The town of Bree is larger than most would think, and unless one spends much of their free time to idly wander its cobbled-stone streets, they would be unfamiliar to them. It was the foreign feel and the strange air about the shadowed alleyways that closed in about the young Thomas Rhineheart. His eyes scanned every building, every corner, seeking some sign of his beloved parents, whom he would soon discover dead and disfigured. His limp was crippling for him as wave after wave of anxiety crashed over him, washing all doubt from his mind that something was awry this night.
The boy would have been nearly from one end of Bree to another, an additional hour abandoning the world in which time is most valuable. His anxiety would fade, replaced by fear, just as hindering as his leg, and more debilitating for its nature. The moon grinned in a sinister manner, its rays of unlight shining upon him and bathing him in its watchful presence. He would notice a door, left ajar for any passerby to witness, and bear audience to the horrific display within.
Thomas fell to his knees once inside, and his trousers were stained red with the blood pooling over the floorboards. For before his eyes was a gruesome, and horrific artistry, including those of his quarry, one he had never known, and another he never would. He wept, and gnashed his teeth. When the sun finally crept out over the horizon, and was higher even than the tall buildings sheltered for their roofs, he took to running. He ran, and he did not see for his tears, bursting into the jailhouse even ere he knew of it.
A man, clad in fanciful garments and holding himself in a graceful posture, sat ensconced behind a wall of papers, his eyes intently focused on the words written. He looked upwards to see the lad, and rushed to his aid, commanding those of his affiliation to follow, and discern whatever they could. Thomas led them to the house, its door still quite open, and the terrors concealed to be viewed by these Watchers.
A brief inspection followed, a mournful interrogation after that, before a small comfort. The man whom had so eagerly helped him, named himself "Doctor Praesule Etheridge", and informed the adolescent that he would reside in the physician's homestead, until he found a means of supporting himself. Too wearied by the harm done to him, his soul and heart wrenched from him and now but black holes in which one might see sorrow and grief mingling together in an ever-powerful bond that would drive mad the remnants of the boy, and throw away all sense from his mind, he did not argue...
He accepted the offer of asylum...
...Fool...
