Chapter 2: August The Survivor
Year 0001, Month IX: The Imperium
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August Rises
The sun had risen high in the sky by the time I finally mustered the strength to crawl out from the shade of the lone oak that had sheltered me through the night. Its ancient branches had been my only guardian against the elements and predators that prowled in darkness. My lips were cracked and parched, splitting with every slight movement, and my body felt frail and weak from days without sustenance. Every twitch sent lightning bolts of pain through my frame, my bones aching as though they were brittle twigs barely holding together a broken vessel. But I had no choice—I had to move or perish here like the others.
Dragging myself forward inch by excruciating inch, I passed by the decaying corpses of those I had once called family. Their lifeless forms lay twisted in unnatural angles, expressions of terror forever frozen on their faces. The stench of death hung heavy in the air like a putrid blanket, but I barely reacted anymore. I had no tears left to shed, no grief left to express. My mind had narrowed to a singular, primal focus: survival. I forced myself onward, fingernails digging into the soil as I inched toward what remained of our home, desperately hoping that those wretched Imperial soldiers who had raided our village had overlooked our hidden root cellar.
It had been the wisdom of our ancestors to construct such a concealed storage space generations ago. It was almost as if they had foreseen a time such as this—a time of bloodshed, of senseless loss, of desperate clinging to life. I held onto that thought, to the foresight of those who came before me, as I pressed forward through the agony. The pain was unbearable, every breath labored and shallow, every inch gained a small victory against death itself. My teeth clenched until my jaw ached, my fingers digging into the dirt until they bled as I finally reached the hidden compartment beneath the scorched floorboards of what was once our kitchen.
With what little strength remained in my battered body, I rolled onto the trapdoor and slammed my fist against the secret latch. The door gave way, and I tumbled into the darkness below, my body slamming against the earthen floor with a dull thud that knocked what little air I had from my lungs. A groan of pain escaped my lips, raw and broken.
"Argh..."
I lay there motionless for several moments, letting waves of pain wash over me like a tempest at sea, but I knew I couldn't afford the luxury of rest for long. Gritting my teeth until I tasted blood, I forced myself to begin searching through the hidden root cellar, my movements clumsy and desperate. My trembling fingers rummaged through the supplies, knocking over clay pots and sending dried herbs scattering across the floor. And then, at last—I found it. Dried, salted meat from one of our prized goat-like livestocks, butchered mere days before the massacre that had claimed everyone but me.
A sharp exhale left me as my vision blurred with unexpected tears. Memories flooded back unbidden—of laughter around the cooking fire, of shared meals during harvest festivals, of the warmth of my mother's embrace and my father's booming voice as he told tales of old. And then, like a knife through those tender recollections, came the memories of screams piercing the night, of blood staining the earth, of fire consuming everything we had built.
"Yes!" A jubilant yet hoarse cry escaped me, echoing against the earthen walls of my sanctuary. A victory, however small, against those who had sought to erase us completely. They had missed this. Those Imperial bastards had ransacked our homes, had slaughtered our people, but they hadn't expected a simple village like ours to possess such secrets beneath our humble dwellings.
The old folks had been wise—far wiser than we ever gave them credit for in our youthful arrogance. I owe them my life now more than ever, these ancestors whose faces I knew only from crude wooden carvings and whose names were spoken in reverent whispers during our sacred ceremonies.
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A Foolish Mistake
It took everything I had to prop myself up from my prone position. Every movement was excruciating, my battered body protesting with white-hot pain shooting through my limbs. But I had no time for weakness, no room for surrender. I reached for the salted meat with trembling hands, my hunger overriding all else. Without thinking, I tore into it ravenously, only to realize too late—my throat was too parched, too dry from days without water. I coughed violently, my body convulsing as it rejected the food that my stomach so desperately craved.
"Damn it..." I cursed under my breath, spitting out the half-chewed morsel. That was foolish of me, a rookie mistake that even a child would know to avoid. I needed water first, needed to revive my desiccated body before attempting to eat.
With great effort that left me panting and dizzy, I grasped the precious meat and clutched it to my chest before beginning the arduous journey back to the surface. Every movement was deliberate, measured against the pain it would cause. Once above ground again, I began dragging myself toward the nearest well.
There were ten wells in our village, excluding the chief's private one that was reserved for his household alone. It had always seemed excessive for such a small settlement, but the elders had insisted on constructing them to endure the unpredictable dry seasons that plagued our region. Our nearest river was half a day's walk even for a healthy person, and though we had constructed a large water basin to collect mountain runoff during the rainy seasons, that supply was carefully rationed and reserved primarily for the farmlands that sustained us all.
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Water: Symbol of Life
Reaching the well was a grueling endeavor that tested the limits of my endurance. Each inch forward sent waves of pain rippling through my battered body, from my possibly broken ribs to my swollen joints. My breath came in ragged gasps that burned my lungs, my vision swam with black spots dancing at the edges, but I pressed on with singular determination. Finally, after what felt like an eternity crawling across the blood-soaked earth of my former home, I peered into the well's depths. My heart pounded with relief as I saw the faint glimmer of water below, untouched by the devastation that had claimed everything else.
I reached for the bucket that hung nearby, miraculously still intact, and let it drop into the darkness, the sound of the splash below like the sweetest music to my ears. Gripping the rope with all the strength I could muster, I hoisted it up inch by painful inch, my muscles screaming in protest and my broken body threatening to collapse. The moment the bucket reached the top, my trembling arms nearly let it spill back into the depths, but I caught it just in time, clutching it to me like a mother would a child.
Without hesitation, I drank deeply, the cool liquid soothing my burning throat and parched lips. It was the sweetest thing I had ever tasted, more precious than the finest wine from the Imperial vineyards that merchants sometimes brought through our village. Life itself flowed back into me with each desperate gulp.
Had the Grimfangs that prowled our forests found me first, I would have been just another carcass for them to pick apart, like the other villagers whose bodies now littered the ground in various states of decay. But by some stroke of fate or divine intervention, the predators had been drawn only to the entrance of the village where the largest concentration of bodies lay, leaving me undisturbed in my unconscious state beneath that lone tree.
After quenching my thirst, I filled another bucket and began the painstaking process of washing the dried blood—mine and others'—from my skin. The water stung fiercely as it touched my numerous wounds and bruises, but the relief that followed was almost euphoric. As I cleaned myself, I took inventory of my injuries for the first time: possibly a few broken ribs that made each breath a labor, heavy purple bruising across most of my torso, and likely some internal bleeding given the pain that radiated from my abdomen. But at least I had no open wounds, no festering gashes that would invite maggots and infection to feast upon my dying flesh.
Pain and comfort intermingled as I cleansed myself, the water turning pink then red around me. It was a momentary reprieve, but a necessary one if I was to have any chance of surviving beyond this day.
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The Painful Crawl Home & The Awakening
Refreshed, if only slightly, I gathered what strength remained and returned crawling to what remained of my family's dwelling. The structure still stood, though it bore the unmistakable scars of the attack—scorched walls, shattered pottery, torn tapestries that my mother had spent years weaving. Inside, the silence was deafening, a stark contrast to the usual sounds of life that had once filled these walls—my sisters' laughter, my father's deep voice, my mother's soft humming as she worked.
I needed to rest, to think, to formulate some plan for what came next in a world that had been upended in a single bloody night. With the last of my energy, I dragged myself to the corner where my sleeping mat once lay, now just a charred remnant of what had been.
Sleep took me the moment I let my body collapse onto the floor, a dreamless oblivion that offered temporary escape from the nightmare my reality had become.
And then—
[SYSTEM: DING! YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN BY THE GODS, AUGUST, SURVIVOR OF THE MASSACRE OF MAYA VILLAGE.]
The sound that wasn't a sound reverberated through my consciousness, jolting me from the depths of exhaustion. My eyes flew open to an unchanged world—the ruined home, my broken body—yet something fundamental had shifted. A presence, unseen yet undeniable, had entered my awareness.
I did not understand the meaning of this divine selection, could not comprehend why the gods would choose me—a simple farmer's son with no particular talents or destiny—from among all those who had fallen. What purpose could my survival possibly serve in their grand design?
As questions swirled through my mind in my lucid dream-like state, as I tried to battle my exhaustion and this sudden intrusion, like autumn leaves caught in a whirlwind, one certainty emerged from the chaos: I would not squander this chance. Whether by divine intervention or mere happenstance, I had survived when all others had perished. That survival carried with it a weight, a responsibility to those who no longer drew breath.
"I will live," I whispered to the empty room, my voice strange to my own ears after days of silence. "I will remember. And someday, I will make them pay."
It was both a promise and a prayer, spoken in a ruined home surrounded by death. But in that moment, it became my purpose, my reason to endure whatever came next.
The Imperial soldiers had taken everything from me—family, future, faith. But they had failed to take my life. And in that failure lay the seeds of their eventual reckoning.
I closed my eyes once more, but this time not in surrender to exhaustion.
But was it all a dream? Or was it reality? Or perhaps it was both, as his eyes began to slowly fade away from the light that illuminated the house…