thewriter

[thewriter]

Knives flashing, constantly turning and moving. The boss and two of her remaining minions had driven me into a corner, almost succeeding in killing me as they attack me simultaneously. The right minion managed to stab me into my leg but didn’t expect me to immediately drop into him, knife first. He doesn’t die immediately, but it won’t take long. It creates a gap, giving me the opportunity to get back to free ground.

As I jump forward the boss brings an axe down on my back, it’s not fatal, but I won’t be able to fight much longer with the blood loss. I force myself to turn back and slash my knives towards her, the boss was too close to defend herself with her axe and goes down. I’m not sure where I hit her or if it was fatal, but at least she won’t interfere with this last fight.

The left minion, or more accurately, the last one, lunges and manages to drive me back. She’s got a sword, I’m at a disadvantage with my much shorter knives. She catches my shoulder as I make a cut on her stomach, but then she pulls a knife from her belt and puts it to my throat, effectively stopping the fight. I see in her eyes that she won’t spare me, honestly can’t blame her, I did just kill 7 people she knew.

Even though I couldn’t blame her, I wasn’t planning on dying today and simply let myself fall backwards. I landed heavily, the wound on my back seemed to be lit on fire and my vision turned black for a few seconds. If the minion hadn’t been distracted I certainly wouldn’t have survived. She was standing over me, both her sword and knife pointed at me, but het gaze was turned to the doorway on the other side of the room.

‘Dude, she still hasn’t managed to kill them all! Can you believe this? I thought she was the best you could find!?’ A mocking voice, Mark’s voice, pierced the air, he was part of the team of adventurers who hired me to kill these people.

My first thought was; for fuck’s sake, that asshole? Closely followed by; never mind that they’re assholes, at least now they can help me finish off this last one and get me a healer before I bleed to death.

The minion made a mistake by not using that moment to kill me. ‘Let me go and I’ll let her live!’ She seemed to think they’d fight like normal people, she was wrong.

I saw Curtis looking up and smiling. He has a nasty smile, too wide and with a cruel twist. ‘That sounds like a good deal, doesn’t it boys? But I actually feel like barbecuing today instead.’ The rest laughed as he stuck out his arm in the girl’s direction and punched the air. A ball of fire and smoke launched itself at her and went straight through the sword she’d brought up to protect herself, hitting her square in the chest. She died instantly.

Once again I wondered why they’d hired me to kill these people when they were so obviously more powerful and had a large group. I decided I didn’t care, all I wanted was a healer to fix the wounds on my leg and back, my money and my bed. I scrambled up to my feet with a pained groan and waved at the adventurers. ‘Hello, yes, you people. I’d love to chat, but right now I think I need your healer to help me out, they did quite a number on me. And after that I’d like to get paid.’

They were with 5 people, one of them was certainly a healer, he wore the signature pink pouch. ‘Of course, Lily, was it?’ Mark and the others walked closer to me. Warily I nodded, something wasn’t right with his tone. Focusing on Mark I didn’t notice someone sneaking up behind me until she almost touched me. I whirled, knife out and almost cutting her. ‘Woah, easy, little flower.’

Curtis guffawed from behind me, and only now did I realise they’d surrounded me completely. ‘What are you doing? We made a deal! I killed them and you’re paying me.’ I turned to Curtis and Mark, the leaders. ‘You didn’t though. I killed that girl, so you didn’t hold up your end of the deal. Which means we won’t have to either.’ Curtis struck out his arm, making me flinch to the side sharply, into the girl I evaded seconds before. She brought her hand to my face and then…

I was blind. Only loud whoops and laughter came through. Suddenly images flashed across my mind. A place filled with people. A person, seemingly in a world of his own. A house, hidden behind a wall of trees. Speeding up. More places, faces, thoughts. What’s happening? Sudden stop. I can see again. Disoriented. Pain in my leg. My back.

I’m propped up against a wall, the girl isn’t touching me anymore. Better. She is staring intently into my eyes, that’s uncomfortable. I try to avert them but I’m unable. I don’t panic yet, but when I try to move, hit her, get up and nothing happens, the feeling takes flight.

Don’t worry. Stay here and don’t move.

I can tell it’s her voice, even though she isn’t talking. She must be one of those mind people. She rooted through my head and can order me to do things! That was stupid of her. She’ll regret this.

I get the childish urge to have fun with it, although threatening had to come first. Just so you know, this was a mistake. I’ll get my money and you’ll be sorry for crossing me. Aside from that: I think you deserve to know what happens in my head. Then I poured all of my experiences and fantasy into the most horrifying images I could think of and sent them straight to her.

Her previous expressionless face was gone, and her astonished and thoroughly shocked face was a delight. She quickly severed the connection and went over to the others.

They were looting the treasures from the room. I hadn’t noticed it while fighting, but behind the round table there were several chests filled with gold coins, gems and other valuable items.

Still under the influence of the mind magic, everything sounded like it was tempered, almost as if I were underwater. Despite that it was clear that the adventurers were taunting me. They paraded the most egregious items around, waving them at me before stuffing them carelessly into their bags.

The only one who seemed even a little regretful was the healer. He kept looking at me, or more accurately, my wounds. A few times he tried to talk to the others, gesturing vaguely at me while speaking so softly I didn’t even hear a murmur, clearly he wasn’t too influential as he eventually stopped trying and avoided looking back at me.

The chests were almost empty now, and Mark came over as the rest gathered near the door. He was speaking loudly enough to get through the mist in my head, but I tuned him out anyway. Nothing he could say would interest me. He went on for quite a long time, seemingly unaware of my disinterest, I wondered whether there was a restaurant near here serving scrambled eggs. I had the weirdest cravings.

A few minutes later I saw he’d finally stopped talking, he was standing up. Relief swept in, when they left I would be able to move again.

Then Mark swung his fist at my head and after an explosion of light, darkness took me down.

You’re a mercenary hired by adventurers to defeat the boss. After the battle, they loot the treasure and abandon you wounded. The defeated boss crawls over and says, “Guess we’re both expendable, huh?”

[thewriter]

Part 2

The party was already in full swing when I arrived, it was located in a clearing in the woods behind our village. A large bonfire stood at the center, people were dancing in its light to the lively music the musicians were making, the children were playing in the shallows of the river while the elderly kept an eye on them, smiling at their games. I knew everybody here, and I was surprised to see that almost the entire village had come. I grinned happily when I saw how much of the food here came from our bakery.

“You came!” Beata waved me over to one of the smaller fires. After a brief hug and some smalltalk she disappeared among the dancers, pulling me with her. Although I didn’t do it as much anymore, dancing used to be my favourite pastime. I instantly felt the rhythm of the music move me and joined the dancers.

It had already been dark for a long while before I stopped dancing.

My best friend, Elaine, found me as soon as I sat down, my feet dipping into the river. She brought two glasses and a bottle of honeyflower, poured us a glass and sat down as well. “Had fun?” I rolled my eyes but smiled, “Yes. What were you doing? I didn’t see you anywhere.” She sipped her drink before answering. “You know the older brother of the Prewly siblings?” I laughed, how could I not, Elaine’d had a crush on him for years now, “Oh, shut up. Anyway, I have to tell you something. We were talking while we took a walk around the forest, when…”

As her voice faded away, so did my vision, instead of the trees, the river and Elaine, I saw a hole, darker than anything I’d ever seen, right where our village was supposed to be. I stood right at the edge and felt tears on my cheeks, something terrible had happened, and it was my fault…

[thewriter]

Part 1

I used to believe that life was perfect, all I needed was a hug from my mom and all was well.

It was a lie.

No one told me how cruel the world was, I was unprepared when they threw me into it.

~~~

The day started as usual, I woke up first, always impatient for the day to begin. The world awaited! I silently crawled out of bed and then raced to our shop downstairs. While I was eating an apple, I got everything ready for the day.

The curtains went up, I cleaned the floor, the tables and the counter and started baking. The second batch of pies was already in the oven by the time my mom came down.

“Hi darling!” She looked around and smiled proudly, “Thank you for doing everything already, I wouldn’t know what to do without you.” My heart filled at those words, as it always did when my mom complimented me, especially when it was related to the bakery.

“Of course, I love doing it.” After a quick hug we both continued making pies, bread, cake, cookies and anything else we could think of, talking and laughing as we did. When it was time for the shop to open we split up, mom kept baking, I went to the counter to greet the customers.

The first customers were the Wocima’s, a family that lived about four streets over. The two children immediately ran over to the cookies and other sweets while their dad looked at the different kinds of bread, their mom, Beata, walked up to me. “Hello Alimea, your mom let you get everything ready again?” I nodded while handing her a donut, she always bought one when she came. “Thanks,” she took a bite, “it’s delicious, as always.” We chatted for a while until her husband and children came and bought their own baked goods. As they turned to leave she had a few last words. “You work too hard, girl, come to the party tonight!” Without waiting for an answer she swept out the door.

The rest of the day passed in a blur, it was busier than normal, probably because of the party, everyone wanted our cakes, cookies and sweets. I was exhausted when my mom told me she would take over, “I’m going straight to bed, goodnight.” But as I went to give her a hug, she held out her hand. “Ali, Beata was right, you work too hard. You need to relax, alright? Go to the party, tomorrow I will take care of the shop until noon, you can sleep in.” Even as I started to protest I knew it was futile, her Stern Mom Face made me swallow my words.