"So, my name's Drail and, as you already know, I've got a bit of a gift. More of a talent really. But I'll start at the beginning, like you said. To when I first discovered my abilities.
As a kid, around eight, I already had a knack for the slingshot and things like that. Whatever toys I touched, whatever games I played, I almost mastered them right away. It was because of this that no one played with me. I was too good. I remember playing the ring toss with a few of the neighbourhood kids, and from the moment I touched the koeil shoe (my family was from a long lineage of koeil farmers) I could throw that thing better than any of the pros in the village, or even the surrounding ones.
When I succeeded everything I did, without fail, I became lonely. No one to play with. I couldn't even make friends. They'd all become jealous at one point or another. So one day I went out of the village gates for a little walk. I thought, hey, if I couldn't make any human friends, might as well try to make friends with the animals that lived in the long grasses of the plains. That's where I met Pooky. Stupid name, I know, but I was young. He was a dog, a normal dog, at least to me. He became my best friend. Everyday I'd sneak out of the village to play with him. He used to lick my face all over with his little tongue and he'd... Oh right, sure, I'll continue with the important stuff.
Anyway, one day when I went out to play, he spotted a mouse and chased after it. I ran after him, worried that a grass lion would eat him or something. Eventually he caught it, but when we started to turn back, out of nowhere, these two men jumped out from behind a bush and whacked me in the head.
I woke up in a dungeon of sorts. Grey. Smelly. Bloody. You know the type. It was small with an iron door that had grates that I could see through. I now regret ever looking out of that cell. Pookie was dead. I watched as two men, different ones, dragged the hairless dog-shaped clump of meat through a pool of blood towards the spitfire. His stomach was cut open. In the table next to the bloody mess, beside a bunch of rusty, bloodied torture tools, was a ring. This big gold ring with blue gems around it. I didn't know any better back then so I didn't realize that they had killed him for that ring. All I could do for the next few hours was cry, vomit and piss myself in fear in a corner as the sweet, smoky smell of Pooky wafted into my prison.
After the thugs had lunched, about four or five of them, they all lay down to nap. All except one. I remember this part VERY clearly. A burly voice, which was talking nonstop to his comrades, loudly announced that he was sick and tired of my wailing. That they should've killed me instead. When one of the group tried to reason with him, he went silent, but then announced something else: he would give me, the snot nosed brat, something real to cry about. I might have been young, but I knew what that meant. When I was about six, a raiding party from the city gangs stopped in my village. My mother didn't escape unscathed. I barely remember it, I guess my mind blocked it out, but I do remember listening the never ending, muffled crying from behind the thin walls of the secret compartment I was hiding in.
People are sick.
Anyway, this guy drunkenly stumbled to the door, cheered along by his buddies. I cringed. I desperately pushed against the wall of the trap I now found myself caught it, almost hoping to escape through them if I pushed hard enough, praying for my life. But the cold stone walls offered no sympathy. Finally he threw his weight against the cell door, cursing at me and throwing insults while he fumbled with his keys. I was no longer scared. I no longer shook. The urine in my bladder no longer came out. It was a moment of clarity, if I do say so myself. I didn't struggle. I didn't pray. No gods would come to my aid. I accepted my coming pain, and my coming loss of innocence.
He threw open the heavy iron door, narrowly missing me. I looked him straight in the eye, the one that was focusing on me. The other flailed in its socket wildly. As the fat, hairy, sweat stained bastard plodded closer I could smell the beer, the sweat, and Pookie. I didn't care. He leaned closer, bending forward, his face right in front of mine, his saliva splashing onto my chest.
"Ready to 'ave sum fun, kiddie?"
He just stood there, staring me down, awaiting my answer. I didn't plan on giving him the satisfaction. Suddenly I felt, rather than heard, I sharp clunk in the wall beside me. I looked over my shoulder. The arrow was still quivering.
"Ge' on wi' i' already, ya' big, 'airy beast. We wanna see tha' show 'lready!"
The dungeon echoed with laughter.
The man whipped his head back, slapping me in the face with his dirty, wet hair.
"Ahm goin', ahm goin'" he shouted back.
He turned his attention back to me. But my attention wasn't on him. It was on the arrow. Somehow, it called to me. It whispered. It whispered of the freedom of flight, the escape from the quiver. The speed of death.
I felt a huge, firm hand push against my chest. I heard a high pitched sound of tiny metal teeth unclamping. I saw none of it. The arrow needed me. I needed the arrow. The arrow would protect me. It would help me protect myself.
Without a second thought, I grabbed it.
The world went grey. The man stopped mid-motion. His spittle hung in mid-air. The arrow now spoke clearly. I knew what I had to do. The arrow guided my hand that still clasped it towards the man's throat as I effortlessly wrenched it free from the stone, all the while telling me its deepest secrets. I could see it all in the grey. The infinite ways that these foul degenerates could meet their demise. By my hand. By my arrow.
I felt the resistance of his flesh, but it did nothing to stop me. I stood up, avoiding his falling weight. The arrow flew from my hand, resting between the eyes of a skinny drunkard. I couldn't feel my body, but I could feel that I leapt. That one leap took me straight to my arrow, a part of my soul. I couldn't spend a second apart from it. Bone couldn't hold my arrow from the freedom it deserved, as I methodically and calmly slashed and stabbed at the remaining bags of man-shaped flesh, warm blood coating my arms, chest and face. I granted one last glance to Pookie’s remains. Retribution.
When the dungeon stood still, no noise escaping the atmosphere of death, I let go of the arrow. I thanked it. I let it go, because it was my friend. It deserved more than to be trapped by me. It got the freedom it desired, amongst a blood bath.
Dazed, I escape the dungeon and wandered for a few days, not eating or sleeping, until I found my way to the city. A couple of years later, you found me, among the trash and decaying leftovers that I called home."
The woman looked at Drail, eyes wide in awe, thankful that the cheap wooden desk separated him from her.
"W-well now," she said hesitantly, adjusting her thick rimmed glasses, wishing that she could shrink away into her official white uniform. “That certainly was... Interesting. I can see right away that you will have a very...um... special place here in the Advanced Arms Innovators family."
"Will I be given food and shelter?"
"O-of course. Nothing less for our newest... family member."
"Good." The thin teenaged boy flashed a smile that seemed to exceed the frame of his face. A smile that seemed to show the emotions of a demon. And then it was gone. And so was he.
The woman sighed in exhaustion and relief, wiping away the cold sweat that had formed on her brow. "That boy," she thought aloud. "That poor tortured boy..." She shivered "is the devil."749Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7nt2bUHk6V
