Fate

Chapter 1

I walked slowly into the field, my head in my hands. I didn’t understand. I
couldn’t. This was all too much to grasp. I still heard the sound of their screaming
and the smell of their blood. I wanted the pain to stop but it was as though my own
body and soul wanted to torment me. My mind was racing so fast I felt dizzy and
couldn’t walk anymore. I stumbled to my knees and stared at my hands, silent.

Flecks of warm blood were smeared on my palms, my wrists and my elbows. I
didn’t remember where the blood came from but at this point I didn’t really care.
The blazing sun overhead cast down spears of light which seemed as though they
wanted to pierce through my flesh, and I watched as they dried my arms to a rusty
red colour.

My gaze suddenly turned toward the grass beside me and I saw a few
pebbles scattered along the ground. I fumbled to pick one up just so I could feel
something other than dried, crusty blood on my fingers. My hands were shaking so much that I almost wasn’t even able to pick one up, but I finally got one of the small
grey stones in between my thumb and forefinger. I stared aimlessly at it for a few
moments, thinking ‘this is real, this little rock is real’, then I looked at my opposite
hand and realized with a feeling of deep anguish that this blood was real, too.

Reluctantly, I let the stone fall to the grass and twisted my legs so that I was in a
sitting position. The screaming inside my mind began to decrease and I was able
to breathe a bit easier. Breathing better was one thing, being able to think clearly
was another. Every single shred of moral sense I had was slowly inching away
from my normal thoughts, but I couldn’t let that happen. I just needed to sit down
for a few minutes and think about what happened, even if it pains me to do so. But
first things first, I needed to wash myself off.

I didn’t feel like walking so I crawled over to a nearby stream and touched the cool water with my fingertips. I washed off my hands, then my arms and I glimpsed my reflection in the water. There was red blood smudged on my cheeks and forehead. I cupped my hands and splashed the clear liquid into my face until I couldn’t see it anymore. Feeling refreshed, I finally decided to look more closely at my surroundings.

The field was quite big, and it was covered with little pink flowers and stones. There were trees circled around the clearing except for this one area where there was a cliff. I saw streams of black and grey smoke coming from the other side of the cliff so I decided to check it out. I crouched onto my knees and slowly stumbled to my feet, almost falling from dizziness in the process. I walked over to the side of the steep cliff, making sure not to get too close, and gasped at what I saw before me.

The cliff extended downward about twenty-five feet and fifty yards away I saw a village. Well, it used to be a village. Most buildings were pretty much all pieces of charcoal and wood, fires were spreading through the crops and the few houses that were still standing. I heard the crackling of a small house which collapsed from exhaustion, ashes wisping through the air into the sky. But the worst thing that almost made me vomit was every single dead body lying underneath the rubble and in the dirty street. It was a bloody and gruesome sight that I could hardly stand, but my eyes wouldn’t leave. It was as though they wanted me to see this.

There were men and women and even children. It looked like no one survived this savage slaughter . . .

except for me.

I thought back and recalled that I was in that village and there were
children running in the streets, laughing and playing. I was tending to a sick old
woman inside one of the little houses and everyone addressed me as “Lady.” The
last thing I remember is the sound of a thunderous crash and a figure standing in
the doorway, which was broken. The rest was fuzzy, maybe I got amnesia. There
were still the piercing screaming and the bloody smells that I couldn’t seem to get
out of my senses, it bothered me.

I made up my mind to go down there to get a closer look at the devastation and savagery that had occurred, I might even remember if I was close enough. Even though I had a feeling that I didn’t want to remember. I slid my legs over the edge and held onto the rocks protruding out of the cliff, holding on tightly. I placed my foot lightly onto a small ledge and it shook a bit which made me a little nervous.

“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” I mumbled, shocked to hear my own
cracking voice. But I had to have gotten on that cliff someway. I was almost to the
bottom when I lost my balance, slipped and fell to the ground on my back. It
knocked the breath out of my lungs. I groaned and wrapped my arms around my
stomach, turning onto my side. I didn’t think about getting up right away, I thought
that maybe I should just lay here until I die. My mind was telling me not to think of
such things, so I got to my feet again and started walking toward the broken village.

I didn’t want to go back there, and my muscles were tight and tried to hold me
back. I stared up into the sky, a large grey cloud was swiftly floating around the
sun, engulfing it in its darkness. I allowed my eyes to stray back to the little village
which was getting closer as I walked. I finally found myself at the edge of the
destroyed town, scrunching my nose to the smell of cindering wood and burning
flesh. Now that I was closer, I could see their bodies more clearly. Some were
burnt to charcoal black, others had been either stabbed or pierced with arrows. I
stepped around the corpses, staring into each of their lifeless faces. That was one
thing I thought was odd, they were all facing up toward the sky. It looked as though
someone had turned them all over.

It intrigued me.

I turned my eyes away and suddenly a thought hit me, what if the killers were still here? Hiding? I felt my heart beating faster and I heard it pumping inside my ears. My legs decided it was time to go so I walked backwards a few steps, tracing my gaze from smouldering house to smouldering house. I swirled around and bolted as fast as my legs could handle without falling, dodging ungracefully past splintering wood until I was almost at the opposite end of the village. I could feel wind and a few droplets of water splash into my face. I hadn’t noticed that it had begun to rain in my terrified panic.

My legs suddenly stumbled and I tripped over something hard and landed face first
in a puddle of mud. I lifted myself up to my hands and knees, coughing and
spitting wet dirt out of my mouth. I tried wiping my face off with the back of my
hand but it didn’t work, there was mud and blood all over my body once again;
although the gross mud was new. I looked back and saw what I had tripped over.

A small girl was laying there in the dirt, her head facing upwards just like everyone
else. My eyes widened when I saw a large, bloody gash in her chest. I crawled
over to her side and cradled her in my arms, feeling a lump growing in my throat
and it was getting harder for me to breathe. My breaths came out in gasps, and I
finally burst into tears. Rain was now pounding down onto my head and the little
girls face, which I could hardly see through my tears and rain water. I lifted my
head and screamed with despair and hatred toward the people who had done this
horrid deed.

A sudden flash of lightning, followed by an eruption of thunder, drowned out my echoing cry. I pulled her lifeless body closer to mine and unsteadily rose to my feet, the girl dangling like a rag doll in my arms. I had no idea what I was going to do with her, but I had to do something. I scanned the other bodies laying on the ground again, they looked different in the dark mistiness of the pouring rain.

They . . . frightened me.

Not the kind of fear where you scream and run away, this was totally unlike that. I was entranced by them, the way their bodies looked and smelled as the rain came down and soaked their clothes. Their strange position and the way their eyes glowed when a fork of lightning would dart across the black, cloudy sky. I must have forgotten about that kind of emotion because this feeling felt new to me. It felt so wrong, but I couldn’t help but be amused.

The sudden sound of hooves beating on the dirt allowed me to escape from my trance. I felt my blood run cold, and jerked my head around to see. Through the rain, I saw men on horseback, though I still couldn’t make out their faces. I could hear the clanking of armor and steel, and the horses gasping breaths. I waited, holding the child even tighter to my chest. The head man galloped faster then the others and brought his horse to a halt in front of me. His dark eyes, under a metal helmet that was held on with a strap under his chin, stared straight at me and I stared back at him.

“What is this? What’s happened here?!” He barked. At this point his men had
caught up and stopped right behind him. They were staring at the bodies, shocked
looks on their faces.

“They’re all dead, general,” a man on a black horse brought himself to the general’s
side and also looked at me. “She killed them, sir,” he said without hesitation and
pointed a gloved finger toward me. “She’s the only one left alive, and holding a
dead little girl no less. She’s probably a demon.”

At this point I decided to speak up, “But I didn’t, I had nothing to do with this,” I
mumbled, but they weren’t paying any attention.

“Seth, take hold of her,” the general said to the man at his side. Seth jumped down
from his horse and seized me by the arm before I could do anything. His grip was
tight and he yanked me sideways, taking hold of my drenched hair. The child
slipped from my grasp and fell to the muddy earth.
I screamed as the man pulled me away from her, “No! Please, it wasn’t me! Let me go!”

“Put her in the cart, we’re taking her to the castle,” the general turned his horse
around to look at his other men, “and the rest of you. . . gather up the bodies.”

I tried pulling myself away from Seth but his grip was too painful, so I let him take
me over to the wooden cart. I turned my head away from him and I could feel his
hot breath against the back of my neck, making a tingling sensation down my
spine.
“Hn, you’re not going to fight back anymore?” He said. I was surprised. His voice
was quiet, almost inaudible. I was about to retaliate but he didn’t give me a chance
and pushed me in. The cart was full of wet hay and it was slimy from the rain that
beat against the wood. I wasn’t able to get into any kind of comfortable position.

The cart began to move as the horses turned around and slowly headed in the
direction from where they came. I stared at Seth as he yanked himself back on his
stallion, I glared at him. He lifted his head and, seeing the expression on my face,
smiled at me. It almost seemed like a friendly smile, but I didn't acknowlodge the
gesture at all. I was too petrified. I looked back, as the village began to disappear
into the distance, with a longing and a knowledge that I belonged there.