I_am_mc2

Song of the Forgotten is a complex story centered around the journey of the main character to become stronger, but focused on the emotional ties and bonds he forms. Rather than a one-sided view of a protagonist mindlessly getting more powerful for the sake of it, Song of the Forgotten explores the motivations and unconscious desires that spur our actions, with compelling questions and multi-faceted characters.


This is the first proper novel I have written, so any feedback and comments are welcome. Thank you!

Song of the Forgotten

After a moment of silence, I started laughing. I doubled over, grabbing my stomach. Then I muttered under my breath, "So this is why they're called Trials of Endurance… not to endure the cold, but the impossible situations…."

My friend stared at me for a second, before shaking his head sadly. Then he closed his eyes and just stood there, silently waiting. Or perhaps he was doing the ridiculous things he had told me about, compressing the heat and warmth into himself.

Either way, a few seconds later, the warmth abruptly disappeared and an unbelievable, scorching cold began to seep into my bones. I dropped to my knees, gasping for breath - which incidentally happened to feel like a thousand glass knives in my lungs.

The heat fled my body like refugees from a war-torn country. Death by hypothermia was relatively painless and almost comfortable, or so I had heard, but this was torture on a different kind of scale. Just breathing in the frigid air was killing me, both literally and metaphorically.

As the chill started to creep closer and closer to my heart, I could feel my body dying, failing to respond as the merciless cold shut down crucial systems that normally kept me alive. Frost was already beginning to form on my skin, while my extremities had already frozen completely some time ago.

I watched with detached interest as the pain faded into a glacial numbness, as the ice stalked up my arms and legs, moving inexorably toward my chest, the last bit of warmth remaining in my failing body.

Then a deep, endless sleep claimed me.

____________________________________________

I awoke to a bucket of freezing water being poured on my face.

"Rise and shine, old man… you know what day it is today?" a voice asked.

I shook myself awake as I blinked away the stupor that fogged my thoughts. Simultaneously, I was already wondering what the voice had meant by 'old man'... that is, until I tried to get up. Even as my hands moved to assist my body, I was wracked with terrible pain, accompanied by the sound of creaking bones.

Gnarled, wrinkled hands that distinctly belonged to a person nearing the limits of their lifetime. Weak, decaying muscles that spoke of malnourishment and mistreatment. Even moving my joints sent jolts of pain up every bone in my body and… thick, heavyset shackles that chafed against my wrists, cutting deeper into the raw flesh with every twitch of my hands.

I looked up. As one might expect, I was in a jail cell, and one in terrible condition at that. A single window far above my head was the only source of light in this dark, damp place, which also ranked of urine and excrement. The smell of blood seemed to permeate the air.

Suddenly, a bucket of some foul liquid splashed all over the jail cell, drenching myself. I looked toward the source of my misery, only to find a handsome, if cold, young man who was accompanied by two guards carrying buckets - the apparent source of the liquids.

Suddenly, the young man snapped his fingers, and a guard appeared, rapidly unlocking the door of my cell with a tiny key, before opening the door and nodding politely to me.

The Truth of Endurance