“Get away from me, you crazy drunk!”

Due to sudden fear and desperation, Prince Simon was able to raise himself up from an adrenaline rush that pushed his body to the limit. He dragged his broken leg along and used his sword as a cane to try and run away from the mad man who threatened to end his life.

He was so blinded with fear that he didn't notice that Will didn't even bother to chase after him.

For what seemed like hours, he tried his best to find the path that led back to their military encampment, but he was getting weaker by the minute, his blood, leaving a dark trail on the ground, until he fell exhausted and out of breath.

“Will this be the end of me?” he asked no one in particular, as his sight grew dimmer and dimmer.

"Over here!" he heard voices before he blacked out completely.

He woke up a week later, his leg amputated, his body so weak and full of pain that he wished he just died with his brothers at arms.

"You should be proud of your accomplishment!" they told him when they finally brought him home.

"How could you have beaten such a monster?" they asked.

But Simon just smiled sadly in reply.

He knew how they laughed at his back and say that he ran away while his companions gave their lives to stop the behemoth.

Besides, he was too ashamed to take the glory all to himself.

Too scared to tell a soul about the mysterious man who tried to silence him.

"At least I am still alive..." he kept reassuring himself, "even though I don't deserve to be..."

And so, he lived the rest of his life as the impaired prince without a thing to his name, haunted by nightmares and tormented by his peers, until the end of his days.

the end