Veronica Salmon; A Troubling Discovery

I will begin the story of my troubling thoughts and confusing adventures with a certain evening in October 2018. I was fifteen years of age and had lived all my life in a hidden cave. I barely knew my parents. My mother and father left me when I was only five years old for a reason I could not comprehend. Before going away from me, my parents left a letter where they had instructed me to stay in the cave until I knew how to fight and cope with all the problems I would have to face in the future. Until then, I couldn’t leave. I was bound by the four concrete walls of the cave which were protecting me from the witches of ‘Dorkshire’. My parents said so. I didn’t believe them because I had no belief in supernatural beings, magic and all that. Still, I stayed put, as I did not want to break the vow I made with my parents. If I ignored them and left the cave, that would break their heart and I did not want that to happen.

I trained myself in combat (sort of…) all those ten lonely years by using the books I had. I also learned three new languages: Turkish, Korean and Urdu. Turkish was my favourite out of these.

My parents always advised me to be careful. That was my father’s work. He used to say; the world is a risk, a death wish, you play with it; you die. My mother believed little children should not be told things like that. So, she used to tell me the same thing in hidden words and that was; the world is like a toy, play with it, and it will do the same. I did not understand that when I was just three. Not until now. I gave all my strength in finding the true meaning of my mother’s words. Every time I thought I was near, it seemed more bewildering because of the little knowledge I had. I had to start all over again. That process repeated itself so much that I got bored and gave up. During my countless efforts in finding the meaning of both the letters and the quotes, I developed my theory; the world is a place of light and dark altogether. At times it is enjoyable while the rest of the time it is detested. I was proud that after all the time in solitude and confusion, my biggest wish of making a quote came true. I enjoyed the day I made it as it was a matter of great pleasure for me.

Day after day, I would investigate the entire cave trying to look for some clues so I could find all the answers to why my parents left, leaving a five-year-old to subsist on her own. Frustration was the only outcome of my investigations as they would leave me with the same amount of questions as when I started. Still, I did not give up my search. One day, as I was searching my cave like every day, I discovered a loose floorboard under my father’s bed. Opening it up gave me something new to look at; a bunch of tapes. It thrilled me that after a really long time I had finally found something worth watching. I ran to the casket player and inserted one casket in it. I took the remote and played it. The following happened in the video:

“Run! The witches are coming”, a man with a bald head screamed and ran.

The witches soon arrived on brooms and started cursing everyone and laughing wickedly. Screams filled the entire area. The children screamed for help, their mothers screamed for the witches to let their children go, and the fathers were trying their level best to protect their families from the wrath of the witches. Everyone looked terrified. The war was killing everyone. Then, suddenly, an old man appeared out of thin air holding a stick in one hand.

“Let everyone go!” he said warningly.

The witches laughed in return and shouted in union,

“And what are you going to do about that! Beat us with your stick!?”

The witches laughed, irritatingly.

“Enough!” shouted the old man.

A blonde-haired witch fired some incantations at the old man, and he shrieked with pain. Blood was dripping down his eyes, throat and body. And then he burned like the blazing fire. As he took the form of ashes, the old man spoke his last words;

“YOU’LL REGRET THIS.”

Then there was silence everywhere. The people were mourning the old man’s death as he came to save them. With him gone, everyone would die. The witches also seemed to be deep in thought. It was really confounding. Why ever would the witches be so worried about something?

The silence went on for about 10 minutes. Until at last, a little boy broke the silence. He blurted out,

“You are very cruel witches! First you kill my mother and then you swish a respectable old man off of the face of Earth! Go to hell witches!”

The witches looked at the boy in disgust.

“Oh, really? Do you know what we do to bad boys who speak when not asked to!” the blonde-haired witch said.

“I don’t care!” the boy spat back.

“Girls!” the blonde-haired witch said to her fellows, “Let’s teach this boy a lesson.”

Saying this, she went over to the boy, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, and dragged him to a cage full of bats! Throwing him into the cage, she spoke to the surrounding people.

“WE WILL RETURN AND SPARE NO ONE!”

And so, they all flew off to their castle. Poor little boy… he screamed with all his might as the bats were flying all over him, but what could anyone do. They were all vulnerable in front of the powerful witches.

Terror and chaos filled everywhere. No one seemed to understand what to do. They just ran here and there, knocking each other down, screaming, crying and even worse; most committed suicide! Darkness fell over ‘Strathyre’. People who had a sense of what was right to do in the worst times, survived and those who did not, decayed. Few survived. Despite that, they were enough to face the entire swarm of witches. The survivors elected a leader who would promise to be faithful to his people, and no matter what the circumstances, he would lead them against the witches till death. They had found such an honourable man named Jacob Salmon. He swore that he would perform his duties very well and would sacrifice his life in order to protect his people…

The video ended there. I was in an ultimate shock of what I had just seen. First, I was troubled by the fact that those terrible women happened to be witches when there is no such thing as magic! Or perhaps there was? The second thing bothering me was that as far as I could remember, the man who got elected as the people’s leader clearly resembled my father. His name was the same as my fathers, too. But I didn’t remember my father being elected as a leader. The possibility could’ve been that they elected him after the invasion of the witches; the day my parents left me. But it seemed ridiculous because those tapes were there at the cave long before the invasion. Or were they? It was all too perplexing. If that man really was my father, then I wanted to go see him.

By then I was fully prepared to face the outside world so nothing could hold me back. I desperately needed to know the answer to my queries, and he was the only person who could help me understand. So I decided that I would go look for him the next day, and I really hoped to find him before it was too late. Satisfied along with troubled thoughts, I dozed off.