The moon was visible in the sky.
The darkness of the night sky reached every corner of the EverMoon Kingdom, except for one city in the center of the kingdom.
Even within the dark, the city glowed brightly.
A beautiful light green color that reached the clouds and made the entire city as bright as day.
Emerald City.
The biggest city in the kingdom, made for tourists and trades.
The laughs of children, the stomping of the feet of someone dancing, and clashing of wooden mugs full of beer can be heard all over the city. And as the children ran outside playing with each other, some ran into a pool of water dripping down the street from out of sight.
The curious children not understanding and not caring, started to play in the water.
As the adults noticed this strange phenomenon happening, they began to run to guards for help.
The guards then brought back the news to the royal family.
The king and Queen of the entire kingdom.
Both the King and Queen knew exactly what was happening and panic started to set in.
The Queen quickly ordered the guards.
"We need to get Calem out of the Kingdom, this is the highest priority, more important than our lives."
And with those words the guards quickly ran to the prince's room.
The prince Calem was studying in the corner of his room unaware of what's happening around him.
The knight spoke.
"Lord Calem, we must leave now, your life is in danger."
Prince Calem shocked and worried replied with fear.
"But mother and father.... What of them?"
But before the knight could respond, a flood of water came rushing into the kingdom.
Almost as big as the kingdom itself, it was so destructively fast buildings flew apart as if it was made of straws.
The chaos and screaming was unrelenting, the green glowing city was covered in red.
this day would go on to be named,
The Death of a Thousand Lights.
And as the children suffocated, and the buildings crushed multiple people and as the currents tore the limbs straight off the bone of anyone unfortunate enough to get hit, the queen watched in horror as her husband was impaled by debris and laying next to her dead.
She stared into his lifeless eyes as if she was waiting for him to look back at her, but he never did. She stared at him traumatized to her core for what seemed like eternity.
Then suddenly a wounded guard pulled her up and carried her towards a secret entrance of the castle. And suddenly the queen was filled with horror with one thought that crossed her mind.
"M-my, Son..." her voiced trembled weakly.
The guard responded,
"Don't worry my queen, the kings guard already responded to us and Calem is being taken cared of, we will meet them in the forest outside the kingdom."
And as the guard carried the queen through emerald city, blood and flesh laid everywhere, buildings and houses flooded and destroyed, and bodies laid everywhere.
As a queen the more she was taken through the city the more she was horrified by what had happened to her kingdom and all the citizens she saw as her children.
Eventually they left the kingdom and had arrived to the outskirts of the now destroyed nation walls and in the forest, she had finally saw her son, he was being carried by the kings guard and he was hurt and bleeding but still conscious.
"My beloved baby Shen." The relief in her voice could be heard from everyone.
Calem could never understand why she always called him shen but he never complained.
As she ran to him and held him in her arms she realized how big he's gotten, she still just thought of him as the dorky baby she loved but now holding his hands in hers she realized how they were now even larger than hers.
Thinking about how much he has grown with her, and the times she used to hold him as a baby, a feeling started to well up inside her stomach.
Her vision started to get blurred and she could feel her eyes becoming more and more wet.
She had to stay strong for her child, everything she was feeling she started to push everything deep down and ignore her emotions.
As she held onto her son, getting ready to let go knowing she could never see him again, suddenly her grip got tighter and her hand wouldn't let her son leave.
At that point all of her suppressed emotions, all of the decisions she made that she kept telling herself she was ok with because it was for the safety of her child, started coming to the surface. Looking at her child finally letting herself understand what it meant to let her child go.
And as hard as she tried to fight it, all of her strength couldn't stop the well of tears that would pour out of her eyes.
And as the tears kept flowing the more her chest would hurt and the more she held on to her child. She needs to let go, she wants him to live a full life, but the pain of knowing this is her final moments with him was too much, even for the queen of a nation.
And in that moment the silent tears turned into chest aching screams, her pain at this point was unbearable and she couldn't stand it.
She had been queen her entire life and the last 10 years she have never cried, she never believed that anything worse could happen to her and nothing could bring her to tears ever again.
Evidently she was terribly wrong.
And as she was wallowing in her pain, she thought to herself that this was as bad as it could get.
But as if fate was mocking her, as soon as she had that thought her child then began to hug her trying to comfort her.
This broke her heart even more and she couldn't take it anymore, she doesn't- no she CAN'T let her child go, and she held onto her child with all the strength she had in her.
As she held onto him the rustling of the grass could be heard in the distance, and as it got closer the cries of the horses could be heard as well.
"My Queen, we have to go.... I- I believe we're out of time."
The guard announced hurriedly.
The guard then proceeded to drag the queen away from Calem, the Kings guard grabbed Calem and began to carry him out of sight.
And as the queen was carried away in a different direction all she could do was watch as her son disappeared in the horizon, illuminated by the darkness of the night.
As the knight ran with her in his arms he suddenly came to a stop, and a single dark, disturbed voice reached out from the pit of darkness.
It only said a single word.
Retribution.