Who were you?

My name was Jon Crock, son of Adel and Rickard Crock, father of Alessia Crock.

How was your childhood?

My childhood? I lived in the dwell so It was one of abuse. My father was a drunkard and my mother an enabler. My earliest memories were of beatings and broken furniture. If I stepped out of line, hell sometimes if I didn't, I would be beaten black and blue. I was weak at home but in class and among the other kids I was larger and stronger than most. I took out my frustration on those around me beating kids to a pulp for nothing but looking at me wrong. Every time my father found out he would beat me harder and harder until I thought I would die. My mother saw it all happen and didn't care, she might have liked it. After all, whenever he was beating me he was too busy to lay hands on her.

As I got older I grifted, stole, and pummeled my way into pocket change. What little I'd collected was usually just enough for bread and meat scraps. I had a nice little stash of food for the days when I would go hungry, a bit of threatening here and there went a long way. The stash got a little mouldy now and then but the food was still good to me. Some days I would treat myself to something really nice like some good and juicy sausage links.

My best memory was the day I cornered some rich looking brat, I was going to beat her up and take her money but she just gave it to me before I could threaten her! She smiled at me in a way that I never dreamed existed. I'd never seen someone be kind because they could before, usually being nice was just a way to hide the shady stuff you were doing. I made it a point to see her as much as I could. I was young and dumb, I'd convinced myself that I needed her money but I just wanted to be around her.

What about adolescence?

It didn't take long for me to find others like me, survivors. People who would do anything to save their hide. I fell in with the bad crowd as the muscle of the group. If nothing else my father's beatings made me tough, stronger than most others. Me and that girl still saw each other now and then but we grew apart. She didn't like how I was making money, she even asked me to rely on her but my pride wouldn't allow it. I'm a survivor. Why would I rely on a frail girl?

My father's health started to go downhill and my mother didn't know how to survive without someone else earning the money, so it fell to me. I got deeper into crime just to keep my parents alive. I couldn't just abandon them even after all of the crap they put me through. I only had one mother and father, and with the girl losing interest in me I would be alone if they left.

When it finally came time to get my Animus-blade I was happy as hell. My blade could harden my skin and increase my strength and stamina, it was perfect for me. So I got into enforcing. Breaking arms and busting heads whenever someone didn't pay up or was disrespectful. I was good, real good and soon people knew it. Unfortunately, word got back to the girl and her parents, they hated my guts and told her to leave me.

The girl gave me a raw deal, quit the gang stuff or we were through. I didn't want to lose her. God's I didn't she was the best thing that ever happened to me but they don't just let you leave that world and I was pretty deep into their ranks. She put up with so much for so long and how did I repay her? By lying. By hiding what I did for a living like the garbage I am. A miner, that's what I was. Gone for whole days at a time? Coming back injured and sweating like a pig? Sorry baby the boss was a slave driver down at the mine. She believed in me wholeheartedly, it ate me up inside to lie to her face and to see her accept it with a smile.

We were back to seeing each other whenever we could and soon enough we were fooling around, I'm honestly surprised Alessia wasn't born sooner. Her parents had had enough of me, they knew that I was still up to my neck in violence but they didn't want to break their daughter's heart. One day they told her to either give up on her family or her man. I didn't know about this. She just popped in one day and stated that we were getting married. Good thing too because unknown to us Alessia had been conceived.

And adulthood?

We had a slapdash wedding, it didn't cost much and neither of our parents wanted to show up. It was just me, her and the guard captain who wed us. I wanted to try going straight once I saw her belly getting bigger but my father was hanging on by a thread and mum left without a word. I wanted him to see his granddaughter once before he died but that's just not how life worked out. With nothing but the gang tying me to the dwell, I wanted to raise our baby in the sunlight. Not that damned blue glow.

I used my saved money to move to a village out in the sticks and tried to cut ties with the gang on friendly terms. Too bad no one told them the meaning of friendly terms. They made it almost impossible for me to get a job anywhere, funnily enough, the only place that would accept me was a mine. They had a lot of ex-criminals there and one more wasn't any skin off their nose but they paid almost nothing for a full day of toil. Even if you brought in a mountain of ores you were paid the same day rate and if you failed to meet the quota they wouldn't pay you at all. It wasn't legal but what was I going to do? Go to the guards? They'd lock me up the instant the mine revealed my past.

We coasted off my savings for a while but I wasn't earning more than we were losing each day and I had no time to spend with my lady as her pregnancy continued. I would wake up, travel to work, bust my ass trying to plough through the quota as quickly as possible, get home, drink and then sleep. But the drinking, oh the drinking was my downfall. It started with a jar after work to relax, then two, then three, until I ended up with a cask I'd drink over the day. Our money was already dwindling and now I was throwing it away. I tried swallowing my pride and begging her folks for help, that's when I found out what she gave up to be with me, they had disowned her.

I ruined my life, I ruined my lady's and now I was going to ruin my unborn baby's life too. So I did the only thing I knew, I got back into enforcement. The gang had a twisted way of making me pay for leaving, I was chosen for any folks who were married with kids. Each time I busted a head for protection money, I did it knowing I was taking food from another family to feed my own. And you know what? If I was in the same situation again I'd keep doing it gladly. If it was them or us I'd pick us because I'm a survivor. I wasn't earning the same amount as I used to but it was a ton more than the mine offered. The mine didn't try to stop me from leaving, the boss just said 'See you soon big guy.' like he expected me to come crawling back.

When Alessia was born she looked just like her mother, good thing too she wouldn't have been half as beautiful if there was too much of me in her. I tried getting off the booze and had some success but my lady was there for me, to catch me when I stumbled. Until it all caught up to me. I got back one day to find the house trashed and my lady badly beaten, she had shielded our little Alessia with her body. There almost wasn't a piece of her that was left unbruised. I told her that I wouldn't stand for this, that I'd find the guys who did this and make sure they'd never walk again. My heart almost broke when she said to let it go, that she didn't want me going back to that life again.

I broke down. I confessed everything and when I saw the look of pure disappointment and sadness on her bruised face I wanted to die. I promised to go straight for real and headed back to the mine. On the way in, the boss just said 'Welcome home.' He had me pegged from the start. The broken trust between my lady and me and the long hours at work made us drift apart. I tried, honestly I did, Gods I tried to keep us together. But it was a losing battle, she would have forgiven me if I was honest sooner but I had been lying to her face for too many years. She couldn't trust me ever again.

One day I came back home to a note on the table that said she was leaving forever. Her parents were firm on her disowning so she didn't know where she was heading and I never found out where she disappeared to. She left little Alessia behind claiming that she couldn't raise her on her own. Did she think I could? I was nothing without her and soon I found my salvation at the bottom of liquor barrels once again.

I raised Alessia as best as I could. I taught her to be tough, I taught her to be independent and most importantly I wouldn't hit her. No matter how drunk I got I never believed that I would hit her for anything, I wouldn't be like my dad. She grew up to be the spitting image of her mother and made a nice little friend. Joan was a shy girl but she constantly looked like she was thinking, her grey eyes were always bright like they sucked in everything they saw. Her mother was a forge worker with a rock-solid tight body. I think most men used her destressing service at least once but my heart wouldn't let me. Joan loved books so I would sometimes see if I could scrounge up an old book as a gift. My good deeds were repaid when Joan let my little girl borrow a book on flowers that she cherished more than life.

Alessia got older and developed into a stunning young lady. More and more I couldn't help seeing the woman I loved in her. I could come up with excuses and justifications all day but the fact of the matter is that I was far worse than my father. I was beaten but I'm sure he never once contemplated what I had. I was disgusted with myself. I was angry at how my life turned out. I was terrified that I would come back home to find Alessia beaten by some revenge crazed group just like her mother was. Then she asked me about blade tenders and a new fear emerged. What if she's bladeless? I knew the wretched life that was in her future if that was the case. I didn't want to imagine a future where my little girl endured what they had to.

I doubled my drinking to cope with the stress and I blacked out drunk. When I came too I was on the floor of my room and Alessia was sobbing in the corner, her clothes were a mess and she held a knife which was shakingly pointed at me. I never asked her what happened that night. I didn't want to know. Everywhere she went she carried that knife, even to classes. Then one day it disappeared, when I asked her about the knife she said,

"It's gone. I don't care what you do anymore."

I was disturbed by her response. My little girl was always so strong-willed. What happened? She told me that she could see ghosts whenever someone manifested their blade and I knew my worst fears had come true. This was my chance to finally do something right, she needed reassurance now more than ever but I could barely see straight. When she asked about blade tenders again I didn't even think before my hand moved. My arm jerked at the mention of the name and I punched her in the face. Her eye swelled and bruised but she didn't react, she didn't even cry. Just like I dreaded I had ruined her life as well.

Her future looked bleak without intervention. I could no longer trust myself as a father and even if she did stay I wouldn't be able to support her. Not to mention what would happen to her after my death. So I made plans the only way I knew how. I got in touch with a couple of people and she was taken away within the week. I could only hope that for once I had made the right choice. That I had spared her from a fate worse than death. I believed in her. I believed that she would pull through because I raised her to be a survivor, the survivor I wanted to be.

And how did you die?