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1.
“Mommy?” Maxwell, at age twelve with rustic flavored hair, ruddy cheeks, and sleepy brown eyes, had just walked into a grave. “The boy from my dreams keeps talking to me.”
Maxwell’s nose was running, and his cheeks weren’t ruddy but were feverish. His hair was sweaty and spiked in messy positions. His skin was hot to touch, but the miracle of it all was that he was alive.
Outside the living room and house, the city was in ruin. Inhuman screams filled the night while infected guards tried fighting off fatigue, monsters, and the monster thriving within. Within the radius, there were few of Maxwell. If there were any like him, living and talking and quite humanly mannered, they were being slaughtered by the sword.
“Mommy?” Max let his hand drop from his face, for he had been rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He squinted, leaning into the dark candle light. In the fog of sleep, he could just hear the sickening crunch and slush coming from some unseen source.
Do not dwell on it human. Flee into your room, for the guards do come.
Maxwell shook his head, scrunching up his face as he took a slight step toward the hunched figure in the dark. The crunching noises pervaded around the room still, and an awful odor had filled his lungs with his last intake of breath. Fear was stagnant in the room.
Flee.
The little boy did not flee. For how could he? And where would he flee to? What was there to flee from in the first place?
The house, Max now noticed, was in disarray, as if there had been a struggle. Vases that once stood as mother’s proud decorations were cracked and laying, defeated, on their sides. Table legs were smashed and splintered, and the radio that had sat in the corner of the room had claw marks scratched across the screen. Windows were broken and cracks ran like spidery webbing up the panes. Food from last night’s dinner scattered across the floor, half eaten.
Still the horrible noises continued, causing dread to roll in Max’s small and empty stomach. The smell did nothing to help his resolve as he took another step toward his mother.
Flee now.
The voice in his head had continued being there when he had awoken from the strangest of dreams. Maxwell had been dreaming, a sort of feverish dream where reality is warped and bent during sleep, about being at the beach. He, personally, had never been the to beach, but his father had read him stories from large, hardbound books before of far away places.
Max’s dream beach was serene, calm, and perfect. The waves were not too big to play in neither were they too small to play in, and as the disease racked his body he had felt a sort of peace being there in the dream world. There, he had started playing a game with an odd looking boy who looked like himself.
The other boy was enamored with the surrounding beach area, confused almost. Max had asked him what was wrong, and the boy had replied that everything was wrong. Then he had started rambling off about the ‘blackness’ and the ‘room we had closed our eyes in’, wondering where they could be now.
Max had to explain what a dream was, of all things. And, as fragile as dreams were and with the realization that he was not indeed at a beach playing, Maxwell woke himself up.
But the voice of the boy from his dreams had remained, and Max had stayed in bed all night, tossing and turning, trying to ignore the persistent voice’s questions about dreams and life in general.
Finally, as daylight broke over the horizon, Max had had enough of trying to sleep, and, feeling better than last night, had risen from bed with the intent of breakfast.
But no one would answer his callings, and the outside world’s noises were scaring him back into bed.
Of course the boy had owned up to his fears and was facing his hunger right on. That leaves him to where he was now, taking yet another step toward the source of his well rational fear.
“Mommy, I’m hungry? Where is Papa?” This time, the hunched figure in the corner looked up, or more so jerked it’s head up, and Maxwell held his breath as another wave of sickness took root in his belly.
Frozen where he was, only a few paces away from his mother, the boy stood stock still as the being rose then, eyes shining and reflecting the little light in the dark.
I implore you to flee now youngling!
Maxwell shook his head, not taking his eyes off the figure. Its once beautiful red hair was matted and straggly, dripping wet with some thick liquid. The face was torn by marks of a fight, bloodied and twisted into a soundless rage. Fingers, once proud and well cared for, were curled into claws, also red in the dying candlelight. The clothes, a light blue dress, was ripped and stained with some darkness that Max could not place.
It made no noise as it advanced upon the boy, the pale eyes glittering and focused on the kill.
FLEE!!
The voice roared and Maxwell ran.
Behind him, he heard the screech from the outside follow him. Frantic, he slammed the wooden door of the bedroom behind him, panting and then squealing as the thing that looked like his mother slammed itself against the door.
Max bolted the door, then leaned against it, wedging his foot in a nook of the mortar wall. The thing screamed once, then threw itself once more at the door. A deafening crack sounded above Max, and the young boy started to cry in terror.
Again, and again, the thing screamed and threw itself against the door, frenzied. Sawdust began to rain down against Maxwell as he fought to keep the door closed and in his control.
Do not fail. I remind you of the guards.
The voice was just a faint whisper, like the brush of a butterfly’s wing upon a flower, or the sound that an owl’s wing makes as it swoops for the mouse, but Maxwell heard it loud and clear like the command had been shouted right into his ear.
Then, it stopped. Max ticked his head to one side, wiping his cheeks free of the salty tears, but kept his place.
Outside the door, he heard the heavy footfalls of someone in heavy armor. “There! Kill it Marcus!”
Max listened until he heard the screech again, matched with the sound of metal flying through the air. Wet sounds followed the swift sounds of the battle, and something heavy thumped on the floor.
Do not trust the guards. Trust no one, and run far.
Max looked about the near bare room, knowing it well. On the far side of the room sat his parent’s bed, freshly used from Maxwell. In the corner, at the foot of their bed, was the bed roll Maxwell normally slept in before falling ill. It was untouched.
Standing, he sniffed once, then grabbed for his story book on the bed night stand, and then for his handmade wolf figurine that his father had made for him when he was born.
Without a sound, or without trying to make a sound, Max stood on the chest by the end of the bed, and peeped out the window. What he saw there shocked him into stillness despite the sounds of shuffling and gruff voices outside the door.
The city was in flames. It looked like a war zone, decimated and forlorn, swathed in a heavy and thick cloud of smoke. He could hear the screams clearer now that he was near the open window, and he winced away from a particularly close one.
He watched the street in fascination, watching as creatures stalked and fought one another, hunched over like old hags. Guards, too few in number and clad in the Lord’s symbolic armor, ran here and there, fighting the creatures.
Maxwell jumped as a guard crossed in front of the window, his eyes glittering in the deep recesses of his sockets. But there was no shine reflected in the light of the sole candle burning within Max’s room.
“You there! Can you speak, child?”
Max nodded, frozen.
The voice within his mind hissed.
“Then,” barked the guard, “Speak if you value your life!”
Maxwell had to swallow twice before he found his voice, and when he spoke it came out squeaky and small. “I can speak sir.”
The guard nodded, the light vanishing from his eyes briefly. “Good. Now, open up the door for my men so we can bring you to a safer place outside the city. Make haste, for we don’t have time to spare.”
Do not follow their orders. To follow is death. The Death camps they are speaking of.
Max shook his head in protest to the voice, but the guard took it as a defiance to the order. The light within his eyes flared, then the guard convulsed, falling to the ground with a cry. Max was silent, then stepped down from the chest as he heard a guttural snarl come from below his window.
Trapped.
Within the second, the guard had reappeared in the window, his eyes blank and shining in the light. His face was lifted in a snarl, and there was a growl in the back of his throat as he glared into the room.
Again, Maxwell fell still, frightened beyond rational thought. The guard’s arm shot through the window, then thrashed around, splintering the wood the served as a window pane. He could not fit through the window, and he could not reach Max where he stood.
Enraged, what was once the guard, screamed and withdrew the arm so he could glare into the hole he had made. Then, he was gone in a huff, yet Max knew it wasn’t over.
He stepped up to the chest and peered out the window just in time to see the guard disappear around the corner toward the front of his house. With a sigh of relief almost, he started to exit when the thought occurred to him of the other guards waiting in the room.
No.
Jumping down from the chest, Max rushed to the door and stood on his toes to look out into the dim lighting of the living room at the guards who were waiting. He was fast enough, for as he opened his mouth to give warning, he saw a hulking figure heave itself through his front door, eyes shining and sword cast aside.
You have no regard for your own life, the lot of you.
Max turned on his heel and rushed out the now free escape route without another thought. To stay in that room would be the death of him, and the wooden door would not last forever.
Out on the streets Max felt exposed, so he clung to the walls of houses, wincing and flinching away from every noise and far away animalistic scream. Eventually, the sounds began to decay away, but Max felt worse in the silence.
He turned the corner of one more house, perhaps half an hour after his initial escape from his house, and froze for what seemed the thousandth time that night.
Crouched over another body was another being. It was yet another guard, but the armor the guard wore was unlike the other guards of the city. The material it was made of was different than iron or steel, the more common armor types that Max had seen throughout his short life, colored a light, sandy color and looking light in weight as well. It was plated like iron or steel armor pieces, however, so the making of it couldn’t have differed by much. There was no over apparent crest branded onto the back of this uniform either.
Relax youngling.
Maxwell didn’t relax. Instead, he started to edge away from the thing, gnawing his lip all the while. Before he could slip around the corner and run back the way he had came, the guard stood and whirled, sword flashing and catching in the sunlight.
The two beings stood there, looking the other over then, when finally the guard relaxed with a slight sigh and laugh. “Just a child then,” she said, sounding relieved.
The helm, Max noticed, covered the entire head and an opaque, black visor covered the face. Max couldn’t see what the woman looked like, which meant he couldn’t see her eyes, which unsettled him.
“Hi,” Max whispered after a tense moment, his eyes locked on the visor as he vied to get access into what lay beneath it. For all he knew, her eyes could be just like the maniac guard’s eyes, reflecting the light like a dog and burning brilliantly like a star until it explodes in one grand supernova.
The guard shifted and Max was distracted as he saw the sword glint ruby in the sun. “Hello, little one.”
Max looked back to the visor that reminded him of freshly spilled ink. It was so smooth, flawless, and he could see his reflection so clearly that it startled him. Looking into it was like looking into a black mirror.
If she had never spoken, Max would have taken her automatically as a man. Women weren’t supposed to fight, although there were stories of valiant women driving off the battle for their loved ones, just like men. He thought they were heroes, all the same. Still, it was prejudice, nonetheless, and Max felt his cheeks and the tips of his ears begin to burn in embarrassment.
They stood there a bit longer, Max unsure of what to say and the guard unreadable in all regards. Her stance was that of someone who was neither ready to fight nor ready to flee, and with each passing second Max felt safer and safer.
He was starting to listen in on the eerie silence of the day when she spoke up. “Are you well, boy?”
Max actually thought about it. He didn’t feel sick, exactly, but he did feel different. Different, however, in a good way. In the time it had taken him to escape his home and leave his parents’ bodies there, he had started to feel himself improving. It was an odd way to feel it, but he was feeling healthy. Healthier than he had ever been in his entire life.
So Max nodded. The female warrior did not share his obvious trepidation of silence. “Good. Then this wasn’t all in vain. Come along boy.”
Max, somehow deemed a rather degrading ‘boy’, only watched as the woman turned on her heel and without a word left through an alley in between two small houses. He followed her after he had counted to five in his head.
He caught up to her and stayed quiet at her side as they made their way to where he presumed was a way out of the city. As long as they weren’t going to the camps, he would stay with her for she was someone to be alone in a city with. She provided him protection with her sword, and her very being exuded safety to him.
She is unlike the others we acquainted ourselves with earlier. How, and why, this is, I do not know youngling.
The warrior froze and Max ran into her leg, unprepared for the sudden stop. He had been concentrating on the soft but very clear whisper in his mind. Not a sound could be heard throughout the dead city, especially when Maxwell was making such noises of pain where his knuckles had scraped the side of her armor.
The armor was shell like, and on the coating of the shell were tiny little barbs that Max had not noticed at a distance. Up close, they stood out like spikes, waiting for contact. Whether the female warrior meant for him to run into her or not, he did not know.
Max took a step back, sucking the welling blood from his hand, and regarded the woman with wary eyes. Surely she wouldn’t attack him just like that, would she?
But she only seemed to be listening, her head tilted to one side just a bit to give this impression. Max tightened his legs, preparing himself to run when she readjusted her head and started walking forward again. “Never mind. Come, I’ll take you out of the city into safety.”
It didn’t escape Max’s notice that her fist had clenched around the hilt of her sword and it was being held out away from her body, as if she intended to use it soon.
Max stayed fast to where he was, his eyes lingering on the sword. When she realized that he was not following close at heel, she looked over her shoulder and stopped. “Not to the camps, right?”
Her expression could not be seen to Max, although her tone of voice expressed someone who was expectant and throughly irritated because of what they expected. “And why not?” she retorted. “I know good men are there, and they will give you both food and a new family to take care of you. You’ll then be replaced in a nearby city or town while whatever is happening here is investigated and amended. There is no reason to fear these camps - they are very well protected, I can assure you.”
Max was shaking his head, his heart racing, before she had even finished. This only irritated her more, and her grip on the sword’s hilt was doubled through her inward fury. “The camps are death, Mistress,” Max whispered.
The female warrior laughed, her voice sounding cold. Now she fully turned around to face him, putting her free hand on her hip. The sword was placed, the tip pointed to the ground, at her side. “Now, who told you that?”
‘At least her tone had lightened from irritated’, Max thought instead of thinking through what he was going to say to that. He couldn’t say the truth. The truth that a boy who looked like him but sounded different than him was speaking in his head, telling him weird things he didn’t understand. Suddenly, Max couldn’t bring himself to look into the visor.
“A voice? In your head?”
Max started, jerking his head to meet the visor. His jaw fell open in disbelief. I didn’t say anything, he screamed inside his head. He knew he didn’t because he had been too nervous to make any noise. The words had locked themselves in his head, refusing to even form on his tongue.
How? The woman is odd, certain to that.
“It was you then, earlier.” Max barely heard the comment she made to herself, but what she said made a chill crawl up his spine. “You said you were well,” she accused, her tone hard as a rock in the coldest winter.
Max found his voice. “I am well. I mean. . .I don’t feel sick. I fell. . .to be honest. . .perfectly fine, ma’am.” It wasn’t a strong voice, but it would have to do just fine.
“Hearing a voice inside your head that doesn’t belong to you is not, as you put it, perfectly fine.”
The thoughts. She can hear the thoughts.
The warrior turned around, the sword pulled up to her side at the ready again. Max stiffened, making himself ready to bolt it she whirled around and tried to use it on him. “What is your name, boy?”
“Maxwell.”
“Maxwell what?” she barked, making Max jump.
“Maxwell Laurence Buntings, ma’am. My father worked the wheat fields and my mother, daughter of Louis Garmant, was a seamstress for a living. Ma’am.” He shivered when she looked over her shoulder again.
She said nothing for a few seconds, probably contemplating what she would say to him or do to him now that she knew his secret. Then, “Well Mr. Buntings, I can assure you that I’m not going to kill you. Neither will I leave you in this city to die when dark comes. I won’t drop you at those camps, if you’re so inclined. But you will be following me to the port town of Thardiness. If you refuse, either you or that little voice of yours, I’ll carry you there on my back, got it?”
Max nodded furiously, balling his hands into fists.
The town of Thardiness was a very tiny, lakeside town that could hardly be called a ‘port town’ or a ‘trading town’ as some people referred it to. Max had been there with his father, once a year, to sell the leftover wheat from the harvest. He remembered it as a dreary little thing, laden with heavy mists during the morning and thick fog at night. Visibility was little to nothing, and the lake water there was fed by a chilled spring. The water was freezing even during the hot seasons when you were supposed to be swimming.
The idea of going there wasn’t terribly appealing, but the woman was threatening to carry him there whether he liked it or not.
Is there water there like the water of your dream, youngling?
Max ignored the voice and to his dismay he could almost feel it grow impatient, like a fist tightening in his head.
‘No,’ he thought back, walking forward to the woman. ‘The water there laps at your feet lazily, and is murky. You can’t see to the bottom whatsoever, and the ground is muck, not sand.’
Disappointment welled in his chest, and he wasn’t quite sure why. Max swallowed it back, finding it hard to breath, and tread onward alongside the woman.
He was careful not to brush against her leg, speak, or even think as they made their way outside the ruined gates of the city.
At this time, the nameless woman turned upon Max, sheathing her sword. Seeing it put away put Max’s body into a calmed state, while he mind turned it over restlessly. Did that mean they were safe here and they weren’t going to be attacked by anything?
“Boy.”
Max looked up from the sword to where he supposed her eyes would be within the helm. “You said you didn’t want to go to the camps.”
Max nodded slowly. The camps brought up fear, but he couldn’t understand why.
“All right.” The woman gestured with her arm in a broad sweep across the horizon. Max followed her arm with his eyes, and saw the thin wisps of smoke were curling into the sky. “If we get separated, don’t stray near those for help. Don’t scream for help either. In fact, if we get separated, don’t try to get my attention at all because I won’t be looking for it. Someone you don’t want to see it will see it. Got that?”
Max nodded again, his eyes trained on the smoke towers. The wound in the sky, a dark, almost putrid purple black color. It screamed evil, and wrong.
He turned back to the woman to already see her halfway down the hill, on the path. He started, and ran to meet up with her. “Ma’am?”
“I don’t like questions.”
Max paused, unsure if that meant to continue or not. He decided to try anyway. “Ma’am, are the people in those camps dead already?”
She was silent, and at first Max thought he would get no answer to his one little question. “My men who were stationed there haven’t contacted me within the hour like I ordered them to. No one defies my order without good reason. When you ran across me, I was debating on whether or not I should go check on them, but then you confirmed my fears.” She looked down on him. “A part of you already knows their dead.”
She looked back up and Max felt a chill rest on his spine. “If you ask me a question, I’ll meet it with my own. Understand?”
“Yes,” Max mumbled, scratching the lower part of his back to rid the feeling of being cold during the midday.
“You were sick.”
“That’s not a question, ma’am.”
The woman sighed, irritated again. “Listen, boy, my name is not ‘ma’am’. My men don’t even resort to calling me that unless they want to get whipped. My name is Taril. Call me that, and that only, got it?”
Max didn’t get it. Instead, he was jumping in the air, smiling. “The guildmaster? You’re the Taril from the Watch? The head of the guards and strongest person alive? When you were eighteen you destroyed the evil dragon of Ut and saved the eastern lands from terror! Then you had to fight your way back to your homeland which was being overrun by pirates and slavers. You -” The joy of a child is one of the purest things to watch sometimes. In the wake of his parents’ deaths, the destruction of his city, and being scolded, he could still smile and feel happy by simply being near one of his storybook heroes.
Taril sighed. “Yes, fine, whatever.” She had clamped her hand to the boy’s mouth to stop the stream of words that would have, no doubt, gone on for hours. “Half of those stories written in those books are false and just legends.”
She removed the hand from his mouth and started forward, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword and the other limp at her side. “But you are real. You’re not just a legend.”
“Fine kid. I’m here, now forget about it. You were sick, were you not?”
Max felt the chill creep back. “Yes,” he whispered. “Mommy sent me to bed early. I got to sleep on their bed, but I knew she wasn’t feeling well either. Daddy said he was fine but. . .”
His little child body gave out a wicked shudder, the chill spreading its deathly fingers across his back.
Memories burned their way into his mind. The eye shine his mother’s face had given off as she had turned away from the corpse of his father. Her face bloodied by his father’s blood, her eyes wild with the thought of devouring him. . .
“Relax.”
A hand rested on his shoulder and he realized he had stopped walking and was shaking like a leaf in a storm, steadfast where he stood. He looked down to the ground, studying very intently the tiny grains of dirt and the different colorations he could find there.
After a while, Taril knelt down in front of him, and she put her other hand on his shoulder. Her face was aligned with his, but even this close he could not see her eyes. He couldn’t fully trust her if he couldn’t see her eyes.
You are stupid youngling. She gets angry without losing control. Trust.
Taril shook her head, then stood again, starting off down the path. Max stood there alone. They had stopped so many times by now, and he always had to run after her. It seemed like the guildmaster really wanted to get a move on to the next city.
Still, it seemed like she had wanted to say something before that thing had spoken to him in his head. As Max started off after her, really only feeling safe at her side like a child does with his mother, he shot back at the voice in his head, unsure if it would hear him or not. ‘No, you’re stupid. You don’t know anything about keeping quiet.’
Much to learn. Much to learn then. . .

2.
They set up camp as night was falling on the day. Max hadn’t spoken up again after starting for the last and final time, but he hadn’t found need to. He didn’t have to complain that he was hungry, although the last thing he had eaten was lunch, or maybe even breakfast from yesterday. He hadn’t grown tired throughout the entire trip here, though they had been walking all day. In fact, Max had the urge to get up and run around the fields, enjoying the feeling of the grass as it tickled its way up his arms as he ran through it.
But he stood there, arms stiff at his sides, as Taril the Master of the Eastern Watch, set up dinner from a small rodent she had captured. She knew that he wasn’t hungry, and he wasn’t complaining.
Unlike some things he knew.
I want to try it. Please youngling? Just a mouthful. Ask her for a mouthful of it, please?
‘Oh, at least you’re polite. You said yourself, she reads or hears thoughts. However that works.’ Max felt a thousand times older, especially when he compared himself to the child in his mind. ‘I think she knows by not that you want ‘just a mouthful’ of her food.’
The voice huffed and grew silent, and Max reveled in the stillness of his mind. He didn’t want to say that it hurt when the thing spoke, but it certainly felt uncomfortable for it was a part of his body that he had no control over.
It was weird, and he still had no idea how it had gotten there. Of course, it had something to do with the sickness. That had to be a given.
Look who the stupid one is now.
Max rolled his eyes and stormed up to the tree they were resting near. The tree was a young thing, the bark fresh and light, the width small enough to wrap your fist around it, but the leaves and branches were wide and it offered protection or simply just the feeling of being protected. Just like a home should offer.
He sat down in a huff at the base of the tree, bringing his knees up to his chest for comfort. It felt nice to curl into a ball and wish the world around him wasn’t there. It was so easy to just wish it all away, everything that had happened to him in the past day.
But it wouldn’t go away, and no amount of wishing could change what had happened to him. He was an orphan, traveling around with Taril, Master of the Eastern Watch, to who knew where. Creatures with eyes that shone in the light were destroying his home and killing everyone and everything they came across. He had a voice in his mind that wouldn’t leave him alone. For all of these things, there was no explanation to cover it. Only lies and shadows. Shadows and lies. . .like new snow they dusted his mind and made him numb.
In truth, Max was on the verge of falling asleep, and with the verge of sleep comes the feeling of losing yourself to the world. He was cutting himself off from the world outside his body and was pulling himself further down into himself. Further and further and further downward. . .


3.
‘The killer stuck again in the Capitol City, Dueluion. This will total a grand total number of thirteen deaths within the city’s limits, and the Eastern Watch has no current leads on who the killer might be. As a recap, the deaths have been running for a total of nineteen years now, long and large relapses in between the deaths.’
Max listened to the device in his ear, lost in the words and nearly lost in his own mind. He was dangerously close to sleep again. The busboy bustled past Max, his longer hair pulled back in a fancy ponytail. Max knew it was just a wig.
He was distracted from the sentence the droning man in his ear said about the killer having a trademark to his name. Something to do with how the bodies are arranged when they’re found, either disemboweled, whole or in pieces, fouled or untouched, written on or with notes tacked on them.
Max knew from other news reports that there were a couple copy cat killers around the Capitol City, but all them those people had been caught or were close to being caught. The real killer left no evidence behind, and always left a list of people who later turned out to be convicts on the wanted list. Max just guessed the guy was feeling guilty for killing so many people so far, so he felt he needed to pay back society. Whatever the reason the killer had, he certainly was an interesting character. He intrigued Max deeply.
Max continued to listen to the cast, wanting, mainly, to hear information on whether or not a list had been found on this body or not. The killer hadn’t struck in three whole years, and the Eastern Watch had thought that maybe they had caught him or her. Wrong, as usual.
She is Master of the Watch.
‘Shut up, I’m trying to listen.’
‘. . .im’s name is not being released to the public, but you are being told that her family and close friends are being notified as this cast is being published. A curfew is being reinstated for the city, hours as follow. From sunrise to -‘
Max shut off the device, a tiny rectangular black thing with a single button to turn it both on and off, and threw it to the table.
The busboy ran back, the dishes he had been carrying left in the dining room. Max paid him little attention as he ran into the kitchen area.
I was listening to that.
“Jerk,” muttered Max, staring intently at the square. It was run on some sort of wizard magic, and Max didn’t pretend to know how it worked. All he knew was that he pushed a button that could rotate, and caught the news every once and a while. When he turned the wheel, copper of all things, it picked up different casts being broadcasted around the world. The farthest cast location he could pick up was only a couple miles from here, and it always came in crackling and popping with obstructions.
No use in something like that, unless you were to pick up the Capitol City’s cast. That was something worth listening to. Not like hearing the news made the world any better.
Max shut his eyes, letting himself go to that dark place in his mind. Maybe he would dream this time, and maybe he would be able to get away from the wretched inn and its master and its girly busboy. That is, if he could even force himself to sleep this time.
“You curse of a boy,” the round owner of the shop roared into the ear of the busboy while boxing him hard in the ear. “You served it to the wrong table, and so help me if she dies from the poison that was meant for the nobleman. . .!”
Max lifted his head from the table, drowsy but not sleepy. He hadn’t been getting much sleep around this place for a while anyway. His break consisted of nap time, since he hardly ate anything anymore unless the organism commanded something new to try, and he was always tired.
It was either sleep, or sex, or work. Tough choices to live by.
But poison and planned assassination – something you hear old women gossip over – now that was about the height of his day right there.
The owner of the shop, AKA ‘The Boss’, was throttling the new kid, hanging him by his collar a few feet off the ground, hidden from the eyes of all but one. Max noted that the blonde, long haired wig had fallen to the ground and was underfoot of the Boss.
Max leaned back, folding his hands across his chest, and he watched with half lidded eyes. How interesting the normal people were.
They went about their lives, some knowing they were going to die and mourning over lost time, and others who were about to die without knowing it thinking they had all the time in the world. Poor creatures that were so attached to their emotions and needs that they didn’t have time to concern themselves with the needs or emotions of others, unless it benefitted them in some way.
Max chose to work here because he got to watch the normal people go on with their lives, revel in misery, or lust after the body. How. . .strangely adaptive they all were.
And still, they could murder without thought for money, fame, or gain. Without a thought of the repercussions that would meet them in this world or the next, be it exists.
Boss was the kind of man who was cast in Greed. He gave people food that was months old and bad, made up to look fresh and new, just so he could get their money and not lose profit on old and bad food. He made Max make the food shortened or with imitation ingredients that were cheaper, but harmful to eat. And now he was taking out writs on people for money, and no doubt, he was screwing it up and killing innocent people.
Curious, Max leaned back further so he could see around the corner and ultimately into the dark and dimly lit room that was the main hall of the tavern. He could only see a few diners, sitting at their tables and conversing in hushed tones, but he knew the layout of the room well enough after practically living there for twenty years straight.
The drinks were served at the bar on the far left of the room, to your right if you were walking in from the outside. The tender there was friendly, and often gave Max an extra shot if he was feeling down from working like a dog all the time. He also slipped in some of his leftover lunch, consisting of salted pork or some form of broth soup. Yeah, Max liked the yellow haired tender.
Laying out in front of the bar, spread about in some order that seemed just random to Max, were the tables were some diners sat. They could order from bread and butter, water, alcohol, the daily soup (Max helped make this himself, something he was proud of you could say), or any kind of meat possible to think of.
The waitress, who Max helped serve the tables, always wore the same off white apron, day in and day out, but different colors of the same styled long dress. The woman was consistent, to say in the least. Her silver, old womanly hair was thrown up in a tight bun, a few wisps coming out then and again to frame her once pretty face.
She was old now, and she couldn’t quite do all the work that Max could pull off, but he thought she did her job just fine. Her name was Josephine, of all things.
Max could only see the rich man sitting in a corner, looking over the soup of the day. Max thought it was ham and pea soup, but it didn’t come out looking quite right today. It was more of a murky brown than a healthy looking green pea puke color.
But hey, the front door even reminded people to be wary of the soup. Not his fault.
To add poison to it though, that was something new. He’d have to try it, just for the sake of trying it.
Only two orders had been placed a few minutes before. Josie, shortened by Max because he hated the name Josephine, had said that one of them was a pompous nobleman and the other was a dignified, middle-aged woman.
Max stood up, letting the chair he was sitting in fall back on the ground with a clatter. Both Boss and the boy looked up from their session, and Boss’s face paled. “Don’t you do nothing Maxy. Not a thing, you hear? Sit right back down, or I’ll have you,” the man stuttered, pointlessly and without meaning, to Max.
Without a word and without looking over to him, Max set off down the corridor that would lead him into the dining hall. At the end he paused however, then eased himself around the corner for a peek.
There were only four other people to choose from, two of which were a couple, and the third who was an everyday local who was also a man. The fourth, which Max spied with a flutter in his chest, was a female with dark, almost black hair.
There was a steaming bowl of soup in front of her, which she was regarding with hesitation.
Ah. Her.
‘You’re a fool. She can obviously hear you. Any second she’ll look up –‘
Taril looked up, her dark eyes confused. She looked right to Max.
‘And see us spying on her.’
There was silence in his brain for only a second.
Why couldn’t I infect a smarter being?
‘Why can’t you love me for who I am?’ Max smirked and he fully emerged into the hall.
She was still beautiful, even years after he had last seen her. It had been so long since Max had left her, or rather, she had left him at this dreary dump of a village, but he could still pick her face from out of a thousand, perhaps a billion if he could see them all at once. Her dark hair, dark purple when she was framed in sunlight, flowed about her face, sheltering her from the world.
Had he known any better, Max would say she was trying to hide her face from anyone that might recognize her, but that was ridiculous. It was such a lovely, angled, sharp face that could pierce into your very soul - why would any person who owned a face like that wish to hide it from the world?
And her eyes. They were far away as she listened to his hum of thoughts, something she had once told him was annoying, like the sound of too many bees in a small condensed area. Her eyes were so dark and mysterious that sometimes Max couldn’t tell when they pupil began and the iris started.
“You flatter me, boy,” she sighed and Max almost melted at her voice. She was so old now. She had to be at least forty at this point, though she didn’t look over thirty. Max, from where he stood, could see the weary lines of life however. It had not been kind to her since he last saw her.
Without a word, she turned down to the soup and picked up the spoon, dipping it into the concoction with a wince. Max thought he heard it make a sucking sound as she pulled a spoonful of it out.
Well? Are you going to tell her, youngling, or will you watch her die?
Taril froze, her eyes glued to the mound of poisoned pea soup for a moment before she looked up to Max, confusion saturating her very being.
The two stared at the other for the longest time, enough so that even the Boss turned his pudgy face around the corner to look at them. Max just stood there, a goofy smile on his freckled face, and the woman looked up to him, her expression taking on the oddest of pleasantries after a while of listening to what could not be heard with ears.
Finally, she said something. “That’s really you, isn’t it?”
Max ticked his head to the side. “Hearing two voices yet?”
There, at the corner of her mouth, was a twitch that was the ghost of a smile. “Aren’t you?”
To the rest of the world, they were oblivious to them. There were only those two in the room, for all that they cared. Max pulled out the chair across from her and took a seat, folding his hands in front of his face. The smile had lessened some, but only slightly.
His shoulder lifted up, then down. “Sometimes, I suppose. Depends on the mood and the occasion.”
Taril made a gesture with her hand. “Naturally. That relationship you have with him is most peculiar. You would need a proper mood setting to even speak to the thing.”
The Boss stood erect suddenly, only able to hear half of the conversation, and decided it was time to intervene before the matters got any worse.
“Soup special isn’t the greatest today. You should stop by tomorrow, if I’m still working here,” Max offered.
“I suppose I’ll have to, circumstance providing. That is, unless the so-“
“Madame!” The Boss burst in at the table, his arms wide. Max regarded him with annoyed eyes, noting the sweat stains under his arms on the tan long sleeved shirt he wore. What work did the man do to begin with, to actually work up a sweat in this place?
Max didn’t want to know the truth.
“Madame, madame, madame. Are you enjoying yourself?” The Boss paused for an awkward moment while Taril kept her eyes forward on Max’s face. She didn’t reply verbally. “Well. . .would you two happen to know each other then. . .I take it?”
“She saved my life once,” Max offered, without thinking it through. He winced inwardly after a second of reconsideration.
Taril held up a finger, the twitch forming again. “Ah, no. A couple times.”
Max made a sound in the back of his throat, then turned his face away from hers to the ceiling. ‘Wonderful craftsmanship there. Amazing that those beams are the only thing holding up this sagging ceiling of theirs. I wonder, if Boss were to sit upon the roof for repairs, would the roof cave in upon itself?’
Who are you talking to?
The voice seemed to yawn awake inside Max’s head, and in response to its tiredness, Max yawned. It reminded him that he had been almost asleep a couple minutes ago.
Meanwhile, Boss hopped nervously from foot to foot, seeming unsure of himself on what to do now that he was there. Max figured, by logic and reason, that his ultimate goal was to get the soup away from Max’s friend there, and then somehow poison the nobleman he was told to for a rather large amount of gold.
“Really?” the Boss gasped. “And how did that come around to happening?”
Max narrowed his eyes, zooming in on a splinter of wood on the beam that was out of place. “Long time ago. Look, why don’t you just take the soup and get out of here? It’s none of your business anyway, you old leech.”
The Boss jumped, then without another word took the soup and rushed back into the kitchen, no doubt to leave it out for a couple of hapless, starving cats. Max would either have to save them or bury them tonight.
Taril leaned forward when Boss was gone, her pale face suddenly transformed into that of confusion once more. “Why are you working here, boy?”
“I like making soup. And washing dishes. Plus, they give me someplace to sleep and rest, not to mention the animals.”
Taril nodded. Of course she would believe something as simple as that because it was the truth. Most of the truth. Max was thinking the answer off the top of his head while she asked the question. The world became so much easier when you just spoke things that came to mind.
No hiding behind the shroud of your thoughts, like Boss did. None of that. That kind of thing only made the world a darker, dangerous place to live. The observer of the normal people would know.
“I don’t think I left you here for the purpose of working at a tavern Max.” There. Taril was smiling, just slightly but Max could see her teeth so it counted.
The idea that she was smiling, whether her teeth were abnormally sized or not, made Max fuzzy inside.
I like this feeling. What do you call it, youngling?
Max was stumped, for once. ‘Not sure. Happiness?’
Felt that before. Different.
So blunt. Max rolled his eyes back up to the ceiling. “Whatever purpose it was, you shouldn’t have left me.”
The smile vanished and Max cursed himself for a millennia in his mind. “You haven’t gotten any answers for yourself, have you?”
Max shook his head, closing his eyes. The grip on his fingers clenched, the knuckles turning white until he relaxed them. “I figured I’d give up when they threatened to kill me if I asked any more questions. I told them I had relatives there. . .back home. You’re not going to kill me, are you?”
Taril’s mouth twitched, the opposite side now. Max was fascinated with it. There was nothing else in the room except for Taril’s twitching mouth for a few minutes. “I suppose not. Depends on what you ask, and what I can answer. Those guards were probably the Emperor’s and Lord’s own Shadow Watch. They were charged, rumor told, with covering up the evidence of what happened that night. Didn’t take to long.”
“They torched the place. Down to the ground. There were survivor’s,” Max croaked, remembering back to the day.
It was only a week or two after Taril had left him at the town’s outskirts and then went on her way. Max didn’t know then how much he would miss her, or else he would have begged to tag along with her to her final destination.
After finding work, he had ran back to his home one night because he couldn’t sleep. The trip didn’t take too long. And when he got there, there were guards dressed in deep mahogany and black rummaging about with torches and some kind of clear liquid they were pouring on the houses. They were killing people who were screaming about voices in their head and who were crying out for mercy.
The mountainside city of Lilick, his home, was destroyed in a single night by the very people Max looked to for help and protection. The Watch.
He felt something touch his hand and he jolted away from the memories. Taril’s eyes were darker than usual, almost all pitch black. “I’m so sorry Maxwell. . .I didn’t know.”
“Yes, well. . .I don’t know anything still. Tell me you do.”
She shook her hand and fell back, her hand retreating to her lap as well. His stayed folded across his chest. There was a pang inside him as the final hope died. ‘I guess, even when you hit the top of some area, you only command so much. There’s always someone to answer to. Head of the Northern Watch answers to the master guard of the Southern Watch, who in turn takes orders from the Western Watch, and all three take orders from the head of the Eastern Watch. All of them, in turn, answer to the Shadow Watch who answer the Lord’s commands, who then has to answer to the Diety of Death when he dies. It’s just a never ending freaking cycle.’
“Maxwell, how old would you say you look?”
Max shrugged. Boss asked that often, if Max was really thirty two years old, and Max said no. He was lying, of course. “I’m thirty two, but I only look fifteen, don’t I?”
Taril took a while to reply, but she did eventually nod. “How strange. I honestly. . .I honestly didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Thought they would have killed me.” Max didn’t have to read minds to know that was what Taril was getting at. She didn’t come visit him or check up on him because she thought the Shadow Watch had cleared all evidence, including Maxwell Laurence Buntings himself. A typical, and normal thought process. He was disappointed.
Taril pushed the table back as she stood. “How dare you?” she hissed. Max wasn’t sure if he liked her face contorted in rage or not. “Do you realize how busy I’ve been? The Capitol City lies within the Eastern Land’s boundaries, and that’s where I have been tied up for the past twenty years Maxwell. Think I had time to take a side trip like this?”
So quick to aggravate, the woman. We forgot.
‘I know,’ Max sighed in his mind, then looked up to the ceiling. His reply was calm, and, he hoped, soothing. “Then why are you here now?”
Taril sat back down in a huff, looking exhausted from her sudden outburst. “I had to take a job that no one else would bother taking. There’s no pay involved in this, and it’s taxing because it’s such a long way off. There’s nothing to do but go there myself, I guess.”
Amazing how tired and drained she sounded. Twenty years. God it had been a while.
And from there they simply talked. There was no mention of the incident all those years ago, although the thing inside Max’s head sure had a lot to comment about the outside world and the wonders that were held there. Max often had to ask questions for him through his mouth, although Taril probably could have answered just by reading his thoughts.
After an hour had gone by, Max was called back into the kitchen and he left Taril there. He was shocked when he turned the corner and lost site of her that he had the fearful pang that he might not see her again. What if she took off and left the tavern before Max got back in time to stop her? What if the busboy was stupid once more - it wouldn’t be the first time he screwed up more than once in a night - and gave her a whole vile of poison instead of wine?
The woman would not be so stupid, youngling. She isn’t young like yourself.
‘I’m only young because you changed me. I hate you.’ The words were so strong, even in Max’s mind, that the voice shut itself away, sealing all access to it.
Boss leaned against the counter of the cluttered kitchen, his fat face red from exertion. Max wondered if the poor thing actually had to do some work while Max took another hour off for break.
The kitchen was spick and span when he entered, however. A little out of place, as usual, but it looked clean and all the food had been put away in storage. The tavern was closing up, and it was at this time Max realized how late it was getting. Had to be some time in the middle of the night, he supposed.
“Now, listen to me Maxy.”
Max jerked his attention back to the slightly lethargic and slightly accented voice of Boss. It was better to let Boss think that what he had to say was important to you instead of doing your usual and ignoring him. “Is that woman of yours getting a room here or not? If so, we’re going to have to go about. . .uh. . .business a bit differently this time.”
“She likes sleeping out under the stars. She probably only stopped in for food.” ‘Which she didn’t get,’ Max tacked on, his mental voice dry.
Boss nodded, his face turning a crimson. All that blood flow to his face couldn’t be healthy for someone of his weight. “She’ll get some bread then. As many loaves as she wants. But she needs to leave. Tell her to leave.”
Max sighed, sorry that the evening had to end as such. But he was tired. It felt like weeks since he had last drifted off into nothingness, for the voice stole all his dreams anymore. His limbs were aching, and sitting down had made him forget the tax of the long day - chopping wood, carting the wood in, making the thick soup to be used for months to come, laundry, more wood chopping, and lifting a cart off a unlucky farmer.
Like that character in the old story his father used to tell him.
Max waved Boss off when he started to speak again, and turned around to the dining room. He was thinking that maybe Taril was already gone, overhearing their conversation and booking it out of there before it got uncomfortable, but he was surprised when he ran into her in the hallway.
“I’ll be leaving, but you’re coming with me. And I’m going to need things from your kitchen. Yugbert said I could have as much as I wanted.”
“Breadwise,” Max countered, confused as hell as Taril jammed a cloth sack into his arms. “Bread. As much bread as you wanted.”
“Great,” Taril replied, chipper. “You know what bane is?”
Max nodded. It was a white flower that had distant, but deadly, cousins that looked exactly like it. Because of that, bane was hardly used in anything but flower decorations. “Get some,” she ordered before darting off into the dim room.
Max turned on his heel, actually thought it through, then walked into the kitchen to raid it of its bane and bread.
People were so. . .odd. Especially the abnormal ones.

4.
Max looked about the room, noting the different papers scattered here and there about the walls and desk. It looked like the room was made of papers entirely.
There was a man sitting at the desk, a newspaper held in front of him. Or, at least, Max hoped it was the man Taril had sent him to find. He couldn’t see a the name etched in the wood because a piece of paper was taped over it. Max couldn’t even read the paper from where he stood.
“Um. . .sir?”
The paper rustled, the fingers crinkling the paper. “I’m a little busy.”
Max chewed on his lip, unsure of whether or not to continue pressing the issue when his thoughts were interrupted by a high pitched cough from behind. Without turning around, Max looked in the direction of the cough and saw a younger woman with dirty blonde hair standing there. Her skin was fair, and her face was carved from elegance as she stared at him, her eyes orb like and wide as emerald mirrors.
Well, I don’t like her.
Max blinked, turning around fully. Of course, he was ignoring the voice at this time. She was so beautiful, the voice simply didn’t know what it was talking about this time. Her hair curled a bit at the end, he noticed, shimmering like fresh gold in the light of the dirty office.
“Don’t mind him. He’s a little frantic right now. What can I help you with, meanwhile?” And her voice. Well, it certainly wasn’t the voice of Taril, deep, mysterious, and intelligent. Instead, it was a shock of innocence and light.
Max was slightly stunned into silence, but he regained his composure in a few moments. “A friend of yours, Taril I believe, sent me here to meet up with a certain Jonathon. . .whats his name.”
“He’s not here,” the man behind the paper mask said, his voice gruff. “So go find that Taril person of yours, and tell her to come here herself if she wants to speak to him.”
The young woman in front of Max frowned. “That’s not nice John.” To Max, she smiled, and the heart in his chest fluttered painfully. “He’ll meet you in a few minutes, after I talk to him. Anything else you need? Coffee? Tea? A smoking pipe perhaps?”
Max shook his head after each question, his eyes turned in at the corners to look upon the paper John held in his hands. What a strange person.
So strange, that Taril, before leaving for her mission that she was needed at, had ordered Max to travel to the Capitol City - on foot, mind you - and meet up with him. And Max was supposed to work for this guy? Someone who couldn’t even keep his office orderly and neat?
Or maybe it was orderly chaos that this guy Jonathon lived in. Whatever the case, it was uncalled for to lie to Max’s face, that much was certain.
Max backed out of the office and no later had he shut the door he heard the young woman begin to yell at Jonathon, and Max felt guilty for leaving Jonathon in there alone to deal with that.
While he waited for the yelling to abate, and quite frankly he had no desire to listen in on the yelling, Max took a seat in on of the wooden chairs around the front room. The front room was a much neater, tidier place than Jonathon’s office. There was a wooden notice board that took up one whole side of the wall, although there were only a few papers pinned there.
After a few moments of staring, Max stood and walked over to the wall, studying the papers. A few were papers that had neat scrawls, messages posted in newsletters and newspapers from the Capitol. Others were more threatening letters, the writing only half legible and written in some other kind of language.
Since Max couldn’t actually read what was posted on the hand written letters, the only interesting thing up on the board, he took his seat again, bored. From his pocket, almost absentmindedly, he took out the mahogany figurine that his father had carved for him so long ago. The wolf, as it always had been, was lifting its head it a soundless, captured howl, lifting its voice to some imaginary moon. It was calming that after all these years, Max had something to remember them by at least.
He only had to wait a couple minutes when a man emerged from the office, his face haggard and worn. This had to be Jonathon.
Well, this Jonathon fellow looked to be the sort of outdoorsey person who spent most of his childhood outside playing sports instead of reading and being sickly like Max always did. His hair was a soft, but unhealthy looking, brown, like the brown of a field mouse or rabbit. His face was scruffy from lack of care, and his eyes were bruised with his lack of rest. Furrows, signs of stress, racked his brow and cheeks. Yet his eyes, what lay beneath the tired and ruggedness of them, were bright and wide awake.
He was wearing a light suit, with the top three buttons undone to make him look even messier than his office. He looked young, or perhaps it was he looked so older than what his actual age was that he gave the impression that he was tiny and frail. Max didn’t think his height did anything to make him look older either.
Basically, Jonathon looked very out of place in the cramped offices of the Watch.
He crossed the room’s width without looking at Max, and took a seat next to him, kicking his legs out so he was more relaxed. Max noted that all his height was in his torso region. He probably had a very condensed stomach to top it all off.
After a minute of silence, Jonathon cleared his throat. “What do you have there?”
Max looked to the figurine he had been turning over in his fingers. Then he looked up to the face of one who had not slept in weeks. Perhaps months.
Jonathon nodded to Max’s hands, like Max was stupid or something and didn’t get it.
Max sighed. “Just. . .childhood things, I suppose.” He turned away from the man and went back to turning the figurine over slowly. As a matter of fact, if Jonathon was in his younger twenties like Max guessed he was, Max was older than him by a couple of years.
Not like it meant anything. Max looked like he was only eighteen, perhaps even sixteen when he shaved.
“So. . .you met up with Taril, did you?”
Max didn’t answer, only nodded. He didn’t feel like talking - he felt too sentimental at the moment.
“You know, she picked a rotten time to leave the office. She say anything to you?”
Max shrugged. Taril didn’t say much even when she was feeling talkative, Max supposed. Instead of just sitting there though, he pulled out the note Taril had left him with that was meant for Jonathon. It was still neatly folded and creased, unopened because Max had couth, even though he was dying to know what the topic was about at least.
Itching actually. If Max was dying, and he just had to know what was in the envelope to save his life, he would do it, couth or no couth. Screw couth. He’d live without it if it meant living. But an itch inside you just can’t quite scratch? He could live with that.
Jonathon took it eagerly, flipping the paper open. He was quiet as he leaned back in the chair, his somehow still bright and eager eyes flitting back and forth rapidly among the words written there. Then, his expression grew confused, his brow furrowing and he looked up to Max before he was done reading.
Before Max could question him on what was wrong, Jonathon went back to reading, but his expression did not fade away as Max hoped it would.
Perhaps, youngling, there is news of where she is going. Perhaps, she tells him, she is not coming back.
‘I really hate you, and when I find out what you are, and how you got in my head, I’m going to extract you so fast you won’t have time to even form a snide comment in. . .well. . .whatever you think in.’
I think, and you hear. That is that. As for your questions, I am not sure why you just don’t ask them to me. I will answer, youngling, or would that hurt your pride?
Max shifted in his seat so he could catch some of the words on the paper. He hoped he was being discreet about it, or Jonathon there would be too absorbed in the contents to notice.
‘It’s not that,’ Max sighed inwardly back. ‘I don’t have a lot of pride anymore. It’s just weird talking to you like you’re a person inside my head.
‘You screwed up my life big time, not to forget. Why should I be friendly towards something like you, then?’
Max caught the same word written down a lot, but the scrawl was too fancy and curvy to understand. He hadn’t learned written words much, but Max knew all the stories in his story book by heart. They were trapped inside his mind like his brain was a large vault that he could just recover the words from. That was one reason he had sold it. The other reason was that he got thirsty half way to the Capitol, which was a good two days walk, and that’s if you avoided the main cities, back roads, and walked through the night like Max did.
Towards something like what, youngling?
‘How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me that? I’m thirty one, but because of you I’m stuck in the body of some young kid.’
In our time and age, you are very, very young. We are infinite. Plus, as you put it so crudely, I don’t give a damn what makes you happy. It suits me well to call you that. Tis nothing demeaning of the sort. You are merely young. You’re mind, is also young. You say thirty, but I see and hear twenty. Youngling.
‘In your standards.’ Max leaned back in his chair, turning the wolf figurine in his hands over and over again out of boredom. Time seemed to tick by so slowly until Jonathon was done with the letter, and when he was, he looked Max over like he was going to be buying him in the next few moments. He half expected Jonathon to pull out a measuring device and pry open Max’s mouth to look inside it.
“You gather any of that?”
So he wasn’t terribly discreet. He’d have to work on that. Max shook his head, not taking his eyes from the figurine.
The detail - the carved in fur and how it ruffled in the imaginary wind, the perfect oval shaped mouth where the silent howl emitted from, the was the tail wrapped around the leg, and the blades of grass that protected the wolf’s paws from view - was extraordinary. Max thought he would never get over just looking at it, studying and memorizing every flaw and every perfection the piece of wood held. Even the way the gloss shone in different light was captivating.
It took Max a second to register that Jonathon had asked him a question, and he looked up, prying his eyes away from his one and only possession - save, of course, the clothes that were on his back, but he didn’t pay much, or as much, attention to those sorts of things.
Jonathon seemed to get that Max hadn’t heard, and looking at the figurine himself, he repeated what he had said. “It’s written in code anyway. You’d have to read a lot of the personal letters that went through here to even get a grasp of what any of it meant.”
“No,” Max mumbled, partly to himself. Jonathon straightened, his brow furrowing once more. And just when it had started to relax too. “No, I just can’t read.”
Jonathon’s face went slack. “She wants us to take someone on who wasn’t educated. She must like you kid.”
The same demeaning ‘kid’ word again. Max’s grip on the figurine suddenly obscured it from the outside world’s vision, and his knuckles turned white from the exertion of trying not to break it in two. “I can’t read. What’s the harm in that?” he seethed. “I can learn, easily enough.”
I like the idea of learning to read. If you don’t push yourself to do it, I will force you from within.
Max ignored the voice and pressed on. “I mean, it can’t be too hard. Besides. . .”
Jonathon had stood up, brushing unseen dust from his suit, and had crossed the room. Max was so concentrated on not splintering the wood, he hadn’t noticed until he looked up to find him standing there, examining the message wall.
“Besides,” Max snarled, angry now. “I am not a child.”
Jonathon motioned for Max to sit down, all calm and adult-like that it made Max’s rage double. “I know. She mentioned that. . .so a survivor of Lilick. Amazing. Still, I don’t see why that makes you so special, Special.” Jonathon pivoted on his heel and started shuffling around the papers on the secretary’s desk.
Max kicked his feet onto the chair beside him, not looking at what Jonathon was doing. “I’m not ‘special’. And the only reason I’m a survivor is because Tar-“
”Because Taril found you in time, before any one of those beasts or any of the