One

I could feel my heart beat against my ear drum, louder and louder with each achy step. My bones felt like rubber, like someone had taken my insides, put them in “whip” on a blender and then injected them back into me. I was trying hard not to just slip and fall right then and there, I couldn't afford to lose my life.
Not like this anyway.
Being chased away by my own kind, beaten, bruised and broken: This is NOT how I found myself dying. I wanted to be the one to do the saving.
Like these losers behind me claimed they were doing.
I had about seven broken bones in my body, and yet I was out running as fast as a 600 pound child running to candy.
That was kind of mean. But you get my point.
I could feel my father scream at me. I couldn't hear him, but I felt it all right. My hair rose and I just knew, some where, wherever he was, he was cursing at me. Letting me know he hated me.
News flash to the Daddio.
I already knew that, he made it clear about seven years ago.
I still felt like Jell-O, felt like my whole body was just about to give up, and that I would lay there, in the middle of the woods, and die. Not from them killing me, but die from too much running... Is that even possible?
I think if it is, I would be the man to do it.
Or boy.
Whatever.

I felt my bare feet hit about every twig that normal Ombres would try and dodge, but I was a boy/man running from his life. From everything he knew. I HAD to get out of that area. I had to get out fast too. After you ditch your tribe, even being their prince and all, they don't apparently like that.
But I didn't feel much like a prince that day, I felt more like a slave. They had picked me up and tortured me for what felt like years [it ended up being like 4 hours]. They took everything I once had away from me, my wife, my child, my mother...Everything, even the small amount of friends I had, they took.
And they expect me to still want to serve as their king. They told me: “To be the king, one must start over in their lifetime”
If I would have known that I wouldn't have married my wife, had a child and made friends until after I was king.
I could have saved them...
I could have become everything I ever wanted, if I just waited...
I couldn't see straight out of my eyes anymore, they were blurry with the warm tears. I blinked about a billion times, letting the tears roll down my skin, they were warm in the bitter cold. It was annoying, having to cry like that, but I needed to see.
Hold in the tears, run into tree.
Cry so I could see, to run away and become a better man.
Tough choice, really.
It wasn't snowing yet, but I would rather it snow that do this whole freezing rain thing. The ground was practically ice I swear on it. And the sky felt like a cloud. My breath was so visible at some points I thought I was going to choke on it. The breath itself was warm, so I tried to breath as fast as I ran.
Bad idea, Cameo, it's this thing called hyperventilating.
I swear, my brain just stops sometimes.
My brain could no longer function...Not without her.
My dad just died, making me the next king, but it was hard to become a king after they took everything away from you, then, as if that isn't torturous enough, make you sit through physical and mental torture for 4 days.
I couldn't even make it 4 hours.
They took my friends lives because of me... I felt more than guilty, I felt ashamed to even be what I was. I tried to get all of them out of my head, but their names, there blood, everything rushed into me like a bad hangover.
But like, a million times worse.
I finally got just far enough ahead to where I could teleport without them tracking me.
After that sensation, I felt sick to my stomach and was happy to be in the abandoned hut... It was the hut where I had met my best friend, the hut I held my son the first time.. It was our hut.
I couldn't help but walk over to the picture frame I had of me and my wife.
I lost two people in one; the best friend any guy could ever have, and the woman of my dreams. Everyone said we were too young to feel how we felt around one another, but I didn't think age had a meaning when it came to feelings.
She was fifteen when we got married, I was only sixteen.
It had been three years since that day.
I'm nineteen now.
Sure, to people it was weird. I mean, it was weird to both of us.. But, we did it anyway.
My son was almost three years old when they killed him. I remembered them making me watch. I tried everything I could to stop them, everything. I tried to kill the guards, tried to pull them off of him, but it was too late by the time I got into the room...
The tears gathered around my eyes again. I picked up the family photo and carried it with me to the small room that was the master bedroom. I laid on the blood soaked bed. This is where they had killed my wife, my best friend... Normally a guy would try to avoid this like the plague... But I found myself comforted by it.. Like her blood was still, her.
I just laid beside it, pretending it was her. I needed sleep, but I knew if I slept, they would find me in a matter of time. I just needed a couple minutes of a mental pep talk.
Okay Cameo, here's what we have to do:
1)Find someone who can get the mental tracker out of my head.
2)Locate any sign of an Ombre traitor so I could discuss matters with them.
3)Find new clothes.
Only until then did I realize I was shirtless. My dark tan skin was bumpy from the chills still sending themselves down my spine. My jeans were torn in every place imaginable.
Yes, even there.
I took a deep breath, took the picture frame, kissed it and then stood up.
This was the start to my new adventure, my life as a runaway prince. And I was not about to lose this battle with a dead king.