Prologue

They say that when fate finally calls you, you can't ignore destiny. They paint stories of heroes who defy the odds, who choose paths to greatness, who make decisions of leaping into the unknown. They say greatness is choice.

   Except leaping is more like falling. And that call, was the sound of complete silence. When destiny found me, it wasn't a choice. It was survival. The odds weren't to do or to not. The odds were to do or to die and to allow those I loved to suffer.

   And in that moment in that leap of greatness, I didn't think of any of that. I simply thought of my blind anger searching for a home to rest. I simply moved and did. I only thought of the action. Greatness isn't a choice, nor a calling. It simply is action. Will. Desire. The basic instinct of life.

     I remember that moment. The noon sun beating on my skin. Sweat and blood and hair falling into my eyes making it hard to see. I didn't need to see. I didn't need to do anything but to keep breathing and hope that was enough. On my knees I fought for the will to continue. My body was broken. My heart was numb. My mind was so loud with the sound of rushing blood and red hot hatred that the sound of anything else drowned. It was silence. It was impossibly loud. It was bright and it was the darkness of death. It was pain and it was euphoria.

     His hand gripped my throat as though it was nothing. My lungs burned to breath. There was nothing but hate in those cobalt eyes. In his eyes I saw mine, both sets reflecting nothing but primal war. And as Death reached out to take me, I moved. My hand held his beating heart. All was still. The faintest hint of a victory smile forever etched on his losing face. The hate slowly burning from his eyes into the nothingness.

     And then the rush of life fueling my body into action. His heart crushed in my fist. His body falling cold to the ground. I had won. I had survived. I had moved.

     There was no remorse. No greatness. No anything. There was life. And there was pain. There was action. There was instinct. And I was the victor.

      Six months could change you. Loss could change you. Pain could change you. But at the end of it all we were just fighting our instincts. Survival was the goal. Nothing else. Not love or hate or beauty or pain or anything. Just survival.