The Royal Road

The wagon sped through the streets, weaving and turning down roads. The road the wagon just turned into was called the Royal Road. The royal road is famed for being inaccessible for all but students. It is a road that will be paved with hardship and suffering. Upon the royal road, status matters not. Parents are allowed to stand behind the threshold to the road. It is from this point that all boys must walk alone.

The wagon stopped. It was a few inches away from the threshold of the royal road. The soldiers ordered them all to step out and to stand in an orderly line. Soon after this order, Moloch saw a soldier stab the heart of one of the boys. They were a burning yellow and were asleep on the wood floors of the wagon. "GO, GO, GO" The generals orders shocked moloch into moving, lest he be next to have his head chopped off. The queue to leave the wagon was long and slow. Even with moloch's smaller body he could not budge infront. All he could do was watch as the soldiers mercilessly killed the sleeping boys or the ones not moving. He could see a boy near him. He was a full pink, unlike moloch who becoming a pink. Moloch hesitated for a moment as he looked around him to find all the soldiers preoccupied with different people. Moloch ran to the boy, trying to shake him awake. Alas, no matter how hard he tried the boy wouldn't budge. Moloch soon realised why. The boy was cool to the core. The cold was unlike any other. Moloch spent a few seconds praying for the boy, before he took his spot in the queue once again, trying his best to help others survive. One of these, who moloch helped was named Ikki. He was a pure shade of white. If moloch hadn't known better, he'd have thought that Ikki was a girl. Not only was he white but even his hair was a shade of white. He had long locks of beautiful shade of frost hair. The beautiful shades of white, silver and light blue mixed to make a Color that moloch decided to call frost. When moloch helped Ikki up to his feet and into the queue, moloch noticed that Ikki is taller than him and slender, with a lean and athletic build. His delicate facial features, including his sharp, expressive eyes, high cheekbones, and long, flowing hair made moloch feel inferior, although he didn't know why. It felt as if he was losing some sort of contest integral to his identity as a man. Unlike him, Moloch seemed much worse. Ikki seemed full of life and healthy, unlike moloch and the majority of other boys here.

Moloch, often went without eating for days. He couldn't remember a time when he wasn't gaunt and pallid. His recollection was like a fragmented pieces of a puzzle, scattered and incomplete. As he stood in the queue, his eyes cast downward, his thoughts drifted back to when he was merely four years old. It was a time when the world was a swirling tapestry of colors, sounds, and mysteries, and the gravity of the events around him eluded his tender understanding. He remembered the sensation of running, his small legs carrying him through the village like the wind. Laughter bubbled from his lips, a joyous symphony of innocence that filled the air. His friends, those precious companions of childhood, were his partners in a dance of youthful exuberance. They played in a world where worries were as distant as the far-off mountains. But then, in his carefree pursuit of adventure, Moloch had wandered too far. The labyrinthine streets, so familiar and comforting in the warm embrace of daylight, had become a daunting maze of shadows and uncertainty. He had found himself lost, adrift in a world that had suddenly grown vast and foreboding. As he stumbled upon the Inca, his young mind grappled with the unfamiliarity of it all. He watched as they went about their grim tasks, the significance of their actions lost on him. The slaughter of animals, once a mere curiosity, now revealed a gruesome reality that was beyond his comprehension. Moloch saw the stream, where the village's lifeblood flowed, but the gravity of what the Inca had done to it remained a distant mystery. He couldn't grasp the malevolence that had poisoned the very essence of their existence—the water that quenched their thirst, nurtured their crops, and bathed their bodies. He stood there, wide-eyed and trembling, but his emotions were like ripples on the surface of a deep, unfathomable lake. He felt a vague sense of unease, a primal instinct that told him something was terribly wrong, but he lacked the cognitive framework to process the magnitude of the tragedy unfolding before him. In his young mind, the world was a canvas painted in broad strokes of innocence, where the darkest shades of human cruelty remained hidden in the shadows. The suffering of his people, the anguish etched on their faces, the despair that lingered in the air—these were all mysteries beyond the grasp of his tender understanding.

Now, as Moloch looked back on that day, he still couldn't understand. Why had the Inca done that? He had in the past soon reached some sort of understanding. When he was hungry, he understood why. The Inca killing their animals, left no meat for the village. The burning and salting of their fields, that left no crops for the village. And so, both of those left barely any food for the village. As for the water? They were lucky that the village had an elder who was knowledgeable in poisons and toxins. For if they didn't, the entire village would be dead. The elder warned them, and some didn't listen. They drank the water and some days later he had spotted a man, a figure hunched by the weight of life's burdens. He moved with a lethargic gait, his every step a laborious effort. His clothes, once vibrant and full of life, now clung to his emaciated frame like tattered rags. As the man drew closer, the child observed with the innocent wonder of youth. They noticed the man's ashen complexion, a stark departure from the rosy cheeks of childhood. But the significance of this change was lost on the child, for they hadn't yet learned to decipher the language of suffering etched into a person's face. The man's voice, once hearty and resonant, now carried a raspy, fragile timbre. He spoke of thirst, of the unquenchable fire that burned within him. His words hung in the air, a haunting melody that danced on the edges of the child's understanding. The child didn't grasp the desperation that drove a man to utter such pleas, for they had yet to fathom the depths of human need. Then, as the man reached the village stream, the child watched in fascination as he dipped his cupped hands into the water and raised it to his parched lips. The child saw the man's face contort, a grimace of agony, but the concept of poisoned water was an enigma too complex for their innocent mind to unravel. To the child, water was a source of life, a gift from nature that flowed pure and unblemished. The notion that this life-giving elixir could carry death within its gentle embrace remained beyond their comprehension. As the man bent down to bathe his weary face, the child's curiosity deepened. They saw him wince at the touch of the water, but the idea that something so essential to existence could bring torment was a riddle too intricate for their untarnished perception. Innocence shielded the child from the cruel truths that lay concealed within this scene. They watched, absorbing the details like an eager student, but the profound darkness of the man's plight remained hidden behind the veil of their tender understanding. To them, this was but a moment in the grand tapestry of life, a moment yet to reveal its true, heartbreaking significance.

"Molach…" Ikki shook him, trying to get him to pay attention, but failing before trying again and getting Molach to focus on him. "We're near the end of the queue" Molach simply replied with an ok before falling quiet and walking out of the wagon.