“Aww, Pa! This one’s awful purty! Kin ah keep her, as a pet, sorta? Git her a purdy dress from town, an’ make her sing an’ dance?”

“Fraid not, son,” the Captain spoke.  “This one… she has ta die.  We cain’t hurt him, but we can take away the things her cares for… Make him wish he’d never been born…”

“Aww, pa…!” The boy sniffed and hung his head, and shuffled off.

You stared back at the raider captain with eyes full of hatred and defiance, spitting at his twisted mockery of a body.

“Guess you just had the wrong family, kid,” he said gruffly.  “But orders is orders. An’ these don’t come from no higher place…”

He levelled his pistol at you – the metal pitted and rusting, as if decay had made a home there.  

“Those who would the Shadow King defy

Down among the dead men, let them lie…!”

An explosion in your temple, blood running down the side of your head… Pain, and then… oblivion…!

You do not know how long you lay as dead, but you awoke in darkness, the pain of having to drag yourself out of a shallow grave… And the sick feeling when you looked down at the grave, and saw not one, but two.  Neat wooden tomb markers, and simple, beloved names. Your father’s gun and holster hanging over yours.