A few seconds after the force of the explosion sent him airborne, David's body came crashing down into the field besides his house. The explosion was so violent that the house was completely leveled to the ground.

Ringing sounded in David's ears as he tried to gain some awareness of the situation. After a few seconds he managed to form a few thoughts.

"Mom...Dad," David said as his mind went blank over what had just happened. He tried to stand up but his body wasn't functioning well. The pain instantly hit him. He felt like he was just beaten with a baseball bat....that was on fire. Almost on instinct, he began to focus on his Body of Recovery skill to help process his injuries. Thankfully, no bones in his body seemed to be broken from the blast, but he could tell that something was wrong internally and some of his muscles seemed damaged.

He must have flown 40 feet from the house due to the blast. He also had numerous cuts and scrapes all over him.....and his entire left side appeared to be burned in various degrees. He was bleeding a lot and he physically hurt. With a sense of urgency to find his parents, David focused on healing his right leg for a minute before he tried to stand up again. This time he managed to make it to a full stand, but was a bit wobbly.

Under the glowing light of the wreckage fires, he was able to roughly survey the damage. The house was pretty much non-existent. Burning pieces of lumber, wood, furniture and other parts of the home were scattered over the open 2 acre open tract of land. Some of the grass was starting to catch fire and the orangish glow of the fires gave an Erie look to the scene....it looked like one of those war movies.

David was still trying to come to terms with what had just happened when he saw two body shaped shadows appear in between him and the burning wreckage of the house.

The sight of the two shadows made David instantly think of his mom and dad.

"Thank goodness, they got out of the house," David thought while still trying to recover his mind and body from the explosion.

Just as he was about to yell out to who he thought was his mom and dad.....he managed to hear unfamiliar two voices over the raging fires.

"Why did you hit the detonator? Weren't we were supposed to wait for everybody else to arrive?," one voice sounded from the tall shadow.

"Sorry man, it was an accident. I was checking to see if the explosives where linked up correctly with the detonator and I hit the trigger by mistake," the other voice said, "I don't deal with explosives regularly....I am sure glad we weren't close when the bombs went off by accident."

"Quick, we need to check for the body.....nobody will pay without a confirmation of a kill," the tall man responded before walking towards the rubble.

Overhearing the conversation a few yards away, David's mind was in tatters. Someone just blew up my house? It wasn't some freak accident? Standing there, David could only stare at the wreckage of the exploded home. There is no way anyone inside was left alive. As the thought, hit him.....his whole body started to shake.

"Hey man, looks like two bodies over here. But not the one we are looking for," the shorter man said.

Bodies? David's mind was still a mess but he managed to come to the realization that someone had just killed his parents. Someone had just tried to kill him.

Then something in David's mind seemed to break at the knowledge of his parent's death. Adrenaline started coursing through his veins as his anger peaked.

In a primal rage, David unleashed the full extent of his physical power and charged forward towards the closest of the two men. He wanted them to not exist. As he charged forward, David's hand fell on the knife that was located on his hip and pulled it from the sheath. He had used this knife to kill before and it was about to be used to kill again.

David reached the taller man in no time at all and plunged his knife into the his back. The hilt bottomed out against the man's back as David pushed him aside and immediately moved to attack the guy a few steps away from him with his bare fists.

Both men were unaware for the initial attack, but the second man had a moment to prepare when his buddy was getting attacked by surprise. The shorter man managed to block some of David's fist strikes; however, a few hits from the waylay managed to land. David was in such a frenzy that any fighting form or technique was completely gone. David was completely lost in his rage and was attacking the shirt man relentlessly.

Suddenly, David felt a sense of crisis and dove to the side to avoid an attack coming from behind.

The taller man that he had stabbed wasn't dead. He was standing hunched over with a dagger in his hand stabbing where David's chest was just located.

Turning to see the man still standing, David charged him immediately in attempt to get to the man before he could recover from his stabbing motion. David hit the man squarely on the cheek with his fist as he blocked the dagger in his hand.

Felling another threat, David shifted his body slightly to the side in an attempt to miss an attack from behind. A large Bowie style knife lodged itself in David's upper shoulder blade....but did not make it though to his heart. Grunting in pain, David quickly turned around to respond to the attacker.

As David spun to meet the threat behind him, the knife became dislodged from his back and flew off to the side. David also stumbled to the side as he threw a punch at the shorter attacker with a pain radiating in his shoulder. It always seemed to be his shoulder that was badly hurt. Looking up, David saw the tall man move to join his buddy at his side.

Some clarity started to surface in David's mind and he realized he was in trouble. He was outnumbered and these two armed men seemed to be quite strong. He was also pretty badly injured. David stepped back into the yard and initiated his shadow skill to try to retreat for another attack.

The two men had just started to position themselves for defense when they noticed that David was no longer standing in front of them.

"Shit man...I think that bastard stabbed me in the lung.....I am having trouble breathing," one guy said with a few coughs following his words.

"If you were facing towards him, he would have got you directly in the heart. You would have died almost instantly. Your lucky," the other guy replied, "Did you see which way he went? We can't leave any witnesses. Did you hear him chant any sort of skill?"

"No, he didn't say anything. He must have ran off into the woods," the first guy said, "Can you pull this knife out of my back? This thing is really messing me up"

"Sure," a voice came from behind him at the same time the knife was drawn out of his back. David had hidden in the shadows and walked up right behind the man without his notice. As the man turned at the voice behind him, David gripped the knife and pulled it from his back. In a fluid-like motion, David pulled out the knife and spun around...to immediately ram the knife into the chest of the man that was turning towards him.

"Bast...," came a voice before turning to quiet as the tall man fell to the ground with blood spraying all over and a knife hole in his heart.

Again, the shorter man by his side acted almost instantly. He managed to hit David with some random debris just as David came out of the shadow skill and attacked the taller man. Suddenly, David felt something hit him on the side of the head and fell down into the grass.

Luckily, David's hand had landed on the large Bowie knife that was previously stabbed into his shoulder blade.

As the remaining man approached David, he reached into his belt to pull out another similar knife. David was currently crouched on the ground holding his head in pain .....but he had his hand resting right on top of a knife on the ground. David reached out with his perception to feel the guy moving towards him.

As the guy was raising his hands up to plunge the knife into David's back, David spun around and stabbed the man directly in the stomach. The knife was sharp because David continued his upward pressure with the knife sliding it all the way up until it hit the man's rib cage.

In an instant, the short man's guts came spilling out of his body. The organs where half on the ground and half dangling from the open body cavity as the man stopped his attack on David.

Although the man seemed to be well trained, he instantly released the knife and tried to keep his insides from spilling out of his body cavity. He was unsuccessful as he tumbled to the ground.

After pulling the knife out of the man's abdomen, David had feel back in a defensive stance. However, when he caught site of the man starting to tumble over....David lunges forward and shoved the knife directly in the underside of the man's chin. With a quick twist and tug of the knife, the last of the two men who had killed David's parents was dead with his body with his intestines spilling out over the yard's grass.

David also fell to the ground due to his injuries. He was gravely injured. The enemy's knife blade had done some serious damage to his shoulder....and he still had some significant internal damage from the original blast. He had managed to kill both men but had paid a pretty big price with his body.

The adrenaline was starting to die down and the pain was hitting David in waves.

"Didn't those guys say something about more people showing up?" David thought to himself feeling urgent all of a sudden, "I need to hide. I can't fight anymore."

Feeling himself starting to loose conscience, David managed to work himself up to his feet. With little staggering steps, David walked from near the two dead bodies to the wood line. He was bleeding all over. They would be able to track him. He needed a way to disappear. Focusing in on the shadows, he began to transform into the darkness around him. As he became a part of the shadows, he felt his physical injuries throbbing in pain. Although his body was now completely shadow, his wounds seemed to become swirling holes that felt like they were sucking energy out of his shadow form. However, as his physical state shifted into shadows, his blood didn't seem to hit the ground anymore. Glancing around to see the lack of blood, David sighed in relief and continued forward to the wood line with some assurance that he would't be tracked. He needed to survive. He needed revenge.

Once David made it into the woods, he found some thick brush cover and let his body fall inside of its' darkness. Releasing his shadow skill, David reached his hand into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. The screen was half broken but David managed to hit the screen a few times and make a phone call.

The phone rang twice before someone picked, "David, why are you calling me so late?"

"Mr. Gauge? Ya....he was the last person I had texted last night," David thought before saying.

"Someone attacked my house. My parents are dead. Send help. I am hiding in the shadows of the tree line. Hurry."

David hung up the phone before making his body drift back off into the shadows inside the bushes. While in his shadow form, David felt his body slowly loose awareness and entered his dreamland.