Kingdoms Lost //Merome Fanfiction//

20 Years Later

A week before the funeral, my parents hadn't come home on time from their work. Ryan, worried, searched the area, and found our parents hung by their necks in the middle of the town square, stones scattered at their feet. Infuriated, he locked me in my room without any explanation. Even though Ryan didn't want me to be involved with his business, I overheard him vow to destroy the royals. While speaking with a close acquaintance, he mentioned that Lord Nucciarone, the royal Commissioner of Property, had caught our parents attempting to buy his land for free, and punished them to death by stoning. King Aceti allowed their deaths to occur, which made Ryan even angrier than before.

On the morning of the funeral, it didn't feel like just a normal day. I woke up to Ryan shouting, and ran downstairs to find out what he wanted from me. Although he only told me to sweep the floors, I instantly felt a change in the household, knowing that two of the only people who could've loved me were dead. Ryan probably cared for me too, but he showed it in a different way. Or not. Unless none of them actually cared about me... leaving me on my own...

My fingers traced the lining of the old wooden pole. I grasped tightly onto the broom and began sweeping as questions swirled in my mind. What if I ran? Would I be able to escape this town? As I thought about it more, where would I go? I didn't have any friends. The only people I knew were my parents and Ryan. There was the market stand owner... but he preferred Ryan, and would return me home if he found out I went missing.

Ryan interrupted my train of thought. "Mitch, let's go to the graveyard now. We're gonna be the only two there, but I really don't care."

I groaned and continued sweeping the floor. "Just let me finish this up... since you demanded me to..."

"No," Ryan eyed the broom with disgust. He then said something that surprised me. "Do that later. Get over here now."

I smirked with my back to my brother, seeing a way to get out of work. "Okay," I dropped the broom against the nearest wall, and hopped towards Ryan at the front door. He wore a tight-fitting navy blue pants and same-colored suit jacket covering a spotless pearl white shirt. Ryan's dark blonde hair was slicked back. The outfit I usually wore included loose over-sized blue jeans, short blood red shoes with white laces, a jet black and red checkered hoodie, a stained white T-shirt under the hoodie, and a silver-chained dog-tag necklace with my first name etched onto it. My short almond brown hair was styled up and inward.

Ryan locked the door to the house, and we left the shack, making our way to the field where Lord Nucciarone planned to bury our parents. Lord Nucciarone hadn't permitted us to direct a funeral procession because of our town ranking, which happened to be very low, so Ryan and I watched from a distance as the workers dumped the bodies of our parents into an open tomb. They closed the lid of the tomb, lowered the large box, quickly covered the box with shovels of dirt, and once finished, exited the work site.

As soon as the last worker left the field, I hastily ran over to where the tomb laid. Secretly, I had picked out a small white flower from the garden of a rich neighbor. To pay my dues, I got onto my knees, and placed the flower on top of the dirt. Even though I wasn't too close with my parents, I still respected them as people at the time, not knowing about the chaos they'd created. After I lifted my hand off the ground, Ryan came beside me, and I could feel a dangerous presence seeping through his veins. For the first time ever, Ryan held the palm of his hand on my shoulder; I thought it signified a new upcoming bond between us. However, as Ryan and I mourned our parents, we didn't realize the events to come, in which the ideas of "brotherly bond" and "family" I created in my head would affect the rest of our lives.

Two days later, the fuses died down and things looked brighter. Ryan strode off to his job while I completed my daily chores. He still demanded different jobs from me, but was very lenient in how I did them, usually not caring much about the process.