The abandoned boy's survival

It was a time of war when Ludo was born; from a struggling country and a poor family, Ludo knew from the very beginning that life was not going to be merciful to him. With 9 siblings, none of which's names he can even remember anymore, Ludo was deemed the weakest and was therefore abandoned so that the rest can be fed by his parents who barely earned enough to keep living for the next week. So giving him nothing but the ragged clothes wrapped around his body and the name "Ludo" he was one day brought into the forest by his father, he could remember that day vaguely.

It was afternoon then and his father was awfully silent and his walk was faltering. Ludo was only 7 then but was neither able to write nor speak. His parents were always absent to guide him and other adults deemed him dumb for although he had a vague notion of what others said, when he opened his mouth only unintelligible noise would be heard. It was with this then that as his father tied him to a tree that his unintelligible pleas were heard all over the forest, they had no grammar nor pattern but the distress could be heard, the eardeafening fear and betrayal that rang through the child's shouts. He couldn't understand why his father had done this, why it was necessary to tie him up, why he alone was to be left to die.

Until night came Ludo screamed and screamed, long after his father had left, and long after his voice had died out leaving only this forced rasp from his throat, like a wild animal's hiss. It maybe perhaps that which drew the inhabitants of the forest towards him, tied up in a tree, first arrived a rat who having no interest in a living prey chose instead to knaw through his shirt, at first Ludo would squirm but he was tightly tied and the rat continued to bite through his ragged shirt and sometimes the teeth would pierce Ludo's skin making him feel the burning sensation from the rat's saliva. Ludo kept fighting then, straining his muscles everytime the rat drew close and it went on like this for hours until the rat was finally scared away. However what came next was much scarier.

The rat may not have an interest in human flesh in particular but then came a scavenger dog, and from its bloodshot eyes, Ludo could tell that it was starving and that he was the main course. As the dog came walking closer and closer, Ludo could feel the last instincts of fight in him surge and a final reserve of strength came over him, he kept squirming through the rope, straining every muscle that his weak arms had but it was of no use, tired his tensed muscles relaxed and despair came over him but in just that moment the rope slipped, only partly but enough to leave a space for Ludo to apply pressure on and squirm out of, perhaps his encounter with the rat was of use after all for although his clothes were torn and stinking, the rope was also chewed through and finally Ludo was free. He forced himself out just in time as the dog pounced, or perhaps a second too late for his arm was bitten and Ludo felt a pain that he had never felt before and he put all his strength to yanking the dog away.

Alas, the dog's jaw was tight and Ludo had no choice but to hit the dog again and again, but his strength was beginning to seep away and his head was getting dizzy from exhaustion, hunger, and loss of blood. This was the first time that Ludo had ever felt the cold touch of death lurching forward. There was only one time that Ludo ever considered himself lucky, and this was that time for as he was losing consciousness, he felt something warm pass through his veins, it was unlike anything he had ever felt before for it felt real but at the same time different, like the feeling of one falling as they are about to fall asleep, Ludo felt something that could only be described as ethereal pass through him, pure energy gathering in his chest.

Magic as it was understood by humans was something of a celestial nature, a gift by the gods to its favorite specie when it was nearing extinction but as Ludo understood it, magic was something that humans had innately in them which can only be called when there is a unifying of one's self and one's nature, as he did in that moment when neither his mind nor his body wanted to surrender existence in this world. Perhaps the dog felt it too because suddenly it let go and backed away. Ludo felt power with his every breath and as he focused on the savage dog, he could only have one image in mind, of his family long ago roasting a dead goat in a fire place and Ludo simply released his energy and directed it toward the dog and suddenly it combusted in a raging fire, the dog whimpered but by then Ludo had his hands on its throat, the same bleeding hand that it bit and the last thing that dog ever saw was Ludo's small teeth arching towards its burning body to take a bite.

No one ever came for Ludo, his family abandoned him and the rest of the country as it seemed had better things to worry about than some peasant boy. Only a child, Ludo would find solace in the forest and unlikely as it may seem, the forest also welcomed its unlikely occupant. It would be years until Ludo would find society again, and the only word that he would ever speak in all his years in the forest was Ludo, and it was thus it came upon that he was named. No one ever heard of his family again, perhaps because it was just one of a thousand others, however that little boy from the forest who learned magic through its primordial roots, would one day grow up to be a man with no equal.