Chapter 9: Chapter 9: The reaping of what has been sown

“The first body that I ever saw was my mother’s, after my father beat her to death.

I grew up in that place. Ten years later. I beat my father to death and I fell in with a bad crowd. Though, I guess you could say that, given the situation, that’s a relative thing to say, right?

In that first year, I killed four people.

A year after that, I killed nine.

After that year, I stopped counting how many people I killed. There were just too many.

Eventually I was caught by the guard and scheduled to be executed. But the military grabbed me in an emergency draft, along with the other scheduled to-dies. We were put in the most dangerous front lines.

And honestly, I didn’t care. I was just there. I just killed more people and this time, I got medals for it.

Now, back then, back when it happened, I couldn’t help but wonder -

Why him?

Why would the gods intervene directly in the life of an already rich man, a noble man, who had lived his best years in peace? Why him, when the rest of us lived like rats? Why didn’t they intervene in my life? Why didn’t they stop me from heading where I was going?

After that night however, after that light tore through the sky and that drake fell to the ground at our feet, I realized something.

— They already had.

After I got out of the service and my crimes were forgiven because of my merits, I started planting flowers. One for every person I killed.

But since I don’t know how many that was anymore, I just keep on planting them now and every time that I do, I pray.

I pray in thanks and I pray for forgiveness.

I pray so that I can see my mother again.”

~ Memoir of the high-gardener of the holy-church. Some fifty years after the happenings of the drake-fall.