• “Screams danced like fireflies in room or maybe it was just me screaming, that memory is a tad fuzzy. I remember the laughs, taunting, and general glee as they took my left arm off at the shoulder. Looking back, it may have been better just to die but that is not what happened. I lived, sadly, and I was hungry for blood. Now, do not get me wrong. I did not care much for my pain but they had done . . . inhumane things to my wife and daughter. I walked, no, stumbled from my slowly burning house. Yeah, you would have thought the maiming, murder, and raping would have been enough but I am not very greedy person so I am rather limited in understanding such. So there I was, bleeding profusely and wish to be alive long enough to hurt them. Yes, I was foolish in those days. I did not look like this either. I was tall; my hair was still white, has been since I was twenty-three; and I was made like an Adonis. I’m getting of subject, though. Now where was I? Oh yes, the vengeful thirst. You know how in most stories you get the moral at the end; I’m going to tell you it right now: Never wish for what you do not understand. Why? Listen some more. I was lying upon my previously non-enflamed house’s front yard when someone granted my wish. I never got a good look at him; I think it was a ‘him’. Understandable really, between the pain and blood loss vision begins to suffer. ‘I will you the strength but you must give me something in return.’ He said. ‘Anything’ I said. I was foolish remember? ‘As you wish.’ He said. I felt in the haze a searing in my shoulder, as if something was being fused to it and then a blissful oblivion. I now know that feeling was correct. Upon awakening I found an arm made of . . . emerald? I still do not know but I have only recently begun to wonder such, back then I did not care. Standing up from a now ash covered yard; I walked into the remains of my house. There I found the fireproof chest in a pile of ashes that was once my bed; that bed always smelled of Samantha, my wife. Opening the chest I pulled out my leather vest, short sword, and daggers. Putting on my old gear, I searched and found a piece of cloth which I bound my now crystal left arm in. Turning to the road I set of to find the men who had done this, my new crystal arm pulsing along with my bloodthirst.”