joy.

It was the stench of stale alcohol that welcomed him into the world.

His life had begun just like a dream. He wasn’t sure when it started.

One day, out of nowhere, he was there.

No birthday marked his age.

He just existed.

The soul was given a title a by a man with the same bright green eyes as he--Monster, Beast, Curse. The man’s spiteful names never made sense to the tragic boy, until he looked into the emerald eyes of seething repulsion.

A woman with the same shade of ginger hair as he called him words he couldn’t force himself to repeat. They sounded disgusting, especially when she spat them out of her chapped lips.

Every day, he worked in the field in his village. It was grueling work, and with no food provided for him, he had to make do with scraps he found. His body was haggard and bony, so he struggled to make his way through the tending of the field. However, if he didn’t toil in the fields, he would face a consequence that always left a new bruise or scar.

His most memorable scar went across the right side of his cheek, all the way to the corner of his lips. As he bled on the floor, whimpering, he noticed the woman.

Her stomach had grown.

The young boy didn’t know what they were, but he knew soon enough, another living person would be in the house.

Later that night, he sobbed alone in a corner, covered in rusting metal chains. Using a power he was born with, he tended to his wound. His magic seeped into his skin, advancing the skin growth of the scar. The gash would forever remain across his face, but at least the bleeding had ceased.

He wanted to run away, far into the star-blessed realms of Asteria Majorio. He desired to fly to the floating kingdoms of the peaceful Aesivya.

To be without a painful life was a dream, and in what he saw as selfishness, he craved for its sweet taste. But then he would recall the person in the woman’s stomach.

He didn’t want them to hurt as he did. Though he was weak and was no match for his oppressors, he needed to protect the one who was yet to be born into the world.

So in the dark desolation of his captivity, he set aside his desires for the one whom he longed to defend.

The arrival of the new person finally came. The woman shrieked, and the man screamed at the sight of the newborn.

The infant looked like a tiny, grotesque monster with an orange, furry body and small, cobalt horns and claws. The young boy’s heart sank at the sight of him.

The child who was just born was a Fabelwesen just like him, and he would receive no love from his mother or his father.

In the dark of the baby’s first night, the boy devised a liberation plan. Breaking away the chains that held him captive, the boy tiptoed his way to a corner where the newborn slept.

He picked up the infant with lovingness, cradling the fragile soul in his arms. It looked normal now, with soft skin and tiny fingers. The boy traced the countable clumps of hair on its head and wept in wonder of the innocent one’s beauty.

“I need to save you...” whispered the young boy, sniffing silently.

He wrapped the baby in a tattered shirt and exited the house in heedful silence.

The twinkling stars guided his bare feet through the cold autumn night. A path of crisp leaves decorated the road and crickets composed a delicate song of danger and desperation.

Nightlife chirped and howled in response to the song, making the young boy’s barely clothed back shiver.

As the boy ran, the world became darker. Storm clouds flooded the night, and cold droplets turned the dry dirt to thick mud. Purple veins of electricity stretched across the tempestuous sky.

The newborn began to cry into the stormy winds. The young boy ran faster. Sticks stabbed into his heels and rocks stubbed his toes. Muck caked onto his ankles and legs.

He ran to the water of a flooding stream, hoping to cross through to get to the village ahead. He trudged through the bank, algae sticking between his toes. The newborn cries became like shrill screams of fear.

“CRAAAAAAAAAACK!!” bellowed a tree as it fell quickly in front of the young boy. He felt the baby fall out of his hands, into the swiftly growing waters.

The terrified boy screamed as loud as he could, searching for the baby frantically.

Then, he slipped and lost all consciousness.

“Hey, you still alive, kid?” called the voice a young Faerith Leid.

The young boy’s eyes opened to piercing, pale sunlight. He coughed up water as he sat up.

“Where...where is he...?” asked the boy, trembling.

“Who?” asked the Faerith Lied, who furrowed his thick, black eyebrows in confusion.

“The little one, the one who just was just born,” cried the boy. The child searched for the baby, sifting through the sandy river bank frenetically.

“I need to save him!”

“Are you saying you lost your little brother?”

The young boy felt his heart momentarily cease. A withering sensation ate at his aspirations to find the newborn. He didn’t know what a brother was, but as he remembered the little soul and how much he cherished it, he began to quake.

He wanted to see it grow, for it to become taller than the boy was.

He wanted to see it walk, freely and without pain.

He wanted it to be joyful, living a life where no hand of harm could touch him.

The young boy started to sob uncontrollably as the warm desire to protect crippled and sank in his heart’s sorrows.

Though he didn’t understand it fully, the boy knew he had lost the only thing he had ever loved.

War had come to the Faerith Leid country of Areon. Every able male, young and old, was forced to draft and join King Aredor’s soldiers in battle.

It had been two years since the boy had lost his brother. He had planned to return to the place where the baby’s parents lived so he could protect any other children the woman might have in the future, but he had no clue where that place was anymore.

“You seem capable, though a bit scrawny,” grumbled a thickset Lied with furry, caterpillar eyebrows. “What’s your name, boy?”

“I...I don’t have one,” uttered the boy timidly. He clasped his hands together and gazed at the ground.

“What?!” bellowed the man. He crossed his muscular arms. “What type of child doesn’t have a name?”

“I...I don’t know, sir...” muttered the boy in discomfort.

“Feh!” grunted the man, who stroked his full, brown mustache. “Well, it doesn’t matter, anyway. For now on, you shall be a Grunt, and you will be known as that, Fabelwesen scum.”

The young boy looked down. Fabelwesen scum--even in war, he could not find another identity. There was no comfort in any place, for he was a monster in the eyes of the world surrounding him.

Would he always be treated with such disdain for just being born?

The clashing of metal and steel rang in the young boy’s ruptured ears. The stench of the deceased covered every fighter and the sun disappeared from the sky, leaving it a dusty grey.

Blood gushed from wounds made by sword, spear, arrow, stone, and claw. Heads were cut away from their necks, rolling into the waste of the trivial land. Corpses rotted and soon became soulless and unidentifiable. From the ground in which they first came, they returned, but in no such way of beauty.

Provisions had run out weeks before, and King Aredor and his men became skeletal. Many ate cloth, leather, and grass. Some found their stomachs were too weak consume to digest. Insanity drove many lamentable souls to hysteria. The songs of the flowers departed their memories, and love turned to death. The dead of night was the terror of every soul who still had an ounce of will left.

The young boy didn’t know how to fight. Everywhere he turned, he saw a person he wanted to save. Every time he blinked, an enemy cut them down, releasing blood into the toxic air.

The young boy’s head spun around as he grasped for fresh air and peace of mind. The screams of terror ran encircled like taunting ghosts. Desperately, he looked for a sign of life.

In front of him, he saw a familiar face. It was the man who he had met so long ago, the one who taught him what the word brother meant.

He carried a body on his back, stumbling barefoot and struggling to carry on.

“Sir!!” yelled the boy. He ran to the man’s side just before he plunged knees first into the dirt.

“I can’t...I can’t see anything...” coughed the man. A tattered and blood-stained rag covered his upper face, hiding his bleeding eye wounds.

“I can’t carry on...” said the man. “You need...to make sure that the king...”

The boy looked at the body on the injured man’s back. Long, matted locks of dirty blonde hair dripped with muddied water. On his starved face were bruises, scars, and stains. To the child, the King Aredor looked like every other soldier around him, not like royalty.

“I’m not going to leave you here...” stated the boy.

“Yes, you will,” replied the man. “Take the king...and get out of here!”

“I WILL NOT!!” he screamed, tears falling from his face. He did not want to see another soul depart from its body in such a horrifying way.

Suddenly, the young boy’s body began to transform into a large, muscular creature with a face reminiscing of a fox. His hands and feet became fur-covered claws. His appearance was three times bigger than his scrawny size.

“Get on my back, now!!” he growled. The wounded Lied trembled in awe.

“So you’re one of the Fabelwesen, too...” he marveled under a wheeze.

The Faerith Leid clumsily crawled onto the boy’s fur-covered back. Holding onto the king tightly, the man signaled that the boy could carry on. He started to run, casting dust into the clouded atmosphere. Along the way, he stopped to let other men upon his back.

Arrows and spears pierced his flesh. He let out an agonizing howl every time they broke his skin. A blade cut down the left side of the boy’s face, from the forehead to the chin, but he carried on running.

He wasn’t going to let anyone die.

Never again, he swore, would he lose someone.

Two weeks after his act of bravery, the war was over. Areon was victorious, and every serving soldier was free to return home.

There was much celebration within the kingdom. The flower songs serenaded the homebound warriors and honored the sacrifices of the heroes whose lives paid for freedom.

Women welcomed their beloved husbands and precious sons home, kissing their tear-stained faces.

Children ran to their fathers whom they had long wished to see or had never met before. In the arms of their fathers, they found no way to keep their eyes dry and no way to keep their sobs from escaping them.

Friends reunited and told one another tales of their lives and inhabited the melodious taverns to celebrate safe returns. Mourning hearts were comforted by their neighbor and not left alone in the darkness of despair.

There was a new hope in the land of Areon, and all were in a unified peace with one another.

But the boy felt no such relief. Eyes of departed innocence looked upon the world around them, wondering why he felt more lost than his time shrouded in violence.

The child had no place to return to, so King Aredor extended hospitality to him, welcoming him into the castle.

In the castle, the young boy kept to himself. King Aredor had reunited with his young son and had taken in eight other children who had no home to call their own.

The forlorn boy would watch King Aredor play with the children. They laughed and sang happily with the king, who cherished each of them and lovingly cared for their every need.

In the pearly, marble halls of Castle Gloria, the children thrived with one another. They were all beautiful and precious children, but their sight gave the despondent soul no comfort or joy.

One boy, in particular, a boy with short, unkempt ginger hair was a sight most excruciating to the boy. His big, toothy grin and glimmering green eyes were a painful reminder of the sibling he lost long ago.

Peace thrived in the land, but inside of the child’s head, the war continued. The visions of the horrific bloodbath replayed in his head.

Every moment his eyes closed, the boy was delivered back to the gory sights of the battlefield. Loud commotions made the boy’s skin crawl and shiver; reminding him of the hopelessness from his comrades haunted him.

Even the sight of food made the boy’s insides troubled, for it reminded him of the soulless corpses who had become dried flesh and bones before they could eat even a crumb of sustenance.

Each night for the boy was a night of repetitive nightmares, nightmares that plagued his mind with putrid horrors that smelled of insect-infested decay.

Was there a way he could erase the memories from his mind? Was the boy ever to be free of his never-ending terrors?

Would he ever be innocent of such thoughts again?

“We gather here together to witness the execution of these two disgusting murderers, who killed their infant daughter,” declared a messenger dressed in maroon robes. He stood next to a man and a woman covered in dirt. They wore shackles upon their bare ankles and wrists.

Crowds of people cheered. Some screamed and booed.

The boy felt his stomach churn as he watched the crowds. The familiar emerald eyes of a man glared into his. Beside him was his wife, who spat at the crowd around them. An executioner placed nooses around their necks and prepared to send them to their death.

“The murder of a Fabelwesen is as equal to the murder of any other Faerith Leid equal punishment!” yelled the messenger. The aggressive shouts of the masses blared throughout the town forum.

The nooses tightened, and with a loud and quick snap, the man and woman were breathless--leaving the tragic boy shaken.

The boy couldn’t sleep. He didn’t want to.

He had been in his room for days without food or drink. In the corner, he sat curled up. His sleepless eyes were wide, and his breathing rattled his bones.

He had witnessed the execution of the man and woman from long ago.

His parents.

He had lost his baby brother many years before the war’s end. Now, he had lost another sibling.

A baby sister.

As he closed his eyes, a mixture of sounds and images played in his head. A man and woman, beating him and yelling at him because of what he was.

The sobs of a newborn baby in the rain fainted in the flood waters of a storm. The clamor of the gruesome battlefield ate at his innocence and covered it in blood. The final breath of a baby girl who received no right to life chilled his skin.

“Why...” said the boy, choking on the stinging misery inside of him. His long locks draped over his body, and his hands climbed his forearms in seclusion.

Tear after tear, he sunk further into isolated despair. Continuous was his cycle of suffering, and he wondered if his end would have any relief.

The boy opened his quivering lips. From his mouth, a question that had harbored itself inside of him escaped into the atmosphere around him.

“Why can’t I have a family of my own?”