The Beginning

“Salem I swear to the gods if you don’t stop lighting my jobs on fire I will take your rations away for a month!” the young boy could hear his father yell from the dining area of their rental home.

“ I'm Sorry pops... I just wanted to spend time with ya today!” he said while jumping down the stairs to see his father.

“Now Salem you know I gotta take that job that you’re holdin’ behind your back, We need the money kid.” Dagore smiled lightly at his son.

“Then let me come! I’m a big kid, I can do it Pops!” The youngling said with a hopeful smile, But his father quickly shut him down.

“No, lad you’re only 10 not nearly old enough to do the jobs I do,”

“Oh come onnnn, just let me come with you this once! pleaseee!” he whined

“I suppose you could be old enough to start training…” Dagore said after a long pause

“Really!”

“No. now go back upstairs. Take your hellhound on a walk or something. ” his father said.

“Yes, sir,” the young boy sighs as he goes to retrieve his pet.

“Now wait a second munchkin do I not get a hug or a goodbye?” Dagore says with a raised brow.

“Sorry pops, be safe I’ll see you when you get home,” Salem said glumly.

“I promise I’ll spend time with ya after this job,”

“Ok pops,” Salem said with a sad smile

“Where are you? little pudge!” Salem yelled as he walked up the stairs. A large object suddenly barreled out of his room slamming into Salem. Three heads stared down at the young boy panting and excited

“What the heck Rune! Get off me!”

The three-headed dog just barked licking their boy’s face.

“Gods Rune you act like I don’t walk you, now get off!” Salem said with a cough “geez, what does dad feed you when I’m away,”

Salem stood getting ready to take his hound outside. He looked in the mirror trying to tame his curly hair. He sighed and looked at his thin frame; he used to be bit plumper. but then the hard winters and wars came, causing the rations to dwindle and devastating famine to happen. The young boy stretched and put on his protective clothing and his ash boots.

“Rune! Come, boy!” Salem shouted from his front door and it only took a few seconds for the beast to bound down the stairs.

The boy and his hound stepped out the door of to the vast landscape his family was staying at located in one of the five major territories of DawnShore, the ashen lands. spread out in front of him were the field workers peppering the land harvesting different strange herbs.

“Rune! Let’s go!” Salem jumped on the dog’s back, his small size is dwarfed by the massive hound.

“Go as fast as you can!”

The pair bounded across the ashen lands running past the farmers yelling at them to slow it down before they kicked up dust.

“Salem! What are you doing you little rascal! You’re running on the freshly planted Herbs!”

the boy heard one of the housewives yell.

“Sorry Miss!” Salem tugged on his hellhound’s fur pulling him away from the seedlings.

“let’s go see Elldrex, I’m sure they will be excited to see you again!”

Rune yipped happily changing directions, running towards Elldrex’s small one-person hut.

As Salem approached the hut he could tell something was wrong. The air was heavy and tense, the plants around his friend's home were wilted. And a faint smell was wafting around and although Salem couldn’t quite place his finger on it, it was familiar.

“Rune be cautious something bad is going on here.”

as he rounded the corner to enter the house Salem noticed the smell growing. A putrid smell, but something Salem knew by heart Salem ran as fast as he could to the door that was smashed to pieces.

“No...no! Elldrex! Where are you? It’s Salem!” the boy yelled in desperation hoping, praying for a response from his friend. Salem looked around desperately until the sound of dripping could be heard from the restroom. Salem slowly approached the door bracing himself for what he might see. As he approached the door he noticed something flowing under the door toward him, blood.

“Elldrex come on this isn’t funny! Please, you got me! Now come out!”

the young boy yelled almost frantically but to his dismay, there was no reply. Salem reached for the handle slowly pushing it until the door clicked and opened. nothing could have prepared this boy for what he saw or smelt.

The thing he was looking upon was not his friend anymore it was a decaying corpse. Its skin was peeling off the bone, a green liquid oozed from some of the holes in its skin, its face was a shadow of Elldrex. Cheeks hollow, eyes dull, the skin was stretched and torn, it was bleeding from different spots. Its body was thin and sharp. Its skin was pale and distorted. Its teeth were sharp and pointed. And it was alive.

The tearing of skin off the bone could be heard as the beast feasted upon a young farmer boy hardly past 15.

Salem couldn’t think he could barely breathe. He started backing away from the scene until he tripped over something making him fall back with a crash attracting the things’ attention. it crawled towards Salem. It was nightmarish and planning its next kill

“No...gods help me...no!” the boy screamed as he backed away from the creature “Elldrex… please…”

Salem whimpered with tears in his eyes and then it lunged. Salem froze and shrunk in on himself bracing himself for the inevitable pain. But there was no pain, it didn’t come instead there was the sound of a weapon puncturing decaying skin.

“Salem, I think Dagore told you to walk Rune, not get yourself killed, you’re lucky that I came home today and saw rune outside.”

Salem looked up surprised to hear his papa’s voice

“p...papa? I thought you weren’t coming back until the next harvest!” Salem yelped in shock

“Yeah well I finished a bit sooner than expected” the man chuckled

“A bit sooner? Dad, the next harvest is over 3 months away!”

Salem shook his head quickly pushing that issue aside to look over at the thing his papa was holding down with a long sword.

“Dad why are they like this?” the boy asked sadly

“ It appears as if they were starving so I believe Elldrex resorted to cannibalism, but as you can see it obviously didn’t work.”

“Your friend instead, became a cur. There is no way to help them other than to just put them out of their misery kiddo the only problem with that is I can’t do it, it has to be done by someone closely connected with the victim,”

Salem sat quietly digesting what his dad had just said

“So I... have to kill them…?” the boy whispered to himself quietly thinking of what to do. He knew that he had to protect the rest of the village and put his friend out of their misery. But that also means he would never see his friend again.

The boy knew it would hurt him but he had to protect his family. So he took a deep breath and set his hand ablaze, it didn’t hurt when he did this it was natural to him he could do it at will. But that didn’t matter to him what mattered was seeing his only friend go up in flames as they screeched and writhed on the floor.