The rain pours outside, and I sit alone in this cave. While everyone else is protected by the safe walls of a warm house, I am drenched by the freezing spray that the wind blows in. Why, you may ask, am I in this cave? I was outcast, that is my answer. Yes, I was banished from the evil city that now taunts me in my dreams. Why was I banished? Let me tell.
As a young college man, I sat in my dorm, planning a scheme. I aimed to kidnap the ruler of the city and kill him, for he had killed my father. We were poor as a young family, and my dear father attempted to nab some food from a street vendor. The ruler sent his guards to kill him. He died right in front of me. So I plotted revenge.
At midnight on the day exactly five years after my father left this earth, I sneaked into the ruler's palace. I outsmarted the guards, who never thought to hang lamps in the shadowed corners of the long, twisted hallways. When I finally reached the tall door leading to the ruler's living quarters, I eased it open and immediately sighted the ruler, asleep at his desk.
The guards did not sight me, for this room was also poorly lit. I crept along the sides of the room and tranquilized the ruler. Afterwards, I glanced at the guards, but they never turned in my direction. When I closed the drawstring of the burlap sack, I heard a clatter. The clock sitting on the desk had fallen over, and a guard looked my way
Momentarily panicking, I struggled to lug the sack with me. But the guard was drawing closer, so I had no choice about what I did next. I opened a window, then with a final heave of the sack I climbed out. But the rope drawstring caught on the window latch, and I couldn't move. Now more guards surrounded the window, and I accepted my defeat.
The guards grabbed me and led me to the edge of the city, outside of the comforting walls that I had lived inside for my whole life. They stripped me of my belongings, leaving only the clothes on my back and the small amulet I wore around my neck for luck. Before the gates closed, the head guard gave me a stony glare. I recognized him with a jolt as the one who had struck the killing blow with a sword to my father's throat.
I traveled for days, doing what I could to survive, even if it meant sleeping in a tree to protect me from bears. As the guards had not spared a morsel of food, I was starving. But I finally came upon a cave in a forest, and found many spears and other weapons as if someone had been here before. I decided to take the risk of staying in someone else's place.
So here I am today, in the same cave as I had discovered the weapons. No one has ever found me here, nor have I tried to find another city or village to live in. What would be the use? At one point, someone would find fault against me and plot my fate. But here, in this cave, I feel at peace. No one to punish me. No one to throw me out. No one to tell me what I can or cannot do. I live by my own rules here, and that is how it will stay until I join my dad in another world.
