Chapter One

Rook's POV

Rook subconsciously knew long before he was ready to recognize it, that something was different about him compared to the other kids his age. Perhaps, even different to the adults in his life as well.

For as long as he could remember, he heard whispers. Whispers that told him things, things no one else knew. Like how the man down the street was cheating on his wife and had another family squirrelled a county away kind of things. Rook also learned to keep these things to himself rather quickly, especially after confronting the mans unsuspecting wife with the information the whispers provided and how they all reacted to the news.

Rook knew then on to keep the information to himself, to disguise the whispers information with coincidental evidence as to hide the why's or how's he knew things. He claimed that he overheard the man talking on the phone to his mistress and thought the information he was providing didn't match up and wanted to make sure the wife knew that he was lying about his work plans, that he was actually going to be visiting his secret family. The adults were quick to jump on that excuse. They didn't want to believe that something was odd about little Rook, that perhaps he needed to be tested.

No, they were content to look the other way even when the excuses were poor and that he was always right about things.

Rook grew learning to hide the vacant expressions as much as he was able when the whispers communicated with him. Just said he was daydreaming about what to do with his holidays or what to buy his parents for Christmas, those sort of things when a new face asked.

His parents tried to be supportive of him, for even Rook could admit he wasn't the easiest child to raise. He always knew things, was very mature from a young age and independent. So his parents did the best they could, his father being a hunter and serious prepper taught him as much as he could to be able to survive on his own because he always believed Rook when he would mumble things in his sleep. Mumbling about who's time was up and would be moving onto the next life.

His father found a kind of comfort in that, listening to his son mumble or chatter away with the whispers while his mother grew distant. Eventually she would leave her crazy son and indulgent husband to fend for themselves. One night his mother tucked him into bed and even kissed his forehead, something she hadn't done since he was a very small child and by the next morning she was gone.

His father woke him up for breakfast and as they sat around their small dining table, his father reached out and held his hand.

"Rook, son. Your mother may have left us, but never think I would leave you."

That was the last they ever talked about his mother. She never called, never sent a letter and soon enough they learned to forget the woman who used to be a big part of their lives. As the years went by, Rook was homeschooled and tutored through the old beaten up computer in the lounge room where his father could keep an eye on him as he fiddled with guns or hunting supplies.

Rook grew to take on the features of his mother and while it was never said, he knew his father missed his absent wife. Now ex wife as she had sent the divorce papers only a month after she abandoned them. Rook would stand in front of the bathroom mirror and trace the features his parents blessed him with. All the while the whispers comforting him in his echoing sadness when his eyes would meet in the mirror and see one of them a bright blue that used to peer at him with love out of a soft warm face and sing him lullabies when he was just an infant. His other eye mirrored his fathers, forest green like the woods that surround Hope County, and he found comfort in knowing that his eyes weren't solely his mothers. He was the best part of both.

Rook never grew his dirty blonde hair out too long, wasn't practical as his father would say. He only grew it out long enough to thread the odd leaves or feathers he found when he went out hunting with his father. His father would watch over the small campfire indulgently as his son would thread parts of the animals they hunted into his hair. Tiny bones, leaves and feathers.

"You have to honor all of them, son. Never waste what the land provides."

Soon enough he was sixteen and was granted early enrollment into the police academy and spent his days in the county's sheriff office learning from the deputy's how they looked after their little county. His father had died shortly after he was accepted and Rook knew that his father only waited that long to make sure that he had a way to support himself besides hunting. Because taxes don't pay themselves.

It was early one morning that the whispers woke Rook with a warning that sent shivers of dread through him. The whispers had from time to time mentioned vaguely of something called the 'Collapse', but it was always so vague that Rook would brush it off as one of the random things they always mention in passing that has no relevance to his day to day. However, Rook knew that today the whispers spoke true. Their voice louder than before and insistent. Tugging at his mind, forcing him to listen.

Head tilting back, eyes unfocussed Rook listened for the first time in years. He listened.

A man will lead the White Horse onto the land of the Prophet and so the Collapse shall begin.

A/N: This is my first Far Cry fanfiction and I'm taking creative license to it, obviously. This is a fanfiction after all so it won't be canon.