The rain fell like mist through his roof of branches. The dew clung in its way to the moss and leaves that were his pillow. The scar tissue and exposed bone of his skull could only perceive that the rain was there from the weight that the moisture added to his black hood and tattered cargo pants. The wounds suffered long ago only pained him as a dull, comforting ache, a memory of when he had been whole, had been one, a man, a soldier, a preist, a father, a husband, his purpose so simple and far removed from what his road had shaped him to be.
The left side of his face had years ago been flayed off by the fires of a burning church, the day when he had shielded the lives of innocents whose days were not yet numbered from the flames of an arsonists rage. His left eye had been left lidless from the encounter, his teeth exposed in a permanent snarl, his lips partially melted away. The bleached bone of his skull on his right side still remembered the blade of an executioners ax that had been meant for the same innocent one he had given his flesh for years ago. The pain had been great, but the pain of the world losing a life that never had a chance to shine would...