He sat cold and shivering on a hard metal banded park bench desperate and lonely. No one to talk to, no home to go back to and nowhere else to go. His heart sank as he thought about the future.

"what future do I have?" he spat while snarling at his own pale ghoulish reflection in a puddle made by the sprinklers now watering the lawn. The wee hours of the morning were always his favorite time to think, though he had spent all night running as hard and as fast as he could and now exhaustion set in heavy his heart feeling even heavier than his feet and eyelids. He wanted to curl up on the cold green metal bench and sleep forever, though; the air was cooler than he would have liked and when his eyes closed horrible things came to view repeatedly. He stood up slowly, creaking sore muscles stiff from the hellish night before responded slowly, and he walked or rather, he hobbled into the wet grass. He was already drenched in sweat, so it now made no difference to him if he got sprayed.

The deep purple and royal blue of fading night mixed with the blazing golden salmon clouds marking the rapidly approaching sunrise well announced. The crickets sung a cheerful tune with much gusto which he felt was an ironic scenario for what he had just lived through. He bit his lip and drew blood on the thought that anyone could be happy while he was in this much pain. The hissing of the spraying water mixed with the thundering bass of his own pulse beating down on his eardrums only drew him more on edge. Like a violin string ready to snap after being tightened stretched and sawed at. His heart screeched a tune of anguish that would make anyone's ears bleed.

"I have nothing, no home, no family, nothing..." choking back bitter, burning tears his stomach turned in on itself as he rinsed his hands off in the icy water soaking the green field around him. Thick, red ran from his hands mixing with the colors of the early morning and like a grotesque bout with watercolors swirled staining the blank gray pavement leaving it forever changed just like he was now. He could only stare in horror as his bloody hands ran, gasping for air he began shaking uncontrollably, perhaps it was the cold or perhaps not. His broken heart was falling apart, and he was losing his grip on reality.

"Make it stop, make it stop, oh god someone help me, please! I don't want to be alone anymore!" shrouded in shadow all he could do was sit in the wet pooling grass and hope that if he got sick it would kill him. Curling in on himself and whipping his runny red hands off on his once white but now dingy tan button up shirt. The fabric clung to his small frame becoming translucent, he pulled at his long ebony hair normally silky smooth, it was now a starched rats nest hardened by sweat and dirt. The sorrow hung over his head and choked him like smoke from a burning forest.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, it's all my fault! I wish I were dead! I wish I were never born! Your life would have been better without me, everyone's lives would be better. I'm just a wretched curse!" He said in a voice heavy and exhausted the sigh of total defeat. With burdens far too heavy to bare he looked to the bridge in the parks distant horizon knowing that the rushing waves of the river would be perhaps enough to take away his pain. He may have turned fourteen the day before, but on this night, he felt as if time had stopped, an invisible force had ripped out his childhood and all that was once good inside of him and aged him thirty years. He felt dry and cracked and parched even while freezing water soaked him to the bone. Slowly he lumbered to the bridge stumbling on the slick wet grass his shoes squeaked and squished with flooded padding trailing ghostly wet footprints behind him.

"I have died on this night, everything is gone, my whole life is over no one could ever love a monster like me." Visions of a dark house, a gunshot splitting the peaceful evening air, fear, horror, terror, desperate primal screams of mysterious origin assaulting the silent night air like the repetitive pounding of builders laying down shingling on a roof. The strange smell, wet and metallic. The taste in the dark room, the mist in the air, like salty copper. Heart beating, beating, beating... slowing... stopping... silence. Cold silence, black silence a morbid chill befalls those who stand with death, who hold its hand. An empty hallow forms where the heart should be when you fight with death, when you fight in someone's stead for life and fail. Death is not evil, or vindictive but nor is he merciful or kind. Death comes to us all in due time, indifferent and duty bound. He does what must be done for the sake of life not in favor of one particular life.

Empty cold, golden brown eyes staring back at me, slowly graying with deaths deep kiss. An empty cavernous hole, pale white hands spattered with a contrast of ruby droplets, Ebony hair and crimson flowing together in a tranquil swirl as a life is flushed away. "Why, why, why? Mommy why did this happen?" rumbling from under his feet pulled him away from his dark reverie. Leaving him wide eyed at the railing of the pedestrian bridge. A tall, long gray stone bridge with rod iron gothic railing hung over the crystalline waters like a hangman's tree in a flower garden. His pale creamy skin and soft angular feature lit up in the suns cresting beams and the massive windows overhead glared and gleamed sending rainbow reflections throughout the park-scape. He was as beautiful as he was retched and every bit as hopeless to boot. With his raven colored hair hanging wet and clinging to his cheeks and neck he placed a trembling foot between two rails with a clank and then another. Gingerly he climbed the side of the bridge and stood on the damp edge looking down at the rapid silvery water churning thirty feet below. He closed his eyes taking a deep breath, the water smelled crisp and clean, the scent of dew and night air still lingering. "Someone, please save me! Or please let me die, let my pain die!" he groaned and the words left his lips like the last spurt of blood from an emptying artery. It was cold, the world was so cold.

.......

Running, jumping, diving through trees this way and that in an early misty morning, Platinum blond hair flying wildly in the cool breeze. Leaves and twigs filled the glinting metallic mane, but she didn't care, it was life or death to her. She had to find it, absolutely had to before they did. Frantically searching the forest floor of the oak grove in the park she knew it was here somewhere and if they found it before her... she shuttered at the thought of what might happen. Heavy breathing was catching up behind her. It was them! She shrieked, panic setting in she was almost out of time! There in the corner of her eye, a man in black, tall, muscular, fast as lightning, he came bounding out of the shadows. She darted behind some trees and down a small embankment to the edge of a slight stream. Counter stepping across rocks and using the water flowing to prevent tracks from being left behind she knew how to survive in the wild. Her mother and father had drilled it into her. Always insisting that she know how to live on her own in the wilderness they ran her through different drills regularly. Diving into a thicket of fully flowering bushes she held her breath and watched as a few seconds later this man caught up to her and went running by. She sighed, there was no time to lose. She got back up to her feet, her grey jogging outfit was a mess with dirt and mud painted all over it. Grass stains on her knees she looked like a refugee.

Running, panting, eyes darting all around for any sign of movement. She felt like a deer being stocked by a bear. Panic quickly welling in her throat as she spotted it, a patch of light green herd flowing with a white feather like plume. But there on the other side of the clearing stood a small figure, slight and streamline. Liking her lips, she crouched into a sprinters position and burst forward with all her strength. She had to reach the plant before the woman on the other side did. Then in a blink of an eye she was swept off her feet by a man in a dark running outfit. The woman across the way made her way skipping and humming to the plant. She cried out and her scream echoed. Landing hard in a pile of leaves she scrambled to her feet but not before the laughing man grabbed her ankle and pulled her down once again.

"This isn't fair! You said I'd have an hour there's still fifteen minutes!" His hands were firmly set on her sides squeezing. She gasped for air her body crumpling weak and helpless.

"stop... no... not fair... DAD!!!" tears rolled down her cheeks as he got to his feet he tore off his black mask and beamed down at her with a glittering triumphant smile stamped across his face. He had a jagged scar across his face running from one ear to the other. The scar was at one point deep and dieted his nose giving him a Wildman sort of appearance as if he were always wearing war paint. He huffed and placed his hands on his streamline hips,

"Very well, I shall allow you 45 seconds to catch your breath." She sighed and laid flat on her back. She was totally exhausted! He looked at her with a sly expression,

"but you know, I've never been very good with telling time..." she sat up and scowled at him

"don't you dare..." but in a flash he leapt on her and began his onslaught of tickling again. The slight woman joined them with nothing but giggles. His dog tags jingled under his cloths as they rolled through the leaves and battled on the forest floor. The platinum haired wild girl stuck her fingers in her father's nose and he cried out half laughing and half in shock as he reared back she kicked off on his stomach and rolled to a crouching position out of his reach.

"You little!" He laughed and growled at once, kicking leaves into her face he covered her face and laughed,

"nice try but that won't work on me ever again!" She rolled to the side and came up in his arms.

"aw, dang..." She sighed and was slammed back to the ground and tickled even harder.

"this is a good batch, I'm so happy we found it before its flowers medicinal properties expired!" she bundled the plume like flowers in a cloth and placed them gently in her herbologist pouch. She was poking at a large ant hill and watching them scurry around while she hummed the tune to the minute waltz. The laughing was cut short however by a loud gurgling scream.

.......

He could hear the turtle dove's early morning song echoing from under the bridge and wondered how many people they had seen jump from this bridge, if he would be the first, or if he would be the last. If he was just a faceless statistic about to join other blank faced phantoms. Then with arms spread wide he leaned forward and felt himself floating at first then his stomach lurched as he picked up speed. In the next moment all he could feel was unexpected amounts of pain his face, his stomach both stung with the impact. His whole body felt like pins and needles, the icy water was not forgiving or kind. Sweeping him up in a toiling torrent of roaring water he tumbled repeatedly banging against rocks and scraping the sides of the canal. He felt something hot burst forth from him, heat so intense it evaporated water in large steamy clouds and engulfed his entire body.

Roaring like a great beast thrashing across a vast bloody battlefield ensnared his senses. The smell of smoke and blood, ichor and charred flesh assaulted his entire being. The screaming of someone very precious to him echoed in his mind. The screaming was endless, thousands of voices cried out for help but he could move not a single crispy finger, merely burn with pain, sorrow, and cursed dragon fire! She called out his name over and over, they all did! Just out of reach they burned and writhed and were ravaged without mercy but he could do nothing! They were ravaged endlessly by dark figures that he could not see, whos eyes glowed like the wicked flames that consumed his body. His heart broke, they called his name but what was it? He could not hear his own name.

"Who am I?" he shrieked as the world went dark "Who am I?" Burning, drowning, thrashing all about he felt a cool hand grab ahold of his own hand. It was small and gentle, and the heat he felt like an aching dagger in his heart and throat subsided. Flaring once again at the sound of a mysterious voice asking him for his name the heat lasted for only a moment before cooling again and water swirled gingerly around him as he floated safely to shore. A petite body pressed against his back soothing his fears. In another flash of half consciousness he felt the water harden around him and like a hand it picked him up and placed him on the bank of the river near a thicket of great red oak. Bloody, not breathing he faded in and out of darkness as a small faint voice called out for her parents to come quickly, her cries echoed, like her voice did. Like the voices of so many children whos parents would never hold them again.

"What's your name?" 'angelic' he thought, 'she must be an angel. With a voice as fine and comforting as hers she must be.'

"Your name, can you tell me what it is? Do you have any family?" he groaned and opened his eyes. Gurgling though blurry dizzy vision was all he could muster. But he could make out a small pair of vibrant purple Alexandrite eyes staring deep into his own golden eyes under the dark shaded canopy of the red oak grove. It felt almost as if he were staring up at a night sky with two purple Alexandrite stars guiding him home. With herculean effort he parted his lips and spoke the only words he could muster.

"My... name?...what was it?" He fumbled over it thinking only of the sound of a gunshot and a roaring dragon and her screams, whoever she was. He could taste blood hot and think in his mouth, the way the mist had tasted in his mother's bedroom but more of it now.

"My name, I'm Kro Rowen..." A dragon roared in his head, and echoes of screams reverberated in his mind inaudible to all but himself. "Wait no, that's not right... I think... I'm Julius... Amaranth... I'm so alone... wish you had left me... alone." His vision went black and he felt the world around him spinning. Footsteps rustling the grass and leaves near his head and a voice, masculine saying,

"This boy is a mage, who is he?" Then he heard his name sung from the lips of an angel,

"He's super confused I think he's Julius Amaranth, he's alone."

"that's right, all alone. Wish I was dead." He thought, maybe he spoke it aloud he was not certain.

"Julius, you're going to be okay my father is here, and he can heal you. Julius, my name is..." He never heard her name or anything else after just a grave silence and black static. Dark torment, paralyzed and writhing in agony. He felt hot, and dry, like his flesh was charred and cracking. Like a rotisserie chicken left alive and hung over the flames for far too long. Then, out of the darkness he was bathed in gentle golden light that soothed his misery and his spinning dizziness slowed. His body felt strange and heavy, panic flooded his mind wondering what could be happening to him. All he knew was he was in pain and cold now, then he was warm, and he felt stiff but pain free. The whole world dissolved away to blackness once again, but it was a deep slumber of someone who was physically, emotionally, and spiritually drained, a near death coma.

'God damn, this is bad! I can't take this train wreck with us! He's a damn liability! What do I do?' thought the girls' father in stoic panic and isolated indignation. 'She is just like her mother! Is there a gene for finding wounded strays and nursing them back to health? Christ, what the hell do I do now, if we take him with us it could back lash on my girls.' He groaned as he forced all of his energy into healing light around the unconscious and water logged boy. The hounds howled at the entrance to the park some ways off and the young girl's father snapped something between his fingers and sprinkled pepper over the surrounding area before they left with great haste. 'Sorry kiddo, my family is more important to me. If they find you.... that will buy us more time to get farther away.' He loomed heavy over the boys sleeping body. 'You are now as I was then, I really hope you make it out of this one kiddo. I don't know what happened or what you got yourself into but I can't afford to care right now.' He tore himself away from the seen with haste and fled quickly knowing the pepper would prevent any other sent from being picked up by the hounds. "No! we need to take him with us! Daddy, he needs our help!" cried the bright alexandrite eyed girl. Her father quickly tossed her onto his shoulder like a sack of flower or potatoes and bolted for the thickets of shrubs and trees. It was now a race to get away in time!

.......

Watching from behind a great red oak tree sat a hulking figure shrouded in cloaks of haunted shadow silk with misty moonlight grey trim. The giant of a figure had a jagged sacrificial dagger with skeletal ram's head hand guard and spinal column like ridged handle dangling on a barbed golden chain around his neck. The figures eyes flashed red for a moment as it continued watching, taking everything in. It stood silently and took out a holo-phone from an inner cloak breast pocket, a hologram image of a keypad appeared and with a gloved hand it began dialing for emergency response as the great looming beast lumbered lazily to Julius' side. A monotone woman bored at work answered but the figure did not speak just set the phone down by Julius' unconscious body and stepped away. Stepping into the shadows it took another phone out and dialed a different number. In a high pitch, perky, feminine voice the beast spoke, clearly mimicking a foreign human voice.

"Yes, I have found him my lord. He has... promise you could say. He is certainly broken now I think, the boy must now be molded. I trust you know better than I on how to proceed from here?" there came a smooth charming male voice from the other end,

"Thank you, Treptoe, I can handle it from here. Take to your other duties and keep me informed of how things develop on all fronts." The call ended, and the figure dropped the holo-tele-projection phone. The device burst into flames as the figure snapped its fingers. A deep, nearly inhuman voice came from the figure as it chuckled and walked out of the park, the abnormally tall figure blended in with all the foot traffic with little effort and after a moment the figure vanished all together, gradually taking the form of an average human in drab, average colored clothing. Within ten minutes the abandoned H.T.P. phone was traced to Julius' limp body. The hounds closed in sniffing the air, the three hounds in the lead gagged as they reached the boy and their noses and eyes all began to water fiercely. Howling in pain the hound officers backed away as the pepper assaulted their honed and delicate senses.