Nero had a dream.
One of gods in their golden divinity watching over and blessing the land.
One of the wonders of the earth and the plump peach blossoms.
One of a vast blue sky and sea.
So peaceful, so colorful.
So full of hope.
Of course, dreams were dreams for a reason.
Slowly, his eyes opened as he sat up with a groan.
The bedding beneath him was the farthest thing from comfortable, so trying to have a good night’s rest was quite the challenge.
Alternatively, since he could never have a good night’s rest, he could always wake before the morning mass.
As a member of the local town’s guard, he absolutely couldn’t stray from his duties, one of them being a mandatory attendance of the morning mass to receive the blessings of God.
In a world such as the one he lived in, faith, or in his eyes, the illusion of it, was the only thing that kept people going.
Because without it, the pitiful humans would have no other choice but to face the maddening reality without their rose tinted glasses.
He stared into the dark ceiling of his room.
The scent of leather and sweat filled the room and his nostrils. The room was also cold without any heating sources. Luckily, his training and conditioning made it so it was bearable.
He looked up.
Even in the darkness of night, he could clearly see the rotting wood overhead. Still, compared to the absolute squalor the other villagers lived in, this could be considered a luxury.
That was the nature of this world.
He let out a sigh and rose to his feet.
Performing a series of basic stretches to loosen up his aching body and clear away the remnant fog of sleep, he slowly walked to his bedside table. On it were his most treasured items.
A sword and a set of leather armor that belonged to his late father, as well as a book that belonged to his late mother.
Staring at them both, he couldn’t help but find himself drifting away to the past.
Shaking his head, he turned away from the table. Picking up a pail of relatively clear water he had placed beside his bed the night before, he turned around and headed outside.
Pushing the door open, he carried the small bucket to the back of the small thatched shack he called home. There, he set it on the ground.
Although there had been a shortage of everything lately, fortunately for him, since the town existed right beside a lake, there was more than enough water for the townsfolk.
The morning air was filled with dense fog. Which meant there was enough covering to preserve his dignity.
Quickly and quietly, he stripped off his clothes then folded then folded them neatly before dropping them on the ground nearby. A soft breeze rolled across his skin, making him tense up and shiver, goosebumps rising across his back.
Filling his lungs with the cold air to steel his nerves, he picked up the wooden bowl within the bucket.
Without giving it any more thought, he dumped the freezing cold water over his head.
"Curses, that’s cold!"
***
Hair still dripping with moisture, Nero, now dressed in his clothes and armor, sat down at his chair.
He glanced at the sword resting on the table.
It was not anything impressive. Years ago, his father had had a local blacksmith craft it for him with blacksteel, so the quality was mediocre at best. Despite that, under his meticulous care, the sword had lived a rather long time.
’How long has it been, nine years?’
Most people usually didn’t keep track of time for that long, because the future was very uncertain.
After all, in a land crawling with all manner of aberrations that hungered for human flesh and thirsted for their blood, death was always lurking in the shadows of the other room.
He let out a sigh.
He would be turning nineteen in a few days.
Tearing his eyes away from the sword, his gaze fell on the old book, the only book on the table.
His mother had been someone from the city. Somehow, his father had managed to win her heart, and together, they had eloped to this small part of the Empire.
She had been well learned and she made sure he was as well, teaching him how to read and write at a young age.
This made him suspect that his mother had not been any ordinary girl.
After the passing of both his parents in the terrible disaster that had occurred nine years ago, he had read this book hundreds, if not thousands of times. So much so, he didn’t doubt he would be able to recite the contents of its pages, word for word.
It wasn’t anything special either. A mere book on the basic history of the world. A religious book available to the priests. Him having possession of it could be seen as a crime to the church as such things were closely guarded.
Luckily, no one had ever been inside his small shack, so its existence would forever be a little dark secret of his.
Most people in the town were illiterate either way so he wasn’t too bothered. The trivial hardships of surviving through the day were much more important to them than learning how to read. Such things were privileges only the rich and the church officials could afford.
However, Nero didn’t think that way.
In the first place, he believed that the people had too high of an opinion of the church. Despite most of the Empire living in hardship, it continued to tax them heavily under the directives of the Emperor and his council.
Most people didn’t die from the attacks of the abominations. It was the hunger that got to them first.
If there truly was a god, surely it wouldn’t smile upon such practices.
"Then again, there is no god." Nero muttered to himself.
Indeed.
He was a rare find in a world as dark and as bleak as this one.
He was a man without faith.
He didn’t believe there was a god. And even if there was, it certainly wasn’t a benevolent one he would want to worship.
After all, what sort of God would create this nightmare of a world?
A world so black, darkness seemed to be the only thing that existed within it.
The early morning wind howled softly, rustling the straw-covered roof above him.
A small frown crept onto his face as he flipped open the pages of the book he had read a thousand times already...