Tales from Drunswick

[Yukki Kazuto]

My eyes fluttered open slowly, the familiar brown ceiling of my house greeting me. I rolled onto my side, the bed giving off a raspy creak as I stood up. Looking out of the hole in my wall that we called a window, I saw the sun about a quarter of the way into the sky. Time to get the day started.


Stretching my arms behind my back, I walk over to the dresser and look at the list of chores my grandfather has left me for the day. I picked up the list and put it in my shorts pocket. Walking out the back door of the house, I grabbed the bucket we kept by the back door.


My name is Damien. I live in the town of Drunswick. We live in a desert, and the nearest civilization that we know of is about a six hour walk, over hills and valleys of sand, in scorching heat, the entire time, with no source of water except what you started with. Even the best rationers run through it quickly.


Walking through the little town of Drunswick, the streets were filled with people going about their morning tasks. In Drunswick, everybody did something, from the children to the elders. It wasn’t long before I made it to the well in the center of town, and waited in a numbingly boring line in order to get a bucket of water.


My walk back through the streets my petite town was a dull and careful one, the entire walk spent making sure the water didn’t splash out of the bucket from my walk. Once I returned to my house, I poured the water from the bucket into a large container at the back of the house, designed for heating water to be used for cooking, cleaning, and bathing.


I pulled out my list of five tasks, and, using my trusty ink pen, put a check next to the first one.  I took a small rest to drink a glass of tea, before continuing my work. The tea was nice and refreshing, sweet but not overpowering, with hints of lemon. It also helped cool me down a little. I was used to the heat, but it still felt good to drink something that was chilled.


Heading back outside, the screen door to my house shut with a loud slam. I walked towards the far edge of the town, specifically the area where the bazaar was set up. I wandered through the town for a little while, looking for the material I would require. I saw several people selling white I needed, but not in a small enough quantity for me to warrant purchasing the goods.


A very small amount of silver coins jingled in my pocket. Just enough to bring my attention to their presence, but not enough to point out I had money to other members of the town. The coin in Drunswick wasn’t used anywhere else, and was specific to our tiny town. Though I had heard stories of a prime who would convert it into another currency for any of us who were willing to travel. But that had only happened once in my lifetime. I was too young to even remember the experience.


Though, there was that one prime that grandfather had saved. He used the experience to teach me why we never bother leaving Drunswick. Everything we could possibly need is already here, so why leave the relative safety of our town?


I found what I had been looking for, a small square of screen to fix a patch that had formed in our front door from the sand blowing into it. I payed for it with two silver coins, leaving me with one to finish my other chores with. The coin was a polished silver, with several scratches from the sand that would rub against it. On one side was the crest of Drunswick, two torches crossing each other over an oasis. On the other was the face of someone nobody had ever seen, but it was claimed that it was Drunswick’s founder.

I put the coin and the screen into my pocket, and fixed the screen door to my house. I pulled out my list, and checked off the second task on my list. Looking over the next three, I realized that it was going to be a long day.

[Yukki Kazuto]

I examined the list that I was slowly working my way through. I had already finished the first two tasks, to fetch the daily bucket of water, and to repair a tear in the screen of our screen door. My third task was to sweep the sand that was all over the house out of it. After rummaging around in the living room closet for a while, I found the old broom that we kept for sweeping.


I started in the back rooms first, so, my bedroom and my grandfather’s bedroom. As these rooms were further away from the source of the sand entering the house, there was only a small pile of sand in each room. THey were both swept into the hallway, which was quickly swept as well. At this point, the pile was of a moderate size, and I swept it up into a dustpan and dumped it outside.


I continued my sweeping, cleaning the bathroom, kitchen, living room, guest room, and for good measure, the basement. After making sure I hadn’t missed anything, my trusty pen created a mark next to the third item on my list. I was over halfway done!


The fourth task on my list was the hardest one I had dealt with yet. That was typically how they go. The easiest tasks first, with the more time consuming ones later in the day. That way, if I ran out of daylight to do my work, I had still done at least a few of the chores.


The fourth responsibility that I had been tasked with was to fix a hole in the ceiling of the house. It wasn’t a huge problem right now, but we were worried that if a sandstorm kicked up, it would cover the entire interior of the house in a compressing layer of sand. I made sure my remaining coin was in my pocket, and went back out to the market.


At this point it was a little later in the day, and it was nearing sunset. The market was half closed, and the people still there were desperately trying to rid themselves of their material wares. It took a little bit of searching, and after a few failed bargains, I found someone willing to sell me a handful of ceiling tiles for my remaining coin.


By the time I return to my dusty, but sand free, house, it was very late in the sun’s cycle. Over the horizon of sand dunes the sun sat, lowering slowly behind the distance, turning the sky different shades of scarlets and oranges. I watched in earnest as the sun disappeared. I noticed as a black figure seemed to come out of the sun.

Confused, I leaned forward, hanging off the room to try to get a better look. That’s when several more figures appeared, and I understood what was happening. I jumped off the roof, and landed on the sand hard. “Ring the bell! Bandits incoming from the west!” I began limping into the house, seemingly having injured my leg. In the center of town, a bell began ringing in panic, and the town began mustering their weapons. My grandfather rushed in the door, wheezing, trying to catch his breath.


“Damien! Get the rifle!” My grandfather wheezed at me. I stopped where I stood.

“Grandfather, I’ve never shot the rifle in a combat situation before!” It was true, I had only shot it a few times at still targets.


“Well I can’t shoot the damned thing! Get up to the roof with it! Go!” He yelled at me before collapsing on the floor. In a frenzied panic, I grabbed the rifle off the wall and the little box next to it, and scrambled up the ladder to the roof.

What ever happened to just doing my chores peacefully?

[Yukki Kazuto]

Once on the roof, I went to the edge that was closest to where the bandits were coming into the town. I wasn’t the only town member on their roof armed with a rifle, either. Most of the town was running around in a frenzied panic. We had been told before, several times by our mayor, that we were not to fire at anyone unless they did something that warranted it, such as attacking someone or a building, or stealing something from a person.


I watched as five bandits rode in on horses. I aimed through the sight at the one in the lead, and watched him pull out a cavalry sword. He swung it down, slicing off the head of one of the town’s citizens. The unarmed female’s head flew through the air, and her body collapsed into a heap on the sand.


Immediately shots rang out, from myself and my other rooftop comrades. In that instant, five rounds of varying calibers struck the leaders chest, sending him flying off of his horse. His body collapsed into a pile on the sand, and his horse began to run away. It was soon shot by another of the rooftop marksmen.


The remaining bandits began to scatter, running through crowds, some killing people, some just stealing things from people’s homes. A few of the smart ones got off of their horse and began to mix with the crowd. The ones that didn’t were quickly shot.


I saw one of the bandits enter a house and pass by a window that was pointing out away from the street, at an angle that only I could see what was happening inside of the house. The man forcibly grabbed a woman who was hiding under the bed, and began tying her hands with some rope. It wasn’t uncommon for bandits to steal women, presumably to use them for pleasure and then execute them when all the bandits had a chance to enjoy her. If they got this woman out of this town, it was likely we would never see a trace of her again.


Aiming through the rifle’s scope, I placed the crosshair on the bandit’s head. I felt the gun shaking. I was about to take a life. I mentally prepared myself for it. I was ready. If I didn’t do this, she would die. I had to save her. I fired the rifle.


Time seemed to slow down. The crack of the rifle echoed through the chaos,  as did the sound of the bullet shattering the glass of the building’s window. I blinked and saw that the bandit had disappeared, leaving only the woman lying on her bed, with a red pool on her chest, which was slowly spreading as she laid there. I began to realize what I had done. I hadn’t shot the bandit. I had shot the woman I was trying to save…


It didn’t take long for the town to put me on trial after the bandits had all left. The town was in ruin, there were dead bodies everywhere, and they felt the need to try me for murder. The case was pretty open and shut, and a jury of five people found me guilty, 4 to 1.


I was allowed one minute to speak to my family, but my grandfather had died in the bandit raid. With no other family, my execution was set for noon. Noon came quickly, and I soon found myself standing before a hanging noose.


The town sheriff stood before me as the hooded executioner placed the rope around my neck. “You have committed crimes against Drunswick and her people.” I nodded in understanding as the executioner moved to a lever off to my right. “Do you have any last words?”


I thought for a moment, and said “Pull the damn lever.” My request was obliged. The floor beneath me collapsed, leading me to choke on the rope that was digging into my neck. In under a minute, I was a hanging corpse, completely absent of life.

All because I wanted to save a life.

[Yukki Kazuto]

A little girl watches from her father’s shoulders as a young boy is hanging from a rope, his eyes lifeless, his body gone completely slack. Her eyes are fixated on the rope, not quite being able to comprehend what just happened to this boy she used to play with in the yard.


She watches as his body is cut down and taken to a giant fire on the outskirts of town. Having learned at a young age that fire burns you, she starts crying out as his uninhabited corpse is thrown into the fire, causing sparks to fly into the sky and rain down onto the townspeople. The bodies of the two bandits killed in the raid are thrown on top of his, causing smaller spark showers. The air begins to smell of their burning flesh, mixing in with the usual smell of the desert.


A stone’s throw away from the fire is the town’s graveyard. Buried unceremoniously lies the woman that was killed by friendly fire in the raid. The girl and her father stop by the grave on their way home, the little girl unsure of why her father is crying so much. He sits there for almost an hour before taking his daughter’s hand and leading her home.


Inside of their house is a giant stock of flowers, all bought from the shower shop whose owner is now happily counting his coins, planning a trip out of this crappy little town to Carrefore. The girl watches as her father collapsed in his chair, and began to drink a golden liquid straight from the bottle that he kept on the shelf all day and told her never to drink from.


The girl watched as her father drank the entire bottle and collapsed in his chair. She slowly walked up to him and tugged on his sleeve, to know response. She tugged on his arm. “Daddy?” No response. The girl began to cry. “Daddy?!?” The girl’s father sat motionless in his chair.


“Mommy?” The girl left her father’s side and began to search the house for her mother. “Mommy?!?” The girl searched every inch of the house before returning to her father’s chair. “Daddy, where’s Mommy?!?” When the girl got no response, she crawled up into a ball and began crying. Her wails could be heard throughout the whole town, as they listened to her crying in silence.


The girl ran out of her house, and ran through town to the house that she had spent a fair amount of her childhood at, playing with her friend that she had known her entire life. She bagned on the door relentlessly, the tears falling from her face, causing the sand beneath her to clump together. “Damien! Damien, open the door!” Her pounding was met with silence, as Damien was unable to open the door. Damien would never do anything again.


The girl slowed her banging until it concluded in her in a ball on the ground, slowly turning the sand beneath her into the consistency required to create a sand castle. The other members of Drunswick looked on in horror, ashamed of what they had done to this poor little girl.


After a good hour or more of crying, the girl was finally taken home by one of the members of the town. She found her father still passed out in his chair. Or, at least, she assumed he was passed out. She crawled into her bed and cried for the rest of the afternoon, and deep into the night.


The town went sleepless, their actions resting on their conscious. But in the end, there was nothing they could do to help this little girl. Her mother was dead, her best friend dead, her father an alcoholic.


This is what happens when people try to help. All they do is screw things up even worse. And then people try to punish those that screwed up. And then they hurt someone else accidently. When does it end? When does the circle stop? Who breaks the cycle? This little girl?


Doubtful. The next morning, when the girl’s father drank himself to oblivion again, she found his old handgun, and shot herself in the stomach.  She bled out on her living room carpet, the white slowly fading into pink, and then a deeper shade of red. Her father never even stirred as his daughter’s life essence slowly faded into nothing.


The town found her body the next day, when she wasn’t seen anywhere around the town. The town tried her father for child negligence, found him guilty, and hung him in the same manner is Damien. His body was burned, and his daughter was buried next to her mother. The town was silent throughout the whole manner.


The town went to sleep early that night, and was unaware of the bandits coming back. They set a ludicrous amount of explosives to the buildings, wanting revenge for the murder of their leader. The bombs detonated in the middle of the night, completely destroying the buildings that the sleeping people were inside of.


The entire town was destroyed in the bombings. The fires from their burning houses could be seen for miles, and the stench of their burning flesh could be smelled for many more. The town was destroyed, and never recovered.

And so ends the tales of Drunswick.