-prologue-

 

 

Smoke, fire, screams. The village was burning. People were running away from fire and the aliens* who appeared in the village. Many were lying on the ground, dead. Some of their bodies were still burning, other were lying in their own blood.

In the mids of it all was a little girl. She was standing in front of her burning house. She was crying. Her family was still inside. They were probably buried under the roof, that collapsed a minute ago. She was screaming and calling their names. But she got no actual response. All she could hear was their screams of pain and agony. They are going to be burned alive and she couldn't do anything to save them. She let out a scream and started running. Her eyes shot tightly, she wasn't looking where she was going. She fell a few times but was too afraid to open her eyes. She hoped it is all just a bad dream. But it was all true. The tears, the pain and the screams were all real. She stood up and started running again.

Soon she heard some voices and the sound of battle. She wasn’t paying attention to the ground and she fell again. She gritted her teeth and stood up again. She turned away from the noises but she didn’t move. She thought she heard something mixed with the screams and cries and the sound of fire. She opened her eyes and looked around. She hoped she wasn’t just imaging things. This time she heard the call clearly: “Nixara!” It was true. One word, her name, it almost didn’t belong here. She saw an old man running to her. She started crying again. Of course, she wasn’t all alone. He was still here, her grandfather wasn't caught in the burning house. The old man came to her and kneeled down to her. He hugged her tightly before he looked at her and asked her with a worried look: “Nixara! What are you doing here? Didn’t you run away with the rest of the family?” Nixara sank to the ground. She didn’t have the power to stand anymore. “Grandpa!” She wanted to stand up again but her strenght completely left her. “Grandpa, I’m sorry! I’m sorry for everything I said to you today! I love you, grandpa! I’m so sorry!” He didn’t know she was still worried about the little fight they had earlier today. He hugged her and took her on his back. They had to get away from here. He looked back and saw some old demons** stand up against the aliens. All the younger ones were already dead. The old men charged at the aliens but they were no match for them. The aliens killed them off easily. One of the aliens noticed Nixara and her grandfather. He said something to the others and ran towards the two. Nixara closed her eyes and her grandfather started running. He had to get Nixara away from them. He had to make sure she was safe.

Nixara was holding to him tightly. She didn’t cry anymore. She couldn’t, she didn’t even have the strength to cry anymore. But she felt like she had to tell her grandfather what happened with the rest of the family and she said with a quiet voice: “Grandpa… They… They couldn’t get out of the house… Mum and dad... And my sister... They were… They were screaming… burning… I…” Her voice broke and she started crying again. It was all too much for her. Her grandfather didn’t say anything. He was already afraid they might be dead. And what his granddaughter said just proved his fears true. Now he had no other choice but to get Nixara out of here alive and make sure she is safe. He couldn't allow them to kill her. She was the only one left of the family. She had to survive.

Suddenly he stopped. Nixara looked over his shoulder and saw an alien in front of them. He was already waiting for them. Nixara was paralysed by fear. She didn’t want to get away from her grandfather but he put her down. He stepped closer to the alien and pulled out a short sword. But all the alien did was laugh. He showed his weapon. Nixara could see the cold silver color of the deadly steel. Before her grandfather could react the alien pierced his body with the sword. Blood was flowing down the silver blade and dripping to the ground from the tip of the sword. He pulled his sword out of his body and watched Nixara's grandfather fall to his knees. He looked at Nixara and laughed. She was just looking at him, too afraid to move. Her grandfather looked at her. “Run! Hide!” He knew he wouldn't be able to protect her for long. She had to get away. But her body wouldn't move. Tears started flowing again and she could barely see his face. “No…” She wanted to move closer to him. She didn’t want him to die. She didn’t want to lose another member of the family, the last member of the family she had left. But before she could get closer the alien laughed again. It was the laughter of a bloodthirsty maniac. Her grandfather stood up and swinged the short sword with his last power. The alien wanted to move away from the attack but he was too close. The blade hit the right side of his face. He screamed and covered the wound with his hand. His scream really was terrible. First it was a scream of pain, but it quickly chenged into a scream of anger. He removed his hand from his face. The wound went from his cheek straight through his eye to the forehead, blood pouring from it. But it didn't seem like the alien cared about the blood at all. He looked at the grandfather and he cut off his head like it was nothing. The head fell to the ground and rolled to Nixara’s knees. His eyeswere still open. The mouth moved, but there was no sound coming from it. But Nixara knew what he wanted to say. "Run!" Then everything went silent for a moment. She didn’t know if she just imagined it or if it was true. But the silence was interrupted by the sick laughter of the alien who killed her grandfather. She looked up at him. He was looking at her with his pitch-black eyes. She screamed. She screamed as loud as she could and she ran.

She ran away from the village, she ran away from the fire and she ran away because her grandfather wanted her to run. She had to run, she had to hide. She was crying. She didn’t even look where she was running but she soon saw a forest. This was her hope, there she could hide. She ran deep into the forest and stopped only because she couldn’t run anymore. She looked up. The trees were high. She started climbing. She put together all of her strength to climb. She hoped she’ll be safe here. She sat on a big branch and leaned back. She closed her eyes and sobbed quietly. This time she really had no strength left in her body. She wanted everything to end. She wanted to forget everything what happened. She just wanted everything to disappear.

Nixara didn’t hear how somebody snuck up on her. She didn’t hear how they climbed up the same tree. She just felt something hit her hard on the back of the head. She felt how she was falling down of the tree. But she didn’t feel how she hit the ground anymore. Before that could happen, the world disappeared in the darkness. 

______________________________________________________________________________________________

aliens* - not really beings from space or anything, just a term describing people who uninvited came to a village/town/country. Usually threatening to the local people

demons** - one of the three races besides mages and humans. More will be aexplained in later chapters.

Reviews

[Scyoni]

Nice submission. The story itself, while I've seen the same kind of thing many times, is a classic plotline: the main character's escape from an attacked homeland. The character has a distinct mood and motivation, consistent throughout, and her reactions are evident.

Technical nitpicking: Your sentences had detail, but I found them choppy in general. Something to work on. Grammatically, you had technical correctness but a bit of a lack of flow in your sentences (again, choppy). Finally, you may want to do a bit more spell checking on some of your work, because I saw a few errors in the piece.

Nice effort overall. I hope my constructive criticism helps, and that you do even better in the future.