I awoke to thunder.
My door burst open. Hinges screamed, air slapped me in the face, and before I could even sit up someone's hand had me by the shoulder. My eyes peeled open to greet his.
"Move."
That was all they gave me. No name, no reason, but an order. Any hope at a peaceful day was gone. It belonged to the rush outside, to the boots slamming stone, to the flood of bodies storming past. I staggered into the current and let it swallow me into a tunnel I hadn't yet seen.
Steps kicking up dirt, torchlight stuttering like it couldn't stand to look at us. The others clamouring for answers and being shushed like unruly children. I didn't bother. I knew I would receive none.
All of us men and boys, not a single woman in sight. If the humans had come, they would prioritise women and children first. And so it was settled. They were dragging us to hell, not away.
The stairwell spat us out into a cavern of stone and smoke. A gaping pit.
Torches lined the walls and their light drowned in the pit. Hundreds of splintered wooden dummies standing in disordered rows across the ground. Racks of weapons mounted on the walls, gleaming dully in the light. The rocks stained with blood and the air stinking of iron and sick.
The boys around me fell silent. No more questions. No, many. But none they were not too afraid to ask.
"ATTENTION!"
We froze. Eyes jolting to him. A burly Gimen man with scars littered across his flesh. He relished how he made us flinch. The others who led us here, lined up next to him with hands clasped behind their backs. He began to pace around, letting us know he owned the room. Then he spoke.
"'Why've they sent us here?! I thought I'd get a nice warm bath and a fair maiden to tend to me...'" he said. A few chuckled, not yet one of us understood his joke.
"I'm sure that must be what you're thinking right now." he said. "Well, I'm dreadful sorry. That ain't gonna happen."
Murmurs ensued. The speech-giver strangled the air with his fist, and they ceased.
"No. What I'm going to give ya, is far better."
"And what the hell is that?" One Gimen at the front piped up, others muttered, agreeing.
"Easy. A chance at redemption."
My heart hurdled.
"Redemption? We 'aven't even done anyfin!"
More jeers of agreement. Louder.
"Haven't you? You really think that?" his voice cut the air back into silence.
"All of you are here for one simple reason. Because you're the only ones who survived the humans. And you did it at the expense of your families, your wives."
"The hell you mean? We didn't kill them!"
"You may as well have. I mean, those poor souls. Butchered and captured. All because the sad-sack men in their lives couldn't protect them."
Heads hung in shame. My soul rattled as if he spoke to me alone. He'd said everything I'd said to myself since that day.
"It's just plain sad. I even heard rumour of one boy who hid while they took his brothers, killed his mother. How pathetic."
Now it was piling. The lie I made up to punish myself, it had worked all too well, and it gave me no catharsis. The scarred man continued.
"Weakness. It's as good as killing the ones you love with your own hands.. but... fear not. That's what this place is for." he raised his arms, gesturing to the pit.
"A place for us to hammer your weakness into strength. To mould you into what you ought to be...
"What's that?"
The scarred man grinned.
"Soldiers, boy. Soldiers for war."
'War...? What war? Surely he can't mean...'
Whispers gained pressure like boiling water.
"Yes. That's right. Today marks it. Your training for war. The war against humans."
'...'
"What? Are you insane?!"
"We can't even touch them!"
"They have the powers!"
"WEAKNESS!" his roar cracked against the stone. "Excuses, words, weakness! The same weakness that stuck your beloved on the chopping block! Will you hide despite the lives lost, or will you fight? They always say they'd want you to live in peace, but they wouldn't. They'd want to have lived themselves. They'd want you to save them, and you still can. Not their bloodied bodies, but their pride. Their legacy. Their name, and yours."
I should have shut my ears. Instead I leaned in. Addicted to the torture. To save their name, I had shed the name Elias, and become Sune. What if this was why?
"So will you fight? Or be removed from the city?"
'Removed?'
"Hah!" He chuckled at the silence "What else did you people think Hengeist was made for? To brew our war under the mountains, where the likes of the Gale King's lightning cannot strike us, where the Pyro Dynast cannot burn us. It is for you. All for you. So, what'll it be?"
We knew the answer, we waited for nothing. And then we roared. Roaring up to the ceiling, howling like beasts unchained.
So marked the curse of Hengeist, so too I became nothing more than a drop of blood in a red ocean. He had spoken to me while speaking to all because our souls were all the same, and soon they would all be lost in it's torrent.