"Let the light of Calamity wash over you! Let the light of change give you a rebirth! We are weak, make us IDEAL!" -Unknown
I still remember the day my mother tried to kill me.
The room stank with the smell of frying meat. My hands cramped as I diced what felt like my hundredth potato, the dull thudding of the knife against wood being the only relief from the monotony. I glanced to my left to find my mother, standing over a giant pot, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. The pot was the source of the smell, a reminder that lunch time was fast approaching, and we would have a very hungry crowd in the bar soon. Hell, we might've even had more elite guests, as there were rumors of Battle Mages from Lunaria on their way past our village. I sighed and focused my hands back down at my work.
Typically, this would've been done a lot sooner, but my mother stressed to me that it wasn't a big deal, more than likely because she had learnt a method of using fire magic to precook potatoes, meaning that they could spend a lot less time frying. But they still needed to be chopped. Back to the task.
Thud, Thud, Thud. It was like I could feel my sanity drifting away, begging me to stop and doing literally anything else. And then, like a message from the Gods, my mom spoke.
"Al, get on. That's enough, I won't need you for at least a few more hours. Go find something to do." I had never dropped a knife so fast in my life. It clattered against the table as I whipped my apron off, the wooden floor creaking beneath me. I threw the apron into a basket we had as I hurried over to the washbasin, scrubbing my hands clean from the pieces of vegetables I had done.
Shaking my hands to dry them, I stepped towards the back door, before I heard the sound of my mother clearing her throat behind me. I glanced at her and saw an expectant look on her face. I sighed internally before stepping over to her and giving her a hug, her lips pressing against my cheek in a loving peck. "I love you, you did good. Go have some fun."
A warmth spread through me. Even if I didn't particularly enjoy helping her in the kitchen, seeing the look of gratification on her face made it much more bearable. I walked over to the door leading outside again, pushing it open while the hinges squealed in protest. And the world was bathed in red.
It was an interesting sight. It wasn't as if everything was just dyed red now, no, it was as if the sun itself had decided to change colors. I would've suspected some sort of magic, but I couldn't think of any magician that would have that amount of power in my village. I stepped outside and looked around the corner of the building. The town square was there, along with all the people one would expect to occupy it at midday. Normally, there would be an extraordinary amount of activity, but everyone stood still, glancing around at each other, the same question I had most likely bouncing around in their heads.
After thirty seconds of everybody staring, movement started again. Leave it to the practicality of the poor, but there wasn't time in the day to be standing around gawking. We all understood that there was work to be done. My shoulders also began to relax. After all, if the light is not doing anything, why worry about it? Probably something that the Magicians were doing in Lunaria, none of our business. That was until I heard the first scream.
It was like watching a rock get thrown into a lake. A wave of activity spread out from the middle of the crowd in the square, everyone trying to glance around and see what was happening at the center. But whatever had happened soon became irrelevant. I spied some activity to my right and whipped my gaze around to stare at it.
I watched as a farmer at the edge of the crowd seemingly went slack, his eyes glazing. Then, with an almost frightful amount of indifference, he raised his farming tool, a scythe, above his shoulder. And with a swift swing, brought the tip into the neck of the man standing in front of him.
The results were immediate and brutal. The iron parted the skin away from it with staggering ease, the scythe continuing into the tip came out of the other side of the man's neck, the friction finally slowing the blade down to a halt. Blood burst from the other side as skin and muscles were torn apart. Even from the slight distance I had, I heard the gurgles of the man as he fell to his knees, his hands weakly grabbing at the blade. I didn't even have time to see what became of him, as the man who had caused the injury braced himself to yank the tool out. Until a fist collided with the side of his face, sending him tumbling to the ground, the thud of his body loud even to me. I didn't even get to see the person the fist belonged to as the crowd exploded into chaos.
I had seen the slaughter of animals before, of pigs, cows, even weepers. Nothing compared to the ferocity I saw in the square. A giant mass of bodies, all trying to tear the eyes out of the person next to them. I saw one woman get thrown to the ground, her screams silenced as a boot stomped down on the side of her head, pressing it down until her skull collapsed, the sickening sight of her caved in skull searing into my mind. I saw another woman leap onto a man next to her, her long fingernails finding his eye sockets and sinking in deep, his screams of fear being masked by the sheer noise of the crowd. And there were people experiencing worse.
I rounded the corner again, my back pressing into the rough wood of the wall as my stomach tried to fight me. It won, and the contents of whatever was inside of it were spewed out onto the ground in front of me. I continued until nothing was left but just a burning sensation in my throat and a terrible taste in my mouth. I wiped it, coughing up the last of whatever was trapped.
I leaned back against the wall, breathing deep gulpfuls of air. Sweat stuck my hair to my forehead as a million thoughts raced through my mind. Until one of them leapt forth and pushed all of the rest out of the way. Mother.
I forced myself off of the wall, staggering as I gathered my footing. I stumbled to the back door, putting my shoulder against it before pushing with all of my might. "MO-"
My words were cut off by the glint of a knife whistling towards my face.