Taking her place

"down to hell"

The smell of the air has the slight smell of burnt wood as we step out of the cabin and I realize how much I took for granted the fresh smell of flowers in the woods that roams in the air.

“they seem to be getting back now!” Mike screams as he runs towards me but stops as he stares at the small girl in my arms.

She covers her face with the hood as she moves her face towards me to avoid looking at the man in front of us. She begins to shake as we hear the loud laughter of men coming from a far off distance. She covers her ears as she tenses up with a slight cry she closes her eyes.

“I asked you what you wanted their fate to be,’’ she looks up at me with her pink eyes turning from dull to a lighter shade due to the sunlight. “now is the time for you to let me know before they arrive. This man in front of us is a very close friend of mine, one of the very few that I would entrust my life to. He will take you away while I take care of those pests but you have to tell me exactly what you want them to go through.”

The happy laughter begins to get louder as I signal to Mike who extends his arms. “if you’ll allow me?”

Eva looks at him with a worried expression but soon nods towards him.

She seems to have made a decision, this man or the ones with the ugly laughter.

She chose Mike.

Once he has her in his arms she looks up at me from his arms and bites her lower lip. “will you kill them?”

“if that’s what you want.” I stroke her hair as she looks at the cabin with tears in her eyes. 

“my mother told me that once you die you get to rest, that even the most unkind soul will be in peace at one point.” She trembles softly as the tears continue to fall down her cheeks. “but I don’t want them to be in peace. That’s not fair, for me. For her.” She continues to cry as she covers her face. “but mother also said I shouldn’t think like that… that would make me a bad person.”

“there’s nothing wrong with being selfish every once in a while.” I pull up her chin so that she is now looking at me. “these men weren’t thinking about how their selfishness would hurt you, so you don’t have to keep that in mind either. Not anymore, they lost that privilege a long time ago.” The sound of footsteps gets louder as Mike looks at me with a worried expression.

“I know, take her up to the horses and send for reinforcements.” I sit down on top of a boulder as I wait for the laughter to get nearer and he walks away.

The wind passes through my skin as I breathe out and I relax my muscles.

My hand still shakes as I hear the rough deeps voices get closer to the cabin.

I hear the jokes clearly now as they begin to shout about who is going to take turns today and so on as I flinch.

‘dirty bastards.’

“too bad her mother didn’t last-” I hear the footsteps stop as I open my eyes and observe them.

About ten bandits stand in front of me with their mouths agape.

“what do we have here?” one of them says as he begins to walk towards me but a chubbier man stops him.

“who the hell are you?” he asks as he puts himself on alert and looks at the backdoor to the cabin, it’s wide open. “what the hell are you?”

“I didn’t expect there to be criminals right under my nose,” I say as he flinches.

“We are just passing by.” He signals to his men who begin to take out their weapons. “I’m sure whoever you are, you can make an exception.”

“how many of you are there?”  I ask as I signal to the cabin.

“as many of us as you can see of course,” he laughs as he puts his hands on his stomach.

I chuckle as I look at the floor. “I don’t think you are getting what I’m asking,” I look up at him as I sense the air becoming cold. “I’m asking how many of these houses do you have? How many people do you have in these kinds of places? And where are they?”

His smile turns into a scowl as he looks at me with cold eyes. “we work alone.”

“right,” I finally stand up as I make the sword of ashes appear from my hand. “well it seems that since you aren’t willing to spill it. I’m going to have to take that kind of information away on my own terms.”

They flinch as he begins to look at me with rage in his eyes. “a mere girl can’t possibly threaten us!”

They begin to run towards me as the sword in my hand begins to change from white to black.

What used to be a soft white glow soon turns into a pitch-black aura that causes them to freeze as they begin to sense the danger they are about to face.

One of them begins to run the opposite way as he begins to run as far as he can but the black mist catches his feet, pulling him back towards his group.

He screams in terror as his group stands there, only being able to watch.

I stab the floor as the black mist begins to engulf the entire area, as soon as everything around us becomes pitch black their screams of terror get louder and louder.

I wait until they stop screaming, as they begin to question the purpose of the darkness that surrounds them as I smile. “shall I show you what it truly means to be one with the darkness within you?”

The ground begins to become a dark shadow as their feet begin to move downwards towards what is beyond the dirt. Their screams become more animated as the sound of birds flying away in desperation can be heard in the distance.

The men begin to scream as their leader shakes with his tears falling down his cheeks like rivers as he stares at the darkness. He doesn’t scream, he would never allow those below him to hear his pain.

Never.

His pride would never allow that so instead he digs his nails against the palms of his hands as he waits.

Perhaps the little girl in front of them is merely playing a trick on them. She’ll try to scare them off so that they won’t be able to hurt her, she’ll expect all of them to run away from her and to be weakened in resolve by her tricks but not him.

He smiles devilishly as he looks in front of him, anticipating the darkness to disappear so that he can run towards her to put his hands around her neck.

Now that he thinks about it she was quite a beautiful one, she may just fetch a good price if sold to the right person.

An even better thought crosses his mind as he licks his lower lip.

‘I might as well have a taste for all of my hard work.’ He thinks to himself but he is soon met with a deadly silence.

He looks in front of himself as two bright white orbs stare at him with a patient resolve that it sends a shiver down his spine.

The two orbs turn a dark blue as they stare deeply into his soul and he stops breathing.

He wants to run away but he can’t even move.

The way her eyes look at him is the same way a beast would look at their prey, without emotion.

He begins to panic as the sweat in his forehead makes it to his eyes but he doesn’t close his eyes. He won’t look away from those eyes, he can’t. No matter how much his sweat burns his eyes he won’t blink because from within his soul he knows that a mere blink will cost him his life.

His tears begin to fall again as he slowly begins to realize that he was wrong.

He isn’t the beast waiting to pounce on his prey and to use it according to his own wishes.

For the first time in twenty years, he feels like the rookie he once was as he stands in front of this girl.

No.

She’s no girl.

She’s not even human.

Powerful people like her aren’t even considered human to people like him, they are monsters.

The only type of people that people like him try to stay away from, the only ones who can break people like him.

The beast in front of him smiles as his pupils begin to concentrate on what it’ll do next but to his surprise, it doesn’t come from in front of him.

He feels something pull him down as he finally turns his head to the bottom of his feet and that’s when he sees her.

Her beauty is the same, untainted, unlike how he left her.

She was the first girl he ever loved.

She was the young beautiful girl of his small village that everyone wanted to be with, even himself.

When he confessed to her she rejected him but he couldn’t take the rejection and left. A couple of years later he went back with power and money at hand and although she already had a family he didn’t care.

He killed her husband and stole her by force, he kept her and her daughter by his side as he tortured her every day. Tainting her body in bloody kisses.

He would have treated her right if she had just accepted him but she didn’t.

Even on her deathbed, she cursed at him as she cried, cursing at the world.

He looks down as he touches her beautiful cheek and he smiles as her hand touches his and she smiles at him sweetly.

“aren’t you glad?” she says as her hand turns black, her entire face begins to rot as she pulls him down while he tries to pull himself away from her but she pulls him down towards her with great force. Her light pink eyes turn dark hue as she laughs. “I told you I would be the one to drag you down to hell.” She begins to pull him down as he pulls away with all his strength but it’s no use.

He looks in front of him as the blue cold orbs stare at him without any emotion.

His body begins to shake uncontrollably and for the first time in twenty years, his screams of agony can be heard across the mountains as the flowers of the fields dance in harmony, in celebration.

If the flowers' language could be understood by humans, people would know.

Justice has been served.

Is what they currently say.

The sudden screams of agony make me jump as I put the young girl on one of the horses.

The birds around the area fly away at rapid speed and I continue to set the girl down.

Trying to make her comfortable.

There’s a large group of guards guarding a town nearby around 5 minutes away by horse so the soldier I sent away gets her in time with the reinforcements at hand.

I gasp as I look at the part of the forest where the cabin stands and I am frozen in place.

There’s a large black cloud in the air, the darkness is worst then night.

No light can be seen at all.

It’s a black hole of darkness with no way out if you get in.

the screams are possibly the only thing that can escape it as we hear the sound of men cry in terror.

The reinforcements and I all stare at the darkness with fear trickling down our spines as the screams begin to emancipate.

The darkness lasts a good fifteen minutes or so as It slowly begins to disappear.

The men behind me look at each other as if looking for approval from each other to go down.

“sire” I hear someone say as I clench my jaw and grab the rope of her horse and mine as the young girl sits there looking at the direction of the cabin with a slight shiver.

“anything that you just saw and will see in the upcoming moments you will forget as soon as we arrive back into town.” I look at them as they look at me with fear in their eyes. “if you want to live one more day that is.”