Chereads / The Burdens of the Lost / Chapter 14 - XIII

Chapter 14 - XIII

"Help… me…"

A faint cry held no say in the confines of the burning village. A young child wakes up to the smell of smoke and yelling. He gets up quickly and alerts his mother to take his sister and run. The mother confused takes the bare necessities and her sleeping daughter away from the village.

"Why," she keeps mumbling to herself in her head. "What is going on?"

As the daughter wakes up, she asks her mother where her brother is. With a desperate smile, the mother answers that her brother went to defend his family on the front lines.

"Will we see him again Mommy?" the innocent daughter asks her mother.

"Maybe soon, sweetie," the mother says trying to keep her daughter innocent of the horrors of humanity. "We must go far away from here; very bad people are around here."

As the mother looks around, she dodges an arrow marked for her daughter's head. She looks in the distance to see her son scrambling to her location. As the child runs over to her location, he hears his mother yell. Before he could even stop, he looks to see his mother faintly smiling.

"Don't… let her watch," she says as she gives him his sister to block her vision. "I'm sorry… I thought this village was safer than the rest of them. I couldn't… even think that one through."

"It's not your fault, Mom!" he struggles to say. "You did what you had to for us, your children! Don't leave us here by ourselves!"

"Don't worry my son, you will be a great warrior one day…" The last words his mother said to him in her dying breath. The poor child couldn't keep his emotions under control as magical essence began to form around him.

The army feels a strange extraction coming from the location of the essence surge and is drawn to its immense power.

Army Grunt 1: "I think we found our target, Sergeant."

Army Sergeant (to the surrounding troops): "We go in there and capture our target!"

Army Troops: "Sir! Yes Sir!"

As the child senses the troops and archers, He lays his sister down in a well-hidden bush, not wanting her to see the bloodshed of this invasion. As the troops arrive, one by one they go down to the young child's fury. He raised his hand and forced the archers to come down from their location and decapitate all of them. As the army's confidence grew to fear, they were swiftly executed for the death of the child's mother.

The child picks up his sister and walks out of the forest, awaiting them was none other than the Sin of Greed, Mammon.

Mammon: "Did your mother make it?"

Young Child: "She… She… sacrificed herself to save my life."

The child couldn't help but cry. Mammon looks at the child, rage filled his body.

Mammon: "You were supposed to be the sacrifice! Why did you go back?"

Mammon takes out a gun, blinded by the rage of his own wife's death. He takes the daughter away from him.

Mammon: "I'll raise Arisa. Every demon knows that the mother and daughter are the most important members of the family. Now get out of my face permanently Akumo Arino."

Arino doesn't have to react as the gunshot is fired. Arisa wakes up and looks at her brother's lifeless body. She starts to kick and squirm, but her father's grip is too strong.

Mammon: "Your brother died a valiant death, but it wasn't enough."

Arisa couldn't look at her father the same way again. She knew the truth, all along.