After the war

I fell to the ground, hard. I took quick, shallow breaths. I felt freezing cold, and my muscles were weak. My eyelids were heavy and it took a while before I could open them, and even then my vision was so blurry I could barely see. It took me a while to realize I was surrounded by wide eyed people all staring down at me.

"Hunter...?" one of the children asked quietly. I looked down at them, trying to focus, before I realized it was a small child. I tried to remember which child she was, but I began to realize that I had never seen her before. I hadn't been away from the village for that long, had I?

"Yeah, I'm Hunter," I said. My throat felt dry and heavy. I guess I had done more shouting in that last battle than I remembered. "I'm sorry, but I don't recognize you. Whose child are you?" The girl squeaked and ran back to hide behind one of the older women. I assumed she was the child's mother, but as I looked at her, I didn't recognize her either. I looked around, thinking perhaps I had been carried somewhere else while I was sleeping, but this was definitely my home town.

"But..." came another voice. I looked around the crowd, and was surprised to find I knew not a single one of them. "How can you be here?" I found the source of the voice, an elderly man. The man seemed afraid of me, but I didn't understand why that would be. I had never hurt anyone in my village. "We thought you were just..."

A thought came to me suddenly. I tried to get to my feet, but my legs wouldn't support me. "Sage," I breathed out. The crowd started mumbling to each other, and they looked even more worried. "Where is Sage?" I tried to ask them. They moved back and away from me. Their voices sounded confused, afraid. Nothing was making any sense. I tried to think back to what had happened before I'd fallen asleep, but it was hazy, like a far off dream.

"I thought Hunter was dead," I heard one of the children say. "I thought he was just a legend," said another one. My head was starting to hurt. Slowly I managed to stand up, all my limbs heavy and stiff, and stumbled away from the group. Nearby I saw a book on a pedestal, and I made my way towards it. It was open to a page, detailing my last moments. As I stared at the page, it all began to come back. The war. The battle. We were losing. I didn't have a choice. I...

A man walked up behind me. I turns and stared at him, trying to comprehend. "Hunter," he said gently. "About Sage, she's..." I focused everything on him. Somehow I knew that his answer would explain everything. I just didn't know if I would like it. "She's, well... She's been dead for over three hundred years."