Two Months Later
Iago yawned and slowly reached for his bag, his arm felt heavy.
¨Lenny, I can't find my bag!¨ Iago shouted, giving up on his search for his bag. Iago heard Lenny sit up.
¨Your bag is right next to you... you just pushed it towards your feet last night. Can you see anything anymore?¨
¨If I could... ugh. No. No, I can't see worth anything and I'm out of my meds... just shut up"
Iago dug in his bag praying for a full vial to have somehow shown up. Empty. Empty. Empty. All Empty. They were all gone, he had even been trying to space them out. He dug and dug in the bag frantically grabbing and shaking the vials, none with a single drop of liquid in them.
¨Iago?" Lenny set her hand on his shoulder.
¨You alright?¨Her voice was soft, it was full of pity.
Shaking her hand off his shoulder he responded.
¨I need to get you home, I'll be fine.¨
¨You've been saying that for months, and you've barely been able to walk by yourself for nearly a month now!¨ Lenny snapped.
Annoyed, Iago crawled around until he found a tree and pulled himself up. He panted already out of breath, those vials saved him from terrible injuries just to give him a worse condition and take his vision.
"For the last time, I'm fine!" Iago protested.
Iago reached around the tree until he found a thick branch and tried to break it off. He heard Lenny walk over and with an annoyed grunt she helped him break off the branch. Iago scraped off the smaller branches with a pocket knife Lenny had brought. By the time he was finished Lenny had already packed up their camp.
They set out walking, both weighed down by heavy bags. Iago stayed behind Lenny relying on his metal crutch and the branch to work as proper crutches. It was hard keeping track of the time in this forest but it must have been about three months. Iago knew his thin hair now passed his shoulders. Despite both of them wiping themselves off with cloths, normally any water they found had to be kept for drinking, not bathing, luckily for food mushrooms were plentiful.
Iago listened carefully to the woods for the slightest change, he unlike Lenny knew these forests were inhabited. So far he swore he heard some footsteps but nothing had come from them. All this time in the woods he awaited the moment where something would come for him. He was scared once again he'd be defenseless out in these woods, that it would be his fault someone he loved would die out here, again.
He may have traded stolen animals for blue blood, and for his runes, but as he responded to himself. "He was just doing what he needed to survive, and to keep Lenny safe."
He couldn't lose Lenny, his parents were already gone because of him, that day he wouldn't forget...
Had it really been only Four years? Four years since his parents agreed what would man him up, and straighten him out, would be to take him outside of the walls for what was supposed to be a short walk.
Four Years Ago
Iago was dragged by his arm under the cover of the stars, his mother kept behind him so he wouldn't try to run and his father pulling him along.
"Please Papa, Master Oakman says there are monsters out there!" Iago sobbed, his father replying coldly.
"Shut up, this is happening no matter what that rich loon says."
Iago was quiet the rest of the walk from their house to the church besides for the occasional sniffle. They walked in and went into a back room, there was a dusty hatch on the floor. Iago was forced down the hatch and his parents followed after him. The tunnel they walked looked ready to cave at any moment. Iago kept his eyes closed as he walked through cobweb after cobweb.
At the end of the long tunnel, a ladder led up to another hatch. After clambering through Iago fell over onto the hard dirt. His parents climbed out of the hatch far more gracefully, this time it was his mother to yank him up and scold him.
"Useless lump, why can't you even handle something like the tunnel?"
They kept walking, Iago trying to keep track of where they were but everything looked the same. A twig snapped somewhere in front of them, Iago slowed down cautiously. Another snap and then a thud finally made Mr. and Mrs.Brown slow down to look around.
Iago shouted as he saw a glint of yellow from a tree but It was already too late. A grey-skinned woman leaped from the trees onto his mother, claws slicing through Mrs.Brown like a hot knife through butter. Her tail jabbed his father causing Mr.Brown to fall to his knees staring as if in awe at the grey-skinned woman tearing his wife to shreds.
Iago knew what this was. He had studied the remains of one of them with Master Oakman. A Succubus, female counterpart to an Incubus originating from The Second Realm. The remains he studied must have been from her pride, probably her sister or cousin.
Iago heard the gut-wrenching screams of his parents. He wouldn't look up; he sat on the ground, he wanted to stop her but he knew he couldn't, she was faster, stronger and more skilled so instead, he hung his head facing the ground praying to the spirits for her to pass him. She did not. Iago felt himself be lifted off the ground and thrown into a tree a loud crack coming from his back than his legs as he hit the ground again. He looked up at the woman, her amber eyes glaring at him with more hatred than he thought could be possible.
¨Human rats take my sister! The rats will die!¨ The woman spoke with a thick accent making it hard for Iago to understand.
Iago heard his parent's voice echo as he slipped from consciousness.
The voices echoed beating off the sides of Iago's head.
¨You Failure! Why couldn't you just read from a book? Now you've got us killed!¨
"You little rat! The spirits cursed us with your birth!"
"I'd rather have no son than you!"
"Why'd we even keep you?"