Entry 6

"Phillip!"

The sound of leaves crunching underfoot as I trudged along the eastbound road were broken by a voice; I barely paused to hear him out, wanting nothing to do with whatever excuse he wished to give for his involvement in all this. He could have followed the army and found me, told me that my mother yet lived. But he didn't. And thus, his empty words and soulless apologies meant nothing to me.

Yet, the Parsons were never the kind of folk to roll over at the first sign of trouble. That tenacious bastard only hastened his pace, lightly jogging until he was within a few feet of me. Seeing no way out of this interaction, I stopped abruptly and turned around to face him. For someone who had traveled so far to reach Tresin, he lacked endurance; which became quite apparent as he stopped shortly behind me, with sweat-soaked clothes and a face so red that I feared all the blood in his body had magically floated upwards to set up shop upon his brow.

"Phillip! I just wanted to talk!" he wheezed, resting his hands on his knees to prevent any sudden cases of bodily collapse. If I'm being honest with you, I desired nothing more than to leave him there and return to walking away from the place I once called home; but the pitiful display before me kept my feet planted firmly. If he was to die from exhaustion, I could at least hear the poor man out.

"What is it, James? Speak quickly, lest my patience runs thin."

A few moments of open air passed as he continued to catch his breath, bringing back the fair skinned visage that I remembered from the cellar. Finally, after what seemed an eternity of listening to his random gasps for air, he had brought back enough normalcy to talk without that incessantly irritating wheeze making itself known in the background.

Then, he began with a name that I hadn't expected to hear from him. Or ever again, for that matter.

"It started with Reevan."