Dawn of The New Lord

5| Kieran

TW : Death and descriptions of death, blood, hints towards panic attacks, and emotional numbness.

    I paced through the tall trees, my boots crunching the dried leaves on the ground, stepping on dead twigs every once in a while, creating snapping sounds to echo through the trees. My bow slung around my body, and my quiver was still wrapped around my waist. The bright moon was shining far above the clouds, far from reach, dimly illuminating the surrounding forests.

    I had absolutely demolished the living light out of my poor practice scarecrow and all the surrounding trees, and now I'm going to have to sharpen my arrows after this practice, since most of them have gone absolutely dull.

    I huffed navigating my way out of the forest, in the distance I see a figure, sat by a tree trunk, perhaps lying down? "Excuse me?" I hesitantly called out before stepping any closer. I stood still, awaiting for a response, nothing.

    "Excuse me Sir? Or Ma'am?" I asked again, taking a step closer. Still no response. By now I had gotten fed up from the silence, so I instantly decided to just walk up to them without waiting for a response of any sort. I pulled out my dagger, just in case.

    "I'm approaching now whether you want it or not," I declared, as soon as I took a step closer, I heard the person's heavy breath.

    Whoever he or she was, they sounded like they were struggling to breath, like their oxygen supply would only last them minutes- no, seconds- before running out. I approached the person to see a man, lying down with a huge opening in his lower stomach, blood gashing out faster than a strong river, "Oh my gosh," I instantly dropped my dagger on the ground, taking the bow off me and throwing my quiver to the side in case I accidentally hurt him anymore than he already was hurting.

    "Sir are you alright? No that's a crazy question- what happened?" I frantically tore open his shirt to see how bad the wound was.

    "Hhng.." I heard him mutter, struggling to form any sounds aside from groans of pain.

   I brushed the hair out of his face to see Kieran- Kieran?! "What in the bloody- Kieran what the hell happened to you?!" I exclaimed breathily, my voice shaking as I tried to find something to cover up the gash, hoping to somehow stop even more blood from flowing out.

    I started looking around to find my dagger to cut out a piece of my dress to cover his wound, only to find blood-coated arrows by his side- why did they look like mine?

    "Kieran," I breathed out shakily. "Kieran what are these?"

    He could only huff in response. "Kieran don't tell me you were shot with these. You weren't, right? Tell me you weren't!" I slowly picked them up, inspecting them carefully, tracing my fingers along the arrow.

    He could only look up to me with agony written in his eyes, "You were, weren't you?" Knowing the answer already, he nodded slightly, literally the best he could.

    "And did you pull these out yourself?" I whisper-shouted, not daring to say anything too loud. He could only weakly nod in response again. "Oh, you stupid foolish bafoon!" I exclaimed in frustration as I ripped the bottom of my dress with my dagger and wrapped the cloth around his wound, only to notice more blood trickling from the side of his torso and his chest.

    "Oh bloody hell, you shouldn't have pulled those out, you should've left them in! Pulling them out only causes you to bleed more," I cried, panic laced my trembling voice.

    "W- Wy," he sighed, causing me to shoot my head his direction. "It's no use," he grunted, shakily moving my hands away from the wounds.

    No. The only person who called me that was my best friend, and here was my worst enemy, using that name, who was also dying in front of me! Why did life punish me like this?