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MidReal Story
Captured by Vikings: An African Saga
Scenario:Vikings raided my village in Africa when I was young they took me in and made me one of them
Create my version of this story
Erik Thorvaldsson
Viking leader and mentor to Kofi, mentor to Kofi, imposing with a long beard and authoritative presence, wise and stern
Astrid Bjornsdottir
fellow Viking and friend to Kofi, close friend to Kofi, fair with blue eyes and strong build, brave and loyal
Kofi Mensah
adopted Viking, no direct relationships, tall with dark skin and braided hair, resilient and adaptable
Chapter 1
I was born in a village on the other side of the world.
It was a place where the sun shone hot and bright, and the air was filled with the sounds of drums and laughter.
My mother would hold me in her arms and sing to me as she danced around our hut, her voice sweet and low.
I would watch her, my eyes wide, my mouth open in a smile.
She was beautiful, my mother.
The village was beautiful too, with its bright colors and lush greenery.
I loved to run through the grass barefoot, feeling it between my toes.
At night, I would lie on a soft bed made of animal hides and furs and gaze up at the stars through the smoke hole in our roof while my mother hummed me to sleep.
It was a perfect life.
Until they came.
They were pale men with long hair who looked like ghosts as they emerged from the mist that rose off the fjord near our village.
They arrived without warning, fierce warriors who showed no mercy to anyone or anything they came across.
At first, I thought it was a dream, but then the sounds reached us—the screams of frightened women and children as well as the clash of steel and the roar of flames as our huts were set alight.
My mother clutched me to her chest, hiding me beneath furs and animal hides in an attempt to shield me from the horror that surrounded us.
The air reeked of death and smoke, and I whimpered softly against her breast.
She told me later that she could hear the screams of those who had been killed or injured.
She heard them crying out for help, for mercy, but none came—only more death and destruction at the hands of these fierce warriors who seemed to move silently through our village like wraiths in the night.
I pressed my face into her breast, inhaling her sweet scent as I tried to shut out the sound of the dying around us.
Then something heavy landed on top of us—a man—and I shrieked in terror, trying to struggle free from beneath him.
"Shh," my mother crooned softly into my ear as she clutched me tight against her breast and tried to shield me from view with her own body.
"Be still."
For a moment there was silence around us; then a voice rang out overhead—deep and guttural, speaking words that sounded like some strange language—and we both froze.
I was terrified, but my mother quickly covered me again, pleading with the Viking in a language I didn’t understand.
His response was harsh; he grabbed me by the arm and yanked me from her arms, ignoring her cries as he dragged me away from her protective embrace.
"No! Please!"
My mother screamed, reaching out for me with trembling hands as tears streamed down her face.
"Please don’t take my baby!"
I kicked and screamed as the Viking dragged me away, twisting in his grasp as I tried to get back to her, but he was too strong for me.
He carried me away from my mother, away from everything I had ever known or loved, until she was no more than a distant speck.
She called out to me over and over, her words growing fainter with each passing moment until all I could hear were her cries for help as the Vikings took us away.
The Viking who had captured me carried me down to the shore where other men like him were waiting with their longships bobbing in the water beside them.
They forced us onto one of them—a huge wooden vessel with tattered sails—and we set off across the water toward the horizon.
We sailed for many days without stopping; there were so many of us crammed together that we scarcely had room to breathe.
Some of the captives died on the long voyage, their bodies thrown overboard without ceremony or regret.
But death would have been a mercy compared to what awaited those of us who survived the journey: slavery.
When we finally arrived at our destination, we were dragged from the ship, shackled, and forced to march through the snow-covered wilderness under armed guard.
Anyone who could not keep up with the column was killed without hesitation; those who fell in their tracks were left behind by the wayside to freeze to death.
We marched for many days through rugged terrain and forbidding forests until we reached what I later learned was called Scandinavia.
I had never seen so much ice and snow before, nor felt such bitter cold.
The wind howled across the fjord like some angry beast as we were led into a huge wooden hall and made to kneel before an imposing figure with a long gray beard.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and powerfully built, every inch the fierce warrior he was rumored to be.
For a long time, he said nothing as he studied us with his piercing blue eyes, as though deciding which of us would live and which of us would die.
The air was thick with tension and fear; I did not know what to expect from this man or what fate awaited me in this strange new land where winter reigned supreme for most of the year.
But one thing was clear: among these Vikings, there was no room for weakness.
If you showed any sign of fear or pain, they punished you without mercy.
These were harsh people who valued strength above all; it was kill or be killed in their world, and I vowed that no one would ever see me as weak again if I wanted to survive in this brutal place.
Erik looked at me for a long time before speaking again.
"What is your name, boy?"
he asked gruffly in broken English (though I did not yet understand his words).
I hesitated for a moment before answering him in my mother tongue: "I am called Kofi."
The Viking nodded, satisfied with my response.
"You are strong, Kofi," he said, his voice low and rumbling like distant thunder.
"I like that. I will teach you to be a warrior, just like my friend from Ghana."
He smiled at me, revealing rows of yellowed teeth as his gaze traveled over my sleek ebony skin in approval. "Yes… I think you will do nicely."
With that, the Viking took me with him and led me away from the other captives toward his horse without looking back even once; I never saw my mother or any of my kin ever again.
Erik had decided to spare me from the fate of the others because he saw potential in me: I was tall and strong for my age, and my dark complexion reminded him of the precious ebony wood that he often traded with merchants who sailed here from faraway lands across the sea.
It was not long before Erik grew fond of me and began to treat me as one of his own sons, though I never forgot who—or what—I truly was.
Like many of the villagers, I had been taken from my homeland against my will and brought to this desolate place where nothing grew, not even hope.
The men who had captured us—Erik included—had tried to erase our past and brainwash us with their own customs, but I never forgot where I came from.
They tried to teach me their language, a guttural tongue that sounded like grunting to my ears; they even gave me a new name, but I stubbornly refused to speak it.
Instead, I used the English that I knew to communicate with them: my accent was terrible, and sometimes they had trouble understanding me, but I spoke well enough that we could converse without much difficulty.
Chapter 2
I closed my eyes and tried to shut out the world around me, but it was no use: her laughter rang in my ears, and the songs she sang followed me like a shadow wherever I went.
Sometimes it felt like I could hardly breathe for the weight of these memories—the precious few fragments of happiness that remained to me in this cold, unforgiving land—and yet I clung to them with all my might as if they were shields against the despair that waited just beyond reach.
I refused to be weak or bitter; every day was a new battle to conquer, and I would not let myself fall now.
I was fifteen years old—a young man by Viking standards—and taller than most of them, with a strong build that belied my age.
My skin was dark, but in this land of ice and snow, that was the only thing that set me apart from the others: I had the same features as these fair-haired warriors, the same eyes and nose, even the same thick hair that I kept braided to prevent it from getting tangled in the wind.
To look at me, you would never guess that I was not a true Viking—save for my height, which made me stand out among them like a giant among children—but inside, I was still Kofi from Ghana.
One night, after many months had passed without any of us speaking about our pasts, one of the other boys spoke up.
"Kofi," he said quietly as we lay on our furs beside the fire.
"What happened to your family?"
I sighed heavily, not wanting to speak of such things; but how could I explain to him that I did not want to remember?
That I wanted to forget everything that had happened back in Africa—the raiders who had destroyed our home, the deaths of our people—and lose myself in this new life instead?
"I don't know," I finally answered.
"They died."
I told him the truth: I had been very young at the time and could not remember much, but I knew that my mother had tried to protect me from the men who had come to our village.
After they killed her, they took me away with them in a longboat; the rest was a blur of pain and fear that I did not want to revisit.
"Erik spared me," I said softly, "because he saw how hard I fought when he tried to take me. He thought… he thought I was strong."
The other boys listened quietly as I spoke, their faces grim and impassive as they absorbed the full weight of my words.
"So you are a fighter too," one of them said at last, breaking the silence.
"Many of us were taken this way—our families killed before our eyes—but few have survived."
He looked at me with new respect.
"You have done well for yourself."
I said nothing as his words sank in—how much of an animal had these Vikings made out of me?
When I was very young, the Vikings came to my village.
I did not know why they had come—only that they were big and strong, with long hair and beards like animals—and when they arrived, my mother tried to hide me from them; but the men found us in our hut, and she couldn't stop them from taking me away.
As they carried me outside, I saw her fighting them with all her might; she was tall and strong too, but there were too many of them, and one of them killed her right before my eyes.
The man who took me was very large, even by African standards; he must have been a giant among his own people.
He looked at me with dark, angry eyes and said something I didn't understand, then lifted me into his arms like a sack of grain and carried me out to their boat.
I did not fight him—I was only a boy at the time, and he was too strong—but when he brought me back with him on their ship, I fought his men as hard as I could.
They were surprised by my strength—especially for one so young—and they decided to keep me, rather than kill me as the rest of my village had been killed; my captor saw something in me worth saving, he told them, or perhaps he just wanted another warrior to fight for him.
Either way, I survived that day—just barely—and many more after it.
Now I was the only survivor of my people; I was a Viking like them, but they were not my kin, nor did I want to be theirs.
I was Kofi from Africa, and that was all that mattered to me.
The land we lived in now was cold; there were no long summer days as there had been back home—only endless winter nights when the sun barely rose above the horizon before it set again.
I would later learn that showing weakness was not an option among the Vikings; one had to be strong to survive in this world of cold and ice.
It was up to each of us to prove ourselves worthy to live here—to show that we were strong enough to endure whatever lay ahead.
And as I stepped forward through the trees, I realized that it would not be long before I found out what that meant for me personally on this day.
We had been taken from our village by a band of men led by Erik; he was old now, with a long white beard, but he was still as strong and fierce as ever.
He had taken us back to his settlement in Scandinavia, where he lived with his family and other warriors like him; he said that we would be taught how to become men here—to learn their ways so that we could survive on our own when the time came for us to leave this place.We were only boys then—no older than ten years old—and they called us "captives" or "prisoners" rather than "warriors," but it did not matter what they called us.
They had taken us from our homes and brought us here against our wills; there was nothing left for us back there now—we could either stay here and become one of them or die trying to get away again.
They had told us what was expected of us today: we were each to be given a knife and sent into the woods all alone.
We were to kill a deer with the knife and bring back its heart as proof; if we failed, we would not be allowed to eat any food or drink any water until we succeeded.
I had never killed anything before in my life—not even an animal—but I knew that I would have to do it if I wanted to survive in this place.
The first boy went out into the woods just before dawn; he came back several hours later, crying tears from his eyes as he tried in vain to stab the deer at his feet.
The boys who followed him did little better—some showed fear in their eyes, while others hesitated before they struck.
Chapter 3
One boy—the third one—did not show any fear at all.
He had plunged the knife into the deer's heart without hesitation; he smiled as he watched its blood pour out onto the ground, splattering his face with crimson red.
"Looks like you've got some blood on your face," the boy said as he turned towards one of the captives who was watching us from behind a wooden fence, waiting for his turn.
The captive had tears in his eyes; he had been crying since we first arrived here this morning.
The other boys were laughing at him, but he kept crying even harder.
I could feel my own fear welling up inside me—I knew that it would be my turn soon—but I refused to cry like this boy did.
"Be quiet!" one of the men standing outside the fence shouted at the boys; my heart skipped a beat when I realized it was Erik's right hand man, the most feared warrior in all the land.
Erik had once told me that this man was a great leader; he kept the other warriors in line and made sure they followed orders without question.
The man pulled out a knife and walked towards us; we all grew silent as he stood before us, glaring down at us with eyes as cold as ice."This is where you belong," the man said to us, "because my lord believes that if you want something bad enough, then you'll fight for it."
He turned to face the other captives who were watching me from behind the fence; I could see fear and uncertainty in their eyes too.
"If you don't kill your deer, then you will die—just like him," the man said as he pointed towards the boy who was still crying uncontrollably beside his dead deer.
"We can't feed all of these hungry mouths," the man said, "so if you're going to survive here, then you'd better be prepared to fight for it."
He turned back towards us and smiled grimly.
I had never seen this man look so fierce before; the way he stared at us made my blood run cold.
I knew that I could easily die here today—if not from the bear itself, then from hunger or cold—yet I felt no fear in my heart.
There were only two things I could do: either I would kill the deer and prove myself worthy of these people's respect, or I would die trying.
I didn't know how to kill an animal yet—I had never even seen a deer in real life before today—but I was strong for my age and willing to learn whatever it took.
My stomach growled with hunger; I thought about the food waiting on the other side of the fence—fresh meat cooked over an open flame, bread still warm from the oven—and felt my determination growing stronger by the second.
"There is no room for cowards in this land," Erik's right hand man said as he turned around and walked back towards the fence.
I watched as some of the captives broke down into tears while others stood up straighter with their chins raised high; they were even younger than me but already more courageous than most men I knew back home.
Just then, something roared behind me; I turned around and saw a huge brown bear charging out of its cage—and coming straight towards me!
The bear was headed straight for me, yet I felt no fear in my heart—only the fierce determination to prove myself worthy.
I stood tall and raised my chin as the bear came closer; I knew that if I showed even a hint of weakness or fear, then it would be over for me.
Just when the bear was only a few paces away, I heard something click behind me, followed by the sound of several weapons being drawn at once.
Then there was a loud roar, and everything went silent.
When I opened my eyes again, I saw that the bear had been killed by some of the men who were standing outside the fence with Erik's right hand man.
"Looks like you got lucky, boy," the warrior said as he walked away with the others in tow; "that bear could've easily eaten you alive.
If you don't learn how to fight for yourself out here, then you're as good as dead."
I didn't know what to make of these people or their strange customs, but one thing was certain: if I wanted to survive in this new world, then I would have to be twice as strong as everyone else.
We were surrounded by a group of young boys; they all wanted to kill the deer so they could complete their task and get something to eat at last.
One boy stepped forward and snarled at me; his face twisted into an ugly scowl as he spoke in their language.
"You think you're better than us just because Erik took you in?" he sneered as his companions cackled with laughter.
"I don't care about your rules," I growled, "but no one tells me what to do."
I shoved the boy backwards with all my might; he fell to the ground and landed in the snow with a thud.
The other boys started shouting and jeering at me; some of them began kicking small clumps of snow in my direction.
As they continued taunting me, Astrid stepped forward and stood between us; she glared at the boys with her bright blue eyes and scowled fiercely at them.
"Leave him alone," she said as she pushed them out of the way one by one.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small knife; then she handed it to me without saying a word.
Astrid was one of the strongest warriors in our village; I had never seen her act so kindly towards anyone before, much less me.
I didn't know why she was being so nice to me all of a sudden, but something told me that I could trust her without question.
"You must kill the deer," Astrid said softly as she looked into my eyes; "you have no choice."
"I can't do it," I said firmly, "I won't."
"Why not?" she asked.
Astrid smiled and nodded in approval; "you are a strange one, Kofi Mensah," she said as her eyes sparkled with admiration.
She walked back to the other boys; I watched in awe as she fought off their attacks one by one.
Astrid was fast and strong; she moved like lightning with her feet and hands as she beat the boys back with ease.
The boys were no match for her; they fell to the ground without putting up much of a fight.
I couldn't believe my eyes as I watched Astrid fight with such skill and precision; I had never seen anyone move so fast before.
She was more than just a pretty face; she was a true warrior just like Erik himself.
Astrid finished off the last boy with a powerful kick to the stomach; he let out a cry of pain before falling to the ground writhing in agony.
Erik stepped forward and raised his hand into the air; "that's enough," he yelled out in his booming voice.
The boys immediately stopped what they were doing and stood up straight with their heads bowed in shame.
Erik glared at them with his piercing blue eyes; "I don't want to see any more fighting from you," he said sternly.
"You have all done well today; the deer you have killed will provide us with food for many days to come."
Erik turned and looked at me with a questioning expression on his face; "what about you, Kofi?" he asked in a deep voice, "where is your deer?"
"I didn't kill it," I replied calmly.
"Why not?" he asked in surprise.
I took a deep breath and explained my reasons exactly as I had told Astrid before.
Erik listened carefully as I spoke; he nodded approvingly when I finished.
"I see," he said thoughtfully, "you are indeed a strange one."
I braced myself for the worst; surely Erik would be angry with me for defying his orders just like the other boys had done.
Much to my surprise, however, Erik smiled and patted me on the back warmly.
"I like you, Kofi," he said kindly, "you have great courage for standing up to the others like that."
I didn't know what to say in response; I simply stood there in shock without moving a muscle.
Erik turned his attention toward the woods behind us and began walking away slowly with a determined look on his face.
Chapter 4
