The Essence Of My Youth

He may be young, but when given the decision between life and death, it only makes fifteen years sound like a lifetime.

“My trial?!” I almost screamed! He put a finger to his lips and glanced around to be sure that no one heard. I kept my mouth shut, my throat felt suddenly dry, and I simply gawked at him in both shock and fear. I had to go to my trial now? But I just got here! I thought he was to show me about the villages! Traitor! Bring a guillotine upon his treacherous head!

Just imagine! A fifteen year old boy going to a trial that will decide the rest of his eternity! It was too soon!

“I am here to bring you to the palace to stand before the judges. Mark my word sir, these judges are not the ordinary judges you will find in court. They are far more judgemental and they do not forgive. If you are positive that you have done nothing in your lifetime to deserve an eternity in true hell, then it is best for you to come, but if you, by any unfortunate chance, have done something that should lead you to such a punishment, then I suggest you leave. Run! Go back to the cave and find your way back to your death bed so you can continue to live your life and adjust your mistakes so they can give an argument once you have returned! But don’t tell anyone that I told you to do so, for there would be worse consequences for the both of us…..unless you are what many would call an ‘angel’ and you have done nothing of the sort, then come with me” his words pierced my skull like icicles falling through the snow.

Overwhelming as it was, I knew that I had done a few things that could give them reason to punish me, but never enough for me to go to hell. Why would they give a trial to someone so young? I was only fifteen! I was still learning the ways of my life! Why would they do this to me now when I am most unprepared?

“If I go to trial with you, how long will the trial last?” and I was asking questions that no one wanted to hear again. I knew how deep of a situation I had buried myself in but I was too flabbergasted to even stand for myself. The man sighed, looking down for a moment to collect his thoughts.

“The shorted I’ve ever seen was a few hours, but that was because it was only a small child.”

“A few hours?!” I exclaimed. My heart sank into my ribs and felt like it was beating desperately for hope. If the trial of a child could go on for hours, then imagine the trial for a teenage boy! That could take days! Maybe even weeks! The man smiled yet again.

“Don’t worry boy. Your trial should be only a day or two depending on how things go. You will spend eight hours a day in the courtroom. You only have to speak when they ask you to and they may even dismiss you if they need to make a few arguments or decisions alone. As long as you keep quiet and behave, everything should run smoothly” the butler continued to smile as if he was enjoying this. Did he enjoy watching me suffer the anxiety of a trial that will determine everything for me? The other butler would have been much more comforting, not pleased.

Why was I still thinking of the other butler? He was gone. Shut out. Now let’s stop talking about him unless it is necessary. We have a new butler now, not the most comforting, but he was trying his best. I sighed, letting my shoulders release their tension, and I cast my gaze onto the carpet. There was no safe way out of this. It was either run away and go back to my s****y life back at home, or live through this long trial and have the chance to possibly live in this magnificent world. Which do I think I would have preferred?

I didn’t want to take the risk of going to hell, but at the same time, I don’t want to risk going back home to a family that’s completely destroyed themselves. The butler leaned forward until the tip of his nose was directly facing me and his eyes were locked onto mine. He held out his index finger, ready to make a statement.

“Though I must warn you. If you decide to return home, the council will not be very happy and may want you to return, but there is no safe way into the living world for us without exposing our world even more and causing fear, so if they want someone to come back…” he paused for a moment to lean in even closer, his eyes suddenly growing darker and his figure more hunched. He looked like a cartoon villain but they’re even more terrifying when they’re realistic. “They would have to kill them.”

I shivered at his choice of words. So not only would I risk breaking my family even more but I would also risk losing whatever life I have left. Great. I think that going to hell would probably be better. If it’s my fate to go there, then so be it. I’ll endure whatever eternal torture I deserve, but even after thinking something so courageous, I still felt completely drenched in fear of what exactly this hell might hold. The butler regained his posture and simply glared at me for a moment, analysing my expression deeply before chuckling and waving his hand.

“Oh it’s nothing to worry too much about! It’s avoidable! As long as you avoid possible injuries and keep your eyes and ears peeled, then you should survive a decade or two. You’re young! What have you to lose? My good sir. I assure you that everything will turn out fine” he smiled like before. Perhaps I was gaining a bit of a liking to how he handled serious situations, but then I allowed myself to take a breath and choose after such an…..enlightening conversation.

Should I run or should I follow? That’s always been the real question for me. Should I be afraid or keep my composure? Should I find my way around this, or simply follow it? I already knew that trying to find your way around two separate worlds was probably a very dangerous and terrible idea, so I had to choose one or the other. My brother, my mother, and the absence of my father, or this world, it’s people, it’s wonders, and the absence of my strife. Which did I truly want?

“You’re young!”

I heard my mother’s voice ring in my ears as I buried myself deep in my thoughts.

“Why should you worry about death when you have so much life ahead of you! Just look at me! I’m much older than you and yet I haven’t thought about that type of nonsense in years! Just go to sleep and when you wake up in the morning, those thoughts will all wash away.”

She said that to me once, not long after my father left, and I remember her tucking my bed sheets up to my chin and kissing my forehead before walking towards the door and turning off the light switch. She would always keep the door slightly open in case I needed to get up in the middle of the night to open it. I waited for that every night until I was ten years old and she stopped tucking me in. I even remember waiting for her one night but she never appeared at my door or even spoke. Since then, I started to feel very alone, and in a terribly dark world where nothing matters and no one cares, that’s the worst thing to ever happen. To leave your child alone like that and ignore them (unless to scold them), is worse than leaving them for good.

I paid for my own dinner, made my own lunches, and I even got my first job when I was eleven. I would mow my neighbor’s lawn in order to get enough money to eat and buy whatever I wanted. My mother was simply there to pay the bills for the house at this point and as for my brother, he got money off of gambling with his friends and selling drugs. He even got arrested once after he got caught trying to sell marijuana to a young student. He got a few years worth of a sentence but fortunately for him, my mother got enough money to bail him out.

She’s never allowed him to so much as walk on the street alone after that but he still sneaks out nearly every night to go hang out with his friends and party. It’s not all something I wanted to go back to at all. In fact, it was depressing. I was tired of living in such a lonely state. So what did I do in that exact moment?

I ran.

I ran and it was the best and worst feeling I had ever felt. I dashed passed the butler and began making my way towards the stairs. I could hear his voice trailing behind me for a moment before it disappeared behind the walls.

“They’ll be searching far and wide for you boy! I wouldn’t do that unless I had a very good reason!” but his shouting wasn’t going to change my mind. I had a reason. I did. I knew I had one. It was right there on the tip of my tongue! A reason for me to run back to my depressing life back in a small town in the middle of nowhere with barely any food to eat and a sad excuse for a family. It was because…..because…..well my feet were running so fast that my mind felt as though it was trailing behind me.

Because I was young. Because I hadn’t even started really living my life yet. I was fifteen! What else could I do? If I was ready then being ready was the last thing that I wanted. All that I wanted to do was go back home, run to my mother, and tell her that’s it’s all okay. That I’m not gonna let myself die again and that I wouldn’t do anything to upset her again. I was already halfway down the stairs when I heard the main entrance whoosh open and the sound of voices pinched the air, but they weren’t friendly. They sounded very demanding and intimidating actually. Enough to jump scare me.

I didn’t think much of them at first and just continued to run down the stairs, until I heard them say my name.

“The boy! Capheus Malideux! Where is he?” they demanded.

Author's Note

You thought (: