Chapter 9: Mission Accomplished
It didn’t take long before Conner could see the Capitol in sight again; he walked closer to the gate, he noticed that the troops that were standing out front of the gate before were now gone, there wasn’t even the regular town’s guards that usually guarded the gate. “That’s strange.” Conner thought to himself as he entered into the main gate. The capital is a huge city that is known to be highly populated with citizens usually bumping into each other as they walked through the city but it was much sparser; it wasn’t as lonely as it was in Jonestown but it still wasn’t normal. Conner decided to ignore it and continued through the city until he reached the market.
The market was also less populated than usual but definitely more crowded than the entrance. As Conner made his way through, walking past other customers he eventually reached the small shop that sold books more commonly known for selling books from other countries. These vendors dealt with vast amounts of new people and couldn’t afford to pay intention to whom or what they were selling to.
“Excuse me, miss?” Conner spoke up to the seller, having talked with her a couple times before; feeling safe to talk to her. She turned, giving a smile with a blank face, as he asked, “Do you have the book Anthem?”
“One moment.” The seller said in a cheery tone looking back through the books she had in her inventory. It took about two minutes until she found the corresponding title. “Here it is; this would be five silver.” Conner felt a twinge of embarrassment as he pulled out the pouch of gold that his mother gave him, realizing that he didn’t count the gold. He looked in to see five gold coins, he handed one of the gold coins to the seller.
“Would this be enough?” He truthfully had never seen a gold piece before.
“Oh my!” The seller exclaimed. She took the gold coin out of Conner’s hand giving Conner the book, she proceeded to reach down under the counter to grab something. Conner felt awkward wondering if he should leave or not, not knowing if the transaction was complete. “Hold open your pouch.” the woman said as she held a handful of silver coins, Conner obliged and was pleasantly surprised as she dumped a handful of silver coins into the pouch. “Thank you and enjoy your book.” The seller said sweetly and turned to deal with another customer.
“Oh, uh thank you!” Conner said back. He shifted his focus back on the bag surprised by the weight.
Chapter 10: The Execution of Amelia Avetii
A horn goes off in the distance breaking Conner out his trance.
“Come on we’re going to be late to the execution.” Conner heard two teenage boys talking behind him.
“Who’s it today?” one of the teenage boys asks.
“It’s the witch Amelia.” The other boy responded. Conner’s eye’s widened as his thoughts went from curiosity to fear with the uttering of his mother’s name.
“No! no!” Conner thought, terrified.
“Yeah,” The teenager continued “apparently the Covenant made a deal with our government, in exchange for us joining them, they would get rid of her.”
“So, it sounds like a win win.” The other teenager said with grin “We join the global world and we get to travel safely through the desert again.” Conner slowly backed away from the book stand and the teenagers and began to run toward the town center slipping through the crowds as he ran.
“This can’t be happening.” Conner shouted to himself as he made his way through the crowds “There probably talking about a different Amelia.” He reasoned to himself. Conner kept on running through the crowds of people that were heading the same way. The crowd stopped making it harder to get through. Conner looked up to see why the thralls of people suddenly stopped and his heart sank. There he saw a guillotine, guards and his mother in chains being presented for the entire crowd to see. A man in black and white robes that Conner assumed was a preacher walked towards the crowd on the platform behind him was another man that seemed handling the security of this event, he wore mirror sunglasses and the blue and white coat like the other guards but he had a more relaxed demeanor.
“Ladies and gentlemen we are here to bear witness to the righteous death of the Witch Amelia Avetti!” The preacher spoke into a microphone, his voice booming across the crowd. The Crowd roared in anticipation while Conner’s face was deep in pain; confused on multiple accounts.
“Why is she up there?!” His inner voice screamed in anguish. He looked around and the crowd that had cheery expressions plastered on their face. “Why is everyone so happy!?” He yelled in his mind.
“Amelia has given both the Covenant and the people of this great nation terror for long enough.” The man in robes spoke to another thunderous round of applause. “It was seven years ago that this infamous pirate came to this fair land and extorted you. THE PEOPLE!” more applause filled the air. “Living in your desert, cursing it!”
“BOOO!” The crowd bellowed out.
“Not only that but she trafficked in the illegal spices that have brought calamity to your once wonderful nation.” The man spoke to the crowd gaining a few more “boo’s” from the crowd. Conner couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Terrorized!?” He thought “Spices!? But we kept to ourselves!? Even when we see people who come on to our land we didn’t attack. We didn’t even talk to them! And Spices? Do they mean the old salt deposits we harvested from old dehydrated lakes? ” Conner reasoned to himself trying to make sense from all of this. “They must be mistaken; they must be talking about someone else. I have to tell them!” Conner tried to reason to himself as he began to make his way through the already crowded thralls of people separating him from the platform. Amelia stepped forward eyes closed guided by the guards; her expression blank.
“Now do you have any last words, any remorse to show for the laws you have broken?” The man spoke facing in Amelia’s direction. Amelia stayed silent not responding to the man in robes eyes remaining shut. “You see! She shows no remorse, no regret for the things she’s done!” His voice echoed through the crowd. The guards guided Amelia toward the bed of the guillotine.
“No!, No!, No!” Conner screamed inside his head, he was now shoving people to get to the front of the crowd. The blade of the guillotine was raised and Amelia was put into position, lying on the bed. Conner frantically continued to pushing through the crowd. Amelia was now through the hole of the guillotine.
“With that we now sentence Ms. Avetti back to the creator to be judged.” As the preacher spoke, Conner managed to get to the front of the crowd. The blade dropped and for that moment everything was silent Amelia finally opened her eyes for the last time in her life and for a brief second as the blade fell down she cracks a smile at the crowd and her head falls off. The crowd roared with fanatical glee, as Conner stood there, silent and wide eyed, his world crumbling around him.
Chapter 11: Mob Mentality
“Oh Mother…” Conner said silently.
“What!?” The man next to Conner bellowed as he looked straight down at him. Conner, realizing he spoke aloud, feeling exposed.
“I… uhh…” Conner stuttered. But the man wouldn’t let him finish that thought, he grabbed Conner’s arm and ripped him up into the air.
“It’s the Witch’s bastard!?” The Man yelled getting the attention of the crowd, sending a wave of gasps. There was a moment were all Conner could hear were whispers.
“Kill him like the whore!” A woman yelled from the crowd, breaking the silence and sending a wave cheers.
“Send him to him to the creator for punishment.” Another yelled out. The crowd approved
“Kill him in the name of Slamism!” A man yelled using his magical order as a reason.
“Should we really kill a child!?” A man questioned the crowd.
“Kill him in the name Germnism!” Another man used his order as a reason.
“We can’t let him live!” Another man yelled out.
“Kill him in the name Chanism!” Another man used his order as a reason.
“When he grows older he’ll come back for revenge!” Another man yelled in fear
“It’s for the safety of the people of the Covenant.” Another reasoned.
“Kill him in the name of the Covenant!” Another man yelled, gaining the most applause. Finally the man in robes who had just sent Amelia to her death spoke through his microphone.
“Guards! Capture the devil spawn, for the safety of the people!” The preacher yelled. The man with sunglasses raised his arm and directed troops with their faceless expressions to move in. Conner tried to shake free from the man’s hand. No budge. He shook harder, still no budge. The guards were coming closer and closer to bent on putting Conner on the chopping block next. In a fit of desperation, Conner bit down hard on the hand holding him from above, causing the man to release him as he yelled out in pain.
Conner was free! “Got get out of here, Got get out of here!” Those words screamed inside Conner’s head as he began to run but everywhere he turned there were either the faceless white and blue troops or the hungry crowd that wanted him strung up. He started to shove his way through the crowd feeling the people’s hands grabbing at him as he tried to escape from them. It seemed fruitless to Conner as their hands continued to grab at him, preventing him from getting through. “Think, Think!” He thought “How do I distract all these people?” then he remembered the book seller reaction to the gold coin he gave her. He reached into his coat pocket and grabbed the pouch, he loosen the string and threw it in the air. Gold and silver pieces went flying across the air and suddenly, Conner felt all the hands pawing at him trying to lead him to his death let go and everyone in the crowd started to reach for the gold and silver pieces instead. The once blood thirsty mob was now scrambling on the ground trying to pick up the currency.
“No that’s my piece.” One yelled.
“I found a gold one” Another could be heard screaming. The entire scramble made a wall between Conner and the troops. Conner was starting to think he was in the clear, when he heard a ‘SNAP!’ that stood out from all the chaos. Conner would regret looking back to see what made the peculiar sound, as soon as he turned his head he felt the extreme heat of the fireball he grazing his right side setting his clothes on fire. Conner dropped to the ground and rolled gasping in pain.
“Ahh!!!” He yelled, panicking that his coat and head scarf were now burning.
“We have to make sure he doesn’t escape!” The man in mirror sunglasses yelled to his guards as he lowered his hand from snapping his fingers “Use magic if you must. The Covenant can’t seem incompetent because we couldn’t apprehend a child!” He bellowed at his troops. Conner managed to get the flames to stop on his clothes leaving them charred as he began to run again. He ran across the town doing his best to avoid the troops and the citizens. The captain that shot the fire ball at Conner was doing his best to get through the rampant hordes that were now rioting, Conner kept on running until he finally reached the main gate. “oh no you don’t!” The captain yelled and with another ‘SNAP!’ a fire ball came whizzing by his head, melting the chains, causing the main gate to drop shut right in front of Conner with a mighty ‘SLAM!’. Conner looked around frantically.
“No! I can’t be cornered!” He yelled to himself. He looked to the left seeing the stairs leading up the city’s walls. Conner ran up the stairs seeing no other way out, reaching the top he began to run across the wall. The troops were now beginning to climb up the stairs.
Conner ran until he came to one of the watch towers, he was about to continue through but when he looked out of the archway he saw more troops coming from the other side of the wall, when he looked back the troops that were originally chasing him were now up the stairs and now running across the wall. “Only way to go is up.” Conner thought to himself as he scrambled his way up the stairs.
“Stop!” Conner heard one of the troops yell “In the name of the Covenant!” Conner continued to run up the stairs tears in his eyes not wanting to end up like his mother before him. He finally made it to the top and realized he was trapped. Conner frantically looked around for something he might have missed, as footsteps of the troops were getting closer and closer. He noticed a small wooden perch that was used to hold up the nations flag. As the troops were nearing, their scimitars in hand, Conner retreated on to it trying to get much distance as he could.
The troops slowly approached, Conner continued to step back further on further on the pole until he reached the end. Conner’s right foot slipped causing Conner to almost to lose his balance; he looked down to see the drop down, his vision tunneled, It looked like a thousand miles to Conner, he could his heart beating insanely fast. He looked back up at the troops surrounding him and he saw the snapping captain holding up his right hand and with one final 'SNAP', Conner slipped and fell from the wall.
“This is the end.” Conner thought. “I’ll be with you soon mother.” he felt the sadness well up inside as he fell. He hit the ground landing on his right arm deep in pain.
“Ahhh!” He screamed out in pain. Conner looked back realizing two things, it was only a 30 foot fall and he survived! His right arm might be broken, but he survived!
“Quick back to the gate!” Conner heard one of the troops yell from top of the tower.
“Can’t waste time.” Conner thought to himself panicking. He picked himself up and began to run again but this time into the desert.
Conner ran as fast as he could, managing to put enough distance between him and the troops chasing him, that he mange to find a small camouflaged cave to duck into without being seen. Resting himself on the cave wall trying to steady his breath. Conner began hear footsteps coming from outside of the cave. He held his breath hoping the soldiers wouldn't notice the cave entrance.
Conner heard one of the soldiers yell out, “Where did he go?” Another soldier responded, “He must have used some type of magic to disappear.”
“He probably went back to the witch’s hut.” a third chimed in. With that, he heard the footsteps of the troops hitting the desert sand traveling further and further away. Conner exhaled panting from the adrenaline coursing through his veins, he waited there in darkness of the cave, scared, hurt, and exhausted, he began to sob quietly feeling the pain in the arm he landed on, his vision fades and he falls into a deep much needed sleep.
Chapter 12: The Return to Home
Conner had fallen into a deep much needed sleep for the first few hours. Then it turned fitful. Someone was calling his name from somewhere far away, “I want you to come back to the house right away. Go to the back of the house, place one of your hands on the bottom board and say your name; a chest will appear before you…” Amelia’s vision played in Conner’s head the words echoed in his ears. Conner awoke from vison of his mother’s last words. He stared in the darkness “I want you take the chest and make your way to the sea…” He heard her voice through the darkness of the cave. Conner moved away from the wall and attempted to move his right arm, the pain was excruciating, he yelped as he tried moving it.
He panted giving up on moving his right side. He placed his left hand on his knee to bring himself up placing himself upward leaning against the wall to balance himself. Finally, he was standing but he was sore and couldn’t move his right arm. On the up side, he could at least walk. Conner began to walk forward out of the cave into the night air “I need to get home.” he thought. It was only thing he thought. His mind fixated on it to keep him sane. As Conner exited the cave he quickly looked around for the troops fearing they could be around the corner. Instead he could only see the Capitol in the distance. Breathing a sigh of relief he got his bearings on his position from the Capitol and headed towards his home. So many thoughts ran through his head. “Would the troops looking for me? Did they find the chest? Are the troops waiting at the house expecting me? Could they be following me? What could be in the chest!?” These questions plagued his mind as he walked through the darkness like a zombie with a single purpose, no longer caring about anything, accepting his fate.
His home came into view; he went directly inside seeing it appeared to be totally ransacked. After clearing each room one by one on edge thinking there would be some sort of trap. Seeing that the house was totally clear, Conner exited the house and went around the back. He placed his left hand on the bottom board and with ache in heart remembering his mother’s words he said his name.
“Conner.” He whispered. A pentagram formed around his hand and right beneath the board the sand started to shake. Conner backed away shocked. The ground continued to shake and then began to part and small chest started to rise from the sand. Conner didn’t hesitate he grabbed one of the handles with his left hand and began to drag the chest along with him.
“It’s a straight shot from the house.” Conner remembered his mother’s final words as he dragged the box to his front door. He looked back at his home realizing that this was the last time he would probably ever see his home again, a wave of memories flooded over him of him growing up. He knew he couldn’t stay, the house was already ransacked and the troops would want to re check if their search came up empty. With a sigh of sadness he accepted his fate turned his back to his old home, faced the east and began to walk straight to the unknown dragging the chest behind.
Chapter 13: Inheritance
He trudged through sand and the cold desert night for about an hour. When looked back towards his old home, it was nowhere in sight and the tracks he made were being covered by the desert wind blowing, he looked forward and saw small cave. Tired and still injured, he made his way to the entrance, It was small but inside was dry and it allowed him to rest without the added worry of being seen. He went to the back of the cave and sat down at the end and stretched out his legs facing the cave entrance.
“Take this gold and this letter.” Conner had a flash back of his mother giving him the letter. “The letter!” Conner thought to himself.
“She wanted me to open at the sea but…” Conner said to himself he took out the letter he kept in his bag. He held it up and realized “No light.” He muttered to himself. He stood up scanning the cave for something to use.
“Maybe if I start a fire?” he thought to himself. Conner stood up picking up dead weeds and small drift wood around the cave, gathering all of it into a small pile.
“It’s not enough.” Conner muttered to himself. The he remembered. “The book!” he reached into his bag and took out the book titled Anthem. He held the book and letter in his left hand and looks at both them in deep thought. Then he felt a cold breeze sending a shiver through him and with that he dropped the book onto the pile.
Conner began placing stones around the pile and then took one stone in his left hand and began to strike another stone on the ground. First strike no spark, he hit again still no spark, another strike no spark and again still no spark. He reached up for one final strike scraping against the stone and finally he saw a tiny spark fly across into the pit causing a small ember leaving a thin smoke trail. Elated Conner placed his hand over the ember and began to softly blow being careful not to blow out the small ember he just created. The tiny smoke trail became bigger and bigger until a small fire began to form eventually lighting up the cave. Conner huddled over the fire feeling the warmth emitted from the small pit heating up his body.
After minutes of feeling the warmth of the fire he sat back down and took out the letter again removing the seal and opening the envelope, a small key plopped down on his lap followed by a folded parchment paper. Conner held the key and figured it was for the chest. Setting the key down, he proceeded to unfold the paper and began to read.
“Dear Conner, you have probably have figured this out by now but if you are reading this I am probably dead.” A tear rolled down Conner’s face coming to terms with his mother’s death. “I’m sorry. I wanted to be there to see you grow up and to give you things that I never knew but my past will always be out there, as well as my enemies. I thought if I could just escape from this part of the world with you my most precious gift, I could live a quiet peaceful existence with you my beautiful son. But my enemy won’t let me go, nor will they ever leave me alone. I don’t think I even have the right to complain, but my problems shouldn’t be yours and as long as I’m alive my enemies will be after you as well. So if I have to die to spare you from them, then so be it. I know you probably opened the letter before you got to the sea; you have always been a curious one. Use the gold I gave you for your trip to the sea, then get on a ship and sail away from here. There’s so much to this world and it would be shame to only know the sand. The key is to the chest, its contents and the gold is my final gift to you, I know it’s not much but it should at least help get you away from this place, I know you might hate the world for what happened, there was a time I know I hated it, but there’s so much more beauty to see out there, both you and your father proved that to me. I know I’m being vague about my past but it’s only because I don’t want you tied down by my problems. This is your life I want you to live it on your terms and not be shackled down by your father sins or mine. You probably will hate me for being so vague on my past, but it’s only because I don’t want you to be consumed with hatred. I just want you to know that even in my last moments on this earth, I was thinking of you my beautiful boy. Love Mom.”
Conner felt confused and started to cry again. “But why were they after you?” He thought. He was hoping that the letter would give him answers to know what he should do next, but instead he just had more questions. “The executioner said you terrorized them, was that true?” He questioned. “Why did you leave dad if you loved him?” Conner never knew his father; he just assumed that they disliked each other or that his father abandoned them.
“I threw away the gold to escape the troops.” Conner cried out continually dumping on himself. “And what’s with the ches-.” Conner stopped himself looking at the chest lying in the corner of the cave. He instantly ran toward the chest tripping on the way, he held the key that was in the envelope shaking as it made its way to the lock. He turned the key slowly while it was in the lock hearing the click of it opening. He hurriedly slipped it off from the latch throwing the lock and key across the cave. Then using his left hand he slowly raised the lid of the chest, his heart pounding with anticipation.
Conner looked inside the chest and furrowed his brow in confusion. He saw a medium size pouched sitting in the chest. Reluctantly he lifted the bag out and untied the tassels allowing the pouch’s walls to fall revealing a solid chunk of meat. Conner’s expression went from curious to confusion to anger. “What does this mean!?” He yelled clearly frustrated and at wits end. “What am I going to do with this? Is this joke?” He was now pacing around the cave tears forming in his eyes, he felt he was about to go insane feeling he had no control over his life. Conner fell down to the ground and began to sob. After sobbing on the ground for a few minutes he started to catch his breath finally calming down to actually think straight. Laying there he felt his stomach begin to rumble, he hadn’t eaten today and the hunger was getting to him. He looked over the chunk of meat that he dropped while he was throwing a tantrum, again his stomach let out a growl.
Getting up from the ground he picked up the meat and placed it on the fire. Conner sat down holding his knees to his chest staring blankly at the cooking piece of meat. Conner was now staring into space with no particular thought in mind; he began to smell his meat burning. He snapped out of his trance and reached for the meat pulling it out of the fire and dropping it into his lap burning his hand from the heat of the fire. Letting it cool he then picked up the cooked meat with his left hand and began chomping down on it with fury. Conner had never cooked before, part of it was too burnt to other parts too raw. It tasted awful, so bad that if Conner’s body had enough strength he would have vomited all of it out. He finally got it all down, meat juice smeared all over his face, he laid down thinking this had been the best part of day for him. Feeling full Conner’s eyes began to slowly close and sleep began to overtake him. At this moment Conner felt at peace with the warmth of the fire warding off the cold desert air and the cave's floor went from feeling cold and hard was now actually feeling comfortable. Conner’s eye’s finally shut accepting the coming sleep.
Chapter 14: To the Sea
Images began to flash in Conner’s head like a rewind of his life. It showed him falling from the castle wall, the fireballs he dodged running out of the city after witnessing his mother’s death, him buying the book, being spurned by the Jonestown vendor, his mother last request, the troops talking to his mother, the Jonestown children attacking him, him growing up with his mother, all leading up to his first memory buried down deep in his sub conscious. He remembered clinging to his mother feeling the ground itself rocking; he looked to side to see an outline of an imposing figure wearing a dark red coat. The man was a giant compared Conner’s size. His mother lifted him up and turned him around to face the opposing figure, and he remembered smiling. He knew him but couldn’t remember who he was or where they were. The man lifted his finger slowly up to Conner close to his chest. Conner remembered grabbing his finger with both of his small hands and started to shake it like a person would shake another’s hand, grinning ear to ear. The man spoke softly.
“Goodbye, my son.” As he said this he saw the darkest blue as if it was the sky but in liquid form splash across the wooden platform they were all standing on causing it rock back in fourth and as the liquid touched the sky it so closely resembled, it fell onto the wooden platform splashing across the deck. Conner sat up, as if he had just had a nightmare.
“That liquid.” Conner spoke to himself “That was the sea! I have been there before, I was not born here, and this was never my home!” He yelled to no one with great euphoria as if he had made the greatest discovery ever. “I have to see it again, I was happy then!” Conner reasoned to himself like a mad man. “Mother didn’t want me to escape; she wanted me to find my way home.” Somewhere in the back of his mind he recognized the insanity but didn’t care this was his goal now, his adventure and he was going to see it through.
Conner moved his right hand and winced in pain as he remembered dislocating his arm when he fell 30 feet from the wall at the Capitol. Angered Conner picked himself up with his left hand steadying himself as he stood up. He lined up his dislocated arm facing the cave wall, took one giant deep breath to mentally prepare himself and ran straight towards the cave wall hitting his arm; he heard a popping sound as he bounced of the wall falling backwards nearly passing out from the pain. Shivering from the pain, he holds his right arm. Conner breaths heavily and stretches out his arm. “I can move my arm again!” he said aloud. Thankful as he bends his arm enjoying the movement again feeling the euphoria of accomplishing something.
Conner lifts himself back up still feeling the energy from his dream and heads to the small cave entrance. Dawn was starting to break. As he walked towards the entrance, he tripped over the chest he had all but forgotten about. Conner crawled over to see what he missed. The fire was almost out so it wasn’t easy to see inside when he opened the chest. Inside was a dark red cloth. Taking the fabric out of the chest, he realized it was bigger than he anticipated. He was holding it with two hands by the time he had all the way out. As he held it up, he understood. “It’s a coat.” He remarked to himself. The image of the man in his dream flashed in eyes “It’s the coat that man wore.” He said silently himself. Conner looked down at himself realizing how much his clothes had rips and tears on them so he put on the coat. “I’m going to need something to cover myself from the sun and I bet it will keep me warm when it gets dark.” He reasoned. The coat was way too big for him, the sleeves drooped over his hands and the bottom dragged on the ground. He rolled up his sleeves making it so he could at least use his hands. He felt something in the coat's chest plates and reached inside to find more fabric. Unfolding it he saw that it was a hood. He pulled it over his head realizing it was also too big he adjusted to his liking. “This will be easier than my head scarf.” he said adjusting the head scarf around his neck. Finally satisfied with his clothing he walked out of the cave feeling reinvigorated he looked toward the east seeing the sun rise and smiling to himself, he walked towards the sun not looking back.
Chapter 15: The Rejection of death
Three days had passed as Conner walked through the desert, he stayed on his eastern direction rarely stopping to rest and when he did it wasn’t more than a couple of hours. The only thing available to sustain his hunger was small desert lizards, and their blood was the only thing he had to drink. His lips grew chapped, his skin dried out, his vision tunneled. Only one thought was constant in his head. “The sea, get back to the sea.” Then finally the day came where, as he woke up from a nap he was taking, the constant desert wind had blown so much sand over his head and body, when Conner tried to move himself to stand up he couldn't. His arms and legs wouldn’t respond. Sand continued to bury him; his mind was now being plagued with thoughts of self-doubt. “Why did you think you were strong enough to make this journey?” His ego challenged him. “You should know that life is not like your stories.” The voice continued “You will die here accept it.” As Conner began to shut his eyes he saw the children from Jonestown
“The monster deserves to die!” they spewed out at him. Then the man in robes appeared.
“The spawn will die for his sin of being born.” The man preached at Conner as the sand continually covered him.
“It’s okay Son.” Amelia appeared before him. “You deserve this.” She said warmly “Now come to me she said in the dark holding out her hand. “I deserve this.” Conner said plainly no longer trying to move himself as now most of his body covered in sand. He laid there accepting his death with no resistance, no struggle he breathed through his nose one of the few parts his body parts not buried in sand for one final time savoring the scent. It smelled familiar, it smelled like water.
Conner’s eye’s shot wide open as he sniffed it felt like his nostrils were taking a drink. Conner tries visualize back when he last he felt this sensation. The dream he had with the sea pops into his head. “I’m close!!!” he yelled in his head getting enough strength to move his arms. His hands slowly unearth from the ground slamming back down grabbing the sand in his hands, bending his elbow in a pulling manor he feel his body to start to slowly move through the sand, he lifts his right hand up again as if he was climbing a mountain that was horizontal, he continued to crawl “I’m not dying here!” Conner yelled. “This is not what I deserve!” images of the townspeople shot through his head as he crawled through the sand “I will die but it will not be for you!” He continued to crawl “None of you have the right to say what I am or if I should die!” His adrenaline shooting through causing him to move his legs almost like he was army crawling forward. “I will not be your puppet!” His mother last smile comes to his head. Conner smiled. “And I won’t let you have the satisfaction.” Conner continued to crawl through going off pure adrenaline.
It happened suddenly, no warning, no alert from his head telling him to stop. Conner passed out in the middle of his rebellion. His body couldn’t keep up, and gave out, allowing the desert to swallow him up. There were brief moments when Conner opened his eyes he found himself being pushed by the wind to see himself in a different place. These were momentary blinks as his body traveled feeling totally out of control.
Chapter 16: Journey’s Dawn
Conner felt cold water splashed on his face, springing him back to life to see a man with long black hair in a green cloak standing over him holding a canteen. “Are you okay, young man?” the man asked. Conner didn’t even register what he said; he snatched the canteen out of the man’s hand and began to guzzle it down his throat. “I’ll take it that as yes.” The man laughed.
“Where am I?” Conner asked breathing heavily, not entirely sure where he was.
“You’re in our camp my lad.” The man chuckled. “And who are you?”
“Conner Avitti.” Conner responded without thinking.
“Ahh you’re Amelia’s son.” The man responded .
“Uh… no um-.” Conner tried to correct fearing on what he just said remembering he was wanted.
“Pity.” The man interrupted sitting down next to Conner so they were somewhat on eye level “I would like to meet my old friend’s son.”
“Old friends?” Conner’s eyebrow rose.
“Yes, Conner’s parents and I sailed together. They opened me up to this world” The man looked up to the sky as if he was remembering a fond memory. “I owe them everything.” The man began to get up from his position. Conner looked up feeling the man’s wisdom. “I was late to try and stop her execution.” A tear flows off his face into the wind. “I was hoping if I couldn’t save her I could at least save her son, Conner.” The man spoke facing away from Conner.
“I-I am Conner…” looked away handing back the canteen feeling guilty. The man looked back accepting the canteen and with a smile he said.
“Well it’s nice to meet you Conner.”
“W-what’s your name? Sir.”
“Oh I’m sorry young man; my name is Adam, Adam Lock.”
“And how did you know my mother?”
“Well as I said we sailed together with your father-.”
“Do you know why she was executed?” Conner said bluntly causing Adam’s eye brow to rise.
“I see, she must have not told you.” Adam said solemnly. “Amelia your mother, she was a pirate that continued to thumb her nose at the Covenant.” Adam sympathetically spoke.
“So she deserved to die.” Conner said looking down feeling ashamed. Adam looked surprised.
“Why on earth would you say that!?” Adam looked at Conner shocked at his response.
“Well the executioner said she terrorized-.”
“And you believe him?” Adam’s eye brow rose.
“No. But the history book says that the cov-.”
“And you sure that your book is accurate?”
“Well, I…” Conner felt defeated. All his assumptions on the covenant have been from one book and how the book described the Covenant were obviously not the same type of people that dealt with real life.
“Look lad, it’s basically like this you can get tons of information from books and it’s a good chance that the writer is actually is telling the truth, but you can’t let what you read distract you from other conflicting info.” Adam spoke as if he was giving him a lesson. “What’s wrong with most people today is that they get stubborn only looking at one thing to the point of blinding themselves to the rest of the world.” Adam was looking way off into the distance as if he was talking to himself. “You, as a free man have the gift of the chaos of life and the ability to explore what is laid out before, with no regard of anyone that would tell you otherwise.” Conner looked up at him feeling inspired on what this man had to say, but then it hit him what he was searching for, what he wanted.
“Excuse me sir?” Conner tried to get the attention of Adam. Adam snapped out of his reflective moment, slightly embarrassed that he became preachy for a moment.
“Yes?”
“I don’t mean, to trouble you but the reason why I’m out here was that my mother told me I should head to place called ‘the sea’. Would you know where that is from here?” Conner asked.
“The sea?” Adam’s eyebrow raised in confusion. “You don’t feel the ocean breeze?”
“Ocean breeze?” Conner thought. And with that he smelled the familiar scent that he smelled right before he passed out, his nostrils inhaled the moisture coming from the breeze Conner looked to the left where the breeze was coming from, he saw a small hill. Without wasting any time, Conner ran up the hill, stumbling along the way doing his best not to trip. He reached the top and finally saw what he lost since he was child. His original home. The sea.
To Be Continued…
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