I find myself waking up in a field of sunflowers. The sky above me is a piercing blue and I'm startled over the fact that there were two suns instead of the usual one that I was used to.
"What the hell? Where am I?" I groggily choke out, my throat feeling like sandpaper.
As if I had the mother of all hangovers, I struggled to sit up over the pounding headache that I had. But as I raise my hands up to shield my eyes from the eye-numbing sunlight, I notice that my hands don't look like mine. My eyes trail down from my palms to my arms then my shoulders– who the hell's body is this!? Instead of my usual skin tone, I was instead a sort of tanned amber, and all over my skin were webs of scars and stitches that ran up and down my entire body. I was a lot more muscular than I normally was, and thankfully, I was wearing a pair of shorts; again, not mine either.
What was the strangest thing of it all was the fact that I didn't feel all too shocked over this. I felt rather calm actually, almost apathetic to it. It felt odd, I should be experiencing a whole array of emotions over what was happening to me; but it was as if my body and my mind had a disconnect over it.
I put my hand over my chest, and noticed that instead of a heartbeat; I instead felt a low hum. Whatever I was, whoever I was, I don't think I'm Human anymore.
Suddenly, I heard some rustling from the thicket of sunflower stalks; then came two voices.
"Brother, did we lose them?" It sounded like a little girl's voice, she sounded scared.
"I don't know, but I do know that Humans don't like going through the Suflock; it scares them. At least that's what Papa used to say." And the other voice sounded like an older boy.
Curious, I shuffled up from where I was and crept up to the edge of the Sunflowers to listen in a little better. But as I did, I stepped over something hard and split it in two; it looked like an old bone.
"Wait, did you hear that!? Brother they're here!" The younger girl cried.
"That isn't possible, they should be chasing us from the south. That noise came from–"
Two children dressed in rags came through and tumbled into the clearing that I was in. The younger girl had long light pink hair with a single horn that adorned her forehead, while the older boy had a buzz cut with an identical horn. They gawked at me, scared stiff over my presence; like deer caught in headlights.
"Yo." I said, giving a friendly wave.
The girl gave a choked wheezy scream as she fell flat onto her butt, pointing right at me.
"A-A-A Durga! B-Brother, we're c-c-c-cursed!!!" She scrambled over to where her brother was and curled up into a fetal position behind his legs.
The older boy said nothing and instead held up his malnourished fists; he was assuming a battle stance.
"Whether it's a Durga or a Human, I won't let you lay a hand on my sister!" Even though he was obviously scared witless, the older boy steeled his nerves as he glared at me with a ferocious fighting spirit.
"Woah, woah, easy there. I'm not going to hurt you." I said as I scratched my head.
"B-Brother, it's a talking Durga… we're extremely c-c-cursed!" The younger girl wailed as she dug her head further into her safety cocoon.
The older boy gritted his teeth as he howled a fierce battle cry. Then, possessed by his need to protect his sister, he began to make a mad dash at me.
I watched him come straight at me and proceed to let loose a haymaker aimed right at my chest.
But as soon as his fist made contact, he cried out in pain; he had hurt his fist hitting me. Likely a result of him being as malnourished as he looked.
He sank to his knees as he hugged his hurt hand; glaring up at me.
"Kill me if you have to, but please, don't kill my sister." He pleaded. He looked like he wanted to cry, but his pride didn't let him.
I kneeled down to where he was and stared at where he was hiding his hand. He only glared at me as I studied him.
"Look, I think you've got the wrong idea. I just woke up here like a minute ago, and I have no idea what's going on." I explained.
The boy's glare momentarily softened, but it immediately reignited with rage as we all heard some voices come from the field.
"Where are those runts? How the hell did they escape from the cages?" A husky-sounding man spoke.
"It was Lucille, she pitied the girl and let her keep the bones to eat in the stew. The boy had fashioned a pick with it and escaped that way." Another man spoke.
"Once we catch them, kill the boy and make sure to get his sister to watch; that'll break her spirit. Now let's hurry, I hate being amongst Suflock." The huskier sounding man commanded.
I looked over back to the two kids and saw that they looked ghostly pale; they must be the two escapees.
"You two have to get out of here, do you know where to go from here?" I whispered to the boy.
He looked at me quizzically.
"You're a Durga, why're you trying to help us?" He spat out.
"For the last time, I'm not a Durga– I don't even know what that is." I got up from kneeling down, the party of men was close.
"We were chasing the suns." The younger girl finally spoke up, she was peeking her head out of her curl.
"Chasing the suns? You mean west? Okay, then let's head west." I lent a hand to the boy, waiting for him to grab it.
But he refused it, and instead got up from where he was.
"I don't need any help." He hissed.
"And you're not coming with us either, whatever you are." He said as he returned to where his sister was at.
"Found you runts." A husky man with a belly the size of a pumpkin said as he stepped into the clearing. Behind him were two others, they were carrying short swords.
"Damn you, Vask!" The boy screamed at the leader of the three, but the man only gave a cruel grin in return.
"Sir, there's someone else here." One of the men said as he pointed at me, all three collectively raised their swords.
"Who in the names of Solus and Solaster are you?" The husky man hissed as he pointed his sword at me.
"Me? I'm—...?" Wait, what was my name again?
"Speak, demon, his lord Vask has asked you!" One of the men, who I now assume to be one of Vask's guards, shouted as he took one step closer toward me.
"Whatever his name is, it doesn't matter. Kill him along with the boy. And Hennick, don't hurt the girl; she'll lose value" Already bored with my presence, Vask looked away from me and at the two kids. If I didn't do something now, we would all be dead.
Hennick, the guard on Vask's left, began to march over to where the two kids were. The young boy tried to assume his battle stance again, but cried out in pain as he moved his injured hand; all he could do now was shield his sister.
I'm not a fighter, and I've just met these kids– but, I couldn't live with myself if I were to let something happen to them.
I dashed forward from where I was, and in what felt like a split second, I was already next to the guard named Hennick. He looked at me, bewildered over my sudden appearance, and tried to make a wild slash at me with his short sword.
It felt like time had slowed down, or rather, I had sped up, as I watched his sword travel its arc in the air and fly harmlessly over my head as I dodged. Hennick's eyes watched me with disbelief in this slow-motion state, and I in return, readied a counter punch.
Think, it's like in the movies; use your hips, not your arms.
I let my right fist fly aiming directly at Hennick's exposed face; I was going to hit his nose.
But, as I did– there was no nose anymore. Rather, there wasn't a Hennick's face to speak of either.
The instant my fist's knuckle made contact with his nose, Hennick's head evaporated into a fine red mist. And like a shockwave, the inertia of my punch sent his headless corpse flying into the sunflower thicket behind him; his body disappearing into the tall stalks.
"What." I was too stunned to process what had just happened as I dumbly looked at my bloodied fist.
"Yaghh!" Behind me, the other guard had readied a sneak attack on me the instant my sped-up state had ended.
I felt his blade connect with my left shoulder, but instead of hearing flesh tearing; the sword shattered in its place.
The guard lost his balance as the sword broke in his hand, causing him to violently tumble forward and fall hard flat onto his face. Vask who was standing at the edge of the clearing watching all of this unfold, gawked dumbfounded over what had just happened.
"H-Hennick? Yoril?" He called out for their names, but Yoril wasn't moving from where he had faceplanted into the ground; he had likely knocked himself out from the fall. And, well, Hennick was most certainly dead.
"Are you two okay?" I turned my head away and asked the kids, but they were stricken mute over the horror that they had witnessed from my surprising power; not that I could blame them. But they did give me a weak nod as they stared at me as if I were some force of nature unfolding before them.
"Now for you— oh." But as I turned my head back to where Vask was, he was gone. I could hear his labored breathing get quieter and quieter as he ran away back into the fields.
We were now left alone in the clearing, with only Yoril who was unconscious on the ground. The boy stared at his body, he looked conflicted.
"Are you going to kill him too?" He asked me, but it felt more as though he was hoping I would anyway.
"I don't know. I don't even know how I feel about killing that man just now." I said as I looked at my bloodied fist.
My entire body was still, even my breathing was calm. What the hell am I if I don't even feel a shred of remorse after killing a man?
Before I could answer him, the boy instead walked over to where the man was and grabbed a shard of the broken sword from the ground. He crouched down to where his neck was, and muttered something under his breath. Once he was done, he slid the shard into the man's throat as a spring of blood gushed out from the cut.
He threw the shard away, he looked disgusted, but immediately untensed his body as he fell to his knees; he had finally run out of nerve.
"Brother!" The girl crawled over to the boy and hugged him. They both began to cry in each other's arms.
I said nothing as I looked away, staring off over at the top of the field of sunflowers.
I'm in a world where children kill men; a world of twin suns.