Until the End [Remastered]

Prolouge

A retelling of Until The End, now with an author that has much better sense of writing. Hopefully much less cringey 'fanfic' writing. Enjoy.

Prologue

Specks of snow floated down around him, gently caressing whatever they landed on. The lucky flakes floated past the boy, finding comfort on the ground with their people. Packed together in safety, in cold delight. The unlucky ones fell onto his outstretched hand, his knuckles that were drawn back. His arm was shaking with strain. Those unlucky snowflakes were melted, taken away by the heat they so despised. The cold attacked with needles, wherever his body may have been exposed. Although the holes were small, the weather found its way in. He was never a fan of the cold.

But it kept them safe.

There was a calmness to his eyes, a feeling of desire and acknowledgment. An understanding of what he was doing. In his eyes reflect a deer. A creature, just like him, trying to survive in the same harsh environments. Snowflakes blistering its skin, the light of the blocked sun blessing it beneath the trees. His arm shook more. He couldn't discern if it was from the potential stored inside, or the desire he held deep in his heart to avoid this. He didn't want to do this. Fear gnawed at his heart, daring him to let go.

"Deep breath," a calm, soothing voice whispered beside him. Gentle in its nature. It brought back some life to him, made the cold air taste a little warmer on his tongue. He grabbed onto the string a bit tighter. A foreign hand reached out to help him pull it back, his young arms unable to go much further. Another reached to the base of his stretched out hand, keeping the bow steady. The arrow notched, beginning to wobble with the force. "You can do this, you must learn. Focus now on your body, on the way your hand feels. Use your mind to judge the distance, use your heart to guide the arrow. Do not let one another win, keep them on even ground."

He closed off his heart, sheltered down his mind. He took one deep breath, the cold now a foreign thought. Something he didn't need anymore, something that he wished he could avoid. His hand opened, and the string snapped forward. Out now flies the arrow, true and unyielding to the gravity trying to apprehend it. His shot was true now, passing the trees and the bark. He watched as it flew, his eyes passing every moment.

He had signed a death warrant today, and that wasn't ever going to leave his hands. Today was his first blood spilled. He was lucky it wasn't a man's.

The deer didn't get to see its death, maybe it was truly the lucky one. An arrow to the heart, and it was knocked over. A few fruitless kicks of the legs, as if it thought it could still run. He watched the pumps slow, and eventually the deer lost the fight altogether. The virtue of life struck this creature quickly and fast, now it rests in the arms of death.

He felt a hand upon his shoulder, and the boy looked up at his mentor, his teacher. A much older woman in his eyes, though now it was ancient to live past sixty. Her hair was long, this old golden tang that seemed to be too good for the forest they found themselves in. Brought back safely into a ponytail, protected under a cap. The logo on it was long faded, but she swore it was something cool. Whether the boy believed it or not didn't matter, because he wanted it to be true.

"Good job, kiddo," she spoke in her gentle voice. A southern drawl laced within every word she spoke. It was odd to hear the difference in her dialect as compared to everyone else. He didn't understand why people would just talk differently. They always said it was a cultural thing.

He didn't know what culture was either.

"Now, Y/N, what comes next?" She asked, her eyes pointing up to direct his attention to the kill. The boy followed her eyes, then looked down at himself. He tried to look past the white jacket, at the belt where he held most of his tools. The strap of the quiver separated the jacket in half, helping to keep the middle together whenever the zipper had broken. Black cargo pants that had meant to hold even more, yet he found most of them empty. The only thing he had, save for the weapon, was the only thing he could not lose.