because I think she's hot doesn't mean I'm gonna bang her straight away. I want my first time to be with someone who I truly love and care for. And that might not even be a girl."

Mikael sighed and sat back in his chair. "And now I'm soft...you're such a turn off you know that? Why do you have to be bisexual? Just go full Lesbian!"

I shook my head,palming my face. "Mikael,my sexuality is my decision,not yours,and whether I fall for a male or female is out of my hands. I can't choose who I fall in love with,it just happens. And yes,I swing both ways but that doesn't mean that I know which way I'm going to swing when I meet that special someone. It might be a man,or a woman. It's out of my hands until I find out."

Mikael groaned "Still a boner killer! You haven't masterbated,haven't had sex,and you're bisexual but you won't go for the super hot waitress just because you don't love her?"

"Yes"

"And how do you know you won't love her?bang her and find out!"

"If I did that and loved her it would mean I only love her for her body. And that's not right Mikael. I want to fall for someone who I can love and who will love me for more than just sex. And I don't want my first time having sex to just be rough and sweaty. I want it to mean something,to be memorable. I want it to be a special occassion with a special someone."

I looked at Mikael who stared at me with his jaw dropped.

"What?" I asked.

"You're unbelievable."

We both took a sip of our ale,licked the foam off of our lips and set our tankards down.

"So,what's been the going on's here in the city?" I asked Mikael.

"Shit,that's a lotta news I have to give"

"Well give it then!"

Mikael took a breath then began speaking. "Let's see,Lord Airon has considered lending some of his troops to King Roman to support The Norths push towards Fort Vygil in Elysium,but according to rumours King Artemis is said to be boasting one hundred thousand troops who are defending Fort Vygil,while Roman is only sending sixty thousand."

The Northern Continent of Mordrid and The Western Continent of Elysium were locked in war for the past ten years. Mordrid,my home continent,had King Roman,Whilst Elysium had King Artemis. King Roman desired Elysium for himself,while Artemis wished to simply defend his homeland.

"Is that all? The entire week and that was all the news you give me? And you said you had a lot to tell me"

Mikael suddenly grew pale,and for a few moments remained silent. "There have been goblin sightings in the sewers. Lord Airon sent guards to exterminate them,and the extermination was successful"

"And? What aren't you telling me Mikael? Spill it!"

"I'm getting there. See,a few days ago those same guards' bodies were found brutally mutilated,organ's missing and pieces of their limbs were torn off. At first everyone thought it was just A normal murder. Things like mutilated bodies and brutal murders like that are the norm here in Firekeep after all. But then,More bodies began piling up,not of guards but normal people,who were torn apart,but get this." Mikael shuffled in his chair for a bit,seeming slightly uncomfortable. "Unlike the guards,the missing limbs weren't torn off,they were gnawed off. Only two specific limbs every time. The left arm and right foot."

A part of me was fascinated,a part of me was horrified.

"Put the pieces together yet?" Mikael asked.

"Yeah...A Revenant."

"Worse still they haven't found the thing yet. Which isn't suprising since they are disguised as normal human's."

"Which means they could be anyone."

A subtle sense of paranoia creeped over me similar to arachnaphobia. When you see a spider and look away or kill it,even when you know it's gone it feel's as though it's still crawling on your skin. My eye's scanned the room. Anyone in here could be a Revenant.One of The bard's,The hot waitress lady,the old woman in the back...Anyone.

"ESKARINA!" Mother's voice came. "I've bought what's needed for the week! Let's go home!"

"That's your cue" Mikael told me.

I smiled as he and I bumped fists.

Mother and I slowly began making our way back home,and all the way there,Mikael's word's played over and over again in my head.

"Remember Esk,don't leave your house at Night,unless you wanna end up in that Revenants gullet."