#just finished Divine Hammer and I feel for the poor bastard so bad

[skull-bearer]

Invictus Fans

For the sequel,

Andras Rannoch POC character y/n?

Or, for those who haven't read the Kingpriest trilogy-

Andras Rannoch is the mage who cursed the tower after being brainwashed and completely fucked over by Fistandantilus. He has been brought back to life as of end of Invictus, and I am seriously tempted to make him a POV character.

He still isn't aware the Cataclysm happened,

[tkrich-blog1]

The Night I Killed Father

Hello, normally one would introduce themselves before giving an explicit story of how their life changed and fate decided it was over. How much so is fate to blame for the turns that we have taken in this life? Certainly we can not decide where we are born and who we are born to, but fate is like a highway, leading us on the journey, but we decide which exits to take. As fate would have it, I was born into this world nameless, one of six bastards. As I would have it, I took fate into my own hands, and ultimately damned my soul.

I am fourteen years old, waiting behind bars for the sand in my life’s hourglass to finally run out. Though my days left on this earth are few, death is a far more pleasant choice than the circumstances that fate had decided for me. You see, I knew my mother for mere weeks before she passed into the next life. The man I called Father was an extremely filawed man. I guess we all have our flaws though, I mean, I’m locked up for a reason after all. What is that reason you may ask, well, murder.

In three days I will receive the lethal injection for the murder of Father. It was a stormy night like this one. The lightning flashed, the thunder rolled, and the rotting boards creaked under the pressure of the storm. The only sound louder than than the storm were the whimpers from my siblings and I, as we kept to the only dry, solid spot of floor.

Lightning struck right outside the porch, causing my youngest sister to yelp with fear. My older brother tried to comfort her while reminding her that if we awoke Father, the storm would be the least of our worries. Our deepest fears came true when we heard the thud of footsteps coming from upstairs. It was hard to keep from whining with my siblings as the footsteps started down the stairs. My heart jumped with every step as father descended down, like the Devil as he’s returning to hell. I realized by the look in Father’s eyes, that we had just made or arrival.

The cursing had started before Father was off the stairs. We could already smell the alcohol on him. We knew better than to run, for that would just make the punishments all the more severe. My two brothers and I tried to shield our two sisters. It was to no avail. Father had picked up my younger brother by the neck and threw him across the living room. Father had his belt in hand, wailing it on our skinny, starving bodies. I had all I could take, it was a reaction I couldn’t control, as the belt came down on us one last time while our weak bodies lay on the floor, I did the only thing I could do, and bit him. He broke some of my ribs as he kicked me with his steel-toed work boots. The shout was more deafening than any thunder we had ever heard in that house.

“Now you’ve done it”!

He picked me up by my hair and headed towards the basement. I swear I saw him smile as he said that I hadn’t learned from my eldest brother’s mistake. My stomach churned as we finished our descent into the lowest depths of hell. He walked towards a table with a box nailed to it in the almost barren room. He took a hammer and lifted the lid that had been nailed shut. Inside I saw what remained of my brother, bone, mush, and matted hair.

He threw me into the box. I was slightly too big for the box, but that wasn’t going to stop Father from fitting me in. He broke one of my legs to help stuff me into my coffin. He slammed the lid shut and begun to nail it closed. Just as the box, I felt my fate, too, had been sealed.

The smell was grotesque. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. Blood and bile spewed out of my mouth. Something happened to me in that box. Laying in the remains of my rotted brother, I felt something in me snap. However bad this situation was, my mentality wasn’t gonna let me die in here. I was gonna show Father, I was gonna show them all that I wasn’t a problem that was just gonna be locked away. I’m the problem that’s going to end Father’s life.

My new craving for revenge kept me sane. I say that lightly, as I know from the looks of the world, I had completely gone mad. This was different though, the desire for his blood to be spilled caused my mind to think more clearly than I ever had cowering in the corner. As my mind was set on murder I began my escape.

I started wiggling inside the box. Throwing my frail body from one side to the other. I began to feel the nails give way. Father probably should have waited until his drunkenness had worn off before nailing the box. His real problem of alcohol would ultimately be his undoing. At last I threw my body and the nails came out of the table. The box fell onto the floor and the lid broke off. I was free.

I started crawling towards the steps. My leg and ribs being broken, crawling was all I was physically allowed. With each step sharp pains echoed through my body. The pain was excruciating. I had not eaten in two weeks so the only thing I was able to vomit now was blood. I had made it to the top, using my head I nudged the door open to be greeted with the looks of shock and horror.

My siblings were speechless. I was unable to tell if it was from how I looked or the sheer surprise from the fact that the last one of us to be taken downstairs never came back, aside from the remainders that hitched a ride on me. My question was soon answered when I looked in the broken mirror sitting in the corner. I couldn’t even recognize myself anymore. There was one thing I did recognize however. The look in my eyes, it was the same look I had seen in Father’s. I had become a monster.

What is a monster really? Was I born with this instinct to kill, brewing over the years, ready to overflow into the world? Perhaps, or maybe I was created, molded by the circumstances that fate had placed me in. Fate, such a strange concept, that something divine is guiding your life. It begs the question do we even have free will, or is all of our life choices already carefully decided. I didn’t have time to question my existence at the moment. As far as I was concerned I had one purpose in this life, to kill Father.

My siblings started protesting as I made my way towards the stairs. Their begging, frantic cries only fueled my rage. My older brother was the only one to follow me up the stairs. He kept pleading with me not to do this, we could all just leave, run away, and never come back. I heard his pleas but this new me couldn’t comprehend the weakness of all of them, they deserved everything Father did if they weren’t willing to put an end to it. As I approached the the last step my brother sat on my broken leg in an attempt to end the madness. My poor brother, it was as if something else immediately took over and I kicked him off my body. The sounds of his bones cracking and the last whimpers he made still haunt me.

His body landed on the floor with one last, loud thud. My younger brother and sisters circled his body, staring at me in disbelief. They started crying. If they foiled my only shot of revenge then they would all be next I growled! That seemed to shut them up, and by a miracle, Father was still in his drunken slumber.

I nudged his door open. The long creaking was almost enough to make me turn around. I heard his snoring and it brought me back, the pleasure of knowing I was about to put an end to that noise forever. I almost feel bad for the excitement that thought had brought me. I muscled up all the strength I could and climbed on his mattress. It was sitting on the floor so that dramatically lessened the effort I would have had to put in. I climbed on top of his chest, and as I sat there everything around me came into focus. The rain hitting the tin roof, the drops hitting the floor from the leaks in the ceiling, the wind whistling through the cracks in the window, and the musky smell of a ripe alcoholic in a decrepit house.

I sat on his chest for a moment consumed by wondering. I wonder what life would have been like without the bottle. I wonder how it would feel if he were to just wrap his arm around me, not in an attempt to stop me from breathing, but out of love. All of this wonder ceased the moment that he began to open his eyes.

Those dark soulless eyes. The eyes of wrath. The eyes that we all knew, when locked on us, only meant pain would ensue. Tonight though, in this moment, those eyes were different. These eyes were the eyes of fear. And for a brief moment I knew I was looking through the eyes of Father.

I couldn’t get caught up, I had a mission. Before the one chance I had passed me by, I did again the only thing my body would permit. Instead of a quick snap, I dug my teeth into his throat. He started thrashing around like a fish out of water. He threw his fists, one after the other to knock me off of him, but in this moment I was numb. I felt nothing, not the fist laying into my broken ribs, not sorrow as he cried for me to release him, and no regret for the execution of Father or my brother. As I finished enjoying the taste of the blood of my tormentor, I used all of my body weight and ripped out his throat with such force that it slung me into the floor. At last, it was over, we were finally free.

Free is another one of those strange concepts. We live in a country suffocating in freedom, yet every decision we make has to be allowed by a few rich men in a city most will never visit. If you break the rules set for everyone to obey, then you will be punished to the fullest extent that is allowed. I find it hilariously ironic, the fact that I left one house of punishment just to be sent to another. That being said, I still have no regrets. What I wouldn’t give to taste Father’s blood one last time. I guess Father was right after all. I am a bad dog.

This story is my first completed short story I hope to do many more