Two months earlier
Conall Geary raked his wife's vegetable garden, removing weeds and dead plants so she could plant again in the winter. The Geary barn was a few yards to his left, the house was behind him. On all other sides, all you could see was trees beyond a small field that the Geary's used mostly for potatoes. The Geary farm was placed in the center of a six-acre clearing in the middle of a forest on the borders of the Lirault city limits. Conall was just clearing the last of the dead plants when a movement to his right caught his peripheral vision. He didn't look to see what it was, simply assumed it to be a bear. He calmly leaned the rake against the short fence that ringed the garden and picked up the pre-loaded shotgun he'd set down just in case. He slowly turned to face the bear, holding the gun up to shooting position.
To Conall's surprise, he did not see a bear. He lowered his weapon, then dropped it, climbing spryly over the short fence and rushing toward the man who had just stumbled out of the woods.
The man's left leg was covered in blood, thin leather armor that once had been polished now dull and caked with dirt and blood, tears flecking the edges. He limped, which was more of a stumble, and just as Conall was about to reach him, he tripped on a rock and face-planted in the dirt.
* * *
My eyes seemed glued shut as I became conscious again. I struggled for a few minutes before they finally fluttered open, but my eyelids would only open halfway. Everything was blurry, simple shapes, dark and light. I felt something on my bottom lip, and my mouth opened, letting in a gulp of water. I swallowed, a little water spilling onto my chin. A round, gentle face came into focus for a moment, and something wiped my face dry, then all went dark.
* * *
My eyes fluttered open again. It seemed like a second had passed but it had been a day. I stared at the ceiling for a while longer, then moved my head to the right. A living room. To the left, the back of a couch. I looked down at my body. I had on my trousers, the left leg torn off from the thigh. There was a bloody bandage around my knee and a slightly more tidy one around my torso.
I blinked hard to get rid of the sleep in my eyes and attempted to sit up. I pushed up from the couch and just as I reached the sitting position, my knee popped and pain shot up my thigh. I fell back, letting out a stifled yelp. I lay there motionless for fear of hurting myself again.
After a while when no one came into the room, I swung my good leg down off the couch and sat up halfway, grabbing the fabric of my trousers to move the bad leg. I took a deep breath and stood, keeping my bad leg off the floor. I hopped over to an open doorway through which I could see a kitchen, leaning on various pieces of furniture and the walls for balance. I sat at the kitchen table, leaning back and resting my leg as much as possible.
* * *
They said I hit my head and forgot. I would soon learn this was not true, but I believed them. They had always wanted a child, but the old woman had been infertile, and once they found a child to adopt, they were too old for their adoption registry to be permitted. So they had taken me in, and I thought that was who I was: their son.
* * *
Two years later
The sunlight illuminated the small, cozy attic room of the farmhouse, filtered through the light curtains and stirring me gently awake. My mind, however, was in a different place.
I dreamt of a high-end town, a small neighborhood of quaint, two-story houses and happy new families. Something was familiar, I couldn't place it. The street? A house? A face? Is this a memory? No, I would know if it were. What was so familiar? I heard a voice, female, young. And... was that... sadness? She called my name.
My eyes opened back into reality. My mother, calling me for breakfast. The old woman was plump and cheerful, warm, loving, altogether pleasant. But something didn't feel right. Like I didn't belong. But this had been my life since I could remember. Early breakfast, farm work, lunch, farm work, dinner, bed.
After I ate, I limped out to the barn to water the horse and mule. Father was leaving for town to sell half of our potato harvest, the rest would go into our personal stores for winter.
The barn door was a crack open already, which was odd since I had locked it the night before. I figured father was already inside so I shrugged it off. Once inside, I was met with the familiar stuffy, moist smell of horse, but the lamps were dark. Father would've turned them on to do his work. I started to worry we'd had a thief the night before, but I would soon find that it was no thief.
"Jon?" I heard father call from outside the barn. Before I could respond, I was on the ground, an arm wrapped around my neck in a choke-hold. Father heard me cry out and rushed into the barn, jumping on the attacker and beating him with a shovel. The man released his grip and I scrambled away, coughing violently, struggling to regain my breath.
A brawny man lay on the filthy dirt floor of the barn. I was bent over, coughing my lungs out. I soon collapsed to a kneel as my bad knee gave out. It had healed for the most part, but I would never shake the limp. I waved Father away as he offered to help me up.
He's so familiar, like an old friend, I thought. Or an enemy. I started to ask who the man was, but Father cut me off.
"Your mother and I have something to tell you, once you're okay," he said. Father and I exited the barn, only to see five more men step in front of us. We stared each other down for a few moments before three of them lunged at me, the other two taking on Father.
They were on top of me, straddling me and pounding my face. I felt the cartilage of my nose crack and I yelped, reaching my hands up to soften the blows to my face.
I felt hot blood drip down the sides of my face, forming a pool in the dirt. The other two men were kicking at my side as the man on top of me pulled a knife out of his belt, pushing it toward my throat. I held his wrists, pushing them away from me with all the strength I had. One of the men started kicking at my head, probably attempting to knock me out. His boot hit my ear and it began to ring.
The kicking stopped, but I didn't notice. I was too busy trying not to get my throat cut. I heard a bang and the pushing suddenly let up, my arms dropping in exhaustion. I turned my head to see my father, a smoking shotgun in hand.
My ear continued to ring and an image flashed in my mind of a large, barren field full of explosions and dust, yelling and blood. A lot of blood. My knee felt a sudden stab of pain and I flinched back into the real world.
"Traitor," one of the men choked through gritted teeth. He coughed blood, the spray flying through the air as the wound in his chest slowly killed him. His breath then left his mouth and he lay still.
I stood, wiping blood from my own mouth.