Benjamin Reed

Benjamin Reed is a samurai. He knows the story as well as anyone does, and even though it’s just his own personal history that’s been written for him, he can still remember everything about it. The day it first happened, in the middle of winter, snow falling heavily, a horse on fire… The horse on fire. He remembers seeing it, and it’s not really something you forget. It doesn’t happen often; there are few things that can make you forget the sound of fire and crackling, of hooves and screaming. He had seen horses before, at festivals and markets and on other streets, but never like this one. There was no way to put it into words, really. He didn’t know what had happened. All he knew was that he woke up one morning with all of his clothes burned off his body and blood running down his face from his hair. He was crying when he got home, and the look his mother gave him told him that she knew. His father hadn’t been home yet that day, but the two of them were friends, and they sat together quietly for the rest of the day, holding each other until his tears dried and then some more. Later, once they were both cleaned up and ready to go back out to work, his brother said he had seen a man run through the streets, his coat smoking behind him. He had heard the sounds of the screams and seen the flames, and the man who did this was the worst kind of person. That was how Benjamin knew he wanted to be a ninja; he knew that people were bad. That the ones chasing after him might not be the best or the nicest person, either, but he would fight them if it meant getting away from the men chasing him, and he didn’t want to be caught again.