Fiction:Everlands/Stories/Journal of Jacen Jhuul/Chapter 3: Loss

'''[This is the journal of Chosen. Written sometime during the Dark Age, it recounts a traumatic event in his youth and his first encounter with the Shadow]]'''

“They say ‘you never really know what you have until it’s gone’. I’d be hard pressed to find any truer words in this world. Loss is a common thing we all experience in life. Back when I was a kid, I never really knew what it was like to lose anything. But then...I did.”

“That stranger from before, the one wearing all black, came back days after he walked out of Root. He didn’t come alone though. He had Dark Beasts with him...a lot of Dark Beasts. He attacked the town, burning down buildings and slaughtering my neighbors. I saw my home reduced to nothing but rubble and my childhood friends eaten alive by those monsters. All while that bastard in black stood there and gestured at the next thing that needed killing. Believe me, I tried to save the day...to be the hero. But I just wasn’t strong enough. I did what I thought Jhuul would do in this situation and I evacuated what people I could. We ran into the wilderness as Root burned.”

“I didn’t exactly know where we were heading, but I just kept leading the survivors in the direction Jhuul had walked off in. To my surprise, Jhuul ran into us on the road, and I told him what had happened. He was shocked, but snapped out of it rather quickly. I guess when you’re a Chosen this kind o’ stuff doesn’t hit you as hard as it hits everyone else. He quickly took over and began guiding the townsfolk to a stronghold he knew about. I was hopeful about that at first, but things have changed.”

“We had been walking for days, and Jhuul began to act strange. It was like he was focusing on something else rather than the people he was leading. He wouldn't tell me for some reason, but whatever it was it made him very uneasy as time passed. He suddenly decided to send the people ahead to the stronghold once we were about a day’s walk from it, and split off from the group to circle back through the woods. Of course I refused to leave his side and went with him. As we walked I demanded to know why he was acting strange. All he said was that he wanted to make sure we weren’t being followed.”

“We spent the day looking for signs of someone trailing us, but I couldn’t find anything. Of course Jhuul seemed pretty convinced that we were being followed, and I was too inexperienced to see what he was talking about. Jhuul told me to just forget about it and get some sleep...and that we’d head back to the stronghold in the morning. Like an idiot, I believed him.”

“I woke up the next morning and saw that Jhuul wasn’t anywhere to be found. I looked around camp and noticed his footprints leading off into the deep woods. I followed them, calling out for Jhuul and getting no reply. I kept at it for a while until I could smell sulphur on the wind. ‘Gunpowder’ I thought, and began looking for the source. My nose led me to a clearing...and that’s when I saw him.”

“It was the man dressed in black. He was standing with his back to me, his hands to his side and a smoking pistol in his right hand. I was confused at first, but then my eyes moved down to the body at his feet. It was Jhuul. I can’t describe what was running through my head at that moment. Anger? Sadness? Pain? I don’t know if it really matters at this point. All I knew was that Jhuul was dead, and this stranger murdered him. I drew my sword and yelled at the bastard before charging at him. The man turned and dodged my attack like it was nothing. I turned around and charged at him again, and this time I actually managed to drive my sword through his stomach. I glared at the man, thinking that I had killed him, but he just looked down at the sword, and then smiled at me.”

“Again it was more like an eerie imitation of a smile...and he said, ‘You haven’t seen the sky yet?’ I was distracted by that, trying to understand what the hell he was talking about. Then I noticed that the barrel of his pistol was pressed against my chest. Before I could pull away from him, he shot me. Now, I’ve been shot plenty since that moment, but I’ll never forget how that bullet felt as it passed through me. It was incredibly cold. It was like someone had shoved the coldest ice into my chest and into my soul. I fell on my back, unable to get up. The man stood over me, gun trained on my head, still grinning.”

“‘This is it?’ I thought. ‘This is how I die? After all that?’ But for some reason, the man lowered his gun, and shot me in the leg instead. Again I felt that horrible chill pass through my leg. ‘Remember that pain when you see the Sky. Remember what the Deep can do.’ he said. Then I blacked out from the pain.”

“I had nightmares about drowning, freezing, being buried. All things I wasn’t afraid of until I met that man. When I finally did wake up again, I was being cared for in what I later found out was the stronghold Jhuul had told me about. There were two Chosen there, who apparently recovered Jhuul’s audio logs from his body, as well as his own sword. They told me that Jhuul intended for me to be his successor and that his possessions were now mine. His sword felt heavy in my hands. My mind was still churning. Jhuul was dead, I had to succeed him, and his murderer was still on the loose.”

“I wasn’t sure if I could really step into the shoes of a Chosen. But I had to do it. I had to do it for Root, for my people who lost everything, for Jhuul, and for myself.”