“Hey what the hell do you think you're doing stop it!”

After I had turned a corner and saw two individuals stomping on my father in the distance causing me to be filled with anger as I began to yell at them. An audible noise was made each time their feet made contact with the body. These noises were accompanied by the grunts that my father made only furthering my anger. It was clear that the two individuals were making no attempt to hold back and did not care if they ended up killing him. Once I had finally reached a closer distance to them they decided to acknowledge me. 

They stopped their stomping and turned to face me “Look brat you know damn well that your useless father owes us money and if he ain't got it then he’s going to get his shit kicked in, now unless you got the money you better back off and let us do our job.”

Hearing this I pull out a small pouch and throw it to them.

“Here this is all I have, just give me some more time and I'll get more.”

Looking into the pouch they confirm that there is money inside and they begin to leave the alley.

Before they turn the corner they yell  “Make sure that next time you have it on time or something worse may happen to your pathetic excuse of a dad.”

Despite their backs facing me I knew that they had a huge smirk which caused me to become angry only being able to respond softly under my breath “Pieces of shit.”

Turning away from them and facing my father I see that he has begun to get up. He was visibly struggling with the task so I started to help him. While helping him I couldn’t help but see the condition of his body and feel pity. There were bandages that covered both of his eyes and also the stump where his right arm had been amputated, but it was apparent that they had not been changed in years and had gained a yellow color with black stains occasionally appearing on them. His clothing was no better with him wearing rags and even lacking shoes with the only thing of value that could be found on his body being a simple scabbard and luxurious but heavily rusted and dull longsword. This sight also caused me to be filled with guilt as I began to remember the story of how he ended up getting into this condition.

Before I was born he was in a relatively high position as a knight and would have most likely continued his career and been successful working under some powerful noble.

But that all changed because of me.

My mother died while giving birth to me and because of that he was forced to resign from his position. As it was his decision to leave despite there being an active war he was not granted any sort of assistance and was treated as almost a deserter.  He decided to instead work as a hunter and sell the pelts and meat of whatever he hunted. This worked for a few years until he was one day ambushed by an animal.

Although he never told me what the creature was, he did tell me how it happened. He initially thought that there was only one animal which he discovered and was preparing to take on. He began to sneak up to it when he suddenly heard a noise from his side which startled him as he heard this he pulled out his dagger and quickly turned with the dagger in front of his face.

A second creature had lunged at him which he had luckily managed to stop as he was able to catch its teeth with the dagger which prevented the creature from immediately taking a bite although it was still able to knock him onto the ground leaving the creature on top of him as he laid on his back.

He continued to push against its teeth with the dagger thinking that if he could exert enough force he could push it off of him, but then the creature began salivating. As the colorless fluid began to make its way down the dagger it was clear that it had some sort of acidic properties.

The creature then growled which caused some of the spit to come out and land on his face specifically where his eyes were which blinded him. The pain caused him to shift his focus from his arm to face and as this was happening the some of the liquid had finally made its way past the blade and was now directly touching the skin of his hand and going down his right arm. The contact with the skin caused him to feel an incredible amount of pain and while he could not see what was happening he could feel that his skin was creating bubbles and there was an incredibly strong sensation of burning on his eyes.

Eventually the pain that he was feeling became too much to bear and strength left his arm causing him to no longer push back against the creature and he let go of the blade. The creature saw this as its victory and sunk its teeth into his arm without any difficulty. It then twisted its head as far as it could, which caused the arm to come out of its socket and some of the skin began to audibly tear although it was still connected. It repeated this a few times and each attempt was accompanied by the sound or growling and of more tearing and it became more frustrated with it eventually ripping his arm off. After that all he could hear was the sound of the creature devouring his arm and then he heard something that gave him hope.

“Haaah”

 Another group that was hunting nearby heard the commotion and the sound of his screams leading to them finding him and they began to confront the creature causing it to run off. The group then shifted their focus to my father and managed to keep him alive until they returned to the city and he was able to receive proper help from the local church. At the church he was informed that unless he was able to provide a large quantity of gold all they could do was keep him alive.

He knew that he was barely able to sustain himself and me daily through hunting and even the money which he had saved up for years would not be enough to pay for the treatment. With this in mind he thanked them and accepted the fact that he would simply need to become accustomed to living as a blind amputee.

After this incident he was never able to continue his work or get a proper job. The savings which he did have helped sustain us for a short time but eventually that ran out leading to us having no other choice but to live in the slums. The people who had been beating my dad were part of the local gang which my father in an act of desperation had borrowed money from in order to buy medicine to alleviate a severe fever that I received. That was almost 4 months ago and despite the fact that I had already given them enough money to buy the medicine 6 times over they still felt that I had not paid the interest that kept getting added. The reality was that I was never going to finish paying them for the money we owed and even if I argued with them they would simply bring some people to do even worse things to us. 

“Everything's my fault”

That was all that could come out of my mouth. I knew and I also knew that he knew it. That was what truly ate at me. That despite both of us being aware that this was all my fault and that I'm the reason that he has to live a miserable life. Despite knowing that every single event that has negatively impacted him is because of me. That I'm the reason that the person he cared most about in the world is gone. He had never resented me. He has never shown any sort of hatred towards me and has always treated me the best way that he could. I don't deserve it. These thoughts cause me to begin tearing up and blurt out.

“Don’t you ever think of what it could have been if I never existed or wished that I was the one who d-”

Before I can finish he quickly turns his head to me and yells with such volume that I had only heard a few times in my life before.

“Look Henry”

He then stops, takes a moment to recompose himself then he continues.

“You shouldn’t overthink things like this because it doesn’t do anything but cause you harm. The world will always be against you and all you can do is take it and make the most of the situations that you are put in. Now it's about that time of the day so let's go.”

As he begins to walk with a noticeable limp I look at him with my eyes still watery, give a small smile and simply respond.

“Okay”

Then I begin to follow him.