Durant Residence
Paris, Kingdom of France
Thomas Durant’s stomach growled again, the starving protests of his body now going unnoticed, his mind numb to the warning signals sent it. He stretched out his arm, remarkably emaciated compared to just a few days ago, yet still with enough meat to keep him going.
Something had to give.
He couldn’t stay like this much longer.
He’d soon be dead.
Good.
It was what he wanted. At least that’s what he kept telling himself. With his father dead, what did he have to live for? This was a wretched existence, and he was tired of it. At least with his father around, they had an income, and no matter how meager it was, it had provided enough for them to keep their bellies full and their bones warm enough.
But now there was no money, no food, and he had resorted to burning the furniture, as the days grew colder and the nights longer. The charity displayed by his neighbors had waned then dried up. Some of it was fatigue on their part, but most of it was his fault. He had taken to consuming all the alcohol, and cursing those that arrived with food rather than drink.
And now he had nothing.
No mother, no father, no living relations that he was aware of, no prospects, and no skills beyond reading and writing, nearly useless in these parts.
And soon, he had no doubt, no roof over his head.
The glint of a knife lying on the floor caught his eye, last used to cut a loaf of bread left by the neighbor across the street, a good friend to his father. It was sharp. All the knives in the house were, his father a stickler for a sharp blade. It could do the job. It could end things quickly. One plunge into the stomach, or a slice across the wrist, and it would all be over.
Just one quick slice of the wrist.
The stomach would be too painful, but the wrist, that could easily be done. It would hurt for but a moment, then he could simply relax and let his body take care of the rest.
And when it was over, he’d see his father and mother once again.
Only if they’re condemned to Hell.
He closed his eyes, and they burned with shame. To take one’s life was the ultimate sin, and he had an option, an option his pride prevented him from taking.
But why?
The offer had been genuine, he was sure of it. It would be a hard life, though a good life, and perhaps could lead to something even better should he choose.
But he had to choose.
He had to stop wallowing in self-pity, and reach out and grab that offer of security, a security his father had provided until a few weeks ago.
He had to leave this wretched place, and make for the farm where food, warmth, and companionship awaited him, for if he didn’t, the elements, or his weakness of spirit, would end him once and for all.
He sighed, closing his eyes, his mind displaying an image of the proud Templar knight who had been nothing but kind to him, despite barely knowing him.
The offer was genuine.
But toiling on a farm? He couldn’t even imagine what that would be like. And to leave his home, the only one he had ever known? It would be like abandoning his mother and father, and every memory they had built over the years.
It felt like a betrayal.
They would want you to survive.
His shoulders shook as a wave of shame and desperation swept over him.
“Oh God, please help me! Please tell me what to do!”
His parched mouth barely gave voice to the words, yet they weren’t meant for the ears of mortals, but for the Lord above, someone in whose faith he felt slipping away by the moment.
I don’t know what to do!
Yet he did.
He had no choice.
He had to leave everything he had known his entire life, and start anew.
He had to survive.
He curled into a ball, covering himself with his father’s threadbare blanket in front of the embers of a dying fire, his shoulders shaking from the cold, the hunger, and the shame.
When someone knocked on the door.