13 Years Ago

It was a dark night in Sambadon. The only light seen in the isolated village was created by the full moon, casting an eerie glow in the calm, murky brown water. The decrepit little huts lined up next to the shoreline were filled with huddled-up families trying to preserve the little warmth the straw huts provided.

Miserable as they were, their lives ruled by fear and hatred, the villagers of the island were oblivious to the danger lurking nearby. They couldn't have known. Nobody should have known. The little girl's cries of pain were muffled by a pair of gloved hands and carried off by the howling wind, never heard of again.

Time was always a confusing thing in Sambadon, but everyone in the little village was asleep. Well, they were supposed to be. One little boy had looked straight into a girl's crystal blue, pleading eyes that night. From that day forth, he had carried the burden of hearing her muted screams carry on and on into the night, of hearing her tortured cries finally die down to the mere sound of her final breath and the thud of her body collapsing lifelessly onto the cold ground. One little boy had known at almost 8 years old what it was like to have the same nightmares every sleepless night.

Karyen knew what pain was. He knew what grief was. His own father had died quietly on the island when he was 6, never spoken of again as if he had never existed - as if he had been erased from history itself. So when they came to take him away, he ran as fast as he could. He had a chance to escape. And he was going to take it.

The test. One mention of it would send fierce warriors to their knees, begging for the memories to stop. Nobody lived a day past their eighth birthday without taking the test. Some had tried escaping it. They always caught up to them eventually, the sheer impossibility of freedom reflected in the still, cold eyes of the little girl.

Those who had taken it would rarely speak about it. Memories cut so deep into their hearts that they screamed all night, plagued by nightmares. It was made to test how brave you were, how much you could withstand, how easily you would break.

It was made to kill you.

Karyen's eighth birthday was tomorrow.