Side Chapter 3: Of Stones and Metals

*BOOM*

"AGH!" Startled awake by a deafening explosion, I feel a surge of pain shoot up from my back making me exclaim. The muffled sounds of crying and shouting, piercing through the high-pitched ringing in my head, helped me grit my teeth to ignore the stinging and I feel myself getting lifted off the ground. Opening my eyes I see my mother’s back towards me, and my frightened sisters face filled with tears and blood.

“We’re going to be okay, Julius. Don’t worry, everything will be fine.” She says and I felt her arm supporting me to stay standing up.

*BOOM*

Another explosion, this time much closer, rang through the entire room and my body. Debris from the ceiling came down on us, hitting me square in the back and making the pain sear my consciousness sending me slowly back to a world of blackness.

“Run Lienne! Hurry! AGH!”. My mother shouted, panickingly turning towards us in concern before a cold and bloodied blade suddenly stuck itself out of her stomach. My sister grit her teeth lifted me up and carried me on her back before running hurriedly into the darkness.

*thud*

I could only see a silhouette of a woman, kicking my mother’s dead body onto the side before inspecting her sword.

“Tsk, these hard-skinned monsters chipped my blade. F#ck!”, A grumbling, muffled voice stuck itself in my head as the world around me faded back into nothingness.

*gasp*

Sitting up suddenly, the bed-sheets rolled off me wiping off some of the cold sweat that stuck on me. That nightmare again…

I stood up and went downstairs, still feeling restless from the vividness of that nightmare. Grabbing a drink from the fridge, the glass almost slipped from my grip due to my trembling hand, which I didn’t notice earlier. As the cold and refreshing liquid went down my throat, my restlessness went down with it and the shaking subsided.

Sighing at the thought of having that dream again if I go back to sleep, I shrugged and went into our backyard to swing my hammer and pass the time.

*whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh*

The wooden hammer in my hand rushed back and forth in the air as I swung it in a pattern. I absentmindedly thought about our son, whom I’ve sparred with multiple times with this very hammer. He learned quite quickly, I had to trudge through that in my quest. I almost smashed my sister’s bed practising it relentlessly. I chuckle at the melancholic memory.

*BANG*

“Ah!!” I accidentally used Aura and made a small crater in the backyard, cracking some of the pots of flowers and herbs. *sigh* “Phen’s going to kill me…” As I said that, I hear a door opening behind me.

“Julius? Wha-”, my wife whom I probably woke up, calls out to me. I turn to her, expecting anger, but found… concern. “Are you okay?”

I look at my hammer in contemplation towards such a simple question. Am I?

“...Yes, honey, I’m fine.” I lied, not raising my face to look at her in the eye. It’s been a few decades already, and I still haven’t found the one who killed my mother, my family. Every day it gets more and more frustrating as I find no information on anything about them. The only rope of sanity I had held onto was my wife, the only reason I can still live life and not just spiral down in that pit of vengeance.

But even then… I look up at her, thinking about the fortunate timing of our first encounter. It’s a good thing we had a son too, after that incident. But now he's off to the Union. I went to the side to rest my hammer on the wall, avoiding her gaze again.

“Stop lying Julius, you’re as easy to read as a beginner magic spell. What’s going on?” I felt her hugging me from behind. I held her hand as I sighed from frustration before explaining truthfully.

“The closer we got to sending off our son to the Union, the more frequent ‘that’ nightmare came to me every night. It gets more and more vivid with every night, and tonight I can practically taste the blood and the ash in the air. I think I-”

I feel her tightening her hug, making me pause for a moment. Turning around, I held her face up and kissed her forehead. “I love you, and I love our son. And I know it’s selfish but…” Breathing in and out to resolve myself to admittance, I continued. “I need to find them Phen. I need to find those bastards.”

She’s quiet for a moment, burying her head on my chest. With muffled sniffling, she quietly whispers, “I know that… but I also know this will be dangerous and I don’t want to lose you. Cas won’t want to lose you too.”

“I won’t lose, Phen. I can’t.”, I immediately retorted. “The reason I wanted to be strong was to get revenge, you know that. I will kill them.”

“I don’t mean losing in a fight, dummy. You go down this path with that goal in mind, we might never get our Julius back.” Hitting me lightly in the chest, she lets go and holds my hand tightly. Moonlight reflected beautifully on her face, her eyes beamed with the same light as when we first met. That light of kindness and stubbornness that pierced through my stone-plated heart.

Resolution ringing in her voice, she continued. “I’ll help you. Always and forever. But only if you promise me that you will do this not only for what you lost but for what you have now.”

I can never win against her huh… “I'll... try. For you. And for our son.”

Feeling the warmth of her hand on my cheek, comfort and drowsiness assault me once again. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Julius.”

*pinch* “H-honey… that hur- OW!”

With a devilish smile, she tilts her head slightly and asks, “Now that’s over… explain to me what you did to my plants, okay?”