Rain Drops

Chapter 13

When we arrived at one of the trees, he put down his burden and then started searching for nuts, fruits and berries. I watched him for awhile and decided to sit down on the grass underneath the tree so as not to frighten the child. I pulled my legs under my body, rested my elbows against my knees and leaned towards the tree, supporting my upper body on my arms. I closed my eyes and began enjoying the sweet feeling of peace I felt while sitting under the sheltering branches. Suddenly, I realised that someone else was sitting close by. I opened my eyes and saw the same boy from earlier holding a stick with a hole through the middle. As soon as he caught me staring at him, he hid behind a bush and waited quietly as if to make sure that I wouldn't approach him. After a few seconds, he crept out from his hiding place, took a step forward, and threw the stick in the distance. As soon as the stick disappeared over the horizon, the boy ran toward me as fast as he could. When I noticed his approach, I jumped up from the ground, grabbed my spear and attacked him with all my might. The child was so surprised that he raised both his hands, trying to defend himself. He managed to deflect the spear and used his own weapon to attack me. We both fought against each other, and I ended up winning as I managed to land an expertly executed strike on the boy's shoulder. After a while, however, he managed to knock me down onto the ground. As I struggled to get up, I looked around frantically to find something else to help myself up. When my eyes fell upon the knife which had landed beside my feet, I snatched it up. The boy didn't hesitate to throw his weapon at me, but I blocked the attack with my spear before stabbing him in the leg. After killing the boy, I turned around and noticed that it was raining again, and it was getting extremely hard to fight against it. With a wave of my hands, a barrier formed itself in front of me as a shield. This helped me avoid the rain for a short period of time while waiting for the water to wash away the barrier. However, after about two minutes the water stopped pouring. Suddenly, my ears were filled with loud screams of pain. When I turned around, I realized that the boy had crawled out from underneath the protection of the shield. He was now standing directly across from me. In one swift motion, he swung his fist at me in a wide arc. I was able to block the attack using my spear, but it still sent me tumbling backwards. By the time I regained my footing, the boy had already launched another attack at me, only this time I was prepared. Before he could come anywhere near me, I managed to deflect his hit with my spear and stab him in the thigh. However, this time his reaction came quicker. When he saw that I had been injured, the boy dropped his weapon and sprinted towards me. He pounced on me so aggressively that I thought he was going to kill me. My head collided harshly with the ground once again, and it hurt like hell. Blood trickled from the corners of my mouth when I finally regained consciousness. When I turned my head to see who attacked me, I was terrified to find the boy right above me. Without thinking, I lifted my arm and punched the boy hard in the face. However, he dodged my attack easily. Instead of attacking, the boy simply grabbed his wounded leg and rolled around on the floor until it was healed. After he was healed, he immediately charged at me again, and this time he tried to strangle me. I managed to punch him in the face three times, but he kept landing blows on my face. At the very last second, I managed to roll away and jump over him. While running away from him, I kicked him hard in the leg while I was jumping. The sound of bones cracking echoed throughout the forest. I turned around and stabbed him in the throat, and this time, he stayed silent. He slowly slid to the ground on his belly and died. I turned around to look for my spear, but my heart suddenly sank when I realised that the spear had flown far away. I didn't have any weapons in hand whatsoever. I tried searching the surrounding, but I couldn't seem to find my weapon anywhere. I searched until the early afternoon, but nothing was found. My body was covered in dust due to my desperate attempt to find it. It wasn't long before the sky grew darker, and I began to feel exhausted. As I walked through the woods towards the castle, I wondered how my parents were going to react when they realised that their daughter had left. I doubted that my mother would cry when she heard that her daughter had run away. She rarely cried anyway, although I knew that she loved to watch movies and tell us about them afterwards. My father would worry about me though, because he knew exactly what had happened to me today: my family had given me the necklace and told me that I was free to choose which path I wished to take, as long as it was the correct one. For years now, I had believed the words that my parents gave me in order to protect me. Yet, after seeing the boy that I had killed earlier fall to the ground lifelessly, I realised just what kind of monster he really was. I knew that even if he didn't deserve punishment for his crimes, I wouldn't have hesitated to end his life. After all, he would have done the same thing if he had seen me with my mask on again, which would have ruined my life completely. Still, I knew that even when I decided to give him the choice, he wouldn't be able to understand me. He was just too young. I never understood why no one else could see past my masks and why no one cared whether or not I lived or died. I know that everyone must think that there was something wrong with me, especially since nobody ever questioned who I was underneath my mask. They were too afraid to ask. When I reached the gate of the castle, I quickly rushed inside and ran to my room to lie down on my bed. The door was locked, so I couldn't even go downstairs. There was a large mirror next to my wardrobe, so I sat there and stared into it. I had never seen my true appearance before. Now that I was alone, I could only stare at my reflection. I didn't want to turn away, but I also didn't want to look anymore. I felt ashamed of myself, of the monsters that I was supposed to be, of the fact that I was living in a world where I was supposed to be considered human. How did I deserve this? No matter how much I wished to believe it, I was still a monster. I couldn't bring myself to look up at the mirror, so I continued gazing down at the ground. I tried imagining that I was back in the orphanage. My parents weren't there because of some stupid accident. They had been gone almost all the time since then. I was all alone.