Jakkon

The stories about my birth and the events that led up to it regularly did come around. My dad usually did the narrating, I guess this was due to his ability to paint a picture in the minds of people, he was the clan's most popular storyteller after all. Can't blame my mom for not being able to tell me these stories despite how badly I wanted to hear them from her perspective. After all, this was a woman who passed out twice on the night of my birth, yes twice, yet somehow I'm here.

She finally was able to tell me how it felt on the night I was pushed into this world, a series of remarkable events flooded her with memories of the pains, the distress, the shock, the joy that could be held onto on that night.

I now wish I never got to know. No, not because I'm now aware of the pains she felt when she birthed me. Knowledge of that wasn't pleasing either but I'm old enough to understand that certain pains are a necessity for any creature that exists in my world, especially creatures like me, like us.

The reason I now wish I never got to know his way bigger than that. Everything now makes sense, those patchy areas that even dad in his expertise in story crafting couldn't pass onto me, how could he? He tells what he sees and makes you see what he tells. It was bigger than his vision than anyone's vision.

How can a story cost a life? Before my dad died he always told me I was making silly assumptions and placing an unnecessary burden on my already filled shoulders, but I always felt it was right. It was the only explanation that made sense, It was just a cold! I could see the shock—the surge that hit as the memories came to her. I could feel her life force slowly dry out with each word she spoke. It had to be the cause of her death, there's no other explanation. Mother was a strong woman, she had faced the toughest of challenges any woman in Daneland could face. When other women lazied about she was out there working, when we all felt low she always tried to be the voice of motivation. No way some damn cold would've led to her death, it isn't possible.

My dad and eventually the clan's elders tried almost everything to make me let go, never thought I'd say this but maybe I should have done so. But thoughts, thoughts like this feel like a betrayal—a betrayal of everything I've done in the past 5 years, a betrayal of my mother's love and blatant selfishness, but what can I do? This is the closest to my limit I've ever been at. My limit? What exactly is my limit? What is this madness I'm living in? A few years ago I definitely wouldn't have thought that I could push myself this far, but can I go any further than this? Do I even have an option? Oh good heavens! Well, there is always the easiest route out, could just fucking jump down from this cave and end it all right here, that would be soothing—or not. I would be an even bigger fool than I am now if I did that, but then I would never get to feel like a fool. The burden of thinking will cease to be mine, whatever they think of me wouldn't even bother me, they can spit at my dead body, kick me and curse at my lifeless flesh and it'll do no harm to me, I think.

I was always told that there is a life after this one but I don't believe it, or I don't want to believe it. Consciousness is a burden, and I can't go through it again. They say it's nothing like the life we currently live, it's a life rid of pain and filled with pleasures, but only the brave get to see it, only those of valor get to feel it. So, I guess I'm safe, even if some stupid after-life exists I couldn't possibly make it there. I mean here I am entertaining thoughts of jumping down from a cave while a bunch of equally foolish or maybe even more foolish young men and women look up to me.

Well, I wouldn't get to feel their wrath. If I will jump over then I better exhibit a few more cowardly acts to ensure that I'll have no place in the afterlife. Can't imagine still being able to exist and watching them from wherever the fuck the afterlife is. Watching Jack, trying to calm all 10 of them down, would be quite a task given how emotionless their faces look right now, having to watch Ruth and Ase cry as they stare from way up here at my lifeless body which should be in quite a mess, I reckon Ruth would jump too, she's probably the most unstable person I know. It would kill the whole purpose of me ending my life here in what has to be the most horrible way to die.

Who even controls the afterlife? Gods they say, I don't believe in them, I don't have a single reason why I should believe they exist, and if they do they must be the dumbest beings to exist in whatever this life is. Why me? Why us? There are hundreds of families more fitting to have been given this burden that was thrown on my family. There are even hundreds of better-fitting children they could've given this burden to, not me, not fucking me! Why would they give such powers to a weak little girl, a coward? I'm not strong, I'm not brave and I'm not intimidating! What could they possibly see in me? You see, it makes no sense, there's no way a bunch of all-knowing floating creatures will pick someone like me to have the powers needed to control him, nothing good can come out of this. Everything has to be a mistake or at least everything that has happened in the past 19 years happened at random because none of this makes sense. I remember back then when I was still a little kid, there were tons of braver children. Okay, maybe it isn't about bravery, it's about intelligence but then fuck—

I- I- I still wouldn't be picked or I shouldn't have been! Daimon is the most intelligent person I've ever known, he would have been a better fit. He is so smart and it's so fucking attractive, he would've been able to think up the best way to use some fire-breathing reptile. Damn, I miss him so much, So much, so damn much. Everything was simpler with Daimon around. He somehow always knows what to say at every damn time and also when not to say anything. I wish I didn't fight it, I wish I let him love me but I was too caught up in being a mess, too damn stupid to know that no one would ever get me better than he did. It burns my soul every day that our last conversation was an argument. All he did was try to explain his feelings, and all he did was try to reach out to me. My last words to him were really "you can be so dumb sometimes," how amusing, the last thing I told the sweetest and smartest boy I've ever met was that "you can be dumb sometimes". Lord, I'm so dumb, I ask again, why me? Why me? If I had given Daimon the love he deserved and followed him when he went out he'd still be beside me, he'd still be here to comfortingly lie to me that I'm the most intelligent girl he has ever met, so I could brush it off and tell him to focus on the challenges that lay ahead. He would have found a solution to this mess I'm in, to this mess we're in.

If I could go back in time I'd treat him better, so much better. Everything that I looked into his eyes and saw him dying to embrace me I'd run into his arms and hold onto him so firmly. I'd remind him that he's a king and that despite not being the tallest, strongest, and maybe not even the bravest, he's the biggest alpha material that exists. He would've made an amazing clan chief, he always wanted to be one. He always told me of his visions and his plans which sounded so intelligent like almost every other thing he has ever said, I never took it seriously though. I never took him seriously. But then if I could go back in time would I even meet Daimon? Would any of this ever happen? I probably would've just let go when my father and the clan chiefs told me to let go. I don't know what life would've been like right now if I did so but I'm quite sure I won't be in a cave with 10 mad fellows and a gorgeous fire-breathing reptile.

That's all just a wish though, this is my reality. I'm an outcast, a hungry and sad one. I'm an outcast out for revenge, I'm an outcast on a quest to free my people. This is my reality, the life I live and the life I must complete. I can't let his death go to waste, I can't let their deaths go to waste. There's still a coward in me somewhere, but it has to hold on, I'll get enough years to live that messy life that suits me after all of these are completed.

Just not now, I must get revenge, I must free my people!