Hincident

You’ve just arrived in a swampy, dim town. As you look around, your gaze is met with shacks and cabins. It smells of rotted wood and wet moss. You duck and step into a tattered tent, illuminated by a series of candles suspended in the air. At the back of the tent, an old hag raises her head, “What brings you to this dingy town? she begins, then pauses to study your face—”Ah, it’s you. I’ve been expecting you. Sit,” she gestures at a cushion, “Tell me your story.”

((How do you respond?))

Zack stood there silently with his guard up, and he scanned the tent, from the cushion to the old hag's expression. He almost looked lifeless from exhaustion, and his sole green eye cemented that fact, it held a tortured story within it. After assessing his situation, he let out a heavy sigh, then he took a seat in the cushion as he slowly began to relax. "Well," he began, a little hesitance in his voice, "It all started with my parents. They gotta be pretty old now, I bet you knew them, huh?" He let out a nervous chuckle and a smirk rose, but it all slowly drained from his face in the minutes that followed. Maybe the jest at the old hag's age wasn't as amusing to him, but it was almost instinct to crack such a joke. He continued, "As far as I know, I was born in Judi and I lived there for a bit. Though, once the other kids started to bully me, my Mom and I were sent away to a faraway cabin in the middle of nowhere. And my Father had to stay and work in Judi, so I didn't see much of him growing up. But, Mom was happy to raise me, and she was amazing at it, we had a fun time..." Zack took a minute to pause, and before he continued, he began to fidget with a tattered piece of his pants, "That was until an arsonist killed her and burnt the cabin down. Of course, I ran away, and I ran, and I ran, and I ran. I don't know where I ended up, but a cultist found me and he took me in. For the years that followed, he gave me somewhat of a proper education, and in return, I would follow his orders under his mentorship. We had a good shtick going on... until he disappeared one day. I don't know where he went, I just know he went 'poof'." Zack shrugged, it was obvious he grew more tired retelling the story of his past. "In the next chapter of my life, I fended for myself as a homeless orphan child, blah blah blah, I ended up enlisting as a soldier somewhere, went on trial, got fired, don't ask," a small sigh escaped him and he rolled his eye, "Then, I found myself in a colder climate, Storheim or whatever, and I made friends with this kid. He wasn't much younger than me, maybe four or five years between us. Anyways, it wasn't much soon after when he invited me into this huge family, and I accepted; I had nothing better going on. It was kind of nuts to put a bunch of strangers together and expect them to find family in each other, yet it worked. But..." A tortured expression swept over Zack's face as he recalled the painful memories, "It turned out the kid WAS nuts. He tortured a few of us, including me, and they tried to fix him, but of course, it didn't work. When it came down to it, I knew innocent lives were at risk, I decided I had to drop him before he dropped anyone else. So, I guess you could say, my actions led me to the death of my little brother." He let a deafening silence linger between them before he carried on with his story, "That's when I met the love of my life, and shortly after, the bane of my existence too. Before you misunderstand, these are two separate people, I just met them within the same timespan or whatever. Anyways, my whole life felt like a nightmare up until then, just a dream that I was waiting to wake up from. But when I met her, she made me feel real... I finally felt grounded to reality, and it was her doing that made it all possible." A faint smile crept up on Zack, but it faded away in the same second. "However, the bane of my existence took all of that away... including my eye," Zack tapped the bloodied bandage on his face where his right eye once was, "The guy was some psycho, he held a grudge for far too long, and he felt it was right to take away my peace. All of them are gone now, I have nothing left in this crazy world. So, with no home, no family, or anything to my name, I'm back to basics... I'll have to fend for myself alone again." Zack opened his palm and stared at it with his dull eye, he was unsure how to feel, it all felt too unreal, "I suppose that's it, I probably missed a few things, but that is the gist of it," and finally finished with his story, Zack clenched his fist.