Break of Dusk - Episode 2

By Timothy C.

April 22, 2022

Ryan was lying. He wasn’t sure why he did it. He’d traveled nearly a fortnight by foot just to tell them this story, and now he was lying. Maybe it was the way that the older sister had broken down, or the younger sister’s piercing stare, They have names, Ryan, but he just couldn’t bring himself to say it all. No. Breathe in, Breathe out. The breaths were shakier and shallower than he wanted, but they’d have to do. What was the story?

~~

It had been just four years ago— Ryan was nothing more than an unwashed, illiterate, orphaned child on the streets of Sovadell, getting by on pity and thievery to survive. The traders’ shipyard didn’t have nearly enough security, and the business had been lucrative enough that unless the guards caught anyone in the act, they never bothered to pursue a chase. Unfortunately, on that day, Ryan had been caught in the act.

“Oi, kid. Hands up an’ away from the merchandise.” Ryan heard the almost-smug voice only a few feet back, coupled with the nocking of a bowstring that suggested he should do as the voice said. He stood up slowly, praying he didn’t incur any extra wrath from the pockets that had begun to bulge from the unpolished stolen jade. He backed up slowly before turning, wincing at the sound of the tightening bowstring.

The man had worn the distinctive blue and gold uniform of the merchant’s guild enforcers, if a little cleaner than they usually came. He could make out a partial smirk from behind the bow, and a look into his eager eyes was all it took to know that he’d show no hesitation towards the trembling thirteen-year-old on the other side of his arrow. “Boss says I’m s’pposed to bring y’in alive,” the man said before a wider, unstable grin of pure malice began to spread across his face. “But I’m sure he’ll be understandin’ on my first day,”

In the spiraling moments that followed, Ryan had been somewhere between panic at impending death and convincing his muscles to pick up and move him out of the way when—

-Fwip!-

“AUGH!”

“Kid! Run!”

His saving grace had dove from the sky in the form of a throwing knife through the watchman’s bowstring, lashing the cut cord up across the man’s face. He barely had time to register what had happened.