Chapter One: Grim Fate

The boys eyes began to open, ever so slowly, a deafening yell echoed throughout his humble abode.

“ D****t boy, wake the hell up!” The boy sighed, yawning.

“ I said, wake up, shithead!” The boy simply answered in a mix of yawn and speech.

“ Just a minute, dad!” He sat up, stretching his stiff arms, spun himself to face the door, which lay slightly ajar across the dimly lit room. The boy suddenly exclaimed.

“ S**t, I’m hungry!” He then whispered to himself as he got up and dressed.

“ Stupid f*****g merchant, haggling my gullible a*s…” The kid then walked outside of the room,

“ Took ya long enough, ingrate!” His elderly father spat at him.

“ Whatever, dad, what do you need?” The boy, still slightly zombified from sleep, instantly received an answer.

“ Take these copper coins, go out to the village, and buy some coal for the forge, and Cheshire, watch your tongue.” Cheshire Shirem rolled his eyes and chuckled slightly.

“ Got it, father.” The two glared at eachother for a moment, death behind both gazes. The two then began to chuckle, laughter filling the small building.

“ Alright dad, I’m gonna head on out, see ya.” The boy then crossed the threshold of their front door, instantly blinded by the sun's radiant light. ‘S**t that's bright!’ His thoughts exclaimed.

As the boy walked, he brushed his dead, bleached looking white hair out of his face. His father told him that his hair had been dead since birth, and that nobody could really figure out why.

He sighed and continued walking down the narrow path.

Cheshire arrived at the village, and surveyed his surroundings.

“ There's the market, the cathedral to the left, alright, Chesh, don't screw this up again…” The young boy mumbled to himself. He began walking slowly down the rows of stands, looking for coal.

“ Ah! There you are!” Cheshire exclaimed as he jogged towards the dusty, decrepit stand with the black lumps on display.

“ Hey, how much for the coal?” The old man at the stand glanced at him for a moment, the spoke.

“ Fifty, nothin less, got it, punk?” Cheshires eyes narrowed,

“ Yeah, I got it, old man. Here.” He dropped the sack of coins onto the counter next to the item in question. The old man grabbed the bag and gave Cheshire the coal.

“ Now piss off, kid.” Cheshire held his tongue, and walked away.

“ Asshat…” The boy whispered. Suddenly, a man stood, obviously livid with rage.

“ What did you jus call me?” The man asked in a drunken stupor. Cheshire cracked a smile.

“ I said, asshat!” He shouted. The man began to run towards him. Cheshire shifted his foot, and stepped to the side, leaving one foot slightly behind, the man tripped over the foot, falling to the ground. Cheshire chuckled.

“ Look at you, so drunk you can't even walk without busting your a*s!” The man slowly began to get to his feet.

“ Listen ‘ere, ya fukin ingrate,” The boy cut him off.

“ Oh no you don't,” He threw himself into a spin, lifting off the ground, turning nearly horizontal in the air, his left ankle connected with the drunken man's temple with a deafening crack. The man rolled over, snoring and unconscious. Cheshire chuckled, and began to walk away.

As the boy walked down the now near empty road, he was startled when three horses shot past in full gallop.

“ What the hell?” He mumbled, then, as if the rest of the world froze, he noticed a minuscule, odd detail. It was a piece of paper attached to the waist of the rear rider. A wanted poster, with a very familiar face printed on it.

“ Father!” He yelled, and began to sprint with all his might to his home.

His feet threw dirt nearly a foot into the air as they pounded into the ground, cracking the dried path. He felt his little toe crack as he ran, sending a white hot fire up his entire leg. He didn't even break his seven foot stride.

“ F**k!” He yelled, the pain was unbearable, but he couldn't afford to slow down, he was moving so quickly he noticed dust in the air from the horses he was chasing.

“ Faster. Faster. Faster!” He chanted to himself. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of running, he skidded to a halt in front of his house.

“ No… No!” He screamed, his lifelong home was burning to the ground before his eyes. His father, lay before the three b******s responsible, sword in hand, limp and lifeless.

“ Father!” The three turned to look at him.

“ Well ‘ave a look at this, boys.” The shortest said, slinging blood off of his six foot lance.

“ Wonder how long he'll last,” The one to the left was a burly man with a head to floor shield, and a one handed axe.

“ You this geezers son?” The one to the right drew his twin daggers. Cheshire just stared at them, all of his anguish turning to boiling, fervent rage. He drew the sword his father had loaned him for the trip to the market, and looked at it for a moment. His blue eyes darted back to the three men, his vision blurring with tears of anger.

“ You f***s, I swear to god, I'm going to rip you limb for f*****g limb, you b******s!” The man with the lance chuckled.

“ Are you now? Let's test that.” The man darted towards him, Cheshire stepped to the side, and sliced down, the man twisted his lance so the hilt of it would block the blow. The blade of Cheshire’s sword met the steel bar with a loud ting, sparks flying in all directions. The boy flipped his sword to into a reverse grip, and feigned a strike at the man's neck, but instead attacking the inside of his knee, the much more experienced man saw through this ruse, bringing his weapon down on the boy’s foot, blocking the attack and impaling the boy between his toes. Cheshire jumped backwards, seething in pain. He attempted to jab the man in his abdomen, but the man spun around the blade, and slashed the boy’s stomach with his lance. Cheshire fell to his knees, gasping in agony. ‘His blade is serrated?’ He looked up at the man, and lashed out in one final attempt to kill him. The man simply held up his lance, which deflected the attack.

“ I’ll give you this kid, you’re better than the old man. But I’ve got things to do.” He raised his lance in a slow, deliberate fashion. All the while Cheshire sat with a blank expression across his face.

‘Why… Why… Why did you have to die. No, why did they kill you? I can’t handle this.’ Blood dripped from his face, he could even taste it in his mouth, he gulped, the blood and saliva rushing down his throat.

The man enjoyed this slow, methodical way of killing people simply because of the horror etched in their faces before they died, but this kid was just sitting there, hunched over so the only thing he could see was the boy’s back.

“ Hey, kid, sit up and die with some honor, got it?” Then, as if the sun had shut out, the sky went black, then to blood red. He grunted, then noticed a sound emanating from the kid, he looked down to see the boy sitting there, his hair lengthened down to his upper waist and was now a saturated jet black, his skin had turned white as a sheet, and…

He was laughing.

“ What are you laughing about?” The man demanded, but that laugh soon turned to a demented cackle. Then, the kid stopped. He looked up at the man, hair blocking out his eyes, but the man could feel that the life in them had been extinguished.

“ What the hell is wrong with you?” The man asked wearily. Deciding that he’d rather not find out, he brought down his spear with all of his might, closing his eyes as he did so. He felt the blade hit bone, and he opened his eyes. This wasn’t bone, it was the boy's teeth. Somehow, the child had caught the f*****g blade, with his teeth. The man suddenly felt as if a thousand pound boulder now rested on his shoulders. The kids eyes were now exposed to him, they were a terror inducing, evil, crimson red. The boy’s eyes drilled holes in the man, and then, the boy suddenly grinned, the blade still caught in his teeth, he bit down, and the blade shattered into fragments. The man's comrades ran to his aid, but before they could reach him the boy, no, the thing, turned into a black mist, and shot towards them. When the thing re-materialized, it had the bulky man's left hand in his own, he ripped the shield out of the man's hand. He then swiped the shield at his throat, the metal slid through his neck with ease, catapulting his head into the air. The thing then ripped his sword upwards, tearing the other man in half. Blood splattered across it’s face, it turned around, with an ungodly sadistic grin stretched ear to ear.

The man looked on in horror as the boys features return to their original appearance. He looked around and scratched his head.

“ What the hell are you? Why are you so damn angry about this old man?” The man asked, a hint of anger rising in his voice. The boy looked to the man, his eyes suddenly set ablaze in anger, he bared his teeth, and sprinted towards the man. When he reached him, the man raised his lance, steadying himself. The kid slashed downwards, the blade of his sword crashing into the metal bar that was once the man's weapon. When the blade hit, it shattered the hilt of his lance, and ripped through the man's flesh, dividing his heart and right lung into two halves. As the man fell over, the boy growled in anger.

“ I'm not angry, I'm not furious, no...”

The boy knelt down to look the man in the eyes as he bled out. He whispered, fury profound in his voice, it shook as he spoke.

“ I’m absolutely livid.”

Cheshire waited until the man exhaled his last breath, then walked over to his father, kneeled down, and inhaled deeply.

Then screamed.

The boy's voice cracked the sky, going hoarse halfway through his anguished lament. When his voice faded out, it was instantly replaced by sobbing. After what seemed to be hours of grief, he looked toward the burnt out house, his eyes shining in the sunlight from his tears. He began to shake violently.

“ I swear to god, father, I'll find the b******s responsible for this, then I'll tear them to shreds for it.” Cheshire stood, and slowly paced over to the forge beside the building. His father had told him that when he died, Cheshire must take the weapon that his father had made for him, it had been hammered into his head for years, and Cheshire never actually thought the day would come so soon. When he walked over to the chest that rested against the dim forge, he braced himself, and opened it.

The scabbard was made of a cloudy, polished ivory, at the tip was a steel cap, a fingernail sized ruby in the center.

The blade was secured inside by the cross guard, which was a wolf’s head, made of silver, the fangs of the metal beast were locking the blade within the scabbard. Cheshire looked to the hilt, which was a polished obsidian rod that slightly curved for a comfortable slash. The pommel was a wolf’s paw, the toes curled around an eye sized ruby.

The boy grasped the weapon, mystified as to how to remove the sword from its scabbard. He was then abruptly shocked when a rock fell from the side of the house, making his left hand spasm in instinctual fear, his palm hit the ear of the wolf head, the ear was much sharper than he realized, and his hand was laid open by the dagger like ear. He gasped as the pain shot through him, then was surprised when the mouth of the wolf shot open, the weapon released from its shell. Cheshire pulled the blade out of the sheath, awestruck by the craftsmanship of blade.

The blade itself was white, it's hamone line was perfect, the double sided blade was about three inches wide, three feet in length, and a half an inch thick.

“ Beautiful…” He whispered to himself. Cheshire sheathed the blade and fastened it to his waist. He then proceeded to search the bodies of the men he had killed, the memory of which was strangely beginning to fade. He found a letter, it was a request. It spoke of his father’s apparent treachery, and that a large sum of gold would be rewarded for his capture.

“ Then why did they kill him?” Cheshire gritted his teeth and growled. It made no sense, what could his father have done warrant this degree of action? And treachery to whom? It was made clear in the letter as well that he would be captured after his father had been dealt with for an even larger amount of gold. Cheshire made a decision, he would seek out the man who wrote this letter, then find out more about why his father was killed. And then, if nothing else, he would see that man die.

“ And this blade should get the job done.”

Reviews

[Poet]

Intriguing content-I like the wolf and blade scenes. In the first sentence, you don't need the word "began," (I do it too, but its not always necessary). Just write the boys eyes opened...
It helps the reader to experience the characters feelings better. Overall, very cool imagery.