Godslayer: Prologue One





  Prologue: Part One



 “Pull in, boys!”



 The small field echoed with continued calls of affirmation as half of the county’s baseball team returned from the bases and outfield, eager to be out of the hot sun. After a few solid hours of warm-ups and other forms of exercise, it was a gift to be sitting in the shaded dugout. Of course, with the boys moving infield this meant that the previous bench warmers would be making pilgrimage into the frying pan.



 This group mostly consisted of middle school children, aged eleven to thirteen mostly, and nearly all of them were only trying out for the team to get their parents off their backs. Of the entire group, only three wanted to try out for real. And of those three, only one had transitioned from a city Little League team.



 He was well-liked by the older participants, many of who had played with him in their Little League years. As he rose from the dugout, shielding his eyes from the sun directly overhead, his former teammates rushed to meet him, grins plastered on their faces.



 “Marky!” They called in mocking tones, an unfortunate nickname he had been given as a child by his Grandmother, who was usually the one to oversee his Little League games. He grinned and laughed with them but felt heat on his freckled cheeks.



 “Guys…” He laughed, hunching over and allowing his friends to give him joking slaps. The group dispersed on their coach’s sixth threat, and ‘Marky’ rushed to take his place as right fielder. If there was anything good about being out in the field, and the right one even, it was that almost none of the team could hit a right for their lives - especially one far enough for him to be concerned.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;text-indent:36px;font-family:'CourierNew';font-size:12pt;">

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;text-indent:36px;"> ‘Marky’’s real name was Marco, a proud boy from a military family. He often boasted of his father’s wit and brains, and then about his grandfather’s strength and power. Although he was small and somewhat scraggly as a child, he always claimed that ‘ with their help, I will become the strongest, smartest boy alive! ’

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;text-indent:36px;font-family:'CourierNew';font-size:12pt;">

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;text-indent:36px;"> Naturally, there were many questions surrounding his family from curious classmates.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;text-indent:36px;font-family:'CourierNew';font-size:12pt;">

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;text-indent:36px;"> In kindergarten, when the students were tasked to draw family portraits and present them to the class, a little girl with sticky blonde hair and wide green eyes once asked ‘Where’s your mommy?’, a question not even Marco could answer.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;text-indent:36px;font-family:'CourierNew';font-size:12pt;">

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;text-indent:36px;"> His father lied a lot when the question came up. The first lie was just the afternoon of the family drawing project, in which he claimed Marco’s mother was a dead war hero. The second lie came in second grade, when he admitted that he and she divorced from each other just after Marco’s birth. Just a year later, Marco’s father looked down on his son and said ‘Marc, I can’t….talk about your mother. But……she was a goddess. Believe me, Marc. The most beautiful woman you could ever meet.”

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;text-indent:36px;font-family:'CourierNew';font-size:12pt;">

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;text-indent:36px;"> Marco stopped asking. It was obvious he would just lie more, so in the end, Marco told his friends that she and his father had gotten divorced and Marco just….never saw her, simply. It was easier, and eventually he began to believe his own lie.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;text-indent:36px;font-family:'CourierNew';font-size:12pt;">

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;text-indent:36px;"> For a brief moment, Marco left his thoughts to hustle forward for a fly ball, before tossing it to the second baseman.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;text-indent:36px;font-family:'CourierNew';font-size:12pt;">

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;text-indent:36px;"> “Nice hustle, Acerba!” The coach called to Marco’s retreating form. Back to his thoughts.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;text-indent:36px;font-family:'CourierNew';font-size:12pt;">

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;text-indent:36px;"> I’m an ordinary guy. He thought, watching the third baseman take a ball to the kneecap. I play baseball. I do my homework -uh, usually. I have friends and a family, so why is it that my mother is all people ask about ?

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;text-indent:36px;font-family:'CourierNew';font-size:12pt;">

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;text-indent:36px;"> He didn’t have an answer for that.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;text-indent:36px;font-family:'CourierNew';font-size:12pt;">

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;text-indent:36px;font-family:'CourierNew';font-size:12pt;">