Rebirth, Orphans and Ash


    Marcus tried to blink and open his eyes, but they felt sealed off. He tried to focus and strain his eyelids to open them, which only ended in pain around his eyes. He tried to lift his arms to touch his face but found he could only move one of his arms. The other felt trapped under something heavy with an edge, so he dared not move it; with his movable free arm, his left arm, he pulled and felt a piercing pain cut across the back of his hand, leaving a shallow wound across his entire arm as he pulled it out. He reached up and touched his eyes, finding them shut by crusted dried blood. Ignoring the pain, Marcus rubbed his eyes, feeling the crusted blood fall off, and when he could finally see, Marcus found he was surrounded by ash, broken iron and the sound of crickets in the distance; it felt like he had fallen asleep on the battlefield.


    “Where am I?”


    The place looked dark, and the air smelled of burnt flesh and wood. This was a battlefield. In the distance, he could see a large towering wall and a city beyond it. There was nothing like this on Earth. If there was, he surely would have seen it somewhere or heard of it, a city… no cities built on and around a mountain. He should have known about such a thing if this were Earth. All he could remember was going to sleep in his apartment room.


    Marcus tried to pull his other hand free, but the pain in his back suddenly grew heavier and uncomfortable as he was pressed down onto the ground. He looked around behind him and cursed. It was not only his arm that was trapped; his entire body was under a pile of broken chariots, wagon wheels and bent irons.


    “What the hell?”


    He tried to kick, but even then, he realised he couldn’t move his leg. There was little to no space to move his legs. He looked around and, uncertain or unwilling to starve here, he called out.


    “Help, anybody help.”


    “Anyone.”


    “Help!” he yelled.


    The wind blew, and suddenly, the cold he had been ignoring stung against his skin, causing him to shiver. A jacket would be good right about now, he thought. Wandering why it was so cold, he looked up and saw the black clouds that extended across the sky, blocking out all light from the sun and casting the entire world in gloomy darkness, the only place as far as he could see that the dark clouds did not appear to touch was the sky was the place above the city where the highest buildings touched the silver clouds.


    The entire sight felt unnatural, and even then, he would have to free himself to understand what was going on.


    Or it was simply a dream. Then all he had to do was wake up.


    His teeth chattered and clicked from the cold, and he tried to pull himself out again. He felt the pile of scrap iron shift, and then a scream left his lungs as pain lashed his leg; something had shifted and landed on his leg. All he could think was that his leg was broken. He tried to control his breathing for a time, and he could feel tears rolling down his cheeks; he ground his teeth, and after an even longer time of enduring the pain, he felt his eyes go heavy as the world went dark slowly but surely and his head hit the ashy soil.


    _____________________________________________________________


    “Where are you going?” a girl''s voice asked.


    “Is this what you heard,” another voice tried to say, indicating something else.


    “That’s probably a monster,” a deeper voice said.


    “No, I heard it this way,” a sharp voice replied to the three.


    Marcus heard the voices come closer. In his dazed state, he could not make them out clearly. All he could do now was wait for help to find him.


    “There is nothing here.”


    “If we go any closer, we’ll be close to the forgotten forest.”


    “Don’t be a scared gremlin, it''s close.” the sharp voice said.


    “She’s right Clara”


    Finally, The children climbed over the mound and looked down to see a boy trapped under the rubble.


    A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    “There you see I was right,” She said a smug look on her face


    Clara could be stubborn at times, but this time, she knew what she had heard. Like every other day, she had gathered her friends and come to the Ashfields to scavenge for scraps of metal to sell for food or clean water in the lower quarters.


    Like the other orphans, it was desperation that drove her and her small crew of street rats into the land beyond the wall and even then, none of them dared move past the very centre of the Ashfields; none of them were brave enough even step a mile of two next the forgotten forest as they called, comfortable with staying in the Ashfields where the people from the higher city came to fight the Tides of monsters.


    Like many others, she was rejected by their mothers and fathers and left to fend for themselves in the slums of the lower city of the fifth wall. Even though the group treated each other like a small family, they were all of different races. They were mostly halfbreeds who could not fit with the Goliath giants, the Aasmar high lords and sometimes even the humans; they were offered no help to people of the city, and soon they got used to it, avoiding those and most parts of the city.


    The group of street rats looked up at the forest beyond the Ashfield battlegrounds, and they felt eyes looking back at them.


    “Clara, we should hurry.” one of the children said, causing her to look away from the forest in the distance.


    “Hurry get him out,” she ordered and the group of seven children looked down at the pile of iron scrap and war rubble.


    Marcus looked up from his daze and saw the different faces looking back at him, frozen in place. Finally, someone had come, and all he needed was a little to help out of this place.


    “Help me,” Marcus croaked, lifting his one good arm.


    “Is he alive?”


    “Of course he is,” Clara said, “Geneve, Zek get down there and help him.”


    “Me, why me,” Geneve asked as she twiddled her large thumbs.


    “Your the strongest, you should do it”


    Geneve and Zek were both half human and half Goliath. At fifteen, the two siblings were as strong as any common man and just as tall. Geneve, like Clara, wore a rugged, dirt-filled dress and covered her body in a brown rug over her shoulder. Zek, on the other hand, wore a dirty tunic shirt and trousers that left his bulging arms, three times the size of Clara’s, out in the open.


    “What do you think happened to him,” Zek asked, sliding down the mound of earth before stumbling into the pile of wagons and metals.


    “Don’t know but heard the noise when I was looking around for something good to sell in the lower quarter,” she said.


    Seeing what they were doing, a few of the other boys jumped into an earthy mound crater and started pulling out the scrap metal and wagon wheels and throwing them to the side. Others tied the parts that looked valuable on their backs with a cloth to be sold in the city.


    Once the large pile was lifted off the boy, Clara, their leader, slid down into the pit and looked down at the frail, bloody body of a boy with skin the colour of earth.


    “Is he alive,” one of the boys asked, poking the figure of Marcus on the ground.


    “Of course he is,” Clara said before looking at her second,” Gabe, is he alive?”


    Gabe, like Clara, was a human orphan. He was skin and bone. When he needed to see, he often squinted. He was considered the smartest of their lot, and some even said that he once lived in the higher walls.


    “Who are you? What is this place?” Marcus asked, and the group of small children looked at him, confused.


    Marcus looked back at the dirty and scrawny-looking kids dressed in medieval tunics and lacking basic hygiene, waiting for an answer. He tried to move and was surprised by the pain and numbness of his body as he felt two beefy arms grab him, holding him like a child, a feeling he had long forgotten in the days after he left home. The two hands helped him to his feet, and he grunted in pain as he realised his foot was turned sideways and limp.


    A small, skinny boy looked at him curiously, inspecting his eyes.


    ‘Wait… what is he looking at and why am i so small’


    “What is he saying? “Clara asked Gabe, who turned and looked at her with a confused look on his face as he shrugged.


    The skinny boy turned back, grabbed Marcus''s eyes and opened them, looking at each one looking for something.“Clara, I think he is one of us?” Gabe said, and the girl pushed him to the side.


    “What?” Clara asked, and all seven orphans looked at Marcus curiously.


    “His eyes,” Gabe squinted from behind Clara, focusing on the boy, “his halfblood.”


    They all squinted in imitation and looked at the boy''s eyes. One of his eyes had the golden iris of the Aasimar lords, and the other was clearly human.


    The girl, whom all the other children looked at for their decisions, came closer to Marcus, and he soon realized she almost stood as tall as him as he limped. From what he could remember, he was as tall as any man on earth. So why was he clearly as short as the thin girl standing in front of him, and why did he feel small and thin? Compared to the two burly children whose arms held him up, his arms felt smaller, similar to those of a child.


    The girl stood in front of him like an adjudicator. “What’s your name?” she asked as pushed her finger into his chest and narrowed her eyes at him.


    “Listen girl I don’t know what is going on but maybe I can talk to your parents or someone grown up?”


    The kids, no, the gang of street urchins, looked at each other and laughed at him, some pushing and shoving each other to the ground.


    “We are orphans and you are like us," she pushed him harder.


    “What?” Marcus asked, confused. When he tried to move, he felt the hands of the two large children holding him still where he was.


    “How old are you, boy? Maybe you can join my guild.” she said, lifting her chin.


    “Twenty seven,” Marcus said and the girl Clara looked him up and she looked over at Gabe who twirled his finger around his head.


    “Twenty seven tides,” she tried counting on her fingers and gave up,” You look no more than fourteen tides old.”


    “Clara, I think it’s some sort of dark magic.” Zek said in a deep voice that Marcus did not believe a child capable of before quickly looking down and avoiding the intimidating girl''s eyes.


    “Maybe we should ask him,” Geneve proposed, looking at the scrawny half-human half-Aasimar in her and her brother’s hands.


    “Was it dark magic?” Clara looked up at Marcus.


    “Dark magic… What is that? there is no such thing as magic,” he said as he suddenly felt the pain on his leg and arm.


    Clara turned back to Gabe looking for any answers and the skin thin boy twirled his finger round his ear.


    “So where–” the white haired girl started, and before she could finish, the scrawny boy interrupted him.


    “If you all don’t have parents, Can you take me to whoever is in charge?” Marcus asked, using his hand to feel at his bruises before he was painfully yanked upright by the two giant children holding him.


    “His right, I think we should take him away from this place," Gabe said, squinting at the dark forest that surrounded them.


    Clara, realising where she was, quickly looked up in panic.” Zek and Geneve curry him Gabe and the rest of you bring the metal.”


    As they walked at a hurried pace through the Ashfields, they dragged him along seemingly worried about the forest that surrounded the Ashfields and city more than his injured leg.


    They moved past other scavengers and made their way towards the city.