Frostbound

It wasn't the lifeless bodies lying still in the field that caught my attention. It wasn't the ones in the makeshift field hospital either.

There was one lying a few feet behind the front line that caught my eye for some reason. The axe and shield stood out. They were covered in blood but I would know those pieces anywhere.

I was the one who made them.

I wanted to be wrong, to say that my eyes weren't seeing what they were currently seeing. I scrambled toward the body and couldn't stop my hammer from falling to the ground as I saw it.

The thud didn't even register to my ears and all outside noise was ignored.

The sounds of battle and shouting fell away as I looked down at him.

The man who raised me, the man who had been there for me through my 24 years of life, bleeding out from the fatal wound on his stomach. I didn't know what to think.

It looked recent, like he had only fallen moments ago. Like he had held on until the moment he knew I was back. Knew that his job was done and he could sag to the ground.

He wasn't going to make it. It didn't take a doctor to figure that out. Blood pooled at a brutal pace and it was only getting worse the more time went on.

He wasn't going to make it. I knew that deep down but couldn't bring myself to actually think it.

What kind of world did we get pulled into where such a happy and joyful man who has raised 3 kids and even had young grandchildren had his life cut short like this?

I just stared at him, dumbstruck, while his lifeblood tricked onto the ground. Thousands of thoughts ran through my head and hundreds of things that I wanted to say to him formulated on my tongue, but nothing made it out of my mouth.