NARRATIVE BREAKDOWN
Narrative Focus
The story was designed as a slow-burn atmospheric narrative, prioritizing emotional unease, symbolic imagery and progressive worldbuilding over direct exposition.
Despite the fantasy setting, it was decided to focus on raw, concrete facts to create a stark contrast in which the genre serves merely as a backdrop for emotionally charged and morally ambiguous events
Writing Style
The prose style is concrete and cinematic, reminiscent of a diary, with the protagonist recounting the events in the first person. This allows the reader to fully immerse themselves in the events and the chosen perspective, helping them to fully understand the powerful emotions that drove the character’s actions.
Thematic Core
The story explores themes of poverty, survival, the morality of evil, revenge, and, ultimately, redemption. Is it possible to find peace after a life of hardship and poor choices?
INCIPIT
I have few memories of my childhood. I was born in a small village on the edge of Oas, down in the south, not far from the mountains.
My mother was a prostitute, one of many. I don't think she knew who my father was, but it didn't matter much. It could have been no one or it could have been everyone, it would have made no difference.
I grew up listening her stories. She often told me about the old days when her grandparents were not born yet. She said that our home had been a fertile place, a land full of trees where wheat grew prosperous and the same color as gold. Merchant caravans brought spices and wonders from the East, leaving again laden with meats, flours and hides. We were not rich people even then, but no one had ever lacked a roof over their heads, a job in the morning and a hot meal in the evening.
However, war takes away many things. Now the village stands near a shadowy area. Where magic is lacking, the land dies. Crops decline and trees wither. What people are left with is prostitution and banditry.
My mother had never wished for me a life of banditry. What mother would want that? But when I was fifteen a customer's sword took her and everything she would have wanted away. I also crossed him, the bastard. He passed me on his way out of the village, where his cronies were waiting for him. He still smelled of sweat and blood. Fortunately at that moment I could not know who he was, what he had done, otherwise I would have jumped at his neck at that same moment. Getting myself killed in turn.
By the time I got home a small crowd had gathered at the entrance. Seeing me coming, Jolian, my mother's best friend, stood in front of me. Tears ran down her face, her eyes were red and swollen. She hugged me tightly and told me not to come in. I think even then I knew perfectly well what had happened, but I had to see it with my own eyes. I had to make it real. I moved her and entered what had been my home only that morning.
Blood had soaked the bed, falling back onto the floor, creating a red puddle that was still slowly spreading. She was lying in a strange, almost grotesque position. I remember thinking that nothing alive could ever assume that posture. I walked over to her and knelt down, heedless of the blood soaking my knees. I took her hand and uncovered her face. I expected to find there a grimace of fear, pain, or perhaps anger. Instead what I read was only endless sadness. I cried all my tears that morning.
I buried her the same day and never returned to that village.
BREAKING POINT
That's when it happened. All the noises, the shouting, the clashing of swords, died down. Time seemed to stand still or perhaps flow, but not for me. That instant was interminable, the longest of my life. I had seen him only once, for a few seconds, and now he was in front of me again. I could not be wrong, it was impossible, I would not forget that face for the rest of my existence. My mother's killer was in front of me, just a few meters away.
Right. In front. Of me. In his fine armor with the symbols of the lord of the region. He swung his sword furiously slicing through the flesh of my defenseless comrades, his face deformed by a deep grin and the splashes of still-warm blood.
It seemed to me that my scream ripped through the air and the fury of battle. I hurled myself at my target with all the speed I was capable of. He realized what was happening only at the last moment, when it was too late. Forcefully I tackled him at the waist by throwing myself with my whole body. He got off balance and before anyone could do anything, we both fell down the ravine.
I don't know how long the flight lasted; at one point I lost consciousness. I remember hitting the rocks so many times that I thought my body would shatter into hundreds of pieces. Instead, when I woke up I had reached the ground, whole. I could feel the blood sliding down my face, down my arms, everywhere. There wasn't a bone in my body that didn't hurt, but I was whole. I don't know how to explain it. I never relied on the gods; maybe it was simple luck. Certainly that day the dice were on my side. I pulled myself up with effort, suppressing the pain with will. My vision was slightly blurred and I felt lacking, but I could hold myself up.
I looked for him nearby; I knew he was there. He could not be far away. It was hard for me to stay focused; my mind longed to give in to oblivion. But I could not stop right then. I couldn't.
A gasp. Something moaned not far away. It only took me a moment to spot two feet sticking out from behind the rock. My legs were shaking and could have given out at any moment, but I braced myself. I didn't want him to run away, I didn't want him to vanish into thin air again. However, when I reached him I realized that there was no danger. If I had been lucky in the fall, the same could not be said of him. His legs were bent unnaturally, from the left side I could clearly see the bone that had torn through the flesh sticking out at knee level. Also, somehow, the fellow had managed to fall on his own sword, which now pierced his throat from side to side.
But he was alive. He was still alive. He was gasping, red rivulets were gushing from his wounds, but he was stubbornly not dying. When I looked at him his eyes planted themselves in mine. They were green eyes, bloodshot with anger and hatred. I had often thought about what I would do that day, the day I would meet him. What I would have said to him, how I would have confronted him, how I would have humiliated him before plunging my sword into his belly ripping his guts open. I wanted him to know who I was and I wanted him to know why he was dying. Instead he was already there, broken, defeated, already dying. And there was no more time.
I staggered closer. I read in his eyes a desire to fight back, but he couldn't. He wasn't going anywhere. I fell to my knees near his head. I stared at him. He stared back at me. I could have stood there, I could have simply waited, and in a short time I would have seen him fade away in front of me. But that was not enough for me. It was not enough. I took his face in my hands. And calmly, little by little, without hesitation, I sank my thumbs into his eyes. It had to be slow, it had to be excruciating. I wanted him to know what was happening, I wanted him to feel the pain tearing at his life little by little. He tried to cry out, but what came out was only a gasp choked by the streams of blood surging from his throat. He trembled violently, I don't even know for how many seconds. Finally I sank my fingers down to the knuckles. And he didn't move anymore.
I fell backward and fainted.
