boy abruptly stopped outside the village. Sweat poured down his red hot face as short sharp pants escaped his
lips. Waves were returned with the beam on his face. They already knew him! I was astonished. I looked around
and saw smiling faces everywhere. Everyone waved or grinned… Except for one. One tired old man sat in a
dark dusty corner glaring at us. He had a menacing expression that made me tremble in fright. Just as I was
getting a good look at him, the boy turned a corner and into a small, shabby tent where a straw bed had been
made and a little pot of stew lay waiting.
Dusk was approaching as I sat next to the boy’s straw bed. As I was just getting comfortable, I heard a
sudden noise; Someone was approaching our shelter. It certainly wasn’t the boy: the boy’s footsteps were light
and nimble. The loud noises were approaching fast. CRUNCH, SNAP. The tent flap wafted in the light breeze. I
was tense and I could sense danger. I heard a knife being taken out of its sheath. The scrape of the sharp metal
made me quake. Something crept into our tent and hid in a dark shadowy corner… I could hear raspy, rattling
breathing. Something wasn’t right. Where was the boy?
The boy bounced into the tent and abruptly stopped at the foot of his bed. I sensed he knew something
was very wrong. His breathing quickened, his knuckles clenched and his eyes widened in immense terror the old
man jumped out from the corner and attacked the poor, defenceless boy without mercy. The boy’s eyes dimmed
and rolled to the back of his head. His fists relaxed and fell to his sides as he dropped to his
Crimson red liquid collected in a pool beside him.
The blood made me feel sick. A loud piercing scream seemed to be coming from the heavens above.
As this scream like sound reached me, an image of the old woman flickered across my mind. This couldn’t be
happening. A satisfied grin spread across the foul man’s face. His crazed eyes gleamed in the darkness as he
swivelled his head around to face me. A memory shot through me as the filthy creature bent to pick me up. A
man. In his mid-twenties. Leaving his house. His wife was weeping on the floor and his son was clinging onto
his arm. He could have easily have left but he didn’t. He let them sob and said comforting words before finally
parting; and letting the smallest yet purest tear fall…
I recognised the boy in the vision as the boy I had been travelling with for the past two weeks and the
woman in the as the old woman that held me back at the Wall. The man somehow resembled the man that
murdered the boy… How could that be? Who would murder their own son and why?
I woke up. Once again in human hands. But this time, I was in the old man’s hands. We seemed to be
heading in no particular direction but after a short period of time, the Wall loomed up ahead. A single eagle sat
on the Wall. Insignificant, old, weak. Bending down, the old man set me down in front of the tree it and waited.
We waited. We waited. We waited.
Finally, the eagle hoped down and cautiously crept towards us. A slightly crazed smile flickered across
the old man’s face. The oddest thing happened just then. The eagle actually jumped on top of the man’s head
and started pecking at him. Red gore oozed down the side of his neck and dribbled onto the dry sand, staining
like black ink on white paper. The gaping hole in his head was getting bigger and bigger until it was covering