Looking back, chapter 1

    My very earliest memories are of our farm on the Summerset Isles. It was a hard working the land, but like most farmer's we didn't know how hard we were working and my parents and Aunt's and Uncles made my life fun. What can I say about that time? It's hazy with time and the horror that happened after, not just my nightmare, but the whole of Tamriell's also. 

    I was a mere 25 at the time, very young by Altmer standards, though I know by human standards quite grown.  I was the only child born of my Aunt's and Mother, so probably spoiled and innocent to the world outside our farm. 

     How can I convey the horror and chaos of that day, It started with what I can only describe as a scream of the air, like it was protesting what had happened. I had been getting milk and egg's for breakfast, the animal's all got very skittish. My eldest Uncle climbed to the roof to see what might have happened, our land being rather flat. He said he saw smoke in the direction of the nearest town. All the men figured that some mages experiment had gone wrong, though my Aunt Irrillia said no, it was something else,she felt something wrong in the air, she was a mage of small magic's, mostly healing.

     I was weeding the home garden when my Aunt Irrillia came and grabbed my arm and dragging me towards the house. It was only then that I heard the distant scream's of our herd animal's. My father and Uncles I could see racing towards the house from the field's, which I thought rather odd with the herd animals screaming in pain as they were. 

   My mother and other Aunt's where putting up the storm window's on the house and barn's, shooing the chicken's into the coop.  All this time I had been hearing whispers in the back of my head, my Uncle Harriod thought I might have a form of telepathy,  my Aunt Irrillia said no, it was something else. I had been hearing these whisper's since I was born, right then they were excited and angry. I never did understand them then and wish I didn't now.

   As my Father and Uncles got closer I could see that one of my Uncles was holding another in front of him, blood streaming down his chest. My Aunt stopped and waited on the men. As he came off the horse the other men wheeled around towards the barn and my Aunt caught him as best she could, I helped to keep him from falling on the ground and could feel the healing spell that my Aunt cast on him. The Blood stopped flowing, but I could see that the wound wasn't all the way healed. As my Aunt was tugging him to the house, I never did ask why she only partially healed him, now as a veteran of many battles, I know why.

    As the My Aunts and Uncles came into the house from the barn's, My Father latched the door and then pushed a low heavy piece of furniture against it. He looked at my Mother and asked if they had barred the upper windows also.  She nodded yes and had the most worried expression on her face as she said " I saw what was attacking the herds, never have I even heard a rumor of so many in one place".  

   Uncle Harriod came in from the other room with bow's and an assortment of swords, maces and axe's. Each of the men grabbed a weapon,  My Aunts and Mother a bow, except Irrillia, and headed up the stairs. Irrillia looked at Harriod who kissed her on the cheek, with the sadist look I have ever seen on his face. 

  She grabbed my hand just as my father told her to take us both to the cubby, which was a hidden room, very small, that had a hatch to a tunnel leading to the river. He put his hand on my cheek and said "No matter what, don't make a sound. Irrillia, cave in the tunnel as you go down it. We love you child, remember."

  I wanted to protest, to grab a bow and help the other's, but Aunt Irrillia was pulling me to the cubby. She whispered "we won't leave til we must, but you and my unborn child are to precious to loose".  

   And stay we did, looking out one of the cracks in the wall, I am proud I never made a peep, never screamed, only stood their in horror as the things that broke through the door and windows tore my family apart. Deadroth, I was later to learn.... At the time all I remember of them is their horrible faces, fang's and claws. That's not to say that my Father and Uncles did not put up a good fight, they did. Once the door was broken down, multiple beasts came through. My family was overcome, farmers with very little weapons training, try though they might.

   Aunt Irrillia pulled me to the hatch, right as we heard scream's from upstairs....My Mother and other Aunts... Irrillia pulled harder and then shoved me down the ladder. Then as a child, I hoped my Aunts and Mother fought hard and long...now as an adult, I hope they died as quickly as my Father and Uncles did. 

  I know I was in shock as I crawled through the tunnel, tear's blocked my vision, but I wouldn't have seen anything in the dark anyway. When I came to the "safe room", a stone room which my mother always kept clean, with emergency rations and money, clothing and medicine. I didn't light the candles and neither did my Aunt. Their was light from a type of fungus that grew on the wall, giving everything a dull green look. She came over to me and laid her hand on my head....which grew very fuzzy, I woke up two days later.

   "I'm glad your awake, I could use more company that your soft breathing", I looked around and saw Irrillia sitting on a chair, no one else had made it here. I knew it had been more than a day, my stomach felt empty. She nodded at the table and I saw bread, cheese and apples on it, more than enough food, a wine bottle with water in it to drink made up the rest of my meal. Through the dust on her face I saw the tear streak's, with haunted eye's above. " I put you to sleep, I thought it best, as we will be here at least another day. Be sparing with the water, they...fouled the well." 

   I could only imagine what they had done, I know she heard thing's dropping into the well and might have looked. The tunnels lead past a gate that went to an old well, this place had been though out completely a long time ago. Sometime in the past my family had not just been simple farmers. 

We stayed a week in that room, I learned a lot about my Aunt then. Irrilia was the only one in our family not from other farm's or towns in this area. She talked about her parent's and siblings and wondered if they were fine as well. Somehow she knew we were not an isolated attack.


***********************************************

This is the start of a backstory for a Skyrim character. Zyne Greymore