Teen Ink

March 3, 1,100 A.D.

March 3, 1100 A.D.
When I arose this morning I rapidly got dressed and glanced at the note again. “My poor Cedric,” I whispered, deep in my breath. I moped to the door walked down the steps and resumed directly to the castle. This is where I met the informative guard from the previous day. As I approached him he started to yell in my direction, but once I finally got over to him he repeated what he tried to tell me before and started to calm himself down.
“ The king , the king, oh . . . he is very ill,” the guard went on . “ The doctor thinks that he has contracted the smallpox. There is no cure for this fatal disease. Tomorrow he will be treated with a medicinal concoction called dwale, however the medicine itself could kill him. ”
“ And the barons?” I asked curiously, craving more information.
“ The barons are permanent as of now until further notice, but there is more,” said the guard. “The whole perimeter of the city will be closed off until the king passes away, then his son Felix will rule and decide whatever he wishes.” The guard sighed, then started filling in the holes of his story. “The king only has a little while to live. The doctor says his smallpox are serious. He has approximately a week of life left.”
“ Now I will have lost my job and my son. What else can go wrong?” As I finished speaking rain poured down on my head. It pounded hard on the ground and everything around it. It rained and rained, gathering puddles at my feet. It rained almost as hard as I found myself crying.
“ You lost your son, Blythe?” questioned the guard, barely noticing the rain.
“Yes, have you seen him?”
“ No, not since about a week ago,” the guard said. Then he ran off into the woods still oblivious of the rain.
I was brave enough to follow from a couple of feet away. But after I got to the brim of the woods I spotted my son all tied up on the ground, leaning on a tree. He looked up and his eyes brightened. This must have caught the guard’s attention because he looked at me. Then he picked up a strange looking object from the ground and aimed it at me. I tried to run away, but by the time I turned myself around something hit me. It must have been that strange looking object because I fell to the ground, soon aching all over. I felt dizzy and I think the guard was dragging me. I could feel the scrape of the rocks against my skin. Afterwards I fell into a deep sleep.